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The igniter Maggie had given her was a strange contraption made from a glass vial that cracked in two to create a small explosion. It was easy enough to use, and Esta quickly activated the formula inside and set it on the fuses before pulling back under cover when the horses galloped past her.
A moment later, the entire landscape erupted as Maggie’s incendiaries exploded, their flames consuming the small clutches of brush and shrubs where they’d been placed all along the landscape. The Flash and Bangs erupted next, like fireworks at close range. One by one they exploded at random intervals, drawing the riders’ attention in multiple directions at once. The horses reared up, shying away from the noisy confusion despite their riders’ commands. As Esta watched, the strange multicolored flames from the incendiaries that had set fire to the brush began to produce an ethereal fog. It wasn’t the cloying smoke of a normal fire, but instead glowed a strange lavender as it swirled into the sky, a cyclone of power and flame that blocked the riders’ way. It blocked their view as well. A few tried to shoot, but their leader held up a hand to stay them.
Esta waited, trying to remain calm, but she didn’t know what was coming. If her theory was right, if they had been able to save North, then her present should become impossible. If time worked the way that Professor Lachlan had explained, her present self—the one crouching in the bushes and hoping—should no longer be. But what that meant, Esta didn’t exactly know.…
As she continued to watch, the landscape around her fuzzed in and out of focus, and suddenly Esta felt a bolt of utter dread. She could sense time hanging around her, but the seconds had become erratic and unstable. The landscape flickered, and time felt suddenly dangerous. Hungry. She could almost feel the seconds turning toward her. Coming for her. She could sense their desire to devour her—to tear her from the world—but when she reached for her affinity, desperate to stop whatever was happening, Esta could no longer grasp the seconds. Her affinity slipped through her fingers like sand.
As the world around her shifted, she had the sudden, awful thought that she’d miscalculated. She’d wondered what would happen if she didn’t return the cuff to her younger self. She’d wondered what it would feel like to disappear—whether it would hurt to be unmade or whether it would be soft, like sinking into darkness. She thought maybe it would be like forgetting—like nothing at all.
Now Esta understood. Now she knew how truly terrible it was to feel time pulling her—and everything she was—apart. Ripping her from existence.
Esta’s mind raced for some solution, some way out of the trap she’d set for herself, but before she could do anything, she felt herself being unanchored from the present moment, torn away, torn back through the layers of time and place. Until she wasn’t anything at all.
THE COVER OF NIGHT
1904—San Francisco
When Harte Darrigan finally disembarked from the train in California, he was still across the bay from the city he was trying to reach. He followed the line of railroad passengers to the long ferry boats and climbed aboard, the whole time trying not to look too overwhelmed by the sights around him. He’d lived his entire life on an island, but he’d never ventured close to the water’s edge if he could help it. In California, though, there was no trace of the cold power that kept Mageus away from the shores of Manhattan. Harte felt only the briny dampness of the sea air and the strange coolness of the summer day as the wind ruffled his hair. He’d watched the continent unfold itself for the last few days, and now he’d reached its end.
Fog cloaked the sea as the ferry carried Harte onward, but as they drew closer to the opposite shore, San Francisco finally came into view. It was something to take it all in, the hills that flared up around the bustling docks, barely visible through the misty fog. Beyond the jut of land where the city sat, the bay emptied out into an endless sea, one that led to a world far wider and stranger than even Harte could imagine. Somehow, this view of San Francisco almost felt like enough to make up for the life he would never have.
Then the wind shifted, and suddenly Harte smelled himself instead of the sea—the days-old sweat and sourness rising up from his body and the other passengers’ cigar smoke that had permeated his clothes on the train. His skin felt sticky, and his hair was a heavy, unwashed cap against his scalp. For a moment he had the ridiculous thought that he would give nearly anything to be back in New York, in his own apartment, sinking into the steaming water of the pristine porcelain tub he’d worked so long and so hard to call his own. But that life was gone now, and the apartment right along with it. There was no going back, not when he carried within his skin a power that could destroy the world itself.
As the ferry shuddered to a stop, Harte pulled his jacket closed to ward off the chill he felt and began to follow the other passengers once again. He told himself that it definitely wasn’t stalling to clean up before he continued on. It wouldn’t do to show up looking like a tramp when he went to retrieve the Dragon’s Eye, the fanciful golden headpiece with an amber stone that seemed to glow from within. It would be hard enough to explain who he was and why he was there—how he was there—to a woman he’d never met. She probably hadn’t even known Harte existed until the Dragon’s Eye had arrived on her doorstep two years before.
It was early in the evening and the sun was already starting to set by the time Harte finally left the cheap boardinghouse and began to make his way up Market Street and into the heart of the city. The area near the docks was filled with squat rows of wooden buildings that housed saloons and worn-out hotels, along with cluttered shops that catered to travelers and sailors. But as Harte traveled away from the water, the city changed. The tumbled wooden structures near the water became well-made buildings of stone and brick that housed banks and offices. Instead of the workmen that had crowded the docks, filling the air with their raucous banter and all-too-human smells, the sidewalks in the business district were filled with men in suits who walked silently on, wearing serious, harried expressions.
Once, Harte might have relished every sight. Once, he might even have wished to be one of those men. Now, though, his only thought was for what came next—finding the Dragon’s Eye. Meeting Esta. Defeating Seshat.
As though I would allow you to… Or didn’t you learn your lesson, back on the train?
Harte shook off Seshat’s voice and kept his pace steady and determined, but days with barely any sleep had taken their toll, and his steps felt as heavy as the artifacts weighing down his pockets. It didn’t help that he knew that each step drew him closer to facing the past he’d been running from for so long.
When Harte turned onto California Street, he paused, confused by the grinding, growling whir he heard, until he realized it came from the cables that ran beneath the paved road. They sounded like some slumbering dragon waiting to rouse itself. Manhattan didn’t have anything like the odd, open trollies that traversed the steep hills of this city. The thought of using one was briefly tempting, but Harte knew he needed to save his last few coins for the trip back to the bridge. Instead, he continued his hike, trying to prepare himself for what might come.
With his affinity, retrieving the headpiece shouldn’t be difficult. A simple touch, skin to skin, and he could have it easily—and the person he was visiting would never even remember losing it. Nor would they remember him. Now, though, Harte wasn’t sure that would be the wisest move. After he’d left Esta, he’d thought to use his affinity to board the next train, but when he’d tried, Seshat had lurched within him, making his magic feel like something apart from him, uncontrollable and dangerous. Harte had barely pulled back in time to stop her from doing whatever she’d planned, and after, he hadn’t risked using his affinity again. Instead, he’d made the rest of the trip with nothing but his own cunning and what little money he had left.
It was clear that Seshat didn’t like the other two artifacts he carried, and he imagined that the ancient goddess would do everything she could to prevent him from retrieving a third. Harte decided that it would be safer to depend on his wits and whatever was left of his charm. He would keep his affinity tucked away and use it only as a last resort.
Eventually you will need to rely on what you are, Seshat purred. And when you do, I will be waiting.
Harte shook off her voice. He didn’t want to consider that Seshat might be right, especially since he didn’t have much confidence in his charms. Maybe he would have had more if he’d known anything about the person who had the Dragon’s Eye other than her name—Maria Lowe—and the address on Dawson Place, where she lived. He’d memorized both years ago, when he was still a boy and his mother had still been living with the man who had fathered him. That was before Molly O’Doherty had tossed Harte out into the streets, even though he was still a child. It was before Harte had taken up with Dolph Saunders and the Devil’s Own and then, later, with Paul Kelly’s gang. In those days, he’d still been Benedict O’Doherty, a name he’d only recently resurrected. He hadn’t yet fashioned himself into Harte Darrigan or pulled himself out of the Bowery through sheer determination.
Harte still didn’t want to look too closely at where the impulse to send the headpiece to the woman had come from. After everything that had happened at Khafre Hall—and with Seshat’s voice newly echoing in his mind—he hadn’t exactly been thinking straight when he sent the Order’s artifacts out into the world. He’d only had the impulse that he needed to get them out of the city, because he knew that Nibsy Lorcan could never be allowed to retrieve them.
Back then, the country had seemed impossibly large to Harte. He’d thought that by separating the artifacts, by sending them out into the far corners of that enormous world, it would be impossible for any single person to bring them back together and harness their power. He’d been wrong, of course. Even if Nibsy Lorcan might not find the artifacts for decades, Harte’s experience in St. Louis had shown him how easily they could fall into the wrong hands. Julian hadn’t been able to resist wearing the necklace that contained the Djinni’s Star, and the Society had found it. Harte had seen the discarded newspapers that littered the trains as he’d traveled; he already knew that Julian had paid the price for his naive stupidity. He only hoped that Maria Lowe had not been so unlucky.
Harte increased his pace, but walking faster couldn’t turn back the years or undo the mistakes he’d made along the way. Already the sky was growing darker and the city was beginning to come alive. Now that evening was falling over the streets, there was something about San Francisco that reminded Harte of New York. The two cities were nothing alike, but beneath the cover of night, they weren’t so very different. He’d come thousands of miles only to find himself in the same place he’d started—a crowded, filthy cluster of buildings filled with work-weary souls who only wanted to make it to the next day. A trap dressed up like a dream.
The thought made Harte walk faster, not that he could ever outpace the memory of the boy he’d been. He was so deep in the darkness of his thoughts—so determined that whatever mistakes he’d made in the past, he would find the headpiece and make this one mistake right—that he almost didn’t notice the fencing. Or the men who guarded it.
Harte pulled up short just before he crossed Kearny Street. On the other side of the intersection stood a trio of men. Each held a billy club as they watched the pedestrians with sharp eyes. They weren’t police, or at least they weren’t wearing the uniform of police, but behind them, a barricade of wood and barbed wire blocked the intersection. In the deep recesses of his mind, he heard Seshat laugh.
EXILED
1902—New York
Ruby Reynolds barely cared that she was crumpling the sheet of paper in her hand as she stormed into the Barclays’ library and slammed the door behind her. Theo didn’t so much as look up as she propped her hands on his desk.
