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“Then how could they find us?”
She turned to Esta. “We must go. It is not safe here—”
“Not without him,” Esta refused. She could save him. She would.
“No one should be in that tunnel. My husband built it as a way to escape from the enemies he made. If someone is there, they followed you. If they followed you through those tunnels, they are not friends.”
“Help me carry him,” Esta begged. “I know you have done so much already, but please, I need to get him outside.”
Patience was shaking her head, backing away with her arms around the child. “I can’t. If they find us here with you—” She shook her head again, then took her son’s hand and disappeared through the door. They were gone before Esta could stop them.
THE WORLD CRUMBLES
1904—San Francisco
Esta couldn’t blame Patience for running with her child. Not when she’d kept Harte alive long enough for Esta to find him, and especially not when she’d relinquished the cuff that could save them both. Esta had no idea what it must be like to have a child, the constant, urgent need to protect that small life, even at the cost of your own. She didn’t really even know what it felt like to have a family. But she knew what she felt for Harte. She wouldn’t let him go. She would not give up, not now.
If I can get him outside…
Esta didn’t know San Francisco. She had no idea what she might find when she slipped ahead through the layers of time. She understood it would be dangerous with Seshat lurking beneath Harte’s skin, but desperation made her reckless.
“Come on,” she said, barely noticing how bad Harte smelled as she took him under the arms and started to pull him up out of the hole.
Harte had lost so much weight in the days since she’d seen him that he felt almost skeletal in her arms. With every tug, a terrible keening erupted from his throat. It sounded awful, painful—not quite human. Still Esta didn’t stop. With the cuff on her arm and the necklace in the pouch tucked close to her body, she kept going. As she pulled him little by little through the apartment, the jangling bells became more insistent, and then she heard new sounds coming from the storeroom. Someone was pounding on the trapdoor in the floor.
Esta ignored that threat as well. If she could only get Harte outside the building, it would be safer to use Ishtar’s Key. On she went, steadily tugging him along, until they were in the narrow alleyway outside the small apartment.
Night had not yet descended, but the alley was tucked far enough back from the larger street that it lay deep in shadows. Only the faintest hum from the city beyond reached her there. Exhausted, Esta lowered Harte to the ground and saw that he was looking at her. His mouth was moving again, and this time she recognized the whisper of her name hissing from his lips.
“See you,” he whispered, each word a rattling breath. “Once more…” And then he reached for her, but before he could touch her, his eyes fluttered closed and his hand went limp, falling away.
Esta leaned over him and for a long, terrible moment, she thought it was too late. “Damn you, Darrigan,” she said, her words choked with her tears. She gave him a not-so-gentle shake until his chest rose and fell again. “Don’t you dare die on me until I make you pay for leaving me on that train. Do you hear me?”
He lay silent, his breath ragged.
They needed to get somewhere with more space, somewhere that might still be open in—how many years? She wasn’t sure. The street would be safer. A park if she could get that far.
“You hold on a little while longer, and I’m going get us out of here,” she said, talking to him and to herself at the same time. She was trembling with the fear of what would happen if he died as she considered which way they should go.
“No…” The word came out as barely a whisper. Harte’s eyes opened halfway. “Too late.”
He was right and he wasn’t. Maybe in 1904 it was too late for him, but now that Esta had Ishtar’s Key, Harte had a chance.
“It’s not even close to too late,” she told him, pulling him up so his head could rest on her lap.
Harte groaned at the movement, his face crumpling in pain. “Seshat… gone…”
“She’s gone?” Esta asked.
“Not yet.” Harte’s eyes seemed unfocused as he stared up at the starless sky. “But when I die—”
“You’re not going to die.”
His eyes found hers then, the stormy gray so familiar and so intent as they finally focused on her. “Thoth is coming.… Go. Leave—”
Esta choked back tears she could not stop from falling. “When have I ever taken orders from you?”
She felt the vibrations of what might have been a laugh shuddering through his chest. But then he gasped and looked up at her again. “I die… Seshat dies.”
