by Lisa Maxwell
“Is there a way around back?” Harte asked.
North gave him a tense nod. “But if we go now, we might draw their attention. They’d have Maggie and the kids.”
“So we split up,” Harte told him. “I’ll distract them, and you go around back.”
North’s brows drew together, and Harte knew North was considering how much to trust him.
“Go on,” Harte said. “You can hate me later.”
He didn’t wait for North’s agreement but went charging into the line of Guards, pulling at his affinity as he went. He had time to land one punch before the others were on him, but one punch was enough—fist to face—to change the Guardsman’s intent. The Guardsman turned on his brothers and attacked. In the confusion, Harte managed to get his hands on two of the others, and in moments, they were fighting each other instead of him. He took the opportunity the confusion offered and slipped past, running as fast as he could toward the now-burning main building.
The front doors were open, and Harte could already feel the heat coming from inside the building, but he didn’t stop to think about that. All he could think was that without Esta, he was lost. But what that meant—whether it was him or the power that spurred him on—he didn’t bother to analyze too closely.
The fire seemed contained to the east side of the building. If he hurried, he could make sure Esta and the kids got out the back. He darted inside, pulling his shirt up over his mouth and nose to ward off the smoke that already hung heavy in the air. The main brewing chamber was a mess. The heat from the flames had already caused one of the giant vats of beer to explode, and Harte didn’t want to be around if another one blew. He took the steps up to the offices quickly, breathing only sporadically, to avoid the smoke. The bunk rooms were empty, so he moved on to the nursery, calling Esta’s name and not caring who heard him.
When he got to the nursery, the room was—thankfully—empty. They must have gotten out. Which meant that he had to get himself out.
Harte was halfway down the hall when another explosion hit, throwing him from his feet and knocking him into the wall. He staggered to his knees, steadying himself as he heard a crackling and another explosion. And then the ceiling broke open above him.
INTO THE FIRE
1904—St. Louis
Esta was helping lift one of the children into a wagon that had been waiting in the yard behind the warehouse when she heard the explosion and turned to see the main building go up in flames behind her.
We were just in there. A matter of a few moments and they would have still been in there.
Maggie gasped, her hand to her mouth as she adjusted the toddler on her hip. “No,” she whispered. “No, no, no . . .”
Esta set the child she was holding into the wagon and turned to take the one from Maggie, who let go of it reluctantly. Her eyes were wide and glassy as she watched her family’s business burn.
“We’re safe,” she told Maggie. “The kids are safe too. You can rebuild anything else.”
But Maggie was shaking her head, and Esta couldn’t tell if she was disagreeing or if she simply couldn’t even hear her from the shock of it. North was there a moment later, taking Maggie in his arms like he didn’t care who saw. His face relaxed in relief as he held on to her, whispering into her hair.
The last child had just been loaded into the wagon along with the dozen or so patients they’d rescued from the hospital when Mother Ruth came around the side of the building with a small group of people.
“Where’s Har—Ben?” Esta said, correcting herself before she uttered the wrong name. He wasn’t with the rest of the group.
“He’s not with you?” North said, turning to Ruth.
Another explosion echoed from within the building.
Ruth shook her head. “Last I saw him, the crazy fool was running into the building.”
“He thought you all might still be in there,” North said, his voice sounding as hollow and shocked as Esta felt at the idea of Harte being inside of that building.
“He’s inside?” Esta asked, the words clawing themselves free from the tightness in her throat. Above them, the roof of the main building crackled and shifted. As if reading her mind, Maggie grabbed her wrist.
“You can’t—”
Esta tore her arm away and started running.
As soon as she was close, she pulled time slow and stepped through the doorway of the burning building without looking back.
She had no idea where Harte would be, but she’d start at the nursery. If he’d come in looking for her, that was where he would have gone.
The heat of the fire radiated in the passageways around her, but the flames themselves had gone still, like brilliant flowers blooming on the walls and ceilings. She couldn’t stop time completely, so she couldn’t stop the process of oxygen consumed by the fire. The heat was a constant, and the air hung heavy with deadly smoke, but she wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t. Not until she found Harte.
Esta’s chest clenched when she turned into the hallway where the nursery waited and saw the pile of burning rubble. She nearly lost her hold on her affinity when she saw the shoe peeking out of it.
She didn’t waste any time in starting to move the pieces of ceiling that had fallen on Harte, but it was taking too long. She uncovered his face and saw that his eyes were open—he wasn’t dead, but he also wasn’t any help, nearly frozen as he was. Considering her options, she let go of the seconds. The flames crackled to life in a roaring blaze, and Harte gasped as more pieces of the ceiling fell.
His eyes met hers, his face blanching when he saw her standing there above him.
“Help me,” she said, trying to pull more of the rubble off him.
She could hear the building creaking as they worked, until finally he was free of the large piece that had pinned his legs down. “Can you walk?” she asked, coughing from the heat and the smoke.
“I think so,” he told her, getting to his feet but tottering a little. She caught him before he could fall.
“Can’t you . . . ?” He meant that he wanted her to stop time.
“No,” she said. “Not with you. The building’s too unstable.” She could tell he wanted to argue, but she didn’t give him the chance. With her shirt up over her nose and mouth, they moved as fast as they could through the hallway, toward the back of the building.
They were almost out when Esta stopped.
“What are you doing?” Harte asked, pushing her onward.
“My cuff. Ishtar’s Key is in here,” she said.
“Do you know for sure?” He coughed.
She shook her head. “But if it is . . .” The fire had started unexpectedly, and Ruth had been too busy arguing with the Guard—distracting them, so Maggie could get the children out—to do anything else. Maybe it wasn’t in here, but she couldn’t take that chance. “I can’t leave without it,” she said, turning back into the fire. Without it, they would be trapped there with no way back. And no way to set things right.
“No, Esta—” He grabbed at her hand.
“Let go,” she told him, trying to shake him loose. But he was too stubborn, and already she could feel the heat of the power within him creeping against her skin, as stark and real as the fire.
“I’m not leaving you here. It’s not worth dying for.”
But hadn’t she already made that decision? “I’m dead either way.”
He shook his head and was about to argue with her, but she cut him off.
“I need that stone, but I can’t do this with you, Harte. Not with whatever is inside you. Let me go, and I can at least try. I got you out, didn’t I?” She could tell he wanted to disagree, but he couldn’t argue with that point. “I’ll be back outside before you even notice.”
“No, Esta,” he said, tightening his hold on her arm until his fingers were digging painfully into her skin. There was something dark in his expression, a desperation that was stark and pure. In that moment, she couldn’t tell what it was moving behind his eye
s—whether it was he himself who cared that desperately or if it was something else. Seshat. The demon-like power inside of him—did Seshat know that the stones would be her undoing?
That thought made up her mind for her. “I’m sorry,” she said, as she wrenched his arm to the side and laid him flat on his back. The moment his hand released her, she pulled time slow and dodged back into the flames once more.
A PEONY IN A TOMATO PATCH
1902—New York
Lies. Viola knew that the words coming from Nibsy’s mouth were as foul and polluted as the muck that flowed in the sewer, and now that she had Libitina in her hands once more, she would show him what she thought of his lies. She began to unwrap the comforting weight of the knife when, from the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of pink that was utterly out of place in the dreary, sooty air of the Bowery.
She should have known that the girl wasn’t going to listen to her and go back uptown, where she belonged. She shouldn’t have been surprised to find Ruby there, craning her neck to see what was happening with the fire and looking every bit like a peony in a tomato patch.
Ruby was too engrossed in trying to see what was happening, but from the look of concentration and worry on Theo’s face, he had realized that the crowd’s mood was turning now that the steady stream of water was beginning to extinguish the blaze. With their source of entertainment dying, they were beginning to grow restless and rowdy.
Viola’s instinct was to go to them. Neither of them belonged in the rough world of lower Manhattan, not like she did. But there was Nibsy to think of, and her revenge was so close she could taste the sweetness of it in the back of her throat.
Torn, Viola turned back to Nibsy, only to find that the rat was no longer there. She saw him, already a ways off, disappearing into the crowd and leaving the red-haired boy prone on the ground. Dolph would never have done such a thing.
But the boy wasn’t her concern. He’d cast his lot when he’d started the fire.
Instead of going for him, she headed toward where Ruby and Theo were being jostled by the increasingly restless crowd. She was nearly to them when she saw that just beyond Ruby, her brother was heading in her direction. And he had John Torrio with him.
Viola could see what would happen—Torrio would catch sight of Theo, thinking he was Reynolds, and he would know that she had not killed the reporter. It would not matter that Theo hadn’t ever been the target. All that would matter was that he would be proof that Viola had betrayed her charge, and more, she’d stopped Torrio from completing the job. If Torrio saw Theo and Ruby, if he realized what Viola had—or rather, had not—done, she’d be dead. And what’s more, Theo and Ruby would both be dead, as well.
Waving her arms, Viola ran toward her brother and Torrio, trying to draw their attention so they would not turn slightly to the left and notice Ruby, pink and petaled as a flower. Because they would not fail to see her, not with how polished and delicate she looked amid the toughs of the Bowery.
“Paolo!” she called, desperate to reach him, but they were both searching the crowd, not hearing her. She shouted again, her voice clawing from her throat as he moved closer to where Ruby and Theo stood watching the fire.
Finally, Paul noticed her, and then Torrio did as well. When they saw Viola, they turned away from their original path—the one that would have taken them to Ruby—and came toward Viola instead.
“What is it?” Paul asked, his expression conveying his disappointment that she didn’t have the culprit in hand.
“The one who did this, he’s there, on the ground,” she told him, pointing to the spot where the boy still lay, unconscious from her magic. “A red-haired boy, maybe fifteen years old. One of Nibsy Lorcan’s boys.”
“One of Lorcan’s?” Paul asked, his expression filled with suspicion. “Are you sure?”
Viola nodded, keeping her expression steady even as she let her affinity unfurl to find Ruby’s now-familiar heartbeat in the crowd. When she found it, steady and calm, she knew the girl was still safe—for the moment, at least.
Paul glanced at Torrio, sharing some unspoken communication between them before he turned back to her. “Did you take care of him?”
“Better,” she told Paul. “I left him for you. A gift for Tammany,” she explained.
“That wasn’t what you were told to do,” Paul said. “I told you to kill him.”
“Killing him is no good. Think of it,” she argued, before he could interrupt again. “If I killed him, what proof do you have that you’ve caught the one responsible? You can’t tell if a dead man is Mageus. You can’t ask him why he attacked or who he worked for. This way, you have the boy—you have evidence,” she said. Which means that you have proof that Nibsy is not to be trusted. “Take him to Tammany and give them the favor of dealing with him themselves. They’ll thank you for it.”
Torrio was eyeing her suspiciously, but she didn’t give him so much as a glance. Whatever Paul might want for the two of them, Viola wasn’t interested.
Before Paul could agree or argue, Viola sensed the fluttering of Ruby’s heart. The steady rhythm gave way to a more rapid beat, and Viola knew something was happening. “Quickly!” she shouted, pointing in the direction she’d left the boy.
Her actions had their intended effect. Paul and Torrio turned, almost as one, and the second their attention was diverted, she darted into the crowd to look for the birdbrained girl who was about to get herself killed.
DRAGGED UNDER
1902—New York
Even from her place far back in the crowd, Ruby Reynolds could feel the heat of the strange flames that were consuming the engine house. Now that she was standing amid the rabble and the crowd, she could tell for herself that what was happening had everything to do with magic. A moment before something had changed, and the water that had been streaming from the hoses began to have an effect on the flames.
The crowd had not liked that, not at all.
“We need to go,” Theo said, using his body as a shield against the restlessness of the crowd.
“Just a minute more,” she pleaded. “If we could only get a little closer . . .”
“We’re not going any closer,” he told her in a tone he rarely used on her.
“But, Theo—”
She barely had his name on her tongue when the crowd surged and she stumbled with it to the left. Suddenly, she was aware that what had been avid interest colored by excitement when she and Theo arrived had quickly turned to frustration, maybe even anger. Once, when she was younger, her father had taken her and her sisters to Coney Island to play in the surf, and she had ventured too far into the waves and had been dragged under. Being caught up in the suddenly raucous crowd reminded her of that moment, and she felt the same pang of betrayal she’d felt as a child when the water had turned against her.
At the time, her father had caught her up under the arms and set her back on her feet as though nothing had happened. Now Theo did what he could to shield her from the other bodies that were pressing and shoving against them, the dear, but it was all she could do to stay on her feet.
It was unbearably exciting.
From the look on his face, Theo didn’t feel the same. The poor dear. He always had been so buttoned up and careful. But he’d also been her truest friend, through everything—her father’s breakdown and the embarrassment it had caused her family and her mother’s meddling to get all her daughters married off after his death. And then there was society’s constant judgment. Not that she cared a fig for their judgment, but society made things so much harder than they needed to be. And through all of it, Theo had been there.
She was the worst sort of person to put him through this, and yet, if she could just figure out how the fire started—
“Ruby!” The voice cut through the noise around them. “Theo!”
Ruby turned and realized it was Viola, her violet eyes blazing with something that looked incredibly like fear. “Viola?”
She barely had time to re
cognize a warmth flush through her that had nothing to do with the fire before the crowd surged, pushing them to the left. Ruby staggered away from Theo, losing her balance, and fell into Viola. She had a moment to appreciate the other girl’s strength. Viola was shorter than Ruby herself, but beneath the softness of her curves, her body was sturdy and strong enough to keep Ruby on her feet.
For a moment the connection between them felt absolutely undeniable. Her stomach fluttered as her chest went tight, and she felt the entire world narrow down to the piercing violet of Viola’s darkly lashed eyes.
Viola froze, her arms going rigid around Ruby, and in that moment, the crowd fell away and there was a roaring in her ears as she was sure, sure that Viola had felt the same energy between them. But Viola simply set Ruby upright again and stepped back.
“Come on,” Viola told them, taking hold of Ruby’s wrist. “You need to get out of here. This way.”
The warmth that had coursed through Ruby just a moment before cooled, but her skin was still hot where Viola’s fingers circled her wrist. She tried to jerk away, but Viola held firm and turned to her.
“We need to go. Now,” Viola commanded, glancing to Theo for support.
“She’s right,” he told her, his expression apologetic. “It’s not safe here.”
Safe? What was safety but a cage? Her whole life had been designed to keep her safe—away from trouble, away from harm—away from anything real or important. No. She’d made the decision that she wasn’t interested in “safe” the day they found her father in his study, driven mad by his own obsession with safety. He’d tried to master magic, just as the men in the Order had instructed, and it had mastered him instead. No, not just mastered him, destroyed him—and it had nearly destroyed her entire family along with him.
Now Ruby was interested only in truth, and the truth was that no male journalist in her position would run because of a little scuffle.
“I can’t leave now,” she told her. “I need to find out what happened. The story—”
