The Devil's Thief

by Lisa Maxwell

  “A proposition?” Julien said, hating the way his voice cracked.

  They can’t know. . . .

  “A job,” the figure said. “One that would make good use of your talents.”

  Julien didn’t miss the scorn in the Prophet’s voice, but he wasn’t a clown to be paraded out and made fun of. “And if I’m too busy for any extra employment at the moment?” he asked, taking another puff of the cigar, just to prove he couldn’t be bullied.

  The figure inclined its head, making the heavy lace in front of his face wave. “You know how far our influence reaches, Mr. Eltinge. We saw that Mr. Albee was at the theater this evening. He is a particular friend of ours.”

  Julien’s stomach clenched. They could destroy all that he’d worked for if they had the ear of Mr. Albee. His show, his dreams, his future—all gone. “I suppose I could make a little time to hear you out,” he said. “I’ve got a busy schedule with the show. Tomorrow evening, maybe? We’re dark then.”

  “Tonight, Mr. Eltinge. Now, in fact.”

  “Now?” he asked, looking down at the gown he was still wearing.

  “We’ll give you time to make yourself more . . . presentable.” His tone rang with distaste. “Our carriage will be waiting,” the Prophet said before he took his leave.

  Julien had a very bad feeling about this whole situation. He looked at himself in the mirror, but it was Darrigan and the girl he cursed. If the necklace was so dangerous, Harte should never have sent it to him in the first place. At the very least, Darrigan should have had the courtesy to stay dead.

  THE MEMORY OF HER NAME

  1904—St. Louis

  The late-June day was warm, and the sky was a bright, clear blue. All around Esta, the pristine white buildings of the fair were a marked contrast to the dirt and grime of the rest of the city. The couples who walked arm in arm and the families who held tightly to the small hands of their children could not have imagined that the well-dressed gentleman waiting at the water’s edge was actually a woman, or that she was about to commit a crime.

  There was something about the moments before a job began that made Esta’s skin tingle—not with dread or apprehension, but anticipation and the sheer satisfaction of doing what she was born to do. Maybe it was just adrenaline, but Esta always felt like it had to be more than some random chemical reaction that made her body feel like it was singing, that made her mind feel clear and ready. It had to be a sign—a good omen of sorts. There had been very few moments in her life when everything felt completely right—when the pieces fell into their places—and most of them had been in the moments before a job. As she waited next to the railing near the large lagoon that anchored the Exposition, Esta was fairly certain that this was another of those times.

  Maybe nighttime would have been a more expected choice, but after a few days of planning and after the information Julien had given them, she and Harte had decided that it would be easier to lift the necklace during the day rather than waiting until the fair closed. For one, they could use the crowds to their advantage, but more important, they knew what the Exposition was like during its open hours. They’d spent the last few days walking the grounds and pretending to be tourists as they cased the areas around the Streets of Cairo and the Pike. They knew how many Guardsmen were stationed there and when their shifts changed.

  On the other hand, night was a black box. They didn’t know what kind of security there might be or even how the necklace was housed at night. But during the day? The fine folks who ran the fair were even kind enough to draw them up a schedule so they knew when everything was happening—and what the best times were to create distractions.

  According to the schedule, there were always at least two parades—one at midday and one later in the evening. They’d considered using the evening parade, since the darkness could give them some cover, but in the end they had decided that the safest and easiest plan required exposure.

  Esta saw Harte approaching before he noticed her, and she allowed herself to take a moment to watch him as he walked through the crowd. In the last few days, they’d settled into a steady, if not completely comfortable, equilibrium. It was as though, without uttering a word, they’d come to the agreement that they wouldn’t speak about the night they’d arrived—the kiss or the argument. It didn’t mean that she felt any less hurt, but after what had happened during the boat ride, she didn’t press. He would tell her everything eventually or he wouldn’t—she couldn’t force him to trust her or to see her as someone to depend on any more than she could stop the way her heart clenched a little each time she saw him—each time she remembered what it had felt like to have his lips against hers.

  He was dressed in trim, olive-green pants paired with a matching waistcoat and lighter-colored jacket. With the straw boater shading his face and the easy way his arms swung relaxed at his sides, he looked fresh and crisp, like the portrait of a summer day. She knew the moment he saw her waiting—his mouth flattened and his eyes went tight, like he was preparing himself for something. But then his expression relaxed, and it was as though the tightness from a moment before had never existed.

  As he approached, she had the oddest vision of his face lighting with a smile and him offering her the crook of his arm. She could almost see them, walking arm in arm, taking in the sights and sounds like anyone else. For a moment she wished they could let go of everything hanging over them and make that vision come to life. For a moment she wished that they could forget what they were about to do and pretend that they were just two people enjoying a sunny day at the fair.

  But wishes were for suckers, and Esta didn’t plan on being one of those, not ever again. Especially not when it came to Harte Darrigan.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get over this place,” Harte said, pausing long enough to look at the water. The lagoon itself extended into the heart of the fair, and at the far end stood a pristinely white domed building—the Festival Hall. It glimmered with lights, even at noon. All along the tree-lined edges of the water, fountains sent cascading arcs of water into the air, while the cool white marble statuary stood as silent guards.

  “The world isn’t really like this,” she said, her mood suddenly darker. She leaned against the railing and pretended to take in the scenery, but her attention was elsewhere. The stone beneath her hand looked like carved marble, but it was just painted concrete. Fake, just like everything else in this place. “Half these buildings are just shells. They’ll come down in a few months, and it’ll be like none of this had ever been here.”

  “I know . . .” His voice was wistful, and she glanced over to see him watching the gondolas gliding across the smooth, clear surface of the water. “Still. They put on a damn good show.”

  He wasn’t wrong. The fairground itself was a marvel, even to Esta’s jaded eyes. The buildings flanking the wide lagoon looked like they were made from marble and granite. They reminded Esta of buildings she’d seen in pictures of the great cities of Europe. But even with all the grandeur of the Exposition, compared to New York, St. Louis itself looked half-formed. Outside the walls of the fairground, the city was still a city on the edge of the frontier and worlds away from the crowded streets of New York. Beyond the city, the world waited.

  “Did you take care of it?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she told him, pretending to look at the scenery while she made sure that no one was watching them. It hadn’t been very difficult to pick the lock on one of the maintenance gates not far from the Pike. She’d left it closed, so it looked secure, but it would provide them an easy exit once everything happened. “You?”

  He nodded. “No one was watching the armory. I replaced all the bullets I could find, but I’m not sure if it’ll be enough.”

  “It’ll have to be,” she told him. “This will work.” It has to.

  But it wouldn’t be easy.

  The trickiest part about the entire job wasn’t that it would happen in the bright light of day or in the midst of a crowded midway. It
wasn’t even that it was just the two of them. Julien wouldn’t be there—they’d picked a day with a matinee show to ensure that he had an airtight alibi. He’d done what he could to help them, and now they would do what they could to keep him out of the rest. No, the trickiest part was that they would have to do almost everything without magic. With the Jefferson Guard on high alert, they couldn’t chance using either one of their affinities—not unless they absolutely had to. They’d have to go in straight and use sheer skill. And, thanks to both Harte and Julien, a bit of showmanship.

  “The parade starts in about fifteen minutes. We need to both be in Cairo by that time. You’ll have to move fast. You have the charges?”

  “I’ve got it, Harte,” she said, annoyed with how quickly he’d shifted from enjoying the day to fussing at her. It reminded her a little of the way Logan used to, and suddenly she couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to him. Had Jianyu found him? Or had Logan been able to reach Nibsy? But there would be time to consider that later. For now, she had to focus.

  Theirs wasn’t an elegant plan, but it was workable. They had smoke charges that they’d placed on fuses at various places along the Pike, and she would set them off right before she and Harte went into the Nile ride—just before the parade arrived at the area in front of the Streets of Cairo.

  There was only one way in and out of the chamber where the necklace was displayed, and if they’d timed the fuses right, the charges should go off, flooding the Pike with strange-colored smoke that would, hopefully, be taken as an Antistasi attack. They were betting on the Guard rushing to the area and leaving the stone less guarded than it otherwise might have been.

  If the schedule was accurate—and so far, it had been—before the smoke completely dissipated and the crowd realized there was no danger, the veterans of the Boer War, who reenacted their skirmishes twice a day, would be starting their first assault. Since Harte had replaced the blanks they usually used with more smoke charges, all hell should break loose again as soon as they fired their first volley of shots.

  Between the people flooding out of the Boer War demonstration and the confusion on the Pike, the Guard should be nicely tied up. She and Harte should be able to slip the necklace out of its case and be on their way.

  “If anything is off by even a few minutes, we could be stuck,” Harte reminded her as he checked the pocket watches they each had to make sure the times were the same.

  “I know.” She was itching to get started. “We’ve gone over this a million times.”

  She snatched one of the watches from his hand as a family came up to the railing to look at the water. The parents were young—about the same age that Dolph had been. The father had by the hand a small golden-haired boy who looked like his miniature. When the boy started to cry, the father lifted him up gently so the boy could see the fountains just beyond the railing, while the mother fussed with the little boy’s hair.

  Esta didn’t even realize she was watching them until Harte cleared his throat next to her, drawing her attention back to him.

  “You need to focus.” His voice was gentle, but the reprimand stung nonetheless.

  “I am focused,” she said, trying to ignore the way the little boy squealed in delight at the view of the water.

  “You know that everything has to go perfectly for this to work, and we aren’t even in control of most of the pieces. It isn’t going to be easy.”

  “It never is.” She glanced one last time at the family.

  Maybe it was the brightness of the day or the sweetness of the vanilla and caramel wafting through the air, but as she watched the family go about their day—their lives—without a care in the world, Esta’s hands curled into fists. She let her nails dig into her palms, accepting the flash of pain so that she could hold back the spike of anger that had caused her blood to go hot. They have everything, and they have no idea. And she would fight and scrabble and scheme . . . and in the end, she would get nothing at all. And no one would even know.

  Or maybe they would, she thought with a spark of hope. Maybe these Antistasi, whoever they were, would keep the memory of her name and what she had done—or tried to do—alive, just as they had for the past two years.

  “Hey, Slim.” Harte’s voice came to her from a distance. “Did you hear what I said? Are you okay there?”

  “Yeah.” She blinked, confused for a moment by the direction of her thoughts. “I’m fine.”

  It was the truth.

  Who cared if she couldn’t have everything? Who cared if the man who had been a father to her was a lie and her actual father was lost to her before she ever knew? Whatever pain lay in her past could just stay there. Her past had given her skills and talents she might not have otherwise had, and whatever the lies that had forged her, they didn’t determine her future. She would be what she had chosen to become. And if she didn’t make it through? Perhaps she would live on in some other way.

  She straightened her spine and gave Harte the cockiest smile she could dredge up. “Let’s go steal us the fair.”

  ON THE EDGE OF THE WEST

  1904—St. Louis

  Harte would have paid almost any price to be able to reach across the distance between them, pull Esta close, and kiss the smile off her face. But he didn’t trust himself—or the power inside of him—to be able to stop. Instead, he stood with his hands tucked into his pockets so he wouldn’t do any of the idiotic things running through his head.

  As quickly as she gave him the smile, Esta was turning away, heading toward the Pike to set their plan in motion. His gaze followed her trim silhouette until she disappeared into the crowd. Inside his mind, the voice shifted and rumbled, clearly frustrated with his decision to let her walk away from him—again. He was getting fairly good at ignoring it, probably in the same way a person learns to ignore a chronic cough or a bad knee. You simply lived around it. But he couldn’t ignore the fact that the power was getting stronger and the voice that spoke through it was getting clearer every day.

  Still, despite the warmth of the afternoon, ice inched down his spine. A premonition. Or perhaps it was simply rational, levelheaded fear. They were about to steal a well-guarded necklace from the middle of a crowded fair in broad daylight.

  This is never going to work.

  Too bad that it had to. Julien’s best chance of evading the Order’s notice was for them to get the Djinni’s Star and get out of town fast.

  Harte pulled his cap down and checked his watch for the umpteenth time before he started walking. He didn’t go in the direction of the Pike, as Esta had. Instead, he followed the waterways east, past the ornate palace-like buildings that held the exhibitions on electricity and industry, and then farther, past the Palace of Transportation, with its six identical sculptures bearing shields to guard the high arched entrance.

  Everything is a palace, he thought. Even here, on the edge of the West, where the whole country was possible, Americans still wanted to be royalty. It was why people like Jack Grew and the rest of the Order could do what they did—the ordinary person allowed it. The average citizen liked the idea of a future where they might be as rich as a king or as powerful as an emperor. They might have talked about democracy, but what they wanted was the spectacle of royalty.

  He continued past the building and entered the Pike close to Cairo, checking his watch again as he found a place near the Cliff Dwellers exhibition. Perfect. Already, he could hear the noise of the parade approaching.

  But there was no sign of Esta.

  A NEW ERA IN THE BOWERY

  1902—New York

  James Lorcan would have paid handsomely to have just one answer to any of his questions. There were too many variables at play, too much at risk. It had been five days since Mock Duck had brought Jianyu to the Strega and traded him for a handful of dollars and a notebook of secrets he could use against Tom Lee. Five days since James had had Jianyu in his hands, and five days since the damnable turncoat had somehow managed to escape.

 
At least the fire had been minor, and Paul Kelly’s connections with Tammany meant that the brigades did more than just watch the building burn. Because of their help, James was able to sit at the back of the barroom and survey his domain.

  At least Viola was taken care of. The image of Dolph’s favorite assassin, bruised and bleeding from her brother’s fists, still served to comfort—and amuse—him. As far as James was concerned, it proved that Dolph had always thought too highly of her. Viola had always been moody and temperamental—a liability. She’d never liked James, that much he knew. From the look of pure hate in her eyes the other day, she still didn’t, but at least she wouldn’t be a problem. She’d overplayed her hand when she’d gone back to her brother’s protection, and all evidence so far indicated that Kelly would be able to control her. That much, at least, was a comfort. It made for one less thing to worry about.

  The future was still too unsettled for his liking, though. James could not make heads or tails of the variables that seemed to waver in the Aether, the paths rising up and then disappearing like ghosts. But he knew one thing for sure. Something was coming. Something that promised to change everything.

  At the front of the Strega, the door opened, letting in a burst of cool air that James could feel even from the back of the room. It seemed that his thoughts of Paul Kelly had summoned the devil himself. All at once the atmosphere in the barroom changed as the people realized that the notorious leader of the Five Pointers had just arrived.

  A few weeks ago Kelly’s appearance there in the saloon that Dolph Saunders had ruled his empire from would have been unheard of. Before Dolph’s death Kelly never would have dared to confront the Devil’s Own on their own turf. But this was a new city, a new world. And all James could think was Finally.

  Kelly was followed by two of his Five Pointers, broad men with the same ruthless expression that Kelly himself wore. Between them, they held a towheaded fellow James didn’t recognize. The unlucky captive looked to be slightly older than James, but he had a softness to his features that almost made him seem younger. His left eye had been blackened and was already swollen shut, no doubt the effect of tangling with Kelly’s men.