Bring Me Their Hearts(24)

I make a bow with flourish. The girl giggles at it. The sound reminds me so much of Peligli it makes my unheart ache. She starts to walk over to me, but “Whisper” holds her back.

“Don’t,” he says. “She could hurt you.”

“He’s right,” I agree lightly. “Never trust strangers. They’re sometimes mean and oftentimes smelly. And occasionally, they’ll even call you a hypocrite.”

“You are one,” he insists.

“Oh, I know. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt to hear.”

He turns to the girl and says something softly. She looks to me, then walks off with the watch in her hand. When she’s gone, I speak.

“You stole it for her, huh? I misjudged you, Whisper.”

His black eyes turn hard, like the edges of knives. “Why did you follow me?”

“I was bored, and you were making quite the ruckus.”

“The real reason,” Whisper insists, cutting through my lie. I smile.

“When I see people do the things I do, and do them better, I get curious. Offended, but also curious. I had no choice but to follow you!”

I circle him once, looking him up and down for any indication of who he really is. But there’s only black leather, gloved hands clenched, a lean frame, and those narrow midnight eyes.

“There’s always a choice,” he says. He wears the heavy words with ease, as if someone’s said them to him a hundred times before. Practiced. Resigned. They aren’t his words, nor are they his experience, and it shows.

I laugh, the sound scaring a nearby sunbird from its perch on a laundry line.

“The only people who say that”—I manage to catch my breath—“are the people who never have to make hard choices. People with luxury. People in power, who are never well and truly backed against the hard wall of life.”

…one young, one old, one with no left eye, one who never screamed…

I can smell Mother’s blood, see Father’s insides, hear the bandit’s screams, even when I close my eyes.

“Sometimes, Sir Whisper, the choices are made for you, and there’s nothing you can do except make up for them.”

The emptiness in my chest is proof of that. But I don’t say any of this. His eyes glare out from beneath his hood—I had no idea obsidian could burn so hot.

“You speak as if you’re much older than you look,” he says finally.

“And you steal in broad daylight from a Goldblood. Either you’re a madman or desperate.”

“You’re the one going to court to become one of those repulsive, gossip-stuffed morons.” He scoffs, a sudden venom in his words. “If anyone’s desperate here, it’s you.”

It wouldn’t take a polymath to figure out I’m a noble from the terribly fancy silk I’m wearing. First he steals from a noble, now he insults them. I’m beginning to think this is personal. I make a bow.

“A noble girl, at your service. I’d curtsy at you, but I assume you get enough of that already.”

He glowers. “You think me noble?”

“I know you to be noble.”

“You know nothing about me.”

Angry. Imperious. So quick, too. Defensive—like he’s hiding the truth I got far too close to. He might be a good thief, but he’s a terrible liar.

“Listen to that tone. You really are a noble,” I marvel. “Let me guess—a lord’s son? No, something higher, something so high you have to slip out of the court and steal in the streets just to breathe. A duke’s son.”

As I inch closer to the truth, his eyes get narrower. “He doesn’t like girls like you,” he says.

“Who?” I blink.

“Prince Lucien.”

“You’re friends with him, then? He’s told you gold-haired girls with little in the way of modesty aren’t his type?”

“A dozen girls just like you have pined after his looks, his power, his riches. Or all three. You’re no different—he’s an object to you, a symbol. Something you can obtain for your own selfish ends.”

“And what if I told you I’m not after any of those things?” I ask.

“Then what are you after?”

I put a hand over my empty chest. “I might be a thief, but I’m also a romantic. I’m after his heart.”

He scoffs. “You’re a liar is what you are. The court isn’t the playground you think it is—if you underestimate it, it will rip you apart, leave you in scraps for the dogs. The prince isn’t worth the pain. Leave, while you still can.”

I ponder this deeply for a half second before smiling.

“I’d love to, but I can’t. I’ve got something to do. And if I left now, I’d hate myself. There are lots of things in life I can live with—world hunger, plagues, my terrible bedhead, the inevitable end of civilization as we know it—but I just can’t stand hating myself.”

I saunter toward him, all smiles, until we’re nearly touching. Ever since leaving the woods, the scents of the world assault me; he is all leather and rainwater and sweat. He’s a noble—one of the many I need to fool. He’s also a boy. If I can’t soften this one up, what chance do I have with the prince?

Whisper’s frozen in place, dark gaze never leaving my face.