Steal the Sun (Thieves #4)(81)

Neil whirled around. “And she’s my friend. Sometimes she’s been the only friend I had in the whole world. I won’t give her up when she needs me. You think I’m not strong enough, well, let me tell you, I’ll always find the strength for her. If you want her you’ll have to fight me so just follow me and try to keep up, Lee.”

Lee sighed and his shoulders slumped forward in defeat. I could see every one of his thirty-five years on his face in that moment. “Go on, then, but be careful. I’ll stay behind with Zack and try to figure out what happened. I’ll be at the palace as soon as I can.”

“I will bring the healer,” Declan promised.

Neil nodded and then we were out in the sunshine of the afternoon. It was bright and sunny and that seemed to me the biggest insult of all. I looked over Neil’s shoulders and saw the trail of blood we were leaving. My heart seized because that was my baby boy’s life I was leaving in a thin stream on the ground. That was all of his tomorrows. I would never know him. I wouldn’t hold him and think about how much he looked like his father. I wouldn’t watch him take his first steps. I wouldn’t worry about his first day of school or tease him about his first date. He wouldn’t have any of those things, and I clutched Neil and cried for this small thing that would never be.

This is what the bean si had wailed about—my child, not my husband.

I had done everything wrong. I had never seen the danger coming. I finally understood the prophecy. So much had been lost and I mourned. I mourned for both my children. My boy and a girl I hadn’t realized was mine.

“Hold on, Zoey,” Neil said as he started to run.

I held on to his strong shoulders. He wasn’t that much bigger than me but he didn’t falter. I held on to him because it would kill him to fail.

I had already failed, so it didn’t much matter to me.





I woke up a long while later in the bed I shared with Dev and Daniel in the palace. Neil slept beside me and when I looked up, I knew it was night. The room was lit only by small candles, and the gloom seemed oppressive to me. I wanted to sink back into oblivion.

It was mostly over by the time the healer made it to the palace. Sarah had done everything she could to make me comfortable, but she confirmed that there was nothing that could be done to save my son and that was the way I thought of him now. Before he’d been just a worry and then something I might be able to get excited about in the distant future.

Now that he was gone, he was my son and I would never know him.

I’d been given several different solutions to drink and if Neil hadn’t been around, I would have just downed whatever was given to me. Neil had made sure Sarah watched the healer like a hawk. Neil had insisted on sniffing or tasting everything given to me. I didn’t care. I took something that was supposed to help complete the miscarriage, something for the pain and, worst of all, something to clear the curse because that was what had taken my child’s burgeoning life.

Through the haze of everything that had happened that afternoon, I understood what Sarah had explained to me. The tea I’d drunk contained a series of herbs that, when combined with the hex bag she found sewn into my clothes, formed a black magic curse. This particular curse purged a vessel of any magic. It could be used to render a magical sword mundane or kill a witch. In my case, my son was magical and it caused my body, which was not magical, to purge itself. It was a nasty spell, and whoever had used it on me had known exactly what they were doing.

Everyone who had been in Ross’s tavern was being held for questioning by the royal guard. The man who had tried to clear away the spiked teacup was being held in the dungeons, and I heard someone say he was talking. I wasn’t even mildly interested in what he had to say. They had also questioned anyone who handled my clothing.

There was a rustling at the window and I noticed a tall figure there. Sarah was asleep in a chair by the bed and I heard someone prowling in the outer rooms. I was pretty sure it was Lee. When the man turned from the window, my heart seized because Dev had come back.

“Dev.” The tears started again. It was all right to cry because Dev would hold me and if he was here, then so was Danny. I could sleep between them and they could promise they didn’t hate me for losing our child. I’d been reckless and stupid and we were all going to have to pay.

“I am sorry,” Declan said, his voice low as though he didn’t want to wake the others. Neil shifted beside me, but he did not wake. There was no arrogance on Declan’s face. It was why I’d mistaken him for his brother. “It is just me.”

I took a deep breath and wiped my tears away. “Sorry. I thought you were Dev.”

He nodded. I noticed he was dressed in traveling clothes, his riding gloves in one hand. “I wish he was here right now. I do not mean to pry, but I have to ask the question.”

I knew what he wanted. I was sure it was the question everyone was asking. I sat back, inexpressibly tired as I explained how the bean si curse had been about my son. “You want to know about my first child. God, I can’t believe I just said that. My child. Her name was Summer. I didn’t carry her, obviously. She was the product of a transference box that Daniel and I primed. I never considered her to be mine. She was an odd piece of magic. The tribe the box belonged to took her with them when they passed through the veil.”

Declan thought about that for a moment. “I know a little about transference boxes, though they are incredibly rare. There must be intent of will to create a child. Was it you?”