Chapter Twenty-Nine
NIC
“Why were you so sassy with her?” Laurel asks as we lurk on the third floor of the library.
Wooden bookcases with golden detailing and brass section nameplates stretch high on all sides bearing tomes of every shape, color, and size.
I breathe in deeply, letting the scent of pages and leather calm my nerves.
It does little to help. Ever since Laurel caught sight of Lola through my eyes and realized she was using my magic to parade as Nocturne, the only thing that’s kept me from unraveling is my own skin.
“Astra wouldn’t have believed anything else,” I say, trying with every ounce of self-control I possess not to snap at her. “Consistency with how she knew the Liar before is paramount.”
Laurel sighs, handing me a chip of voratium and pointing at a couple on the other end of the aisle. We’ve spent the past couple hours since reaching the library planting illusions to distract the players we don’t want to make it into the second round.
“Offering deals, though?” Laurel asks, frowning. “Threatening her? That doesn’t spell ‘true love’ to me.” She wrings her fingers, her eyes darting back and forth as though searching for some kind of a threat.
Her anxiety is doing nothing to calm my own.
“All I’m saying is that you seemed a little unlikable back there. I find it very hard to believe she’s going to be interested in sharing anything with you anytime soon.” Laurel’s voice quavers on the last word as I cast an illusion at the unsuspecting couple at the end of the aisle.
She’s scared. Maybe of failing, maybe of losing my loyalty. Part of me wants to leave her in that fear, but I know exactly how dangerous it could be.
“Hey,” I say, pressing a steadying hand to her lower back. “Breathe. It’s going to be all right.”
She takes several slow breaths, then nods.
I check my watch. “It’s nearly five. Why don’t you break off to look for clues? Astra might be nearby. Could be a good time for her to receive our list of targets.”
“I’ll let you know once I’ve discovered the way out.” Her voice is still a little thin, but she manages a smile. “Why don’t you try sharing a secret with her? Women like emotional intimacy.”
“Excellent idea.” I tip my fedora before slinking away, blowing a slow stream of air through my teeth.
Gods help me not muck this up any more than I already have.
Laurel’s presence flickers in my vision, a bristling awareness that has me cringing. Is she ever going to trust me enough to let me do things on my own?
Grasping a chip of voratium, I let my magic—always tilting toward Lola like she’s gravity—pull me up the stairs, down several corridors, and up a ramp. As I approach, recognition draws my breath in tight.
I know where she is.
She’s at the astronomy observatory on the top floor.
Suddenly, I cannot breathe. The world swims, and my legs wobble.
I came to the observatory only once before. Weeks after the moon-shard broke. It was the night I finally looked through the telescope.
I haven’t been back since.
I pause before the door, swallowing hard, begging my lungs to draw in air and push it out, my heart to keep pumping, my body to stop vibrating.
Gritting my teeth, I duck inside.
The domed window is open, but thanks to Lola’s illusionary boundary, the night sky is blocked by darkness.
Lola sits on the floor, back propped against the base of the telescope, cheeks shining with tears illuminated by the glow from the window in the door behind me.
“Are you all right?” I ask, fighting the instinct to rush to her side. I don’t think Laurel would take too kindly to that quite yet, and Lola is still rightfully wary of me. If I’m going to earn both of their trust, I need to take it slow.
“Fine. Just needed a minute,” Lola says.
“Hmmm.” I glance past her at the telescope, and my stomach bottoms out. A violent nausea tears through me.
It’s just a contraption. It won’t hurt me.
I try to move closer, but a shudder ripples my bones, keeping my feet firmly planted.
Lola cocks her head, looking from me to the telescope and back again. “Have you been here before?”
“That telescope . . . ,” I find myself saying even though I shouldn’t. “It magnifies the stars so clearly you can see even the gases radiating off them.”
“Yes . . . That’s how they study them.”
I swallow. “Can we . . . leave?” I won’t be able to focus, not as long as the memory of coming apart in the exact place where Lola sits keeps sharding through my thoughts. “It’s pretty dark in here.”
She rises, crossing to me. “Nic.” Her hand lifts slowly, like she’s approaching a rogue animal, and I find myself wheezing for air as her palm cups my jaw. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” I lie.
She draws her fingers to my chin, tilting my face downward toward her. When our gazes meet, heat flows through me as though the past four months did not happen, as though her betrayal in the tournament was merely a bad dream, as though I didn’t break her heart.
I want to flee from that gaze and the messy ways it’s pulling at the threads of me. But Laurel is there, watching. Waiting.
I’m supposed to be wooing Lola. Making her trust me.
“Tell me,” she whispers.
I hold her gaze, wet my lips. Gods, how I want to tell her the truth.
Hand over the memory of the boy I was five years ago who’d spent weeks reading every book he could get his hands on, and finally, desperately, got up the courage to look through that damn telescope.
She would hold that memory. She would welcome the pain of it, the terror, the courage.
Because she, of all the people I know, is the only one I’ve ever found who was brave enough to look the truth that could ruin her directly in the eye, too.
Every alarm bell in my head crashes at a fever pitch. My curse won’t let me talk about that telescope, and Laurel would be horrified to hear the tale even if I could manage it.
But no matter how I comb my thoughts, I cannot think of what else to tell Lola now.
She’s too perceptive for me to sidestep her question— that will undermine my plan to earn back her trust faster than almost anything else I could do.
And she’d be able to sense my lies now that she can wield my own magic against me.
I’m going to have to give her the real story and pray that Laurel will see it as part of my act.
“The moonshard was supposed to be a myth,” I say softly.
“What does that have to do with this telescope?” Lola asks.
“If the priests lied about the moonshard . . . ,” I say, then pause. How can I say the next part in a way that won’t enrage Laurel?
But, as she always does, Lola seems to know what I’m about to say.
“If they lied about the moonshard,” she murmurs, “maybe they lied about other things.” The glow of my scar illuminates the planes of her face, and I search the curve of her cheek, the dust of her freckles, the flutter of her lashes for the cracks in the disguise, the hints of her true beauty beneath.
“You came here to see for yourself,” she says when I still don’t speak.
“You know what’s amazing?” I ask, hoarse.
“How long someone who doesn’t want to know the truth will avoid looking through a telescope.
Because you can read every book in a whole damn library”—I wave an arm at the bookshelves below us—“and still tie yourself in the world’s most complicated knot trying to make everything fit. ”
“What happened?” she asks, thumb tracing the tip of my chin in a way that sends tingles straight down my spine.
I shouldn’t go on. Laurel won’t like this.
But gods, it feels good to be honest with the one person who ever believed the things I could not say.
“Eventually, you reach a breaking point,” I grind out. “You have to know. Settle it once and for all. Look through the telescope. If the stars are gods, the way the Odelion and my father and all the priests have taught, then you have nothing to worry about, right? You’ll see that. Truth holds up.”
Cold splinters through me, seizing my limbs.
Laurel has had enough.
“But then you looked through the telescope,” Lola says softly, unaware of the ice plunging along every vein in my body as Laurel assumes control.
I fight back desperately. What might she do here, alone with Lola where neither Enzo nor St. James could protect her if things go wrong?
But Laurel’s too powerful, her hold too secure. She raises and lowers my shoulder, forcing a grin. “And when I looked through the telescope, there they were,” she says with my mouth. “The most spectacular stars I’ve ever seen. Too beautiful to be anything but gods.”
“What?” Lola blinks, her hand going still against my jaw.
“Sure, they seemed like burning balls of gas,” Laurel continues, “but only a pompous people idolizing their own selves would expect deities to look like them.”
Lola steps back, releasing me. “Where did you go? What just happened?”
Laurel moves me forward, each step a jerk of my leg sending disgust radiating through me. My heart roars in my ears.
Don’t you dare touch her, I want to scream.
But all I can do is watch.
“I’m right here,” Laurel soothes, “Astra.”
And now, suddenly, the fear is gone. The panic has dissipated. All that’s left is an irritation that has me seeing red.
I had this well in hand, but she just called Lola Astra, and now there’s no way Lola will fall for any damn thing Laurel tries.
“What’s happened to you?” Lola whispers, staring like I’ve grown a second head. “Where is Laurel?”
“Laurel?” Laurel laughs, a chillingly disjointed sound in my throat that makes the hair rise on the back of my neck.
“She’s probably down-stairs trying to find clues to get out of the enclosure, just like everyone else.
We won’t need to worry about her . . .” She takes a step closer, raises my hand to slide my fingers into Lola’s hair.
“. . . interrupting, if that’s what you’re worried about. ”
Gods. Kill me now.
Lola’s eyes flick back and forth between mine. “What are you doing?”
“Did you miss me?” Laurel purrs, dipping closer.
Lola sighs, and her breath warms my mouth, tremulous and exactly as before.
And gods, suddenly my lips are remembering the feel of hers, and my hands are remembering the curve of her hips, and my tongue is remembering the taste of her skin, and I wish I could shove Laurel out so I could claim this moment for myself.
“No,” Lola says quietly. “I miss Nic.” She pulls away from my grasp, crossing her arms.
As though realizing defeat, Laurel releases me back into command. Scrambling, I try to pick up the pieces of the disaster she just created.
“That was inappropriate,” I say. “Please accept my apologies.”
Lola’s eyes narrow. “No.”
We stare at each other, that word pressing us further apart some-how, cold and solid as a wall between us. I won’t be able to reach her again anytime soon. Best to finish things up and figure out another approach later.
“This is for you.” I extract a piece of paper from my pocket. “Make sure these twelve people are in the final round.”
“Ah. Our deal,” she says, taking it from me and unfolding it, reviewing the list Laurel and I put together. “Who are these folks?”
I open my mouth to respond, but Laurel, clearly frustrated at my lack of drive, jumps into the driver’s seat yet again. “Why are you doing this game, Nocturne?” she asks, sidestepping Lola’s question. “What benefit do you get from it?”
Lola glares, refolding the paper. “Why do you care which contestants make it to the final round?”
“So defensive, little thief,” Laurel says, and I hate that she picked up on that nickname. With Laurel’s lilt, it sounds like a curse. “So many secrets.”
“You know what? Yes, I am defensive,” Lola snaps, shoving the paper into her belt.
“I do have secrets. I’d be happy to share them with you if you, for two bleeding seconds, behaved like you deserved my trust. But you tricked me into doing so during your tournament, then disappeared for months.
Now you’ve pranced back into my life exhibiting all kinds of confusing behavior and expect me to answer your questions?
Sorry. Not happening.” She shoves past me toward the door.
“I’ve spent far too long trusting people who don’t deserve it. I’m done.”
“Astra, wait,” Laurel says, diving after her.
“Stupid, sparkly bastard,” Lola spits, slamming the door in my face.
Good. Laurel deserved that.