Page 2 of Caged By the Ruthless Thief

I don’t... I can’t... I don’t want to think about Nico being gone, dying in a horrible way at the bottom of the ocean.

“How can you save Nico?” I twist in my borrowed shoes. I want to have hope for Nico, but it’s too much to ask. “They took him to the chasm yesterday. I saw the guards in the lobby.”

“No, Annabelle. They’re going to weaken him before they take him to the chasm. They’re scared he could actually come back, but they’re too cowardly to just kill him. We have time to get you settled in your new home.”

Hope surges through me. “I thought no one returns from the chasm?” Could he really have a chance of returning to the Veiled City?

“No one has made it out of there in a long time. But it’s possible... He could make it out. He needs to get the trident at the bottom and swim back. Then he’s free of his crimes and will be even more of an insufferable hero than being a hero of Hestertåtten.”

“And you’re going to help him?”

“If you agree.” His smile widens, and the expression of making a deal with the devil could never be truer.

“But he’s not supposed to have help. Won’t breaking the rules disqualify him from being exonerated?”

“You can’t be exonerated if you’re dead. Well, I suppose they could do it anyway, but what use is it?” He puts his hands on his hips. “What do you say, Bluebell?”

“I don’t like the nickname, but yes, I’ll go back with you if you save Nico.” I put my hand out for him to shake. But he pulls me in for a toe-curling kiss.

“Oh, my lord, these girls,” the same Southern woman who saw me kissing Holter and Castor an hour ago says.

* * *

Eros paysthe cab driver and takes my hand before I can step out of the cab. We’re nowhere near downtown. Nowhere near Castor’s apartment, either. It took twice as long to get to the airport from Castor’s apartment as it did to get here. And his place is the opposite way, if my internal compass is working at all.

Eros taps the back of a cab like someone who knows cars, and the driver speeds away. A cloud of dust follows him.

“What do you do?” I scrunch my face up. I’m sort of counting on the fact that Holter wouldn’t let me bring home a serial killer. Because I don’t know anything about Eros. “Back in the city, at home, what do you do for a living?” There’s no one around us on this deserted street outside a café, but I’m not bringing up the Veiled City.

“Oh, you know, a bit of this and that.”

“No, I don’t know.” Because I thought mixing with humans was rare. Something only those who ran companies did.

“It’s not important.”

“If you’re going to be my mate, I think it is.”

His normal smirk vanishes. “I’ll tell you later, Bluebell. Let’s get you home first.”

Now it’s me with the raised eyebrows. “And how exactly are we going to do that?”

“Swim.”

I nod. Because I see Glyden has kept my secret that I can only partially shift. Even with as much time as I spent with the sharks.

“I know you can’t shift, Blueb—”

I hold up my hand, stopping him. How in the world can he know that? We were super careful, and I know Castor’s brother Milo believed I couldn’t shift because I’d gotten a tattoo.

“I know you can’t shift,” he repeats, softer. “I’ve got you a diver propulsion vehicle. Divers use them to go long distances. You hold on to the sides and lie on it. Mysoloisn’t too far, and it will help us get there faster.”

It’s not overly hot, but the sun is brutal. There’s a little café next to us, and I take a step toward it, longing for shade. “Can I take a little rest before we go any farther?”

“No, sorry. You’re stuck with— Wait, that’s a good idea. Stay here.” He pulls out a green café chair for me to sit in outside and goes inside the café. The sun is shining, but all the patrons of the café are shivering inside. This is the kind of day in Boston undergrads would wear shorts with tank tops and lie out in the warm rays between piles of melting snow. I turn my face up to the sun.

Others would think this is a big trade-off, living a life without the sun. It’s been a few hours since I saw Holter and a day since I saw Nico—I really thought I’d never see them again. But I know now: I would rather not see the sun again than live without them. It took walking away to know it. But I know it now.

I glance back into the café but can’t spot Eros through the window. I’m about to get up when he makes his way out.

---