My guilt-ridden gaze locked on hers, and she gave me the stern-mom eye. “Empty all your pockets, Gray.”
“Come on, Mom,” I grouched, toeing the ground and folding my arms over my chest. “I haven’t taken anything.” The lie burned my tongue. I didn’t even know why I’d bothered. My mother knew me far too well.
“Now,” she warned, stabbing a finger downward.
My shoulders sagged in defeat. There was no way out of this. I reluctantly dug into my pockets and fished out a handful of oddities. They were so weirdly cool, with strange names stamped on the labels of the jars I’dborrowed them from. Things like the ‘Eyelashes of an Albino’ and ‘The Hunter’s Three-Headed Starburst’ and ‘Rustumple’s Golden Wheat of Death.’
My mother tucked the feather duster under an arm and cupped her hands together. With a glare and a petulant poke of my bottom lip, I held my fists over Mom’s hands and let the bits and pieces fall into her palms.
Mom held my gaze, arching a brow, and said, “Alllllllyour pockets, Gray. All the secret places on your suit.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake!
I’d stupidly thought I might get away with it.
Mom carefully put all the things I’d pinched on a shelf. Today I’d been shoved into a stuffy black suit, and I dug a hand into a hidden pocket stitched into the lining of my blazer, reluctantly fishing out the slender sword forged from the silver toenail of a Bog Booghie. It was as long as my pinky finger, and with my keen eyesight, I could make out the fine detailing, ornately carved into its blade.
Mom stretched out a hand with diamonds encircling her wrist. “Hand it over,Sticky Fingers.” She couldn’t help herself. The moment she voiced the nickname the Horned God had given me, her elegant crimson dress shivered around her figure as she shuddered, snickering. I scrunched my face into a dark scowl. Sticky Fingers!
Dropping the miniature weapon into her palm,I bent over and pulled out the line of teensy-tiny eyeballs strung together like a bracelet from the cuff of my pants. I straightened, my fingers moving to the stiff collar of my white shirt and tugging free a crystal the color of my baby brother’s irises that was held in place by the black tie looped around my neck. The crystal sparkled and seemed to hold an entire galaxy within its cloudy center.
As I passed it to my mother, my gaze hooked on a jar nearby, and I sighed with longing. I’d really wanted one of those creepy shrunken heads floating in a dirty-yellow liquid. Kenton wouldhave screamed like a girl if he had woken up to find it sitting on his pillow.
As I handed them all to her, shetskedat me, shaking her head. Her nose wrinkled as she cut a glance over her shoulder with a wry smile. “I guess I can’t really blame him.”
A gritty, warm laugh floated from the Horned God’s office. “No, little thief.”
Mom brought her gaze back to mine and ordered, “Shoes too, Gray.”
I frowned, glancing downward at my feet. “My shoes?”
She untucked the feather duster from beneath her arm and used it to point toward our feet. “Shoes are perfect for hiding small things that can be concealed near your toes.”
“Ah…” came from Florin. “I always wondered how you managed to steal those stones from me all those years ago.”
My mother’s mouth twitched with a grin, and she clamped her teeth down on her lip to stifle it.
I gaped in astonishment. “She did?” Glancing over my shoulder into Florin’s office with its oversized furniture, the Horned God was partially obscured as he leaned over a worn workbench, digging around for something near the back of it. I heard the rasp of wooden drawers opening and closing, and chinks of rattling metal before his voice rolled from its depth to reach where we stood amongst the rarities for sale. “Yes. I met your mother when she was a few years older than you. She’d slunk into my home to thieve from me.”
My attention sliced back to my mother. “You’re a thief?” I asked, completely taken aback.
She raised a finger to correct me. “I was a thief. I gave up that profession a long time ago.”
“Was?”A gruff laugh came from the office as if Florin disagreed with her.
She rounded his way and shot back at him with a defensive tone. “It’s not theft. Varen and I aremerelyreacquiringitems that were stolen from his family’s treasure trove when it was ransacked after they stepped down from Great House.”
My eyes widened.
What the…?
My voice rose in a squeak. “You and Dad are out stealing?”
My mother spun my way, and her eyes grew just as round as mine. “Oh… No…? Maybe…?” she fumbled, fussing with the feather duster. She blew out a breath from the side of her mouth and caved, throwing up a defeated hand and stamping a foot at the same time.“Ugh.Okay, yes, occasionally we pull a tiny heist or two.” She wiggled her golden brows and her eyes sparkled. “That’s how we fell for one another all those years ago. We were out stealing from the same person, and our heists collided one night.”
“Fuuu—”
Mom suddenly let out a strangled shriek, lurched forward, and slapped a hand over my mouth. “Graysen, you know we don’t use that kind of language in our family,” she warned.
