by Lisa Maxwell
“They took me in, of course, and the interrogation wasn’t an easy one. I didn’t exactly walk away from it,” he said, gesturing to his leg. “When I got back, the old woman I’d left watching the room said you’d never returned. I’d expected you to be back in minutes, maybe hours after the Order’s men left.” He frowned. “Ishtar’s Key was more powerful than I’d realized, and you made me wait quite a while longer before you finally showed up. More than ninety years. But I was right in the end—it all worked out. I waited, and while I waited, I planned, and sure enough, you eventually appeared. As I knew you would.”
“You stole me. You stole my entire life.”
“I made you. I gave you a life you would never have had back then. And now you’re going to repay the favor.” He slipped the cuff onto her arm.
She could sense its heat, the call of its magic, but her blood still wasn’t quite clear of whatever drug he’d given her, so she couldn’t draw on it.
“Do you know what time is, Esta?” Professor Lachlan smiled when she didn’t answer. “It’s the substance that connects everything, the indefinable quality that transcends everything. It is the quintessence of existence—Aether. There was a reason I wanted you, a reason I saved you.”
“Aether?” Esta asked, remembering Harte’s words on the bridge.
He took the dagger, the one she’d stolen from Schwab’s mansion that fateful night when everything had started to go wrong, and examined its tip. “It’s a bit primitive, I know, but these things do tend to work better with a little blood.”
Esta held herself steady, refusing to so much as flinch when the Professor approached her with the knife. Slowly, he traced it across her chest, just beneath her collarbone. She didn’t even feel the bite of the blade. Her entire world had imploded—she’d betrayed her friends in the past and now she’d been betrayed by the only family she’d ever known. Everything she thought she knew about who she was or why she’d been saved was a lie. With everyone turned against her, she had no way out.
What was a little blood, a little pain in the face of all that?
When he was done, when her wound had started to feel hot, he tucked the knife into the bodice of her dress, so its blade was pointing down toward her belly and the Pharaoh’s Heart lay flush against her skin.
“Aether connects all of the elements,” he explained, “and so I will use your affinity to connect the stones. With them united, I’ll be able to control the power of the Book.”
“And what about me?” she said, hating the way her voice shook. “What happens to me?”
“I expect the same thing that happened to all the Mageus whose power was taken to create the original stones.” He gave her an unreadable look. “You’re just the vessel.”
She tried to struggle against the ropes again, but with the dagger against her skin, she couldn’t move without slicing herself to ribbons.
“Now, now. It’ll only be a few more minutes.” Professor Lachlan smiled softly then, and it wasn’t the cold smile of Nibsy Lorcan, but instead was the smile Esta had grown up with, the smile she had craved so desperately as a child.
That betrayal sliced deeper than any wound the dagger could make.
But she lifted her chin. She would not let him know how afraid she was. The only thing she would allow him was her hate.
Professor Lachlan returned to the table and retrieved the Book. He ignored her as he flipped to a page he’d carefully marked, and then he began to read aloud.
At first it sounded like Latin, but as he droned on, the tenor of his voice changed, as though something had come over him, and she could no longer understand the individual words. As he chanted, the syllables grew more and more strange, until they no longer sounded like words, until his voice no longer sounded human, and as he chanted, the stones in the pieces of metal pressed against her skin began to grow warm. On and on he went, until time seemed to lose all meaning, until the heat from the stones felt as though it would burn straight through to her bones, until a strange wind had begun to swirl around the library, rustling the papers until it grew strong enough to send them into the air. Until the lights began to flicker. Until all at once, a terrible roaring filled her ears.
And then everything went dark.
The air in the room went still.
But Esta wasn’t gone.
CONTINGENCIES
A flame flickered nearby, illuminating the deep wrinkles of Professor Lachlan’s face as he approached her. “You’re still alive,” he said softly, like he was talking to himself more than her. “It didn’t work.”
“I can’t say I’m all that sorry.”
Professor Lachlan leaned close to her. “You will be.” He used the intercom to tell Logan to check the breakers in the basement, and he began removing the artifacts from her one by one, beginning with her cuff. A moment later the lights flickered on again.
“Did you say one of the words wrong?” she asked, purposely poking at him.
“No. I said everything perfectly,” he told her as he took the final artifact back. “I was afraid this might happen. I was afraid it had been too long.”
“So your grand plan isn’t going to work after all?” She didn’t allow herself to hope. Not so long as she was still tied to the chair.
“Of course it will. There might not be enough magic left in the world for the ritual to work now, but there was before. So you’ll take the Book back to the boy I once was, back to a world where magic still had power and I was still young enough to use it.”
“Why would I ever do that?”
He studied her for a moment. “Because if you don’t, you’ll most likely disappear. If Ishtar’s Key isn’t in the past, I won’t be able to give it to you as a child.”
Her mind was racing. “Then I should have already disappeared,” she challenged. “Me bringing Ishtar’s Key back here, to this time, would have already changed my life. The date you gave me the stone would have already passed by now. Nibs—you—wouldn’t have been able to give me the stone as a young girl, I wouldn’t have grown up in this time, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Unless you’ve already done it. I don’t think this moment would change until you make the conscious decision to change the past.” He smiled, clearly pleased with himself. “I’ve seen every connection, planned for every contingency. It’s a particular talent of mine.”
So that was Nibsy’s power. No wonder he kept it such a secret.
Esta lifted her chin. “Maybe I’d rather disappear than let you win,” she said. “Did you plan for that?”
“Actually, I did,” he said. He walked to his desk and pressed a button. A moment later, the elevator rattled to life, the lift climbing toward them.
He pulled a gun from the drawer in his desk and aimed it directly at her. The barrel was tipped with a silencer.
“I won’t help you unlock the power in that book,” she said, pleased to hear that her voice didn’t shake even if she did. “I’d rather die.”
Professor Lachlan smiled. “I’m sure you would. But who would you be willing to sacrifice with you?”
The door to the elevator opened then. “You called, Professor?” Dakari said, stepping into the room.
“No!” she screamed, fighting against the ropes that held her. “Dakari, go—”
But it was too late. The gun went off, a soft clap followed by the louder sound of Dakari hitting the floor.
“No,” she cried, and her eyes were already burning with tears. She was still fighting against the ropes, and against the truth of what had just happened.
Professor Lachlan walked to where she was sitting and jerked her chin up, forcing her to look at him. “It seems you have a choice after all. You can choose to fade away. Choose to disappear and never exist. Maybe it’ll happen immediately. Maybe you’ll have time to watch everyone you’ve ever cared for die, just as Dakari has. Logan. Mari. Her entire family you’re so fond of. I’ll bring them here for you, make sure you can see them ple
ad for their lives before I kill them. So they can know it was you who signed their death warrant. Or you can do what I ask and take the Book back to my younger self.”
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“You like to save people, don’t you? Think of it—you could rewrite this future and give Dakari a new life in a world without the Order. A life that wouldn’t end in a heap on my library floor. If you’re very good, you might even convince my younger self to have mercy on Dolph’s crew.”
She couldn’t stop the tears that ran down her face. She turned away from Professor Lachlan, unable to stomach him so close to her, and across the room Viola’s knives glinted in the dim light.
Jianyu. Viola.
Maybe she couldn’t save Dolph, but she could still save them. As long as she didn’t give up, she could go back and try once more to change things.
“Fine,” she said, keeping her eyes on Viola’s knives, so Professor Lachlan wouldn’t see the hate in her gaze. “I’ll do it. But I will fight you every step of the way.”
Professor Lachlan—Nibs—whoever he was—smiled. “I wouldn’t expect anything less, girl, but know this: You’re playing against a stacked deck. I’ve already considered everything you might do, and I’ve already accounted for all the outcomes. Fight all you want, but the future will be mine.”
• • •
Professor Lachlan hadn’t lied about being prepared. He’d accounted for what seemed like every contingency.
Logan had her by the arm to ensure she didn’t use her affinity without taking him with her. The gun was just a precaution, they’d told her. In case she got any ideas. Not that she believed them. Once they were in the past, it would be easy enough for Logan to kill her.
They’d given her some sort of drug, timing it so that as they walked the six blocks to the park, it would wear off just enough to allow her to use Ishtar’s Key to take Logan back to 1902. She wouldn’t have a chance to get away before then, not without dealing with the gun.
She’d been given an exact date, one week after the day on the bridge. Once they were back, Logan had specific instructions about what to look for. If she tried to take him to any other time, he’d kill her. Or he’d injure her badly enough to make her want to cooperate.
Once they were back, the Strega would be an easy walk. There would be very little chance of her getting away, or for her to ruin Professor Lachlan’s plans for them to deliver the Book and the stones. And once Nibs had them, there would be no stopping him.
To make things worse, she didn’t really know Logan—not this version of Logan. She didn’t have the same memories he did of their shared history, and all she could go on to predict how he would act was the hope that the intrinsic nature of a person was steady and stable no matter what trajectory their life took. He might have been a pain in the ass before, but he hadn’t been evil. He wouldn’t have purposely hurt someone. She could only hope that was still the case.
But she wasn’t sure she believed it.
She kept her head down, her posture slouched, like the weight of the world—its past, present, and future—was on her shoulders. Let them believe they’ve won, she thought to herself. Let them think she was penned in. Even if she wasn’t yet sure how she’d ever manage to get out.
The Professor looked at his watch, and when the time came that the medication would have been out of her system, he gave a stiff nod.
Logan jammed the gun harder into her back, a cue that she needed to start. But she still felt sluggish and numb from the lingering effects of the drug, so it was harder than usual to find the right moment, the exact time she was supposed to hit. She pushed down through the layers of years, until she felt the familiar pull of that time. Strange, she thought, for it to feel almost as if she were going home.
But Esta forced herself to ignore the sappy sentiment. It took everything she had to guide them to the moment she wanted. In the distance, the Freedom Tower—the city’s one-fingered salute to the rest of the world—began to fade. The city dimmed around them and she felt that push-pull sensation, like she would fly apart and collapse in on herself all at once as she pulled them to the date she needed. The park receded and the city of yesterday began to materialize, and just as she was almost through, just before the present disappeared and the past was made real, Logan began to scream and tear at the bag he had strapped to his chest, the bag that contained the other artifacts and the Book.
Instinctively, she understood that this was the best chance she would have. She gave her arm a vicious twist, wrenching herself away from him, and Logan, who was still focused on the bag, let her go just as they landed hard on the damp cobbled streets of Old New York.
Her entire body was shaking with the effort it had taken to get away from him, and the cuff on her arm was warm. The neighborhood was eerily quiet for the middle of the day. In the distance, she heard the clanging of bells and smelled the heavy chemical smell of buildings burning.
Slipping through time always left Logan momentarily dizzied, and it did this time as well. He’d barely managed to pull the bag off and toss it away from himself when a group of darkly dressed boys came around the corner. Five Pointers.
Their eyes lit when they saw the two of them lying on the sidewalk, Logan still dazed from the trip, and their pace increased.
But before the boys could reach her, Esta pulled time slow and scooped the bag up. She brushed the grime of the streets from her dress, and with the world silent and still around her, she started to walk. She had somewhere she needed to be, a life she needed to save. She had to go back. She had to get to the bridge. Logan could fend for himself.
THE MAGICIAN
March 1902—The Brooklyn Bridge
The Magician stood at the edge of his world and took one last look at his city. Around him, chaos erupted on the bridge, but his eyes were on the only thing that mattered—Esta.
Go, he willed her. She had to take the Book where they would all be safe from it. She had to take herself there too, far away from Nibs or Jack or anyone else who might use her. Including him. If the Order ever found out what she was, what she could do . . .
Go.
But she wore the same stubborn expression he recognized from every other time he’d tried to get her to do something. She wasn’t leaving. She wasn’t getting away while she could. He’d expected her stubbornness, though, had known he would have to take the decision from her. It was only one step. A single step and it would all be over.
He closed his eyes and let himself feel the wind on his face one last time as he leaned into it—
And then he was falling, and the air around him pushed and pulled at him, pressing in on his body until he was so dizzy he thought he would vomit, his head pounding with an unnatural pressure. He fell and fell until he hit the ground in front of him, with something—someone—pinning him down.
He heard a soft, feminine moan, and the weight rolled off him.
“Jianyu?” Esta’s voice came to him like a dream. “What are you doing here?”
It took him a second to find his voice, to make himself understand what he was seeing, but it was Esta. It was really Esta, not some dream of her. The bridge was empty and silent, and she was sprawled across Jianyu’s back, looking more confused than he’d ever seen her. And he wasn’t dead.
“He was helping me,” Harte said, pulling himself up. He was still reeling from the shock of seeing her. The absolute wonder at being alive, when moments ago he’d thought Jianyu had decided to let him fall.
“Helping you?” She pulled herself off Jianyu, who lay unconscious on the ground. “Helping you do what?”
“Fake my own death.” He swallowed uncomfortably when her expression seemed more angry than relieved.
Esta just stared at him with her eyes wide and a look of utter consternation on her face. It was maybe the first time he’d ever seen her at a loss for words.
“You’re shaking,” Harte said, touching her cheek with a trembling hand. He
r skin was pale, her hair a mess around her face.
“I’m fine,” she told him, but she didn’t push him away. Then, all at once, her face crumpled. “You idiot,” she said, slapping Harte. “You told me you were going to jump.” Her voice was nearly manic, and her eyes were wild with unshed tears. “I thought you were dead,” she cried, her voice cracking as her chin trembled.
“I’m not dead,” he said softly, glad to hear his voice was so steady, considering how shaken he felt. He hadn’t known for sure that Jianyu was going to be there, as they’d planned. When he’d leaned into the wind, Harte was forcing himself to put all his trust, his entire life, into someone else’s hands.
She slapped him again, and he raised his arms to fend off the attack, but fell over instead, his head spinning from the motion. “Esta, stop!”
“You lied to me again!”
“I had to,” he said, pulling himself upright again. He caught her hands, gently, so that she couldn’t hit him again. “I needed you to get the Book away from Nibs and Jack, and I knew you wouldn’t leave any other way.”
But her expression didn’t soften. Her golden eyes were still filled with fire. “You told me the Order would never stop hunting you.”
“They won’t.”
Jianyu moaned nearby but hadn’t yet come to.
“Then why?”
She seemed to have calmed down, so he released her hands. “I was going back to the city, to stop Nibs and the Order . . . to create a different future for you to return to.”
Esta went still, her expression wary. “And I’m just supposed to believe you now?”
“He speaks truly,” Jianyu added with a groan as he finally pulled himself upright. “We arranged everything after Dolph was found.” He took a look around and seemed to realize finally that the bridge was empty. “What happened? Where did everyone go?” he asked, puzzled.
“They left hours ago,” Esta explained.
