The Last Magician

by Lisa Maxwell

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Harte spat. If he could just get close enough to Nibs to touch him again without Viola noticing . . .

  But she was still watching, and he had a feeling that if he did anything else to Nibs, she’d be in the mood to kill first and ask questions later.

  “You know, Dolph had me take care of getting her situated. She likes opium, doesn’t she, your mother?” Nibs stepped closer to Harte and smiled, his teeth stained red from the blood. “You’re not out. And you won’t breathe a word of our little conversation here to anyone. Not unless you want me to make sure your mother’s out too. I can make sure she gets all the poppy she wants. Not to kill her. Not right away, at least. But there are worse things than dying, aren’t there?”

  Harte reached for him again, but this time the boy dodged away. “No, I don’t think so. I know you can do more than read minds, Darrigan. I don’t think I want you to touch me again.”

  “The only reason I’d touch you is to kill you,” he growled.

  “You’re welcome to try. No one’s been able to yet. I’m always three steps ahead of them, and I always will be.” Nibs gave him a threatening look. “Go get Morgan’s nephew. I want that book, or I’ll make sure that everything you hold dear is destroyed. Your name. Your mother. Even your girl.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Let’s not waste our time with lies, Darrigan. Get out of here before I tell Viola you need to be taken out.” He smiled, satisfied. “She’ll believe me, you know. They all will, because I’m one of them. And you never will be.”

  Harte took a step back, a war rioting inside him. All of his careful plans were crumbling around him. But then he thought of Esta, stuck in that dank, vermin-infested prison. Esta, who could steal anything. He could never tell her all of what he planned, but with her help, it just might work.

  “You’ve overplayed your hand, Nibs.”

  “No,” the boy said with a lurid smile. “You only think I have.”

  THE THREAD UNRAVELS

  Viola was still washing glasses behind the bar when Dolph returned, tired and frustrated. He walked over to the bar, and she poured him two fingers of whiskey without his asking.

  “You look worse than when you left.”

  Dolph stared at the drink, but he didn’t take it. “I wasn’t out for my health. Kelly’s up to something. His boys cut up three of ours tonight.”

  “I thought you’d worked out something with him,” Viola said with a frown.

  He ignored the implied question. “He has some bigger game going. Even Jianyu is having trouble figuring out what it is.” He took the glass in his hand and rubbed his thumb over its smooth surface.

  “I could try to find out for you?”

  “No,” he said, and when she scowled at him, he explained, “It’s not that I don’t trust you to handle yourself, but I don’t need Kelly to know we’re worried.” She continued to frown down at where her blades were resting on the bar top. He’d upset her, but she didn’t argue.

  That silence almost bothered him more. She’d been too quiet ever since Tilly’s death. He told himself it was natural, expected, but with everything else going on, he wasn’t sure if maybe there was something more happening with her.

  “Jianyu return yet?” he asked.

  “No, but Darrigan came in not long ago. Said that Esta had been picked up at the Haymarket. He was looking for you, but he had words with Nibs and then went storming off.”

  “Is that right?” Dolph eyed the boy at the back of the barroom. “About what?”

  “You’d need to talk to Nibs.”

  The boy was sitting at his usual table in the back of the bar, poring over the nightly ledgers. His glasses were perched over a swollen nose and his right eye had already turned a painful-looking purple-green.

  “I didn’t know you were taking up prizefighting,” Dolph said, easing himself into his usual chair.

  “Not on purpose,” Nibs said, glancing up. “Darrigan did it.”

  “Oh?”

  “I might have pushed him too far when I reminded him that the Book was more important than the girl.”

  “Viola mentioned something about Esta getting herself arrested in the raid tonight. Do we need to send someone?”

  “Darrigan will get her out,” Nibs said. “He seems to be even more tied up with her than we planned.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” Dolph asked. “It’s exactly what I wanted. Maybe if he’s attached to her, he won’t do anything stupid.”

  “Unless she’s tied up with him, too.” Nibs made another mark in his book.

  “That would be a problem?”

  “It would be if they started getting ideas,” Nibs said with a frown. “We wouldn’t want them going off on their own and cutting us out.”

  The boy was always figuring, always planning. It was a skill that Dolph had prized, back when he’d had the means to control Nibs. Back when taking his mark meant taking an oath of loyalty. But now that the marks were dead and useless, and Nibsy knew, Dolph was starting to wonder how much faith he should put in the boy whose plans rarely went awry.

  Looking at Nibsy’s broken nose and battered face, though, Dolph dismissed that thought almost as quickly as it had come to him. He was getting too paranoid.  After all, the boy had taken a hit from Darrigan for him—a direct one, from the looks of it. That had to mean something.

  He’d talk to the girl and make sure things were progressing. It wouldn’t hurt to remind her what she stood to lose.

  “Any news yet about what caused the raid?” Dolph asked. “It’s too much of a coincidence that after months of quiet, the police pick tonight of all nights.”

  “I haven’t heard from Bridget yet, if that’s what you’re asking.” Nibs glanced up at him. “It’s strange, now that I think of it. Usually she sends word by now.  You don’t think she was the one to tip them off, do you?”

  “I doubt it.” Dolph frowned. “Bridget hates the Order and pretty much everyone else. She wouldn’t have anything to gain by helping them.”

  “Then where did she disappear to?”

  “I don’t know,” Dolph said, uneasy.

  He understood what Nibs was suggesting, but Bridget Malone owed him too much to cross him.  After all, Dolph had freed her from her violent drunk of a husband. He’d given Bridget a second chance and the freedom to build a new life, and she repaid him by sending him new talent before the other bosses found them. Most of their kind knew of the arrangement, and if a girl found herself in a bad situation, she knew to go to Bridget. He couldn’t see what she would have to gain by starting the raid.

  “Did you finish with your business?” Nibs asked, turning back to his ledgers. “I expected you back a while ago.”

  “There were problems with Kelly tonight. A gang of his attacked three of our boys. Beat them to a pulp—it’ll be lucky if Higgins can walk after he heals.”

  Nibs peered up over the wire rims of his spectacles. “Did they cross into Kelly’s turf ?”

  “Of course not,” Dolph said. His people knew to be careful. “It happened on Elizabeth Street, not two blocks from here. Kelly’s boys shouldn’t have even been there.”

  “You sure it was Kelly’s that did it?” Nibs asked.

  Dolph nodded. “They carved the Five Pointer’s mark into each of their cheeks. Even if they recover from the other wounds, that will leave a scar. They’ll be marked now for life.”

  “I thought you said he was under control,” Nibs said.

  Dolph frowned. Things were changing, he thought to himself. Too fast. And for the first time since he’d started down this road, he wondered if he would be able to keep up. “I’ll send Viola. She can take care of the ones who did it without any evidence.”

  Nibsy’s brows went up. “Wouldn’t it be better to let Kelly know? It might put him back in his place.”

  “No. Let him wonder. Let him worry about his weaknesses and who his enemies might be. The more uneas
y he is, the more vulnerable he’ll be,” Dolph said, but even as he spoke, he couldn’t help wondering how much he was talking about Paul Kelly and how much the words were a warning to himself.

  THE TOMBS

  Halls of Justice

  The city’s Halls of Justice, better known as the Tombs, were a layer cake of depravity. The top floors housed the petty criminals—pickpockets, green game runners, and other less violent offenders. The farther down you went into the building, the worse the prisoners became. By the time you reached the second floor, you were among robbers and murders, and the ground floor held the worst of all—runners for the local games, shyster lawyers, phony bondsmen, and of course the city’s police, who were so deep in the pockets of  Tammany that justice was only a word they tossed around like the latest dirty joke.

  Harte had spent a night there not long after his mother left him. Locked in a cell with grown men, he’d been helpless to do more than survive the night huddled in the corner, fending off unwanted advances the only way he knew how—with magic. For that to work, though, he’d let them touch him, skin to skin.

  He’d made it through that night, but he hadn’t left unaffected. After that night, he’d understood exactly what people were capable of.

  Even now, safe as he was, staring up at the ornately carved columns and window lintels designed to look like some ancient Egyptian burial chamber, he felt as soiled as the building’s once-white facade. He could only imagine what was happening to Esta.

  My fault. He’d pushed her to go into the dance hall, even when she’d clearly been worried. He’d goaded her over dinner—an act for Jack, but one he’d enjoyed a little too much because of what she’d done during the performance. And then he’d left her behind. Now, because of him, she was in the prison that still haunted his dreams. And he had no idea how to get her out.

  But he needed her out. If he was going to stop Jack from finishing his machine, avoid the future Nibs had planned, and get around Dolph, he was going to need her help.

  The night he’d spent behind the walls of the Tombs, he’d sworn to himself that he would never be put in a position where he was that helpless ever again, and for the most part he’d held himself to that. Until now. Somehow, in the span of one night, everything had gone ass over elbow.

  He let out a string of curses under his breath that would have embarrassed a prison guard.

  “I knew you had a rougher side underneath all that polish,” an amused voice said from behind him.

  Harte turned to find Esta dressed with a ragged coat covering her evening gown. Her hair had mostly fallen and the black feathers that had adorned it the night before were broken or tilted at haphazard angles. The shock of seeing her there, safe and whole, sent such a wave of relief crashing through him that, before he thought better of it, he had his arms around her, crushing her to him, barely conscious of how she was pushing away.

  It was only the smell of the coat that brought him back to his senses. It reeked of sweat and onions and stale tobacco. As he let her go and took a step back so he could breathe, he felt suddenly aware of how impulsively he’d reacted to seeing her. How dangerous it would be to let himself forget everything that was at stake.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I’m rescuing you,” he said, knowing exactly how absurd the words were even as he spoke them. She was standing there, right in front of him. And now she was smiling. She clearly didn’t need to be rescued. “How did you get out?”

  “I told you that day you tried to lock me up with those stupid handcuffs of yours—there isn’t a lock I can’t crack.”

  He frowned, trying desperately to regain his footing. “That was a risk, using your affinity in there. Someone might have noticed,” he said, cringing inwardly at how stupid he sounded.

  “I didn’t. Use my affinity, I mean. I’m good enough without it. Once I got out of the cell, I traded the necklace for this coat and then lifted this.” She held up a visitor’s pass. “They’re not exactly the brightest bunch, you know?”

  “Desperate people rarely are.”

  She wrinkled her nose slightly as she pulled the filthy coat tighter around her, completely hiding her dress. “Did you make any progress with Jack?”

  That’s all she has to say? “You aren’t going to ask why I left you?”

  She blinked at him, her brows bunching. “I didn’t know you did.”

  “Yeah.” Harte squared his shoulders, daring her to complain about his choice. “I went with Jack when the police raided the ballroom. He was interested, and I didn’t want to lose him. I left you,” he challenged.

  Her brow furrowed, but only slightly. “That’s good, if you got something from him.”

  It wasn’t the response he expected. “It is?” She should have been angrier. She should have been furious with him for leaving her. He would have been.

  But she never reacted in any predictable way. It was maddening.

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not some wilting violet, Harte. You should know that much about me by now. If the situation was reversed, I probably would have done the same.”

  “You would have, wouldn’t you?” he said, reminding himself of all the reasons he shouldn’t trust her.

  “What?” she asked warily.

  “Where did you go last night?” he asked. “When you left me with Jack.”

  “I told you, I had to powder my nose.”

  She played you beautifully. That was what Nibs had said. How much was she still playing him?

  “You were gone long enough to powder your entire body,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Try again. And this time, try without the lies.”

  “You don’t trust me? I thought we were past this.”

  He huffed out a sound of disbelief. “You don’t trust me, either, or you’d tell me what took you so long to get back to us. Were you meeting someone?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, and she turned to walk away, but he snagged her wrist and pulled her back.

  “There’s too much at stake for any more lies between us. I came here to rescue you today,” he said softly, trying a different approach.

  Her expression was closed off, distant. “I didn’t need you to rescue me.”

  Frustration had him wanting to lash out at her, but he held it in. Kept himself calm. This was too important to make any misstep because of his ego. “That isn’t the point. I came.”

  “But why? You’ve been trying to get rid of me since Dolph sent me. This would have been a perfect opportunity.”

  “Because I can’t do this without you. I need you to hook Jack, but I need to know whose side you’re on.”

  “I’m with Dolph,” she told him, her brows furrowing. “Just like you’re supposed to be.”

  “Are you? Or are you with Nibsy?”

  Her brow wrinkled. “He works for Dolph,” she said. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “Sure.” He rubbed his hand over his mouth, scratching at the growth of whiskers that were already beginning to itch. “You’re right.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “If we’re going to pull this off, we need to be able to trust each other.”

  “You really came back for me?” she asked, tilting her head to one side, so that a single lock of her hair fell over her forehead and into her eyes.

  “Yeah. I did,” he said, keeping his hands tucked into his pockets so that he wouldn’t reach for her, wouldn’t brush that lock of hair aside just so he could feel it slip between his fingers.

  He was still uneasy. But if he was going to get the Book and keep it away from Jack and Nibsy, he needed her. Especially now that he couldn’t depend on anyone else. He just had to keep his heart locked up and his head on straight.

  ANGLES AND EDGES

  Harte’s Apartment

  Esta sat on the edge of Harte’s porcelain tub, looking at the news clipping. She’d changed something, or she’d started to. The story of Dolph’s
arrest and death was still there, but it kept blurring, as though the words couldn’t decide which future to pick. She thought she could almost make out another story floating just beneath the surface of the page, like another time waiting for her to slip through to it. But then she’d blink, and it would be gone.

  In truth, she was only delaying the inevitable moment when she’d have to face Harte again. He’d come back for her, and she had no idea what to do with that.

  Maybe she’d been going about things all wrong. Professor Lachlan said she had to stop the Magician, and she’d assumed that meant working against him. But her actual goal was to get the Book, and maybe to do that, it would be easier to work with him. Maybe they didn’t have to be enemies.

  Except in the end, she would still betray him, just as she would betray the rest.

  There was nothing for it, though. No way around it. To finish her job, she needed the Book. If she took the Book, the rest of them would lose. It didn’t—couldn’t—matter that she’d come to think of them as friends. She already had friends—Dakari and Mari, even Logan. But Mari was gone because of a mistake she had made. And if she didn’t do what she’d been sent here for, she could be sacrificing Dakari and Logan’s futures as well as her own. There wasn’t a way to save them all.

  But she wasn’t there to save them all, she reminded herself, even as she felt her throat go tight. She had a future to get back to, and as much as she had grown fond of this time, grown to respect and admire the people in it, she refused to regret what she had to do.

  She pulled the plug and watched the grime of the night before swirl down the drain, right along with most of the confidence she’d managed to summon. Suck it up, she told herself as she pulled Harte’s robe around her. What was done was done. A minute past too late wasn’t the time to start having regrets.