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“We need to keep moving,” Esta told him. “I think we’re being followed.”
Before he could argue, she threaded her arm through his and began tugging him along. Even with the layers of clothing between them, Seshat pressed at Harte, writhing within him to get to Esta.
Soon, she whispered. Soon the girl will be mine.
No, he thought, shoving Seshat back into the farthest depths of what he was. I will destroy us both before I ever let you touch her.
Harte thought he could feel Seshat’s mocking amusement, but he turned his attention back to Esta. “They were waiting for us. I should have expected it. I never should have brought you there—but it’s been fifty years.”
“Thoth’s been waiting for centuries to get control of Seshat,” Esta reminded him. “What’s fifty years in the grand scheme of things?”
When they reached California Street, a cable car was stopped in the center of the intersection, blocking the flow of traffic. Just as the driver had finished collecting his fares and was returning his hand to the large hand brake in the center of the car, Esta tugged Harte into the street and urged him on. He didn’t hesitate. Ignoring how exhausted and drained he felt, he sprinted alongside Esta to reach the trolley. They barely managed to hop on as it started moving—too late for anyone to follow. While Esta paid their fares, Harte collapsed into one of the empty seats. He didn’t miss the two men standing at the corner, where they had been, watching the cable car pull away. Their frustration was clear, and on their lapels, silvery medallions gleamed.
Once the trolley car was underway, Esta settled into the seat next to Harte.
“We’ll go back,” he promised. “Tonight. We’ll make a plan and then—”
She leaned in close, and suddenly Harte couldn’t speak. She spoke low, so no one else could hear. “Are you sure that the headpiece you tried to steal was the real thing?”
Seshat prowled within his skin, and Harte pulled back, preserving the careful distance between himself and Esta.
“Of course…”
“You felt the power in the stone?”
“Yes—” But thinking back, Harte couldn’t actually remember if he’d felt anything. He’d been so sick, and everything that day had happened so fast. “Honestly, I don’t know,” he admitted. Then he realized… “I didn’t feel anything back there.”
Esta glanced at him. “That wasn’t the real Dragon’s Eye. It was a replica—a damn good one, but a replica all the same,” she told him. Strangely, she didn’t seem upset by this news. “I wonder if they know?”
“What are you thinking?” he asked, trying to figure out her new mood.
“I’m thinking there’s a good chance that you didn’t lose the Dragon’s Eye,” she said, her golden eyes brightening. “I’m thinking that maybe the Committee never had the original to start with.”
“Of course they did,” Harte said, wishing it were otherwise. “My father told me that he sold it to them. He gloated about it. If he’d sold them a fake, he would have bragged about that, too.”
Esta glanced at him. “But what if your father was wrong?”
Harte frowned. “What do you mean?”
“What if he only thought he sold the real Dragon’s Eye to the Committee?” Esta asked. “What if they only thought they bought the real thing?”
Harte rubbed his hand over his face, tired in mind and body from trying to follow her and her logic. “You’re not making a lot of sense.”
“Remember how I told you that your stepmother, Patience, must have given your father’s creditors replicas of the cuff and the necklace when they came to collect your father’s debts—replicas that she’d probably used her affinity to make?” Esta asked.
Harte still remembered how shocked he’d been to learn that his father had been married to a woman who was Mageus without ever knowing it. “You think she made a replica of the Dragon’s Eye, too?”
Esta nodded. “If Patience could sense the power in the cuff and the necklace, it stands to reason that she would have sensed the power in the Dragon’s Eye as well.”
Harte was glad he was already sitting down. “But she didn’t tell you anything about the crown.”
“Why would she? She didn’t know me, and I didn’t tell her I was looking for it,” Esta said. “But I think it’s absolutely possible that your father sold a fake crown to the Committee.”
“It would have put him at risk if he’d been found out,” Harte said, thinking through the implications. “You really think she would have done that to her husband?”
Esta shrugged. “From what she told me, she wasn’t exactly fond of him. She seemed glad that he was gone.”
“He wasn’t the type of man anyone would be fond of,” Harte said.
