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“I think that the less you know, the safer you’ll be,” Esta said, choosing her words carefully.
The amusement drained from Sammie’s expression. “You’re not going to explain?”
“Esta’s right,” Harte agreed. “You’ve dealt with enough tonight. You’ve already put your business—your whole life here—in danger because of us.”
“I’m more than strong enough to withstand whatever the Committee dishes out,” Sam said, indignant. “I managed well enough during the last war. Dottie’s still here, isn’t she? Plenty of others, too.”
“Yes, and we’re going to make sure that you stay here too,” Harte told him. Then he turned to Esta. “Say we do go back. Even if we can get the Book and the dagger from Jack, we only have one tablet of Quellant left,” he reminded her. They would need that to get back to 1902.
“Maybe that doesn’t have to be a problem,” Esta said, glancing at Harte’s brother. “Not if Sammie could find us some more.”
“These days, the Nitemarket can be a little dodgy,” Sammie hedged. “But if it’s important—”
“No,” Harte said. “You’ve done enough for us. I’m not having you take any more risks for our sake.”
“He’s not supposed to be president,” Esta said softly. “This Reticulum they were talking about? It’s not supposed to exist. None of this was supposed to happen.”
“You’re sure?” Harte asked, even though he knew already that Esta wouldn’t have said it if she wasn’t.
“Jack Grew isn’t supposed to be anyone important. You said he’s been in office since Prohibition?” she asked Sam, who was looking more than a little confused at their conversation.
“He was Harding’s vice president,” Sam explained. “He took office after Harding died, but he’s won every election since.”
“So much should have happened since then,” Esta murmured. “Wars and a depression and presidents who changed the country and the world.”
“Oh, we’ve had wars all right,” Sam said, stubbing out the cigarette on the edge of the sink. “A depression, too. But President Grew has been at the helm the whole time, for better or for worse. A lot of the time, it’s been worse.”
“This Reticulum he’s building,” Harte asked Sammie. “How much of a reality is it?”
“It’s getting close to completion, even with all the Antistasi have done to delay its progress,” Sam said. “It’s close enough that I keep telling Gracie to go—a lot of Mageus have already gotten false papers and left. I got her some too, but she won’t leave without me, and I have too many people here depending on me.”
“Harte, we can stop this,” Esta said softly. “Jack. The Reticulum. All of it.”
“How are you possibly going to stop it when an entire network of Antistasi hasn’t been able to?” Sam wondered. “There are towers in every state and in every major town, and with television stations needing places to broadcast, they’ve only grown faster. There’s no way you can dismantle the network now—I don’t care how powerful you think you are.”
“We can if the network was never built in the first place.…” Harte let out an unsteady breath, then turned back to Esta. “Just so you’re aware, I hate this idea.”
“I know,” she told him. “But it could work. We could get the Book, the artifacts, and make sure Jack Grew never has the power to hurt anyone again.”
TRAPPED IN TIME
1952—San Francisco
The next morning, Esta woke to the sound of rain. She pulled the window coverings back far enough to see that the sky was an impenetrable gray. The heaviness of the rain and overall gloom of the day might have seemed like some sort of premonition if Esta had been the type to believe in signs. She wasn’t, but the weather cast a pall over her mood nonetheless.
Harte began stirring on the couch, where he’d insisted on sleeping. He needed the rest more than she did, but he’d refused to take the bed out of some kind of misplaced sense of chivalry, the idiot. His dark hair was sticking up in all directions like a disheveled chicken, and though Esta couldn’t help but smile at the sight, she didn’t miss the circles beneath his eyes.
They’d stayed up late into the night planning for what needed to be done. From what Esta could see, there was one place where they knew for sure they could find Jack in the past: the Republican National Convention of 1920. If Esta and Harte could get to the convention, they might be able to stop Jack and steal both the Book and the Pharaoh’s Heart, all at the same time.
From what Sam explained, the event had been a turning point—the First World War had recently ended, and everyone had their opinion about what kind of nation the country should become. That year, Jack hadn’t really been seen as a serious candidate, but the Antistasi had launched an attack on the convention, and Jack had seized the opportunity to activate a tower in retaliation. People weren’t as horrified as they had been with his first tower in San Francisco. Instead, the success of that little exhibition allowed the Brotherhoods to rally the party and push Jack’s nomination through for the vice presidency. Once Harding died unexpectedly in 1923, Jack took over.
They knew it would be difficult to steal the Book and the dagger from Jack in the middle of the convention, but if they could find him before the attack galvanized the public against those with the old magic, it might be possible to get close to him. It might be possible to stop him and save countless lives.
Harte still hated the idea, but Esta had held firm. History was long, and the country wide. They couldn’t pass on this opportunity, not when it was the surest bet they’d had so far. And if they couldn’t get more Quellant? If they could never return to 1902? They could at least take Jack Grew out of the equation. Even if they couldn’t get the Book or the Pharaoh’s Heart, they had to stop the threat of the Reticulum from ever materializing. And if they did manage to get both the Book and the Dagger? It was the best possible scenario. It was a risk they had to take.
Harte was pacing the floor by the time Sam finally arrived nearly twenty minutes late, looking tired and harried.
“The Nitemarket wasn’t exactly hopping last night,” he said. “There’s rumors that the two of you have surfaced, and it seems that everyone’s nervous about the Committee and what the Brotherhoods might do. I could only find a few more Quellant. Not as many as I’d hoped.”
