Page 22 of Heart of Thieves

The husk of a pirate ship sprouts out of the gloom ahead, cloaked in undulating seaweed. We pass through the hull and into a set of cells where the pirates who owned the ship must have kept their prisoners. It’s even darker in here, and we move more by instinct than sight, traveling down a narrow walkway encrusted in barnacles to where the bow of the ship punctured through the side of an underwater volcano many years ago.

We forge into the mountain, where the extinct lava ducts wind around, pitching even farther downward. After several minutes, our tunnel inclines sharply, and we surface into a cavern.

A single, massive shard of voratium carved into the shape of the god of theft, Tharon—a half-man half-fish with glittering scales and far too many teeth—perches on the wall, glowing with infused soul-light bright enough to illuminate the small cave in a sea-green ethereal warmth. Below it, intricate swirls outline a carved archway in the rock. There is, however, no door—only more stone—because solely noncorporeal beings may pass through into the Thief ’s lair.

We shuffle hand in hand through the rock, and then I release her, letting our bodies regain their physical form, though I keep my palm invisible so the briefcase remains undetectable.

“Thanks,” Jade says breathlessly. “I’m starving. Want to grab some food?”

“Nah. I’m pretty tired. I’ll catch you tomorrow?”

She nods. “Sure!” Then she jogs off down the corridor.

I sigh and shuffle forward, my limbs exhausted despite all the strength soullight I ingested earlier.

One of my favorite parts about the Brig is the front hallway. Enzo has always had an eye for decor. Infused voratium gems dangle from coral chandeliers, lighting the hall in a turquoise glow. More has been embedded in the walls, but unlike the Liar’s Den’s deliberate curlicues, Enzo had it added directly into the stone like gold nuggets in rock, veins of it spidering out along the rough texture. Stolen paintings hang in alcoves he carved himself, gorgeous renderings of underwater grottos in oils, merfolk swishing beneath ocean waves, mythic Gods of the Deep illustrated like whimsical phantoms with tentacles and teeth.

I hurry down the hall and branch off into my room—the largest in the place, with ceilings that track to the top of the volcano. When Enzo first brought me here, I told him this was too much, but he insisted. “Where else would we fit your aerial rig?” he asked, eyes agleam.

I gasped when the rest of the Tentacles carried in the ropes and hardware to set up the aerial hoop, something I’d confided to Enzo that I wanted to learn soon after I’d left the Liar’s Den. He even gave me a stack of instructional aerial books.

“To make up for . . . everything,” he said after everyone had left.

“You already apologized.” I ran my hand along the sleek steel of the brand-new hoop.

“And I will spend the rest of my life apologizing.” A muscle feathered in his jaw. “Welcome to the Brig, Lola. You should have been here from the start.”

Those words echo back to me now as I slide the door shut and cross past the hoop to my bed, which I left haphazardly unmade yesterday. Shoving the briefcase underneath the mattress, I set a shard of voratium against it and push a tendril of Nic’s magic into it to cast an illusion of invisibility.

A knock raps behind me. “Come in!” I cry, dropping onto my mattress as the door creaks open.

Enzo slips inside and leans against the wall, crossing one ankle over the other. “Hi there, Limerick.”

“Hi yourself.”

His adrenaline still thunders through my body from our encounter just half an hour ago, and I know he can feel my own turmoil. My hurt, my anger, my desperation.

“You okay?” His deep green eyes pierce mine as though he’s trying to see through me to the heart he stole, not so he can use it, but so he can decode it.

“I’m fine.”

He raises a brow. “I’m pretty sure even a toad could spot a lie that obvious.”

I snort, leaning back and stretching my legs in front of me. “Seeing more of my father’s men during our University of Aethera job sort of threw me.”

His lips purse as he nods.

“Thank you,” I say softly. “For what you did. Taking their speech instead of shooting them. It seemed to cost you a lot.”

He crosses to sit next to me and braces his forearms on his knees, staring intently at the floor like the answers to all his problems might be written there.

“I don’t talk much about when I was first cursed,” he says, his voice like crunching gravel. “After it happened, I lost all my soullight. Didn’t figure out for weeks how to be corporeal, how to speak, how to feel again. It was . . . Well. Let’s just say the prospect of taking all of someone else’s like that, even if only one type . . . hit me harder than I was ready for.”

His words pull at the strings drawn taut around my heart. I sit forward, placing my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

He sniffs. “I will say . . . some of the Tentacles are worried St. James will get information out of those blokes another way.”

“How?”