Page 30 of Heart of Thieves

Emmeline’s smile disappears entirely. “What is this?” Her voice is sharp.

“Really?” I say to her. “Did you do that?”

She harrumphs. “I don’t know what this woman is talking about.”

Laurel grasps my hand with one of my chips of voratium in her palm. The instant the metal slicks ice-cold against my skin, Emmeline’s secret fills my nose. I’ve of course sensed it before, but people always have their secrets, not all of them villainous.

“Is that true?” I ask Emmeline. “Did you poison your grand-daughter so you wouldn’t be lying to me when you said she was sick and needed care?”

“Of course not,” she snaps, blotches of pink blooming on her weathered cheeks as the stench of her lie crawls down my throat.

Well, shit.

“Use this. It’ll be less messy.” Laurel releases my hand, letting her magic seize it instead. My arm raises as though it does not belong to me, and it pinches the voratium between forefinger and thumb in front of my face. Not for Emmeline to see, but for me.

A warning.

If I do not do Laurel’s will of my own accord, then she will force me to. And if it comes to that, it will prove to Laurel I don’t believe in her gods or her mission.

I’ll be back under her control once more.

So, though all of me is screaming not to, I turn to face Emmeline, forcing a smile I know will charm her because that is what I do; I charm people, and then I destroy them.

My eyes catch on a brooch at her collar, a voratium piece I gave to all my staff, empty of soullight in case I needed to be able to protect—or punish—any of them.

That’s the key. A piece of voratium Laurel won’t know I have.

I hold up the voratium she gave me, and with the tiniest sliver of magic, I send a whisper in Emmeline’s ear, barely audible enough for her to hear, so quiet Laurel won’t.

“Emmeline,” it says in my voice. “There’s going to be a flash of light. When it happens, you need to collapse. Pretend to be dead. Once we’ve left, get as far away from Aethera as you can. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Blink twice if you understand.”

Emmeline stares at me, eyes wide. She licks her lips, then blinks once. Twice.

That’s all I need. I pull in more magic and detonate an illusionary explosion.

Emmeline topples.

“Directing light into her corneas like that can induce a small seizure,” I tell Laurel, channeling an illusion to make Emmeline’s limbs stiffen and her eyes roll into her head as she quakes on the floor. “If enough stimulus is fed to the brain, the neurons short-circuit.” I make a show of looking like I’m doing just that, complete with ear-splitting noises and quick sensations from cold to hot then to cold again, for effect.

Then I complete the charade with an illusion of Emmeline going deathly still, drool oozing from her loose, pink-stained lips.

I approach, pressing my fingers to her fluttering pulse. Angling my body to hide my hands, I unclip the brooch and stash it in my sock.

“She’s dead,” I say.

Laurel holds out her hand, eyes still sharp. When I drop her voratium into her gloved palm, her shaking fingers curl around it instantly, like I’ve given her some sort of explosive.

“Let me check,” she says softly.

I move out of her way, drawing magic through the ice-cold brooch against my ankle to make Emmeline’s veins feel still and pulseless.

Laurel presses her fingers to the woman’s neck, and my own heart skips faster as though to make up for the one I’m trying to hide.

After what feels like an eternity, she rises, smoothing her hands along her skirts. When she turns to face me, a tear drips off her lashes.

“You promise you didn’t mean to miss that shot last night?” she asks, voice barely more than a breath.

“You know liars can’t make promises,” I reply, hating myself and what I’ve turned her into.