Page 2 of Heart of Thieves

He did not question why she’d hidden. Did not tell her she shouldn’t have. Did not even ask what magic she bore. Instead, he simply said, “Have you been happy?”

See? she wanted to scream at the gods. He is not seaspawn, not truly.

“Never happier,” she said, eyes gleaming as emotion rose in her chest, swelled in her throat. “The gods have been ministering to me.”

“The . . . gods?” His smile faltered.

She nodded vigorously, clasping his hands in hers. “Yes. This magic . . . they sent it for a purpose. And I am the one they chose to fulfill it.”

He frowned, his relief at seeing her alive turning into a bone-deep sadness she’d never sensed from him before.

Desperation bowled her over with a panic more painful than the agony she’d endured when the moonshard had fused into her skin five years ago. She pulled him in close. “This was their plan all along. How else would I have known where you and Enzo would be?” She paused for effect, dropping her voice to an awestruck whisper. “They guided me.”

When he spoke, it was a tired sound. Like her words were dragging years from him with their teeth. “You knew where we’d be because you knew the temple like your own home.”

“No.” She shook her head, hackles rising. He did not believe her. “It was the stars.”

“Whatever it was that kept you safe has my gratitude.” He turned away, releasing her. “Dawn is approaching. The sheriff will wake soon.”

“It’s ruined you.” Her words came out razor-thin and just as sharp. “It’s clouded your mind.”

“The magic?”

“No,” she said softly. “The prestige. The money. The sin.”

That final word seemed to hit him like a slap. He jerked away and stalked to the back door. “Best of luck to you, Laurel.”

“Wait!” The Puppeteer seized his arm. “You can’t see it now, I know, because you’ve been deceived. But there’s still hope.”

He grimaced as though her pleas were gouging wounds into his skin and pulled out of her grip. “Good day.”

“Stop, Nic!” she cried.

He did not look back. He was walking straight to the Deep, and he would not see it.

Perhaps she might have let any other man damn himself, but not Nic. Never Nic.

He could not save himself, so she would have to do it for him.

She scowled at his retreating back and let magic unfurl inside her hands. Ice stabbed through her fingers, palms, and wrists like frozen steel threading inward from the shards embedded in her flesh up to her chest.

When it hit her heart, a network of nerves illuminated inside him, a spiderweb emanating a multicolor glow only she could see. That trace of wickedness she felt when she touched him before bloomed beneath his skin like veins shimmering in the cool morning light.

The threads of sin that had tainted him.

Setting her jaw, the Puppeteer grasped hold of those strings and pulled him to a stop.

Nic halted midstride. When she tugged on the fibers in his legs, they jolted so he faced her.

“I didn’t want to have to do this,” she whispered. “I hoped you were ready.”

“Ready for what?” he croaked, eyes wide. The strings strained in her grasp, but she held them fast, held him still as stone.

“Ready,” she said softly to her beautiful, misguided marionette, “for redemption.”

CHAPTER ONE

LOLA