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In the distance, the world had once more launched back into motion. He could hear the steady clattering rumble of traffic, the far-off wailing of a train’s whistle, and over the sound of the wind, the water.
Esta squeezed his hand, and a second later Harte felt the beginning of the same nauseating push-pull he’d felt before. It was like being torn apart, like he was shattering into a million pieces, and then, suddenly, gunfire erupted from the foot of the bridge behind them.
He’d barely had time to look back and see the pair of men shooting at him when in the next second, they were falling. Endlessly tumbling until, all at once, it was over. Day had turned to night, and the summer’s heat had transformed itself into the bitter bite of winter.
Harte’s vision swirling, he fell to his knees and found himself sinking into the snow. Esta was there, cursing as she knelt beside him and rubbed his back.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He nodded as he tried to pull himself together. His stomach was still rolling as he got to his feet.
“They threw me off,” she told him, shivering when the wind gusted off the frozen river. “I should have expected an attack, but I didn’t.” She shivered again.
He tried to give her his jacket. She started to shrug him off, but he wrapped it around her anyway.
“We need to get going,” she told him.
She was right. Even now, Nibsy might know they had arrived.
Harte noticed, then, just how much the world had changed. The city skyline in 1920 had been a marvel to him, but this? This city was nearly impossible to take in. Its buildings towered over the river, and they were lit so dazzlingly bright against the night sky that for a second he couldn’t breathe. He’d seen glimpses of this city the time he’d used his affinity on Esta those many months ago, but to her, it had seemed ordinary. He hadn’t really understood.
The bridge below vibrated with a steady stream of motorcars. The road was filled with enormous trucks and boxy automobiles that were all square angles and rumbling engines. The buildings on the other side of the river glowed like torches, and in the sky above, there were no stars. There was a scent in the air, heavy like coal smoke but different somehow.
“This is where you’re from?” he asked.
“Not exactly,” she said, frowning as she looked at the skyline. “But it’s close.” Esta took in the skyline for another long minute before she let out a long, weary-sounding breath and turned to him, her expression creased with worry and something too close to pain for Harte’s liking. “I know what this means for you, Harte. I know what you did to get out of New York, and now you’re willingly going to walk back into the prison of the Brink. Maybe you don’t have to. You could wait here and—”
“I’m coming with you, Esta.” And if part of him almost didn’t mind? If he looked up at those soaring buildings, the sheer audacity of late-century Manhattan, and felt a small spark of… wonder? For this prison of a city? Because it was still a prison. Time hadn’t changed that.
He’d have time to consider that later.
“Harte—”
Before she could argue with him any more, he leaned in and kissed her. Again. Because he could and because he wanted to. And because he wasn’t stupid enough to take any time they might have together for granted, not ever again. He felt her surprise, her annoyance at the way he’d silenced her argument. As he pulled away from her, she was frowning.
Her shoulders sagged a little. “I just wish this could be different. I wish you didn’t have to give up everything you wanted just to help me.”
He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t only helping her, that he wasn’t giving up everything. He wanted to tell her that before she’d walked into his life, he hadn’t had a clue about what he’d truly wanted. But he didn’t say any of those things. Instead, he cocked his mouth into the wry grin he’d perfected years ago and gave her a wink. “But it’s so much more fun when you owe me.”
She rolled her eyes at him, but the breathy laugh that came with it was real. It broke the tension between them. “Keep telling yourself that, Darrigan.”
He took her hand again, brushed his thumb across her soft skin, and watched with satisfaction as she shivered from something other than the bitter cold. Then all at once, the world went still as Esta pulled time to a stop. There were no more words. Nothing that needed to be said. In silence, together, they walked onward toward the city, with only the sound of their own footsteps to accompany them.
At first it was impossible to tell where the cold of the winter night ended and the power of the Brink began. They were so similar, the bite in the air and the dangerous energy that seemed to be reaching for them. It was still a ways off, but with each step they took, the night deepened. The winter wrapped more firmly around them. And the Brink warned them of what was to come.
When they reached the midpoint of the bridge, Harte felt a sudden change. There was a shifting, a pulse of energy, as the icy magic of the Brink flew toward them, wrapped around them, tried to pull them under.
Everything after that happened too fast, and later, he would never really be able to remember what came first and what followed. One minute they were walking toward the city, forcing themselves forward, step by step, and the next they were running as though their lives depended on it. They hadn’t decided to run or even discussed it, but they seemed to know at the same time that they had to go now, and quickly, or they’d never make it through.
They were nearly to the other side of the bridge, but not close enough, when a new bolt of cold stabbed through Harte like a jagged, icy blade. And then everything began to fall apart.
THE DELPHI’S TEAR
1902—Bella Strega
James Lorcan twisted the ring on his finger, reveling in the power that seemed to radiate from the crystalline stone. He smiled to himself as the Aether vibrated with possibility. The Delphi’s Tear was every bit as powerful as he’d hoped.
Suddenly, though, the Aether shifted, and James came to attention. Something was happening. Something was changing. He’d hoped that with the Delphi’s Tear, the Aether would more than suggest. But even with the ring upon his finger, the Aether revealed no more than it had before. It thrummed again, directing him onward with its usual vague urgency.
