Page 33 of Heart of Thieves

Finally, after an eternity, Laurel breaks away, eyes dancing. “We’d better get out of here before that butler comes back.”

She leads me toward the door, chatting animatedly about the next target on her list, but all I hear is the thunder of my own heart—a beast caught in a snare of its own making, a noose of lies cinching tighter and tighter around its throat.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LOLA

I fling my arms around Estelle, squealing.

“Look at you and your sassy thief moves!” she cries, crushing me against her. “You could have killed me!”

When we finally break apart, Estelle pulls her hood fully back, letting her dark brown coils bounce free. Her ochre eyes glimmer golden in the morning sunlight, and she is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in months.

“What are you doing here?” I ask breathlessly, perching on the edge of Nic’s bed and grasping her hands.

“I could ask you the same question.” She squeezes my palms, settling onto the sheets facing me and crossing her legs.

“Well, I never left Aethera,” I say with a pointed grin.

She laughs, glancing past me to the orchids I’ve kept watered since Nic left. “Where did the Liar go? Why did he shut down his casino?”

My joy deflates as though pricked with a needle. Why is she sidestepping?

“I’m not sure,” I say, defenses rising. “Why do you ask?”

“I saw you won the tournament!” Her eyes dance, but my stomach sinks.

This feels like when Enzo maneuvers around my questions to withhold information. I let it slide for years, a mistake I swore to myself I’d never make again.

“I did,” I say through a throat stuffed with cotton. “I won.”

“The Liar listened to you? He’s your ally now?” Her words pull me back to when she helped me sneak into the casino.

“No, actually. He . . .” I swallow, tugging my hands out of hers and mopping them across my face. The last thing I want to do is relive the painful conversation Nic and I had after that. “How did you get inside the casino? There are a million wards up to keep people out . . .”

She shrugs. “Does it matter? The point is that we’re here. And now we can help each other!”

“Help each other do what, exactly?”

“I’m looking for the brothers. You have to have some idea where they are.”

I recoil as though slapped. Of course this is about the brothers. Everything always is. “Why?”

She seems to realize my smile has gone, because her own cheery demeanor fades. She chews on her lip.

“Look, Estelle.” I push off the bed. “I am happy to see you. I’ve been hoping we’d cross paths again, but . . .” I sigh, dragging my gaze away from her to the multicolor light refracting through the windows. “I’ve spent my whole life begging for people to be up front with me and trusting them even when they weren’t, and after everything that happened with the tournament, I just . . . I can’t be friends—or even careful allies—with someone who is actively keeping secrets from me. I just can’t.”

I feel her eyes on me, and every instinct in my body begs to flee. Tears sting at the corners of my vision, and a lump rises thick in my throat.

“I’m so glad you’re well, and I wish I could help you. Truly, I do.” Sniffing, I turn and make my way for the door. “Good luck.”

“Lola.” Her voice comes out pained. Quiet. Almost like she’s scared. I glance back as she crosses to me, linking her arm through mine. “Come with me.”

She leads me down one level. We pass the suite where I stayed and slow in front of her door. It swings open on well-oiled hinges, revealing wardrobe doors still open from when she unloaded its contents into her suitcases, trash bins full of the remnants of whatever snacks she ate that day, and a single earring I remember her wearing abandoned on the floor like it must have fallen on her way out.

Our feet kick up dust as she leads me to the wall and presses my hand to the metal threading in the plaster.

Only instead of the cold slick of voratium, the metal seems almost . . . soft.