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North lifted his chin. “I’m going to protect what’s mine for as long as I can.”
“I don’t blame you,” Esta told him, placing a hand on Harte’s arm. She cut a warning look at him, before turning her attention back to North. “But I wish you’d reconsider. We could use the help.”
North shook his head. “Not this time.”
“The tower could go off as early as tomorrow night,” Harte pressed. “You’d walk away from that, knowing how many people will be hurt?”
“If it meant my family was safe?” North glanced at Everett, the boy with his eyes and Maggie’s heart. The boy who had made them a family. “I most certainly would.”
“Safe.” Esta gave him a sad shake of her head. “You say that like it’s possible for people like us to be safe.”
“For the last fifteen years or so, safe is exactly what I’ve been,” North told her.
“Have you?” Her tone was unreadable.
“I have my ranch, my family,” he told her. “I don’t need this mess you’re stirring up.”
“We’re not the ones doing the stirring,” Harte told him.
“Mark my words,” Esta added. “If that tower goes off, it won’t only be Mageus in Chicago who will be harmed. When Jack Grew becomes president—when, not if—nothing is going to stop him from making life for those with the old magic worse than it’s ever been. Even Mageus like you, who think they can run off to safety. They’re going to build more towers. Eventually, they’re going to come for your family, too.”
“Eventually isn’t today.” North understood what was at stake. He wasn’t an idiot, was he? Hadn’t he lived through more deeds and fought long and hard for the promise of a future for his children and their children’s children? But that future was still a ways off, and Everett was right here, real and whole. He couldn’t set the boy’s life aside for some distant possibility.
“We didn’t stop the attack, but we can still stop Jack and the terrible future he’s planning,” Esta told him. “We can stop ‘eventually’ from ever arriving if we destroy that tower. Tonight. Before he sets it off. We can save the Mageus in the city and those who have no idea what’s coming. Help us destroy the tower, and we can save your family.”
“You can’t destroy the tower tonight,” Everett argued. “An attack like that wouldn’t help your cause at all. You’d just be giving the Brotherhoods another reason to rally everyone against the old magic.”
“Leave it be, Everett. This is none of our business,” North told his son.
“The kid has a point,” Harte said to Esta.
“No,” North told them, stepping between his son and the other two. “He doesn’t. He’s not getting involved. Get your stuff,” he told Everett, who had the weapon he’d brought back with him from the market on his lap. He was already starting to take it apart. “We’re leaving as soon as we’re packed.”
Everett set the metal body of the flamethrower aside. “You can go if you want, but I’m not ready just yet.”
Looking at his son, the boy’s face a portrait of stubborn determination, North was struck immediately by how young Everett still was. It didn’t matter that North himself had been even younger when his own father had died or that he’d been about Everett’s age when he’d been jumping from place to place, getting into all sorts of trouble.
“I didn’t ask if you were ready,” North said.
“But I can help,” Everett insisted. “I understand machines. I’ve studied everything I could about the California towers—at least in theory.” Everett turned to Esta and Harte. “I can help,” he repeated.
“Maybe you can,” North told his son, “but you’re not going to.”
Everett frowned at him, and North saw the flicker of temper flash in his boy’s eyes. That little show of backbone was what he’d wanted from his son all along, but North found himself now wishing he’d never started down this path.
“Son—”
But Everett stepped around North, ignoring the warning he’d infused in that single word, and spoke directly to Esta. “If you’re going to go after that tower, you need to be smart about it,” Everett said. “It’s not enough to destroy it tonight. That would be another attack, and another reason for the Brotherhoods to retaliate. They might even be able to repair the tower in time to set it off like they’re planning to, and you wouldn’t have stopped anything. It would be better if we let the whole thing play out, but if we could disable the mechanism so no one realized… Or maybe if the machine didn’t work like they expected… With a couple of adjustments to the tower, we could turn their whole plan into an enormous, embarrassing catastrophe. We could save the people in this city who have the old magic and make Jack Grew and the Brotherhoods look like incompetent, dangerous fools all at once.”
“You don’t by any chance have an idea for how to do that?” Esta asked, exchanging a silent look with Harte that North didn’t like one bit.
“Yes,” Everett told them.
“No,” North said at the same time. “I told you—he is not getting involved. We’re leaving tonight.”
Everett met North’s eyes. “I can help with this, Pa.”
“What do you expect me to tell your mother if I have to go home without you?” North demanded.
