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“No,” Cela said, still feeling a kind of prickly coolness. “You meant to hurt me.”
Viola shook her head, but to Cela’s surprise, it wasn’t a denial that came out of her mouth. “I didn’t know you were with him. I was trying to save the ring. I thought you were trying to steal it.”
“Of course you did. You took one look at me and thought theft was the only possibility, but I can’t steal something that belonged to me in the first place,” Cela said, her words tart. When Viola’s expression flashed with the disbelief and judgment Cela recognized too well, she gave Viola a cold smile in return. “Harte Darrigan gave that ring to me as payment for taking care of his mother. Not that I should have to explain myself to you.”
“Darrigan?” The girl’s eyes flashed. “You knew the magician?”
“I worked in the theater with Darrigan,” Cela said. “Though I should have known better than to agree to help him, or to take anything he offered.”
“That ring wasn’t his to give,” Viola said, her voice suddenly turning dangerous, and Cela was reminded that this girl was no innocent. At the gala, she’d let her knife fly, straight and true, with an intent to kill and an aim deadly enough to make good.
But Cela Johnson wouldn’t let Viola see her nerves. “What Darrigan did or didn’t have any right to doesn’t matter now,” Cela said, changing the subject. “Jianyu doesn’t have much longer, and that’s because of you. Can you help him or not?”
Viola’s jaw went tight, like she was getting ready to argue, but when Cela stepped to the side, revealing Jianyu in the bed behind her, the girl’s expression went slack with something that looked too similar to Cela’s own grief. The way Viola took a halting step toward the bed, she could have been sleepwalking.
“Can you help him?” Cela repeated, placing herself between Jianyu and Viola. Her arms were crossed over her chest, but she was ready—to do what, she didn’t know. But ready just the same. “Because I won’t let you hurt him again.”
Cela wasn’t exactly sure where the nerve to speak so forcefully to a white girl had come from… but then Viola Vaccarelli wasn’t really a white girl, was she? Maybe out in the wide world, Viola could pull on the protection of whiteness if she was standing next to Cela herself. But alone on the streets? She was a lowly immigrant. Not even a citizen. And here? In Mr. Fortune’s house? Viola was only as important as what she could do for Jianyu.
“Cela,” Abel warned gently from the doorway. He’d told her about what had happened earlier, the way his chest had ached like it was on fire and he’d thought his heart would explode. Viola had made it clear that she didn’t need knives to kill.
Viola’s only response to Cela’s pointless threat was a quiet shake of her head. “I won’t hurt him. I can help.”
Cela didn’t move away as Viola stepped toward the bed. She wasn’t about to stand by if this little bit of a girl decided to finish the job she’d started at the gala.
“I thought I had killed him,” Viola murmured as she knelt next to the bed. “I would have tried to find you sooner, but I thought it was too late.” Pulling back the covers, she took one of Jianyu’s hands in her own, shuddering a little, probably at the coolness of his skin. Then she glanced up at Cela, her strange plum-colored eyes brimming. “Thank you. For being his friend when I was not. For saving him.”
Cela only nodded, glancing briefly over to where Abel stood in the doorway, as watchful as she felt. “I haven’t saved him yet.”
“You brought me here,” Viola said. “It’s not too late.” Her lips pressed tightly together as she closed her eyes, her face tense with concentration.
Cela waited, but nothing seemed to happen. The minutes ticked by as the silence in the room spun itself around them. The city buzzed outside the open window, but it might as well have been another world altogether, because inside the room, they were all caught in a moment of dangerous hope. Viola’s forehead wrinkled, her expression creased from some unseen exertion, her skin now damp with sweat. The hand that clutched Jianyu’s trembled slightly.
Cela glanced up at Abel, who looked every bit as unsure as she felt.
It was taking too long. Certainly, something as powerful and dangerous as the old magic could have worked by now. Something was wrong.
Cela didn’t know what she’d intended when she took a step toward the bed, but before she could touch the girl or pull her away from Jianyu, Viola gasped. Her eyes flew open as she released her hold on Jianyu and tumbled over, barely catching herself before she slumped to the floor.
“What is it?” Cela asked, stepping toward Jianyu. She took his hand and noticed that it felt warmer, but that could have been from Viola’s grasp. He still wasn’t moving. She squeezed Jianyu’s hand slightly and touched his cheek to wake him. But nothing. Jianyu didn’t so much as stir.
“Is he okay?” Abel asked from somewhere close behind her.
Cela didn’t answer her brother. Couldn’t. She turned on Viola, her throat tight with fury and grief all at once. “You said you could help him.”
But Viola didn’t respond. When she looked up at Cela, she was wearing an expression that could have been carved from stone, her eyes wide with something that might have been shock… or fear.
NOT COMPLETELY, NOT ENOUGH
1902—New York
Viola felt the fury in Cela’s voice as soundly as a slap across her face, and she welcomed it. Her hands were flat against the worn rag rug next to the bed, and her entire body trembled with the exertion to stay upright. But she wouldn’t allow herself to grovel before these strangers. Instead, she pulled herself upright, back to her knees, and leaned against the bed. Jianyu’s color looked a little better, and his breathing had improved. She took his hand again and felt that his skin was warmer now, but it wasn’t enough.
She hadn’t been enough.
Viola had allowed her affinity to unspool until she’d found the too-slow and too-unsteady beating of Jianyu’s heart. He’d lost so much blood since the gala, and she found the reason—the tear made by her blade had not healed. It had continued to bleed, and because of that, Jianyu was still very far gone.
But not completely, she’d reminded herself. She’d bought him some more time.
