Page 63

S O CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT, TIME SEEMS TO STOP.

My mouth drops open. Despite the murmur of the party surrounding me, the room feels frozen in its golden glow. Even the ice castle seems to cease melting for one impossible moment.

Jackson.

He’s here .

He’s wearing a tux. The slashes of night-black fabric on snow-white look tailored—a suit waiting for this very moment. He’s damningly handsome. Pull-your-heart-out-of-your-chest handsome. Not a pawn. A king.

For one moment, I forget everything.

My plan, my revenge. My fears, my resentments. The minutes counting down. Everything seems suddenly simple. Midnight is near, and the boy I love came back.

I walk forward as if in a trance, only half conscious of how I leave Tom behind. “Jackson,” I say when I near him.

His eyes lock on me. Emotions too numerous to name collide in his brown irises. I don’t care which ones evade my discernment, because I find the ones I need. Love. Courage. Need.

Reaching him, I realize—he’s drenched. As if he stood out in the snow for hours or walked up the whole mountain to get back here.

It’s even more perfect, somehow. His dashing suit, the restless curl of his hair, doused with the evidence of how he raged against the cold. Half gentleman. Half survivor.

“What are you—How—?” I can’t decide on a question. Do any of them matter when he’s here?

Jackson clasps my hand, his eyes lit with urgency. In the quick pressure, reality starts to return. Jackson here is… dangerous. I didn’t want to cast him out. I had to. Now, minutes until my heist commences, here he is. My mind starts to cry out no while my heart reverberates with yes .

“I know you wanted me to go,” he says. “I know you expected me to listen. It’s what I do, right? But I have something to tell you.”

His voice surprises me. Not cold, like in the parlor. But there’s a hardness to it.

Something to tell you.

Behind Jackson, I notice the vault cracker entering the dining room, looking determined. I have to move.

I wrench my gaze to Jackson’s. “No,” I force out. “Jackson, we’re done. I’m sure I deserve every horrible thing you have to say. Really,” I promise him. “But we’re done.”

Turning toward Leonie, I start to leave to give the signal to my crew.

Jackson catches my arm, holding me in place. His grip is like his voice. Hard, yet not rough.

No innocent clumsiness drives him. He knows what he’s interrupting. Or, he knows enough, even without knowing the new plan. Fear shocks into me. Is this revenge ? He’s sabotaging my heist because I dumped him?

His hand is cold through my jacket. “I went to the hospital. You’re in danger, Olivia.”

My vision tunnels on the boy in front of me, the room, the heist forgotten. “You—” I work through what this means. He didn’t leave because I asked him to. He left because he wanted to carry out what he proposed in my room last night. He talked to Ernest.

Of course I’m in danger. Every one of us is , I want to reply. But I can’t. “You really shouldn’t have done that,” I say instead.

For the first time since I wrongfully believed he betrayed me, I glare at Jackson. He holds my stare without remorse.

“I make my own choices, Olivia. I didn’t just come to Volenvell because you asked me or because I was afraid you’d dump me if I didn’t. And I won’t just leave because you’ve given me an order. I went to the hospital.” He pulls me close, like we’re dancing.

We’re not.

“Otto is a Knife,” he says urgently, quietly.

“I think a pretty high-up one. He has people in the village. One of them was Ernest’s attacker.

Others… Olivia, he wants into the vault, and if he gets in, revenge on Leonie is next on his list. Ernest said Otto covered up what happened to Andrew. He can do it again tonight.”

I feel my hand start to shake. I make a fist to hide my tremor. What Jackson’s found out only puts him in graver danger. If Otto discovers that Jackson knows, he’ll think I told him. He’ll probably kill Jackson.

Not to mention, Jackson’s interference could disrupt the heist, which would put every one of us at risk.

The snow globe surrounding us when I walked over to him has shattered. I feel time’s relentless push forward. Seconds picking up, speeding like my pulse.

Logistics come with them. Consequences.

Complications.

“Jackson, you need to leave,” I order him. “I already told you this isn’t your world. You’re not part of this anymore. Leave it to me.”

“I can’t,” he protests. His expression is wrecked.

I flinch, the shattered snow globe’s edges slicing into me.

He stares right into my eyes. “You think our worlds are too different. I don’t. You just don’t see the goodness in yourself. I’ve seen the way you care for your friends,” Jackson says. “Even when you had to sacrifice all your plans, you still chose their safety.”

I still. He means the explosion in the vault. How I ushered everyone out.

“Like you’re doing with me right now,” he continues.

I find his eyes reluctantly.

“I know you’re trying to keep me safe. I’m telling you that Otto is the key to your revenge, and you’re choosing to protect me instead. I don’t just love you, Olivia. I admire you.”

My lip wobbles. Tears burn my eyes. My world blurs.

He pins me with his fondest look. Then his expression hardens.

“And I’m not the perfect guy you think I am.

You have me on this pedestal, which is why you think we don’t fit together.

But I’m as capable of selfishness as anyone.

I didn’t come here because you wanted me to.

I came here because I wanted to. Because I want to be part of everything you do.

Because I know you will always do the right thing.

” He grips my hand hard. “How could our worlds be different when you are my world?”

The question pierces my defenses. I let out a sob. Softly—one nobody hears but us.

He smiles sheepishly. Neither gentleman nor survivor now, neither pawn nor king. Just the boy I fell in love with. Whose courage and vigor, cunning and kindness, humor and devotion follow his unstoppable heart.

“Okay, I did work on that line as I stood outside pacing,” he confesses. “I needed it to be right.”

“Jackson…” I’m not selfless enough to resist this. No one is.

“I want to be part of this,” Jackson insists, doubling down on his victory. “I want to help you find out what happened to your grandfather. I want to protect you from the Knives. I want to kiss you at midnight.”

Oh, how I want the same. New Year’s with Jackson. If we weren’t in Volenvell, if we weren’t ringing in midnight under the Owens family’s roof… It hurts, imagining how happy I would feel. “It’s too dangerous,” I choke out. I need to finish this conversation before the plan falls apart.

“I decide what’s too dangerous for me, Olivia,” he says. “If you don’t want me, fine. I won’t force you to keep me. But don’t choose for me.”

I open my mouth, my eyes locked on his. I find nothing I can offer him, though. Neither denial nor confirmation. Obviously, I want to say yes. I want to believe in his kind words, his reassurances.

Not just that I’ll keep him safe, because I’m capable, uncompromising, and resilient. I know I’m those things.

No, I want to feel I’m worth loving . It’s the secret I keep locked in my heart—I could only withstand dumping Jackson because I genuinely believed in the end, he wouldn’t hurt forever.

He would move on. He would recover. He would forget me because he could never love me the way I love him. Never.

Now he’s given me what I sought to lock out of my soul—hope.

Not just in his adoring words, either. No, his impossible promise holds in its own way a path forward.

Jackson defied me to be here. He fought for us even when I wouldn’t, while I resigned myself to forsaking the person I love because of the destiny Otto Karlson masterminded for me.

What if, instead of worrying about making Jackson more like me… I dared to act more like him?

Heists have infinite pieces. Plans, roles, moves, and countermoves. Complications. Really, though, they only have two. Risk and reward.

Jackson understands the danger now. He followed me, followed my family, into the darkness. He’s promising me the world anyway. He knows the risk.

And the reward…

I look up into his eyes, helpless, speechless, grasping for my reply.

I don’t get the chance. Leonie herself comes up beside Jackson, seeming to materialize from nowhere.

“It’s time you go, young man,” she declares. While my grandmother never raises her voice, her flinty fury is evident.

Jackson rounds on Leonie. “I’m not here for you. No one is,” he snaps. “You may be surrounded by family, but in the end, you’ll end up with nothing,” he promises her viciously. “The only people who will remain at your side will be just like you .”

Leonie’s reaction surprises me even more than Jackson’s vehemence. She falters. Evaluates Jackson with her characteristic clockwork look.

“Maybe I was wrong about you,” she determines.

With Jackson’s judgment, new inspiration surges in me. I pull my eyes to my grandmother, overcome with fury. Jackson is right. I don’t want to be part of Leonie’s lonely world. I don’t want my own sad mountaintop. I don’t want to inherit Volenvell or Leonie’s money.

I’ll build my own fucking castle. I’ll forge my own destiny, determining my own legacy. Olivia Owens, not an heiress. An empress.

The puzzle of the night fits together once more. I know what I need to do. I spy my crew in position, waiting. It’s time.

I lift my hand.

“Happy birthday, Leonie,” I say. “From the Knives.”

When I touch my grandmother’s elbow in what looks like fondness, the gesture pulls up my jacket from my sleeve enough to expose the cuff links—revealing to Leonie the daggers glinting in the gold light.

It’s the signal. In my periphery, I notice my crew start to move. Coordinated. Focused. Grace points out the vault cracker to Sofia, pretending to look surprised while inviting my cousin’s panic. Tom glides toward the entrance to find Otto and keep close.

I register the shock and terror on my grandmother’s face for one satisfying heartbeat. I offer her only disinterest, then move my gaze to Jackson.

He won’t force my hand, won’t make my decisions for me. Nor will I make his for him. “As long as you’re in danger, we can’t be together. Trust me to handle this,” I say. “Then… we can see if we can build a new world. Not mine or yours. Ours. ”

I don’t wait for his response. Without looking back, I leave him behind.

Chaos has started to consume the shimmering room.

The presence of the vault cracker, one of the men who just yesterday detonated a dangerous explosion in the castle, who has intruded on the precious, luxurious night, has frightened my family.

The string music stops. Shrieks erupt from people who have never really known fear or uncertainty.

I leave them to their disquiet.

Exiting Volenvell, I continue into the snowy courtyard. The silent night greets me. I don’t regret wearing my favorite heels to my second heist. Knowing everything is in place, I cross the courtyard with careful steps to the moonlit West Tower.

The lock has been repaired. I pick it quickly, sliding a pin from my hair.

Feeling ready, I open the door and descend into the dungeon.

Walking down into the darkness, I can’t help remembering the first time I descended into the dungeon of Volenvell Castle.

Then, I was being shown my inheritance. Now, I’m claiming it.