Chapter Forty-One
LOLA
Enzo ripples through the door.
“Any luck?” he asks, then he looks around and realizes where we are. Panic bolts through our heart as his eyes go straight to the photograph on the desk. He raises his gaze back to my face.
Yes, this is how he found out about me.
“What are you doing?” he asks warily. “I thought we were supposed to be looking for my brother?”
I lick my lips, but my mouth has gone bone-dry. Everything in me wants to shout. How long did he plan to hide that my mother made the moonshard? Was he ever going to mention the fact that she might be alive?
But no matter how many questions build up in my throat, the Unbreakable Lie glues my tongue to the roof of my mouth, leaving the things left unsaid to thrash about inside my chest like demons in a cage.
“I was looking for him, but then I came across my father’s office,” I force out, voice scratchy and quavering.
Enzo searches my face. “You look . . . sad.”
I brush my father’s leather chair with a thumb. “It smells like him in here,” I choke out, and tears blur my vision.
Enzo wraps his arms around me and doesn’t utter a word. Perhaps he knows he cannot. It would not be enough, no matter what he might say.
How I wish I could tear at him. Scream at him.
Leave him.
Instead, I cling to him like he’s a life raft in a storm. Because no matter how deep my anger goes, no matter how stinging his betrayal, stars damn it, I would die for him. And I know he’d die for me.
It would be so much easier if I could hate him. Tear myself from his side, walk away, and forget about his miserable curse.
I press my face into his leather jacket, and his hand comes up to cradle my head.
“Let’s find Nic,” he whispers. “And then we’ll win Nocturne’s game.”
I pull back, mopping my forearm across my eyes. “Maybe Nic’s in a cellar? I haven’t seen any sign of him up here.”
“I found a stairwell in the east wing.” Enzo grasps my hand. “Come on.”
We flicker into mist and pass through the walls until we make it to the stairwell. As we descend, Forsyth Lott stomps right through us on his way up, and I shiver at the sensation that, no matter how many times I’ve experienced it, never ceases to disturb me.
As we reach the bottom, a narrow hallway unfurls, and my stomach drops.
Could my father be down here? Will I have to see him in his gang lord element once more?
I don’t know if I could handle witnessing any more of his treachery right now, not when my nerves are leaping beneath my skin and my mind is repeating the word conduit over and over like a deadly refrain.
We pass several doors, and Enzo and I take turns poking our heads through to check the interiors.
A few store books, ledgers, and paperwork.
One bursts with cases of pistols and rifles and blades.
Another is a vault full of voratium. As we reach the end of the corridor, a clear, gentle whistle filters through the final door, perfectly pitched with a lovely vibrato.
Enzo’s grip tightens on mine as we plunge through the wood and stop short.
Nic is strapped to an ornate velvet chair, head tipped back as though he’s as relaxed as can be.
Crimson glistens across his tuxedo, and his sleeve is torn.
A garish wound on his arm weeps blood. His right eye— usually glittering violet, is swollen to the size of a small orange and shadowed with deep purple bruising made worse by the sparkling scar.
His lips are stained as well, but he seems utterly unbothered by all of it, whistling along like he has not a care in the world.
Enzo releases me, and our bodies materialize.
Nic pauses his song. When his eyes find mine, he stills. “Oh, thank the gods.”
“Thank us; the gods had nothing to do with it.” Enzo surveys him. “What the depths happened to you?”
“That’s a foolish question,” Nic says.
“Where’s my father?” I ask quietly.
“Hopefully getting some cashews.”
“He’s lost his damn mind,” Enzo says to me, not even bothering to lower his voice.
Nic ignores that, keeping his focus entirely on me. “Have you seen Laurel?”
I frown, shaking my head. “Why would I have seen her?”
“Wait . . . Laurel?” Enzo looks at me. “She’s in Aethera?”
“You’ve got to get out of here.” Nic pushes to his feet. “Out of the city.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Enzo says. “Not until we’ve won Nocturne’s game, anyway.”
Nic squints at me. “You haven’t told him yet?”
“Told me what?” Enzo interrupts, looking between us.
“We don’t have time for this,” I snap, reaching for Nic. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“We’re rescuing you.” Enzo crosses his arms, pushing strategically so his biceps bulge. “Never thought you’d see the day, did you? Well, you were wrong, Donnic Sinclair. Wrong. The time has come, and I’m doing the swooping and the saving.”
“The swooping?” Nic deadpans.
Enzo drops his arms and glares. “You’re just jealous I’m the more attractive brother.”
“Are you, though?”
“Also, Lola prefers me.”
“Debatable,” Nic retorts, nostrils flaring.
“Hey, Lola, which of us do you like more, Nic or me?” Enzo stands next to his brother facing me, cocking his cunning Thief smile. “Keep in mind, I can run the fastest.”
I roll my eyes as Nic says, “You don’t run.”
“I have run before!”
“Like twice.” Nic raises a brow.
“You know what? I’ve changed my mind,” Enzo announces before I can reply. “We’re not going to rescue you after all.”
“Enzo!” I roll my eyes. “Yes, we are.”
“He’s fine!” Enzo holds up his hands, defensive. “I mean . . . He was whistling. He was having a great time.”
“We can’t just leave him here,” I hiss. “Look at the blood. And his eye!”
Enzo frowns at the injuries. “Shouldn’t those be halfway to healed by now?”
I follow his gaze. It’s true. The wound on Nic’s arm only looks marginally better than when we got here, and the eye is still just as purple. I try not to panic. I never considered how siphoning their magic might make them more susceptible to injury.
“You don’t care that my father clearly was just torturing him?” I ask Enzo exasperatedly. “What if Nic says something incriminating?”
“You honestly think I would do that?” Nic scoffs.
“Do you want to be rescued or not?” I snap at him.
“Do I look like I need rescuing?”
“You look like you’ve seen the wrong end of a knife, brother,” Enzo says. “Hate to break it to you.”
“You’re just bitter you’re the ugly half of the Devious,” Nic says, and then smirks at his own joke. “Hate to break it to you.”
I stifle a giggle, and Enzo shoots me a glare. “Sorry,” I say, grinning.
“Don’t lie to me, Laundromat.”
“Laundromat? Really?” Nic asks.
“It’s a nickname,” I say, echoing what Enzo said when he first started calling me random L words. “A charming one.”
“Did he tell you that, too?” Nic levels my gaze with a mock-serious one. “Because he’s lied to you before.”
The mirth in the room fractures, like a bucket of ice water has been dumped over our heads. Enzo stiffens at my side, but I don’t break eye contact with Nic.
“That makes two of you,” I say.
Nic holds my gaze. I cross to him, unbuckling the restraints and yanking him upright. “Come on. We’ve got to get back to Nocturne’s game before midnight, and we’re not leaving you here to get eviscerated again.”
“We’re not?” Enzo mumbles.
“No. We’re not.” I shoot him a glare, shoving Nic’s arm in front of his face. “Grab his hand.”
Enzo frowns at his brother’s outstretched fingers, and Nic curls them into an obscene gesture inches from his nose. Enzo scowls. “Are you seven years old?”
Nic chuckles to himself. “Oh, you know what sort of seven-year-old I was.”
“Oh, right, I remember. A stick in the mud with another stick up his ass.”
Instead of rising to the bait, Nic snorts. “Isn’t he funny, Lola? Probably a coping mechanism for being the ugly brother.”
“Okay, you two,” I huff, digging my own hand into Enzo’s jacket and pulling out a hunk of voratium, which I then shove into Enzo’s palm before forcing him to grasp Nic’s wrist with the metal between them. “Save the childish bickering for when we’re not running late.”
I rush to Enzo’s other side and take his remaining hand, where he still holds the voratium he used to bring me here in the first place.
Enzo grimaces. “I’m already regretting this,” he grumbles as the voratium turns icy.
As soon as we’re through the wall, Enzo releases us, and we dart up the stairs, taking them three at a time. A door slams somewhere nearby before we reach the landing, and footsteps echo around the corner.
The blood drains from my face. I grasp both Enzo’s and Nic’s arms just as a broad figure comes into view at the top of the stairwell, but Nic, apparently woozy from blood loss, trips, skidding down several stairs.
Enzo yanks me into an alcove, turning us both noncorporeal as my father catches sight of Nic. I want to leap to his aid, but Enzo’s grasp on my arm is like a vise.
“Oh, hello,” Nic groans, pulling himself upright. “Did you bring me my cashews yet?”
“Would you shut up about the damn cashews?” my father snaps, eyes alight with barely concealed rage. “How did you get out?”
“Maybe you should have your locks checked.”
Magnus grasps Nic by the collar, ramming him against the wall and digging the barrel of his pistol into his throat. “You don’t want to tell me where she is? Fine. Why don’t we test just how immortal you truly are?”
Panic strikes through me sharp and quick.
Is Nic going to cast an illusion at my father to get him to stop this?
Torture him right back, the way I’ve heard stories of him doing with his glamours?
Or, at the very least, try to escape? But if he could, he would have surely done so by now. Is he out of voratium?
Nic holds his ground and keeps his mouth shut, fear and defiance tangling in his eyes. I focus on his magic, and it’s clear he’s not using any of it.
“Last chance, Sinclair,” St. James bites out, cocking the gun. “Do you have anything to tell me?”
Maybe a bullet through the head won’t kill Nic. Maybe his magic will keep him alive, just as it always has.
But even as I try to reassure myself, my terror is white and hot and blinding.
Because what if it doesn’t? His magic has always healed his wounds, but the one on his arm is still bleeding.
There’s no telling if his power is strong enough anymore to restore him if my father puts a bullet through his head.
It’s too high a risk.
I open myself to Nic’s magic, trying to pull it forth.
But it resists like I’m trying to breathe in something solid. Is this because we’ve siphoned away too much of their power to the new moonshard?
No, that wouldn’t make sense . . . I’ve used both magics already tonight, and while it was certainly weaker, it was at least accessible.
I drag at it harder, panic flooding me as it continues to resist. And in its place comes the familiar, obnoxious buzzing from the Unbreakable Lie.
Realization dawns with a rise of acid in my chest.
I can’t use Nic’s magic, nor can I use Enzo’s, because Enzo is here. The Unbreakable Lie won’t let me.
“Well?” my father sneers into Nic’s unperturbed face. “Last words?”
Nic raises a brow. “You have broccoli in your teeth.”
Enzo is steady and unworried next to me. He probably thinks this is no riskier than usual, that Nic does not need saving.
The only one here who can stop this is me, and since I can’t use my magic, the only option left is to face my father without it. Not as Nocturne, but as his daughter.
A deep, primal fear overtakes me. Not of the woman I’ve become, the relentless thief, the cunning liar. No, it’s the fear of the young girl I was four years ago when I was taken from my bed, when my father was supposed to rescue me and never did.
What if he turns the gun on me instead? What if he locks me up? What if he casts me out?
Or, worse, what if he weeps?
“Enjoy the torment of the Deep,” my father snarls, and his finger twitches on the trigger.
I rip my hand away from Enzo and step into the light.
“Father!” I shout, my whole body trembling. “Stop!”