"I want_" he stopped. "Never mind what I want...." His voice was quieter now.
"What do you want?"
"You. Always you!"
📍MATURE CONTENT📍
Part one: Half my soul.
Part two: she's no angel, he's no saint.
Part three: Dark paradise.
Part four: Tattered...
Getting into the house wasn't nearly as difficult as it should have been, and it put Kaz on edge. The easiest points of entry were the windows on the house's top floor, accessible only from the roof. Wylan wasn't up to the climb so Kaz would go first and get him inside via the lower floors.
"Two good legs and he still needs a ladder," Kaz muttered, ignoring the twinge his leg gave in agreement.
He wasn't thrilled to be on another job with Wylan, but Wylan had knowledge of the house and was best equipped to handle the auric acid. And he couldn't bring Aeolian on this job, she needed to be at the silos. After her kidnapping, he had not been able to distance himself from her—there was a constant fear that he'd lose her again.
He thought of the roaring silos. Aeolian was confident enough in her ability to walk the wire, with little rest and without the security of a net. And even if she was afraid, she'd hidden it well. Kaz shook the thought from his mind. If Aeolian didn't doubt her abilities, then he shouldn't either.
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Kaz had once heard a thief say. "A lock is like a woman, You have to seduce it into giving up its secrets."
Sure, a lock was like a woman. It was also like a man and anyone or anything else—if you wanted to understand it, you had to take it apart and see how it worked. If you wanted to master it, you had to learn it so well you could put it back together.
The lock on the window gave way in his hands. He quietly made his way downstairs, ducked into Wylan's old room—which was now clearly intended to be the nursery. Kaz worked the lock on the window, then secured the rope ladder. Wylan climbed up the ladder swaying it wildly.
Kaz rolled his eyes and helped him through the window, then pulled the ladder in and closed the sash. Wylan looked around the nursery with wide eyes, then just shook his head. Kaz made quick work of the lock on Van Eck's office door, and they were inside in moments.
"Behind the painting," Wylan whispered, gesturing to a portrait of one of the Van Eck ancestors.
"Which member of your hallowed line is that supposed to be?" Kaz asked.
"My great-great-grandfather. He was the start of the Van Eck fortune." Wylan said.
"And we'll be the end of it." Kaz shook out a bonelight, and the green glow filled the room.
They each took a side of the painting and lifted it from the wall. Van Eck's vault came into view. The lock on it was Kerch-made but like nothing Kaz had ever seen before. Impossible to crack in less than an hour. The sound of raised voices filtered up from the floor below.
