The Devil's Thief

by Lisa Maxwell

  “It’s not safe here for you,” Viola said, pulling at her arm.

  “I don’t care,” Ruby said, her face creased in frustration.

  “Ruby—” Theo tried.

  “No, Theo. We came to see the fire, and I’m going to see the fire.” She turned to Viola, her veins warming with her determination. “If the flames weren’t natural, I need to know. Don’t you see how important this is?”

  “It won’t be important if you’re dead,” Viola said, struggling to stay upright in the tumultuous crowd.

  There were worse things than dying, Ruby thought, thinking of her father in the sanitarium upstate before he died finally and her sisters, who sometimes loved their husbands but often did not. And of herself, forced to live stuck in a narrow slice of a life that should be so much bigger, so much wider.

  “I think we should listen to Miss Vaccarelli,” Theo told her. The traitor.

  But Ruby shook her head and pushed her way farther into the crowd.

  She hadn’t gone more than three steps when a man nearby threw a punch that transformed the crowd into a cascading wave of violence. The people around her shoved, some diving into the fray and others desperately trying to retreat, and in that moment, she had the first inkling of fear. She stumbled back, and Theo was there, just as he always was.

  Please, his familiar eyes pleaded, and as much as she wanted to be stronger, as much as she wanted to stand firm, she couldn’t deny him. She gave him a nod, and together they followed the path that Viola was cutting through the crowd.

  They were nearly there, nearly to the edge of the madness. A few steps more, Ruby thought, and they would be safe. But they’d barely reached the edge of the crush of bodies when the sound of sirens erupted through the air—the police were coming. In response, the crowd surged again, and as Ruby tried to regain her balance, a gunshot exploded over the noise and Theo’s hand let go of hers.

  She looked back in time to see him falling, the brightness of his blood blooming like a carnation tucked into his lapel.

  HELPLESS

  1902—New York

  The sound of Ruby’s scream cut through the noise and hit Viola like a dagger to the gut. She turned in time to see Ruby trying to catch Theo as he fell to the ground.

  The crowd was scattering now, no longer bothering to fight each other as they tried to get away from the threat. Another gunshot erupted, and then another, as the street descended into madness.

  Viola looked around, searching for her brother and Torrio even as she lunged back into the mess of the crowd for Ruby and Theo, but instead of finding the Five Pointers, she realized that the gunshots had come from a different source—two groups of the Chinese tongs were facing off in the midst of the madness. It was as though the entire Bowery had completely lost its mind.

  Theo was on the ground, the fine wool of his suit already marred by the dirt of the streets and the blood that was seeping from his chest, and Ruby was there with him, cradling him. The girl’s rosy complexion had gone an almost ghostly white, and her mouth was moving without any words coming out. But Theo was still breathing. His eyes were open, and he looked at Viola. “Get her out of here,” he said, his voice racked with pain.

  “No.” Ruby glared at Viola. “I’m not leaving without him.”

  All around them was violence, but from the seriousness in Ruby’s expression, Viola knew it would be pointless to argue. “Then you’d best help me get him up,” she told Ruby.

  With a sure nod, Ruby helped Viola hoist Theo upright as he groaned in agony. If Viola had expected the willowy-looking girl to falter beneath the weight of him, she was wrong. Ruby’s face was creased with the effort of supporting Theo’s weight as he dropped an arm over each of their shoulders, but Viola admired the girl all the more for her determination.

  Even as her heart clenched to see the way Ruby looked at Theo.

  By the time they moved him far enough away from the fighting to be safe, Theo was all but deadweight. Still, Viola urged them to go a little farther, until they found the relative safety of a doorway to a tenement that she recognized. Once, the people inside had been loyal to Dolph. She could only hope that they would recognize her as a friend instead of a traitor.

  They pulled Theo inside, where the noise of the street was blocked out by the door. One tenant opened his door long enough to determine he wanted nothing to do with whatever was happening in the hallway.

  Ruby cradled Theo against herself, patting his cheek softly, but Theo was fading. His eyes were half-open, but Viola could tell by their glassiness that he wasn’t focusing on either one of them. His skin had gone pale as death, and his lips were already tinged with blue.

  “No,” Ruby said, her voice nearly breaking when he didn’t respond. “You stay with me, Theodore Barclay. Do you hear me?” There were already tears on her cheeks. “Don’t you dare leave me here alone.”

  But Theo didn’t respond. His breathing was shallow, and there was a rattling sound coming from his chest that Viola knew too well. All at once she was in Tilly’s apartment again, helpless to do anything as she watched her friend die.

  Except she wasn’t helpless this time.

  “Please,” Ruby said, leaning her forehead against Theo’s. Over and over she pleaded, her voice trembling. But Theo didn’t respond.

  “Move,” Viola said. Her voice sounded as empty and hopeless as she felt inside, but she could do this one thing, even if it meant exposing what she was. “Move,” she repeated, pushing gently at Ruby.

  Ruby looked up at Viola, her eyes filled with tears, and opened her mouth to refuse, but Viola cut her off.

  “I can help him,” she said more gently. “But you need to let me.”

  Reluctantly, Ruby backed away from Theo, who was still bleeding. He was alive, though. Viola could tell from the blood that continued to flow from the wound in his chest.

  She didn’t want to touch him. She didn’t need to touch him, but she knew it would be easier and would work faster if she did, so she placed her hand on his chest, over the wetness of the fabric. His blood was hot and slick beneath her fingers, but she ignored how clearly it spoke to her of dying as she pressed her affinity into him.

  Little by little, she found the source of the damage and used her magic to knit him back together, until his body forced the bullet from the wound and into her hand. She didn’t stop or allow herself to look up at Ruby, but continued to direct her affinity toward him, into him, pulling together the spaces that had been ripped apart by the violence of the bullet.

  Pulling the life back into him.

  He gasped suddenly, and she waited until he opened his eyes to back away. Her hands were sticky with his blood and holding what was left of the bullet. But he would live. He would be fine. And so would Ruby.

  Viola looked up, drained but satisfied with what she had managed, only to find shock and horror in Ruby’s eyes.

  “It was you,” Ruby whispered before Viola could so much as explain. “It was never John Torrio who was Mageus, was it?”

  Viola’s head was shaking of its own accord, even as she wanted to explain, to tell Ruby everything—how she had been ordered to kill her and how she had refused. But something in Ruby’s tone stopped her, a coolness that Viola hadn’t expected.

  “You lied to me,” Ruby said. “All this time, you were lying to me.” There was something new in Ruby’s eyes now. “You’re one of them.”

  Confusion swamped her. “I—” She didn’t know what she was supposed to say. “But you told me you wanted to destroy the Order,” Viola pleaded.

  “Because they depend on magic for their power.” Ruby’s expression was a well of disgust. “Because this city will never be safe as long as unnatural power remains a threat. It destroyed my father—my entire family was nearly destroyed as well because of it,” she said.

  “I thought—”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t see what you were.” Ruby’s eyes were filled with angry tears. “I should have known, but I let yo
u get close to us. I actually begged you for help,” she said, her words crumbling into a fit of hysterical laughter that broke into a sob. “And look what happened.”

  Something about the accusation in Ruby’s voice had Viola’s temper snapping. “I never asked you to come after me. I told you to stay away. I tried to warn you, didn’t I?”

  But Ruby wasn’t backing down. “Theo nearly died because of you.”

  Theo made a soft sound, but Ruby couldn’t see that he was already improving, not through the haze of hate that shone in her eyes.

  Viola staggered to her feet. “I’m not the one who dragged him into that mess today. I’m not the one who refused to leave.” She lashed out at Ruby with all the hurt and anger she felt burning inside of her. It was a flame that would consume her. “That was you, Miss Reynolds. You can blame me all you want. You can hate me for what I am, for something I had no choice in and no ability to refuse, but while you’re telling yourself stories about who and what is evil, you should remember that Theo getting shot is your fault,” Viola said, her voice breaking. “I’m the one who saved him.”

  “Get away from me,” Ruby told her, shielding Theo with her body. “From both of us.”

  The look in Ruby’s eyes was one Viola had seen too many times before. The combination of loathing and fear struck her clear to the bone. She had spent too long trying to be what she wasn’t, so this time she didn’t fight. She honored Ruby’s demand, and without another word, she turned and left. And she didn’t look back.

  DENIAL

  1902—New York

  Ruby could barely see from the tears in her eyes, but she wasn’t sorry to see the back of Viola Vaccarelli. She wasn’t.

  She barely noticed that Theo was moving in her arms until he was already pulling himself upright, rubbing at the place on his chest that was still damp with blood.

  “Theo?” His name came out in a rushing gasp as she threw her arms around him.

  But he shook her off. “I’m fine,” he told her, his voice still weak. “That was rather harsh, though, don’t you think?” He cocked one brow in her direction, and her heart flipped to see the familiar, endearing look.

  “What was?” she asked, already knowing exactly what he was talking about.

  He only stared at her.

  “She’s one of them, Theo. What did you want me to do?”

  “You could have thanked her,” he said gently.

  He was right, of course. But she’s one of them.

  “She lied to us,” she said instead. She brushed his hair back from his face. “Are you truly all right?”

  Taking a deep breath, as though testing out his lungs, he nodded. “I think I am, actually. Are you?” he said, his voice softening.

  “I’m fine,” she told him. “I’m not the one who was shot.”

  “That isn’t what I mean. You liked her,” he pressed.

  “I didn’t—”

  “Don’t,” he said gently. “You lie to the whole world, but you’ve never needed to lie to me.”

  Ruby felt the burn of tears threatening again, but she shook her head, trying to will them away. “It doesn’t matter,” she told him. “She is one of them, and you know how I feel about magic. You know what it did to my family.”

  Theo didn’t speak for a moment, but then he took her chin and turned her toward him. “Ruby . . .”

  “Don’t, Theo.” She shook her head again, not wanting to think about any of it.

  “No,” he said, cupping her face. “You are my dearest friend, and because I love you as well as I’ve ever loved anyone, I’m going to tell you something that I should have told you months ago—before you started this quest of yours: Your father made his own choices, love.”

  She started to argue, but he stopped her with a single look. They’d been friends since they were both babes in leading strings. No one understood her as he did because no one had ever felt as safe as he had. But now he didn’t look safe. Now he looked like the truth staring at her and forcing her to accept it.

  “Yes, the Order might have driven your father deeper into an already unhealthy obsession, but he knew what he was doing when he started, and it had nothing to do with the good of your family or the good of the city. Magic didn’t drive him to his breaking point. Perhaps it helped, but he did that on his own.”

  She was shaking her head and wishing that she could block his words, but in her heart—in that place where she had always understood unspoken things—she’d known this all along. She had been so young when her father had lost his mind and tried to attack a friend over some supposed magical object. He’d nearly murdered someone over a trinket, and it had been so much easier for her—for all of them—to blame the magic itself, that thing outside and apart from him. It had been so much more satisfying to hate and fight against that than to accept that her father had been the cause of her family’s misfortunes.

  Perhaps he’d dabbled in alchemy and other occult studies because of the Order. But Ruby knew the truth. Her father had always been the sort of man who wanted to be bigger and more important than he was. His membership in the Order wasn’t separate from that. When she was a girl, his boasting and posturing had made it seem as though he were some paragon of manliness . . . like he was untouchable.

  But she wasn’t a girl any longer.

  “She’s never going to forgive me,” Ruby whispered, remembering every awful word she’d spoken to Viola.

  “Do you want her to?” Theo asked gently.

  “I don’t know,” Ruby said, knowing the words were a lie even as she spoke them. But she was still so angry and felt so betrayed that she would never, ever admit it.

  CLOSE TO THE SURFACE

  1904—St. Louis

  Harte hit the ground before he knew what was happening, the force of Esta’s blow and his fall knocking the air from his chest. By the time he shook himself off and sat up, Esta was already running into the burning building again. He saw her silhouetted by the fire, and then she was gone.

  At the sight of her disappearing, the power inside Harte rose up with a violence he wasn’t ready for. All at once he was pulled under into darkness, where all he could feel was the pain of being torn apart, the rage at being betrayed, and the unbearable longing that had built over centuries of being imprisoned.

  He didn’t realize that he was trying to run toward the fire himself until he came to with North and one of the other brewery workers holding him back as he tried to tear himself away from them. I will rip them apart to find her.

  But in a blink, his vision focused and he saw Esta appear again, walking toward them whole and unharmed. She met his eyes with a frown, and he could tell that she hadn’t found the cuff.

  He was grateful in that moment that the two guys had hold of his arms. Seshat was so close to the surface that he couldn’t have stopped himself from going to Esta. He couldn’t have stopped Seshat from taking her.

  And Esta wouldn’t have been prepared. She wouldn’t have known until it was too late.

  As his body started to relax, North and the other guy slowly released him. Concern was etched across Esta’s features, but he didn’t go to her. The power was still pressing itself at his boundaries, testing him.

  He didn’t trust himself to even be near Esta, let alone touch her, so he shook his head, warning her off.

  Hurt flickered in her eyes, but he turned away from it, knowing that if he went to her now, the demon-like power inside of him would win.

  “We need to go, before the Guard decides to do anything more,” Ruth told the group.

  Harte wanted to go to Esta, to wrap her in his arms and convince himself that she was still safe and whole, to convince her to leave these Antistasi and all the danger they presented, but Esta’s hurt had turned to hardness. She was already walking away from him, helping Ruth and Maggie and the rest climb into the remaining wagon. And all Harte could do was follow.

  THREATS AND PROMISES

  1904—St. Louis

  It was close
to midnight by the time Julien Eltinge let himself out through the stage door and cut back through the alley behind the theater. The humid warmth of the night felt oppressive without so much as a breeze to cut through it. Still, it was quiet, a more than adequate respite from the exhausting day he’d had.

  The morning had started with a meeting with Corwin Spenser, who had wanted to go over the plans the Society had been making to ensure security at the parade. Not everyone in town appreciated the Veiled Prophet’s celebrations. The Society always expected trouble, rabble who would do anything to disrupt what should have been an evening of entertainment, but with the president in town, nothing could be allowed to go wrong—especially when it came to the necklace. Julien had assured the old man yet again that he was more than capable of taking care of anyone who might try anything during the parade. That meeting had been followed by back-to-back shows, where the house had been full but lackluster. The heat was affecting everyone.

  He’d just turned the corner toward his own apartment when he realized that the carriage on the street behind him seemed to be following him. Slowing his steps, Julien waited for it to pass, but instead it pulled up alongside him and the door opened. Inside was a man he’d seen before—at a dinner the Veiled Prophet had required him to attend earlier that week. He wasn’t one of the Society, but was a representative from one of the other Brotherhoods. Which had it been?

  “Mr. Eltinge?” the man called. “Could I offer you a ride?”

  New York, he thought suddenly, recognizing the clipped accent of the man’s speech. Which meant he was from the Order.

  “Thanks,” Julien called, too aware of the sweat that was dripping down his back. “But I think I’ll walk. It’s a lovely night for it.” He waved and continued on, hoping that would be the end of it.

  It wasn’t, of course. The carriage pulled up alongside him again.

  “Oh, I think you’ll want to come for a ride with me, Julien.” He leaned forward so the streetlamp lit the planes of his face. “Unless you want me to explain to the Order where you really found that necklace.”