Steal the Night (Thieves #5)(103)

“Devinshea, you must keep your hands on Daniel,” Myrddin instructed Dev, who immediately pressed his palms on Daniel’s shoulders. “No matter what happens, you must stay in contact with the king. Do you understand?”

Dev kept his hands on Daniel’s shoulders. “I understand. I won’t fail.”

“No matter what,” Myrddin warned. “If you let go, even for a moment, he will die.”

“I will not let go.” Dev’s green eyes met mine and made me a promise. He would never let go. He would die before he failed.

“Where do you want me?” Nim asked.

Myrddin pointed to the other side of the circle. “You’re out of practice, Nimue. Are you sure you can handle this?”

Nim’s violet eyes flared. “I can handle anything you throw at me, wizard. Don’t forget who won the last fight we had.”

“I will never forget that, Nimue,” the wizard promised, his voice silky and smooth. “Then we begin.”

Simultaneously, both Nim and Myrddin threw their arms out as though they could embrace the circles, and I felt a strange wave of energy roll across me. Zack was suddenly at my back, his hands coming up on my shoulders. They were there for comfort but also to pull me back at the first sign of any danger. With Lee gone, Zack would consider me his first priority, even above Daniel. My safety would be paramount in his master’s mind, so Zack would make that his job. There was a loud hum and then a crackle in the air as a long tube of blue light seemed to advance from the bottom of the circle. It made its way slowly up toward the top, like water filling up a cylinder.

Myrddin was murmuring something, but I didn’t recognize the language. It wasn’t Latin. I suspected it was older than that. This was magic like I had never seen before. It filled the room and seemed to be searching for something. It flowed from the wizard and I could feel it move about like a living thing, seeking a place to strike. Zack pulled me back against his chest when I felt the tendrils brush against us. There was a tingle where it touched me, but it quickly realized I was not what it was looking for and moved on.

There was a crack and a pulse as that magic found what it wanted. It hit Nim with impressive force and I saw her stagger a bit on the impact. She breathed through what looked like no small amount of pain and her violet eyes went a deep purple as Myrddin’s magic invaded her body. The blue tube of light shot up the rest of the way to the ceiling and there was a sucking sound, like it had sealed itself off.

I suddenly heard the sound of rival thuds. One was quicker than the other but both kept a steady beat.

“Excellent. The stasis chamber is well established. I believe Nimue can hold it on her own.” Myrddin turned to us, his eyes sparkling with excitement. He reminded me of a child with a new toy. He walked to the basin and washed his hands carefully, like a surgeon. When he returned, he carried a tray that he placed on a table next to the stasis chamber.

“So this stasis chamber will help Dev keep Daniel alive?” My voice was shaky because it was all happening so fast.

The wizard’s head bent to his task while he answered me. “Yes, it takes the king and Devinshea out of this reality and into a more suitable one for the required surgery. It’s a small slice of a more magical plane that I keep in touch with. It makes certain things possible that wouldn’t be on this plane.”

I didn’t understand entirely, but I had visited several planes and knew there were many I couldn’t name or even conceive of.

“Are we hearing their heartbeats?” Zack’s hands were still on my shoulders, though I think they were more for comfort than anything else. Zack and I had fought and argued over the years, but we were family.

“Yes, wolf.” Myrddin stood now and flexed his fingers. “It will tell me how much time I have. The king’s is the slower beat. A vampire’s heart beats much more slowly than a regular human, while the faery’s beat is slightly faster. I need to monitor them closely so I know when to put the king’s heart back in.”

“What?” I couldn’t have heard him correctly. He said he would have to put Danny’s heart back in. That would necessitate him taking it out.

Rather than answering, he shoved his hand through the blue light of the stasis chamber and reached into Daniel’s chest. Like his hand moved through thick mud, he had to shove just a little, but then he was wrist deep inside Daniel’s chest and after a second’s work, he pulled out his heart. It pumped in his hand.

The wizard’s smile was triumphant as he held the heart up. “See, I told you it was simple.”





Chapter Twenty-Five





“Zoey, don’t try anything,” Zack whispered urgently into my ear.

“He pulled Daniel’s heart out of his chest.” My hand was on the gun Lee had left me.

“That would be my point,” Zack explained. “Do you know how to get it back in?”

I hated it when Zack made sense. “Of course I don’t know how to reattach a heart, but I know enough to know we shouldn’t have let some freaky wizard pull Daniel’s out. He’s holding his heart, Zack.”

Panic threatened to overwhelm me. I looked to where the wizard bent over his tray, his fingers working rapidly. He kept moving from the heart to the small set of tools he’d unrolled prior to ripping my husband’s heart from his chest. He moved with a weird grace, his hands flowing effortlessly as he worked. Perhaps that should have given me some comfort, but I couldn’t get over the sight of Daniel’s heart pumping in the wizard’s hand.