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“No?” Jack purred, unmoved by her emotion. “Do you not borrow power to become more than you are? Or do you truly believe that your use of Ishtar’s Key—and the life it contains—is so innocent?”
Esta lifted her chin, ignoring the echo of unease at Thoth’s words. She’d worried about that very thing ever since the Professor had told her how the stones were created, but she wouldn’t allow Thoth to distract her now.
Jack—or the thing inside him—seemed amused. “It wasn’t meant as a judgment, girl. Whatever people are careless enough to lose can be taken, and whatever can be taken can be made our own. Lives included.”
“And power?” Esta pressed, her mind racing. She would not leave until she had the Book.
“Especially power,” Thoth said, glowing from within Jack’s eyes.
“Even if it destroys the people you take it from?” she asked. Esta wasn’t sure how she was going to get out of this, but she knew she had to keep Thoth talking. As long as he was going on about himself, he wasn’t trying to kill her, and as long as Jack was still standing there, she could try to get the Book.
“If a person isn’t strong enough to protect what’s theirs, they deserve to be destroyed,” Thoth whispered. “So many are born with power they are unworthy of.”
She turned a little more, keeping him squarely in front of her. “Like Seshat?”
Jack’s eyes went darker still. “Exactly like Seshat. If she had been stronger, she would have protected herself… and her power.”
“She didn’t think she needed to,” Esta said. “She considered you a friend—she trusted you.”
“Which only proves my point. From the beginning, Seshat was far too weak. Far too soft. She relied on sentiment instead of strength,” Thoth hissed. “She had the ability to touch the very strands of creation. She could have had endless power at her disposal, and instead, she allowed everything to slip through her fingers.”
“So you betrayed her.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed, and the amusement drained from his expression. “I gave Seshat every chance—I gave her a choice. I showed her the unfairness of the world. I showed her how those born without an affinity must suffer the capriciousness of fate in silent resignation. She could have helped me. Together we could have taken the beating heart of magic and made it our own. Instead, she refused to wield the power within these pages as it was meant to be used.”
“She disagreed with you, so you destroyed her,” Esta challenged.
“I did what was required.” Jack grimaced as though struggling to control the muscles in his face. “Seshat tried to keep me from my fate, but she failed, as she was always destined to fail. She attempted to save the heart of magic by creating the Book, but it was I who transformed the Book into something more. Every page bears the mark of my work. Over eons I have collected the rituals and spells within those pages. Over centuries I have worked to fill each and every page with the very secrets of magic. Soon it will be complete.”
Esta pretended to be unaffected by his claims. “But it’s still nothing without Seshat, isn’t it?”
An ancient laugh came from deep within Jack. “Even without her, it is so much more than a simple tome. With it, I have already gone far beyond the bounds of what anyone else has yet imagined.”
“Maybe,” Esta said. “But without Seshat’s power, you’re just Sundren. A ghost within a man. You’re pretending to be more than you are, because you still need her power.”
“That power belongs to me,” Thoth growled, contorting the skin and muscles of Jack’s face as he leaned toward her.
Esta held her ground. “How could Seshat’s power possibly belong to you?”
“Did I not encourage her?” he snarled, closer now to her face. Nearly close enough for her to reach the Book. “It was I who gave her the idea of placing the last bit of pure magic in these pages. Because even then, I knew that one day I would be able to wield it. You see, girl, everything Seshat did, everything she created, was because of me.”
Esta doubted that was true. “Without Seshat, the Book is nothing but some paper and vellum bound in a ratty old cover.”
“Is it?” Thoth laughed from somewhere deep inside of Jack. With a flourish, he tossed it into the air, where it hung, suspended in the Aether.
Energy snaked around Esta, hot and cold alike, and the Book began to rotate and turn in midair, opening as it did so. Light poured from the surface of its pages as the Ars Arcana floated above Jack’s outstretched hand. As Esta watched, something began to emerge from the opened pages—a hilt and then a bloodred stone.
“You recognize this dagger, don’t you?” Jack had moved closer to her, and she felt Thoth’s energy flowing through him, licking at her, like he was trying to taste her power. “You’ve been searching for it.”
The Pharaoh’s Heart. It was so close—an arm’s length away—protruding from the pages of the Book.
Esta tried to understand what she was seeing. The dagger was rising from the pages like they were some sort of a portal.
“Any stage magician could do the same,” Esta challenged, pretending to be unmoved. But she had the sense that she needed to understand what she was seeing. “It’s a nice illusion, but that’s all it is.”
Jack pulled the dagger completely from the Book, and in a flash he had the tip of the knife poised at her throat. “Does this feel like an illusion?”
The blade pressed against her skin, so close to where it had once cut her before. She felt her affinity tremble as it sensed the icy, echoing power of the stone in the dagger’s hilt, but she pretended indifference. “It doesn’t seem any different than pulling a rabbit from a hat,” she told him, schooling her features so he wouldn’t see her fear.
