The Hearts We Sold(68)

At first, no one spoke. But they were all thinking the same thing. This was it—their Rumpelstiltskin clause. If they could figure out how to get their hearts back, fair and square, then the Daemon would be outwitted. They could leave this nightmare behind and keep their ill-gotten gains.

All that stood between them and their hearts was a heavy vault door.

“You think we could break in?” Dee asked.

“I’m not a criminal mastermind,” said James, “contrary to what your roommate thought about me. I’ve never actually done anything illegal—well, except for that time I squatted in Italy, but I’m not sure that counts. You got any ideas, Cora?”

Cora crossed her arms. “Do I look like a criminal?”

And she had a point; Dee was pretty sure master criminals didn’t wear frilly blouses and pencil skirts—or at least, the ones in Portland didn’t.

“I might be able to do it.”

Three heads turned in unison to look at Riley.

“What?” said James flatly.

Riley looked half-ashamed, half-proud when she said, “I may have attempted to build explosives before.”

Dee felt her mouth drop open. James snorted and Cora took a step back.

“Just to see if I could,” said Riley hastily. “I wasn’t going to blow anything up. I just… I want to go into demolitions. That’s my dream job. You know, taking down old buildings and stuff.”

“You’re the new Cal,” Dee said, understanding. For the first time, she thought she might have glimpsed the Daemon’s motives—why he picked this girl above all others at Mephisto Market.

Riley blinked. “I’m the new what?”

“Explosives expert,” said James. He pressed both palms to the door. “But—I mean. Really? You think you could take down this door without blowing up what’s inside the vault?”

Riley took a step back, surveying the vault door with a critical eye. “It depends on how large the vault is. I could go at the door with a thermal lance, but I’d need to know the dimensions of the vault. If the space is too small, I’d end up cooking everyone’s hearts.”

A collective shudder.

Riley added, “Also, it would take a while. Could you guarantee that the Daemon won’t walk in on us trying to break in? Because I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t take that well.”

“We haven’t seen him in weeks,” said Cora, agitated. Her hands clenched and relaxed, clenched and relaxed. “I was hoping maybe he would be here, that we could get some answers out of him.”

James rubbed at his chin, probably trying to look intellectual, but the day-old shadow took away from that image. Dee tamped down a smile.

“Out of idle curiosity, could you get a thermal lance?” he asked.

Riley’s mouth turned down. “Um. No. Could you?”

“Maybe.” James tilted his head, as if to get a better look at the door. “The art community here is pretty eclectic. I would bet that someone I know has one stashed away somewhere. Probably using it to cut steel or something.”

“So we could do this,” Cora said. Her eyes were wide, and there was hope in her face Dee had never seen before. “We could really pull this off—get our hearts back, never worry about the Daemon again.”

“Well,” said Riley, “that would be ‘again’ for all of you. I’ve never really had to deal with him.”

“No more voids,” said James, a little dreamily. “And I could just put my heart on a shelf somewhere, maybe paint it.”

Dee snorted. “Or, you know, it could go back in your chest. Where it belongs.”

James shrugged. “Maybe I like being heartless.”

Of course he would, she thought. He liked being contrary like that.

She was about to answer, but the words caught in her throat.

It was the rat. The one she’d seen before. It had darted forward into the darkened hallway and vanished.

Dee blinked. Hard. Sure she was seeing things.

With a small pop, the rat reappeared, flung backward by some invisible force. It toppled over, squeaking wildly, then wobbled unsteadily away.

Dee took a step forward.

None of them had seen it. This corridor was too dark, their flashlights too focused on the shiny bright metal of the vault door.

The air shimmered like heat waves.

“Guys,” said Dee, and her voice quavered, too high and thin for them to hear.

James was saying something about a sculptor he knew, Cora ribbing him about saying he knew everyone in the city, but the words blurred in her ears, drowned out by her own ragged breathing. It was like a dream where she spoke too quietly, couldn’t be heard no matter how she screamed for help.

Her voice finally cracked out. “Void,” she said. “There’s a void.”

Cora crossed her arms, brow wrinkling. “What? What do you—”

Riley looked similarly confused.

Only James reacted like Dee had; he moved onto the balls of his feet, looking down the dark corridor.

The void rippled, and for some reason all Dee could think of was plastic wrap, how she used to press her fingers to it as a kid, seeing how far she could push until the plastic warped and snapped.

Something was pushing through the mouth of the void.

A probing extremity pressed, and Dee saw the air warp around it, twisting and straining until—