Chapter 6
My Heart’s Far, Far Away
LYRA
The details about Boone are crisper in the rosy light than everything else. He’s dressed in dark jeans and a hoodie, like he’s been out casing a score. When he gets to me, Boone glances over my head at my parents, dark-eyed gaze sharp on them. He knows how long I’ve been waiting.
Boone has never waited for his parents.
The way he talks about them, on the rare occasions he has, I’m pretty sure he thinks of them as evil incarnate. The look on his face tells me he’s worried my parents are the same. I hear my father clear his throat, shift on his feet.
My father is not a small man. I seem to remember he was a mechanic, and those years have left him in good shape other than the belly.
I don’t blame him for being nervous. When he wants to be, Boone is intimidating as hell.
His size, the muscles, the recently shaved scruffy beard a shade darker than his brown hair.
Add that to his usual get up of biker clothes—leather and jeans—combined with a palpable vibe of fuck around and find out, and most people avoid him on the street.
Which is hilarious, because really, he’s a big squish. A squish who can handle himself and is the best master thief the Order has seen in several centuries, but still…
As if dismissing my parents as insignificant, Boone focuses on me. “You were going to leave without saying goodbye, Lyra?” he asks quietly.
With my free hand, I tug on his jacket so he’ll lean down.
“I figured you’d come find me,” I whisper.
Official partnerships within the Order are strictly forbidden.
Dating, too, not that Boone and I have ever entertained that.
They don’t want their pledges distracted by personal bonds, and they want to use all the combinations of their resources that they can.
So Boone and I manipulate things behind the scenes to suit ourselves.
The truth is, he’s taking a risk, meeting me like this.
Although neither Boone nor I have ever been too worried about breaking rules.
He looks over my head again. “Excuse us for a second.”
Boone pulls me away, backtracking to a turn in the corridor. Then he swallows. This close, I see his throat move with it, the details clear. “They came for you?” he asks.
“Just now.”
Boone tugs on my long hair, which just for a second makes me frown. Wasn’t it just up in a bun? Or…didn’t I cut it? It shouldn’t be long.
The flash of pain disappears quickly when Boone distracts me. “And me?” he asks.
Which gives me a different pause, my hair forgotten. I study my friend’s face. He is never vulnerable. Part of that is training as a thief all his life, and part of that is how Boone is. I can see a hint of worry in his eyes all the same. Because he lets me see it.
“I couldn’t exactly ask Felix where you were.” Not without making things harder on Boone, who has to stay here. “I planned to catch you on your way topside to scope your next score tomorrow night. The diamond place, right?”
His broad shoulders ease slightly. “You knew about that?” We don’t talk jobs we don’t partner on.
“What do you think?” I raise a single eyebrow in challenge.
He offers a narrow-eyed half smile. “But I haven’t even reported that one yet.”
I shrug. “I’m damn good at what I do.”
Boone breaks into a wide grin, eyes gleaming at me over his crooked nose—broken before I met him, when he was still part of the Dallas den. But then he slowly sobers. “So this is goodbye?”
We’ve never talked about what would happen when one of us left. But he’s talked about going legit when he gets out, putting his skills to use and opening a private security business.
“I was thinking…you might need a hand with that new business of yours.”
Boone backs up, searching my face like he thinks I’m joking. “Are you being serious?”
Does he hate the idea? I shrug. “I mean, I know a thing or two. And I’m better at office work than you.”
Office work. The hazy light wavers behind him and around him on another flicker of pain behind my eyes. Why would I know anything about office work? The dens have clerks for that.
But then Boone grins again, and this one doesn’t fade away. “I’m in, partner,” he says.
I laugh because that’s what I said to him the first time he offered to team up on a score.
He’s nodding to himself, and I can see he’s already plotting out how this will work. “The gods must have plans for us, Lyra.”
Gods…
The gods have plans…
Another flicker in the haze, and a twist of pain hits as those words rattle around in my head. An image of mercurial silver eyes in an unsmiling face flashes through my mind.
Hades.
But as quickly as it appears, the image is gone, along with the sharp ache it brought, returning me to that odd, fuzzy feeling. Almost…feverish.
“So…” I rub my hands together.
We’re doing this. I have plans for my future.
A fear I’ve been stuffing down deep my entire life—what I would do when I finished with the Order of Thieves—is no longer a fear.
“Tomorrow night, after you scope your next job, we can talk. Figure out what I can be doing while we wait for you to pay off your debt.”
“You won’t have to wait long,” Boone says.
His track record as a thief is unrivaled, so I’m not surprised. I let out a silent breath of relief. “When?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I rock back on my heels, not sure what he means. “To talk through plans?”
He shakes his head. “I paid my debt off two years ago.”
“Two…” Holy shit. How did I not know that? I mean, I should have assumed, given how good he is, but I’m just as good.
“I have a stash saved away where no one knows. Enough for us to get a solid start.” His lips tip. “More than a start.”
So do I, for that matter. I frown over that. “Why didn’t you leave?”
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” He shrugs.
Gods, the things the world does to us sometimes. The Order hasn’t been awful, but it hasn’t exactly been all candy, Christmas, and pats on the head, either. And he didn’t have anywhere else to go.
At least I have my parents.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly.
But he shakes his head. “Don’t be. Hermes gives his thieves what they need. So I figure he brought us together for this. I couldn’t make my business idea work all on my own anyway.”
He needed me. That’s what he’s saying. That I’m needed.
My heart feels like one of those symbols on computers showing the battery level. It was close to full, thanks to my parents, but now I’m practically glowing I’m so charged up.
“So…” My whisper is embarrassingly choked. “Tomorrow?”
He sticks his hand out for a shake. “Tomorrow, partner. I’ll come to your parents’ home, and we can talk. Figure out how to start a business. Okay?”
A new life…
Family. Freedom. The future.
It’s like all the holidays landed on my birthday and I’m getting everything I ever wanted.
The headache that keeps threatening pushes outward with pressure and a new shooting ache.
Not everything. A tiny voice tries to wave a red flag. And I shake my head like I’m attempting to rattle something loose that I can’t quite remember. There’s something else I want more. Isn’t there? Something right out of reach in my mind. Something to do with Hades…
But Boone grabs my hand to shake it, and the feeling goes away as I laugh and squeeze back, even while the pain behind my eyes remains. I ignore it.
No way am I not soaking up every single second of this.
Maybe I have a migraine coming on? I’ve never had one, but I hear they can make you light sensitive.
I’m probably only thinking of the god Hades because he’s associated with omens of endings.
After all, it’s hard to believe this won’t all be taken away from me.
I should be ecstatically happy, so why do I feel like something is off?
Maybe everything that’s happening is so good, so perfect, that I can’t quite believe it. That has to be it. Right?
Boone grins one last time, then gives me a small push toward where my parents are waiting to take me home, probably wondering what happened to us. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
As I turn the corner, I see my parents down the hall. They’re standing in shadows, the rosy light not quite reaching them, so it has to be my mind playing tricks again.
Because, for a heartbeat, I swear I see a blank space where their eyes should be.