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There was some unspoken conversation between the two of them, but eventually Dakari stepped back and climbed into his rig. With a flick of the reins, he spurred the horse onward, and then he was gone.
“Good-bye,” Esta murmured, watching the carriage disappear around the corner. Then she turned to Harte. “Promise me that you didn’t—”
“I wouldn’t betray you like that, Esta.” He slipped his hand into hers. “I promise.”
“You really didn’t, did you?”
Harte shook his head, and suddenly Esta wondered if she’d made a mistake. They could have known what Dakari would do. They could have been sure.
And she would have hated herself every day because of it.
“It’s in fate’s hands now,” Harte told her.
“No,” she said. She swallowed down her fear. “It’s in Dakari’s. We have to give him a chance, though. We need to lead the Guard the other way.”
They started to run back toward the entrance to the park, until they came face-to-face with a squad of Guard. When they were sure that the men had seen them, Esta squeezed Harte’s hand. She reached for her affinity and slowed time as she stepped toward him, and as the world hung silent around them, she kissed him. She only meant to hold on to the seconds long enough to capture the Guard’s attention, but the second their lips met, Harte pulled her into the kiss.
He kissed her fiercely, like she was something precious. He kissed her like he was saying good-bye.
She was left breathless and wanting and without any idea of what she was supposed to say.
“This is going to work, Esta.”
But they didn’t know that. Dakari was one of the best men she knew, but time was a tricky beast, and the past was waiting. “You gave him the diary,” she said. “We won’t know what we’re walking into.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Harte told her. “I am never going to do anything to hurt you. I don’t care what that page says. I’d die myself before I took your life.”
“If we don’t get out of here, it’s not going to matter,” she told him, trying to brush away her fear.
“Ready?” Harte asked, releasing her.
“Let’s go,” he said, and the second she let go of time, they ran, leading the squad of Guard down the winding path away from the direction Dakari had gone. When they reached the pond, they followed the path around rock formations covered in graffiti that rose out of the bedrock. And when she thought they were far enough away for Dakari to be safely out of range, Esta slowed time around her again.
The city went silent as they slowed, trying to catch their breath. Their pace was slower as they rounded a corner and headed toward one of the arching tunnels that carried one path over another. They were halfway through the tunnel when something changed. The world was still silent, caught in the web of time and Aether, but a line of Guard stepped into the opening on the other end to block their way. Their eyes were an inky black.
She cursed, but when they turned back to retreat, the path they’d just taken was blocked as well. More Guard had filed into the tunnel opening behind them. Their eyes were also empty of light and color.
Around them, the wind shifted unnaturally, and she thought she heard laughter.
“It’s time, Esta,” Harte said, his hand firm around hers. “We’re ready.”
One of the men lifted something that looked like a large fire extinguisher and aimed it in their direction. Harte jerked her back as the device began spraying a thick, bluish fog. They couldn’t retreat too far, though, because on the other side, the other line of Guard was approaching.
But it didn’t matter. They were ready, and it was time for them to go.
Esta was already focusing on her affinity, already riffling through the layers of time and history, until there. She had just reached the layer she needed when the fog began to swirl. She pulled them both through just as a cold wave of energy blasted over her. She felt her hold on time slipping, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself back, back, back.
But her magic lurched, and her hold on time went erratic.
It didn’t feel like when she’d been shot by that bespelled bullet. Her affinity didn’t seem to be slipping from her or draining away like before. Instead, her connection to the old magic felt like something wild and alive. The power flowing through her and tethering her to this time, to this place, went simultaneously hot and cold, and her grip on time—on Harte—began to slip.
All at once, time itself began to change. The layers of history, those years piled one atop the other, began to blur. She could no longer see the distinct layers of time, each minute anchored to this one, singular place. Now she saw everything. The minutes and seconds multiplied, twisted, until each minute contained all minutes. Each second held the promise of every possible second. And she saw, suddenly, what she had missed before—the possibilities inherent in the Aether, the way it connected everything.
The spaces between things weren’t empty. They were filled with all that had been and all that might ever be.
The city flashed and blurred around her, and time became a living thing. There, within the layers—within the promise of each second—she saw every possibility, all at once. Simultaneously present and past and future.
There was the city as an untouched place, infinite in what it might become. There was her city as it had once been before she saved the Magician or became the Devil’s Thief. Before she’d changed the flow of time. That past was still there, a ghost or memory within the layers of time. She couldn’t reach it, but it wasn’t gone. Because it was still possible.
