Page 46 of Heart of Thieves

Which would be worse?

I skirt a corner and freeze, staring at the window across the street.

It’s a church, illuminated from within by flickering candles. I stare through the glass, and the world dissipates until the only thing remaining is the young man on the other side sitting in the back pew.

I recognize him instantly, though I’ve never seen him like this. Bent over with his hands knotted as though in prayer, his fedora low on his brow casting a shadow over his scar that accentuates its glow. His jaw tight, his shoulders rigid.

Something is wrong.

His eyes—especially the one that sparkles like a jewel—glow in exactly the same eerie way as his scar. With a cold, muted light as though fragments of soul gutter within. But it’s not the light that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, nor is it his grim expression.

It’s the ice in his gaze.

Hard like steel, it roves over the other parishioners, then surveys the robed priests as they bustle about. And when they speak to him, his grin is so false my skin prickles. It’s an expression so familiar and yet somehow so foreign.

My stomach turns over, making the back of my tongue burn. Who is this Nic?

I search his magic for signs he’s using illusions to make himself appear as unsettling as he does, but there is nothing. For once in all the time I’ve known Nic, it seems to just be him.

That realization slams into me, and I stagger backward, foot scraping on the edge of the sidewalk so I nearly topple into the street.

You have been glamoured.

Could he have been telling the truth when he said that? Could this be the real Nic? Could the person I thought I knew, the one I touched and kissed, be no more than another disguise he put on, just like the showman one he wore onstage?

Steeling myself, I cross to the door and push it open. He turns toward me, the way he always did before. Like something in him senses me. But when he meets my eye and grins, it is a stranger’s smile.

“Come to pray, little thief ?” he asks when I reach his pew.

The nickname feels like a kick in the stomach, but I stifle the wince, wishing there were some way to bury our past where it cannot hurt me. “Sure.”

I sink into the seat next to him.

“I wondered when I’d see you,” he says.

“That you can say that means you didn’t wonder at all,” I retort before I can help myself.

“Still spitting venom with that vicious tongue, it seems.”

His words ignite an anger far more acidic than any I felt in his casino. My fists clench. “You’d know all about my tongue, wouldn’t you?”

He stiffens, his smile looking suddenly stricken. “The hour is getting l—” he begins, but then his shoulders bunch, and a wolfish, wholly foreign smile curls his upper lips over his teeth. He cups my jaw, fingers threading into the curls behind my ear. He cocks his head, his fedora skimming the hairs above my forehead as his attention darts to my mouth, his lashes fluttering over those strangely glowing eyes. “You know, it’s possible I’ve forgotten,” he breathes, and the timbre of his voice rumbles through my whole body.

And this is all wrong, not at all like him, but my body responds, shivering with want. Trembling as my mouth waters to taste him all over again.

“Care to remind me, Astra?”

I shiver. “Why are you calling me that?”

“What else would I call you?” He cocks a brow, and for a moment, it’s close enough to the Nic I knew, teasing and torturous, that I can almost convince myself to believe it.

But it’s a lie. All of it was, all of it is.

“Little thief ?” he says softly, like a test.

I pull away, feeling sick.

He does not sit back. Instead, he studies me, as though entire stories are written on my face. “Ah, so you do care for me.”