Chapter Thirty-Eight
LOLA
“Lola!”
Enzo’s harsh whisper drags me through the sludge of slumber, and I bolt upright in bed, squinting to see without my glasses.
His blurry form beckons from the window, where dusk paints him dusty blue.
“What’s wrong?” I fumble for my glasses, shoving them in place, and crawl across the bed with leaden limbs.
“There’s someone over there,” he says, pointing toward the Liar’s Den. “Do you think they’re players in Nocturne’s game?”
The casino is as dark and lifeless as ever, its once-scintillating structure now nothing more than a monstrous shadow on the other side of the street. People give it the wide berth of a cemetery, crossing the road to pass it by, avoiding looking at it as though doing so might curse them.
“Where?” I ask, stifling a yawn.
“There. Next to the main entrance,” Enzo says, pulling on one of the rings in his lower lip.
He must have put all his jewelry back in while I was asleep—he can’t keep them out for long or his magic will close his piercings.
I can’t help but notice how seeing them back in place fills me with an absurd sort of relief.
I follow his gaze to the massive double doors at the center of the casino’s facade. Sure enough, lurking in an alcove next to one of the decorative marble pillars is a familiar-looking pair of shadows. One tall and burly, one short and slight.
My stomach sinks.
“That’s Ostena Vesnes,” I tell him.
“Ostena who’s-it-what-now?” He frowns like I just sneezed directly on his face.
“She’s the woman who nearly beat me in Nic’s tournament.”
“She’s not in Nocturne’s game, is she?”
“I saw her in round two,” I say. “How long have they been there?”
“I noticed them as soon as I woke up an hour ago.”
“What have they been doing?”
“Just . . . waiting,” he says, leaning against the window frame. “It seemed off to me. Wouldn’t players be looking for clues or something?”
I know exactly who they’re waiting for. Now that my father knows I’m in the game, he’ll want me snatched up as soon as I arrive for round three.
“Wait.” He straightens. “They’re moving.”
As though they’ve spotted something up the road, they creep toward the corner. Something glimmers in Ostena’s hand. A blade, perhaps?
“What are they looking at?” I ask.
“I can’t tell.” Enzo unlatches the window and drags the pane up so he can get a better look.
I lean over the edge, too, squinting at what appears to be a man hobbling toward the casino, hunched over so far he’s nearly bent in half.
“Who’s that?” I whisper.
“Not sure,” Enzo replies.
A motorcar turns onto the road, flashing its headlights across the figure, and Enzo and I both freeze.
“It’s Nic,” I gasp, registering his bloodstained face. “What happened to him?”
Ostena and Forsyth dive from the shadows, tackling Nic to the sidewalk. I tense to leap out of the window as Ostena rams that silver flash of metal I noticed before into his upper arm. Nic struggles, then slumps forward and does not move again.
It must have been some sort of syringe like the one she tried to attack me with during the tournament.
I tear back toward my bed, scrabbling for my voratium.
But by the time I’ve returned to the window, Nic, Forsyth, and Ostena are gone.
My heart leaps into my throat. “Where did they go?” I cry, leaning so far out the window I nearly topple six stories to the pavement below.
“I don’t know,” Enzo replies.
“Which direction were they headed?”
“Left, I think.”
“You think?” I round on him. “What were you doing, picking lint out of your belly button? Did they take him on foot? Flag a taxi?”
“Carried him up the street. They had a vehicle waiting.” He leans back in his chair as though bored.
I gape at him. “What the depths is wrong with you? Your brother is kidnapped right in front of you, and you don’t even have the decency to act worried?”
He sighs. “He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”
“I don’t think anybody is capable of taking care of anything when they’re unconscious. Why are you so unbothered by this?”
“He cursed me. Why should I give a flying damn what happens to him?”
I let out a half-mad laugh. “I’ve told you a thousand times, he did not curse you!” I gesture at his jewelry, frantic. “He was protecting you!”
Enzo scowls. “According to him.”
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kick him as much as I do right now. “You really don’t care?”
“He can’t die.” Enzo turns his gaze back out the window. “Worst they’ll do is torture him a little.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
He harrumphs.
“We have to go after him,” I say, planting my hands on my hips.
“No. We have to get some dinner—preferably something drenched in butter with soufflé for dessert—and then we need to get back to the Liar’s Den by midnight.”
“We have to save him.”
“We can save him tomorrow.” He gets to his feet, pulling his leather jacket off the back of the chair and slinging it on. “We can’t miss Nocturne’s game.”
What the depths is wrong with him?
“Ostena and Forsyth tried to kill me.” I cross my arms over my chest. If I can’t convince him to care about his brother, then at least I can get him to care about me.
“What?” He narrows his eyes. “When?”
“During the last round. Right before you and the Tentacles came to save me. They shot Nic.”
“Why? Who are they?”
“They work for my father. If they’ve captured Nic, it has something to do with me.”
Enzo’s nostrils flare as my meaning slots into place.
“And,” I add, “he knows you better than anyone in the world except for maybe me. We can’t risk what he might tell my father under duress. Besides.” I meet his glare with one of my own. “He would do the same for you.”
“How do we know this isn’t some ploy to get me away from the game? He wants to win just as much as we do.”
“You think he’d go to such great lengths?” I raise a brow. “Not everyone is as desperate as you.”
Enzo scowls, digging in his pocket. “You know he tracked me down to try to get me not to enter. Even gave me this in hopes I’d be dumb enough to let him manipulate me.” He holds out his hand.
A voratium die glows there, a swirling ebony galaxy inside.
“That’s one of his secrets,” I whisper. “Did you roll it?”
He scoffs. “What’s the point? It’s probably a lie anyway.”
“You are such a knucklehead!” I growl, snatching the die.
“Hey! That’s mine!”
“If he gave you this, he was trying to tell you something.” I toss it on the bed. It rolls once, twice, three times.
Multicolor light spills out, churning into the forms of Nic leaving Enzo to guard a door as he runs into a vault toward . . .
The moonshard.
As Nic lifts the scintillating chunk of metal from its velvet bed, a shout breaks the silence.
He twists, the shard slipping from his grasp.
Laurel appears, lunging to catch it. It smashes when it hits her hands.
Light explodes, blowing out the door, which slams Enzo to the ground, splinters of wood carving bloody welts on his skin.
Nic screams at Laurel to run, then rushes to Enzo’s side, gathering him in his arms and pelting out of the temple.
“Hang on, Enzo,” he grits out. “Hang on.”
But glittering soullight is flickering off Enzo’s body, stardust dancing out of his open wounds and disintegrating into the sky.
I tear my gaze from the scene as it unfolds, looking past the glimmering forms to where present-day Enzo stands, staring. His eyes are wide, his jaw clenched, as Nic begs past-Enzo to wake, voice breaking. I cross to the real one, grasping his hand.
Together, we watch Nic battle through a decision as past-Enzo finally regains consciousness. Watch him grit his teeth. Watch him lie.
And then past-Enzo’s body fully disintegrates.
Nic panics, shouting after him and searching frantically for the brother who disappeared until the die’s magic fades and the motel room goes quiet and dark once more.
Enzo stares at the die. “It could be an illusion.”
“It could,” I say, throat thick.
“It could be a lie,” he says.
“It could.”
He raises his gaze to mine. “What if it isn’t?”
“I don’t think it is.”
His throat bobs. “Why would he pretend to have stolen the shard? Why would he let me hate him?”
“You know why, Enzo.”
His eyes gleam, and he sniffs, then clears his throat. “Gods damn him.”
“We have to go after him. We still have a few hours until round three begins.” I squeeze his hand. “Besides, wouldn’t it be nice to be the one swooping in to save his sorry ass this time?”
He stares at me for a long moment, and then he groans, mopping a hand over his face. “Fine. Let’s go be heroes. But if we miss Nocturne’s game because of my brother, I’m going to literally kill him.”
“He can’t die,” I point out, relief flooding me as we climb onto the windowsill.
“An inconvenience I will deal with later,” he says, pressing a voratium chip between our palms and plunging us into noncorporeality.
Well, plunging him into noncorporeality. I don’t quite vanish, flickering instead like a guttering candle.
“What the—” Enzo says, trying to pull my corporeality away. “Is this bum voratium?”
My heart triple-thuds. Two nights of careful siphoning has diminished his power, but I can’t let him know that’s happening. Not yet.
I drag his magic through me. It’s weak, but with our combined effort, I finally dissolve into nothingness, and we launch ourselves hand in hand into the night.