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As they went, North kept his eye on the engine picking up steam in the distance. But there was no sign of any change, no sign of Esta.
North wasn’t sure what had worried him more—that Esta might run off on them, or that she might not be able to get free of the charging engine. The last time she’d used her affinity, it hadn’t gone well. She wouldn’t tell them what, exactly, had happened, and he hadn’t been sure how smart it was for them to depend on her magic again.
When he’d brought up the issue earlier, she and Maggie had assured him that it would be fine. Esta would only have to hold on to time for a few seconds, long enough to make it off the train without breaking her neck. With luck, everyone else would believe that the Devil’s Thief was still on the locomotive, while the three of them headed the other way. Misdirection, Esta had called it, but North suddenly had a sinking suspicion that the crowd wasn’t the only audience she’d had in mind.
In the distance, the train was going faster. The smoke spewing from its smokestacks turned from a light gray to a darker, dangerous cloud of sooty black. Esta had accomplished what she’d planned to do, and now it was up to him and Maggie to get away from the crowd while they had the chance. North tugged Maggie on, and this time she came willingly, but as they reached the far edges of the oil fields, North felt the earth begin to rumble beneath his feet.
At first he didn’t think much of it, but then he realized it was more than the train he was feeling. The vibrations under his boots were getting stronger even as the train was pulling farther away. It felt like the earth itself was about to split open.
“What’s happening?” Maggie asked, her hand tightening around his as she tried to keep her footing. “My incendiaries wouldn’t cause this.”
“I don’t know, but we need to keep moving.”
He’d barely gotten the words out when the earth beneath the engine broke open into a long, jagged gash that swallowed the train whole. The chasm continued to travel in multiple directions from the place where the train disappeared, and moments later the locomotive itself exploded. Even from that distance, the force of the earth shaking nearly rocked them off their feet. Instinctively, North wrapped himself around Maggie, threw them both to the ground, and covered her with his body.
When the rumbling finally stopped and North allowed himself to look up, the dark iron body of the locomotive was gone. They could see nothing but a column of flames that rose from the broken ground, pouring black, sooty smoke into the sky that blotted out the blue. North cursed long and low as he looked over the terrible scene. He sensed Maggie trembling, and he understood what she was feeling. Something had gone terribly wrong.
When Maggie turned to him, her eyes were wide and her face had drained of color. “I didn’t think—it wasn’t supposed to explode yet. Not until it was farther down the track. Do you think Esta made it off before—” Maggie’s voice broke. Her expression was so pained that his heart nearly cracked in two.
In the distance, fingers of fire reached high into the sky, and behind them, the oil fields looked like hell come to earth as another of the towers went up in flames. North and Maggie were stuck in the middle, lost in a thick haze that burned North’s eyes and throat.
“I’m sure Esta’s fine,” he told Maggie, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.
The riders had already gotten their horses under control. Half were stuck on the far side of the chasm, and some had tumbled into the split in the earth, but the remainder began to gallop toward the wreckage.
“Come on.” North pulled Maggie gently along. “We need to get moving if we want to get to the meeting place on time.”
“What if she doesn’t show up, Jericho?” Maggie asked. “What if she got off the train too late? What if you were right to worry about her affinity and she’s—”
“Esta Filosik has more lives than a cat,” North said, even as his own stomach churned. “If she doesn’t show up where she’s supposed to, we can always go back and get her.” His thumb rubbed across the worn metal cover of his pocket watch. Because, for Jericho Northwood, there was no such thing as too late.
PART II
ON DAWSON PLACE
1904—San Francisco
Harte Darrigan pulled back into the empty doorway of a closed shop, out of view from the eagle-eyed guards at the barricade’s entrance across the street. He wasn’t sure what the men were looking for or why they were blocking the intersection. On the train, he’d read about the raids that were happening all over the country in retaliation for the Antistasi’s attack in St. Louis. The barricade could be related to those actions.
Whatever the case, the address Harte was looking for was somewhere beyond that fencing. He supposed he could go around, but the barbed wire wasn’t just across the one intersection. Blocks in either direction were cordoned off from the rest of the city. It was already growing late, and he didn’t want to waste time on a detour, especially when there was no telling how far the blockade stretched.
As Harte tried to figure out how he could get past the guards without being seen or recognized, a pair of men approached the entrance. They were laughing and talking, their pale cheeks already bright pink from a night of drinking. After they spoke briefly with the guards, the gate was pulled back to allow them to pass.
So there was a way through.
After a few minutes more, it became clear who the guards were letting pass—men. That wasn’t a surprise, though. Harte hadn’t seen many women out on the streets since he’d arrived. San Francisco seemed like a city populated almost entirely by men. From the looks of it, the police were admitting a steady stream, mostly made up of white day laborers and sailors. If only he knew for sure what the sentries were looking for.
Harte noticed a driver leaning against a horse cart about halfway down the block. The man was smoking a thin cigar and reading a rumpled newspaper as he waited for his next fare. As Harte approached, the driver glanced up over the newsprint.
“You need a ride?” the man asked, as if to determine whether Harte was worth his time.
Harte shook his head. “Not at the moment. I have a question you might be able to answer.”
The driver frowned and returned to reading with an annoyed snap of his paper. “That depends on what you want to know.”
“What’s going on over there?” Harte asked, tilting his head toward the barricade.
“Quarantine.” A single, gruffly spoken word that didn’t explain anything. “They have all of Chinatown cordoned off.”
