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“It feels… wrong,” Esta said with a shudder.
“You get used to that,” he told her. “It’s the magic.”
“Not natural magic,” Ruby said with a shiver. It seemed that she could feel the wrongness of the place too.
“No,” Jianyu agreed. “Not natural magic. Dolph had it charmed somehow to keep the uninvited from entering.” He paused, though whether gathering his strength or remembering the past, Esta couldn’t tell. “I never understood why he showed me this place. It was as though he knew somehow that we would need it.”
“He trusted you,” Harte said softly. “He knew he could rely on you if anything happened to him.”
Finally, they arrived at their destination, an apartment on the third floor. With some difficulty, Jianyu managed to rap his knuckles in a rhythmic pattern on the door. There was rustling from within, a pause, and then the clicking of locks being unlatched.
An older woman poked her head out of the opening, and when she saw Jianyu, she opened the door, but her eyes went wide when they stepped from the dark hallway into the light of the apartment. “What happened to him?”
“Nibsy,” Harte said, which was apparently all the answer the woman needed.
Immediately, her expression changed from horror to determination. “Well, what are you waiting there for? Bring him in and let’s take a look—” Then her eyes lifted to Ruby, standing behind them in the doorway, and she frowned, looking suddenly anxious. “Wait… I know her.” She took a step toward Ruby, fear suddenly shadowing her features. “She’s the one they’re looking for. The heiress bride. What is she doing here? If the Order discovers her here—”
“She’s with us,” Jianyu said simply.
“But not one of us,” the woman said, still looking horrified.
Esta realized then that she recognized the woman. Months before, Dolph had taken her on his rounds and introduced her to the families in his keeping. Golde and her children were one of many stops on the tour.
“Golde?” Esta said, trying to remember if that was her name.
The woman frowned at Esta, but then her eyes widened. “I remember you,” she told Esta. “You came that day, with Saunders.”
Esta nodded. “How are you? What are you doing here?”
“Later,” Jianyu told them with a groan. “Please. I cannot—” But he grimaced again before he could finish.
Golde gave one more nervous look at Ruby but then ushered them all inside. As they followed her through the apartment, Esta realized it had not been divided up into small, cramped rooms like most tenements, and it felt larger than it should have been inside. The entry parlor was larger than most New York apartments. Beyond it was a wide corridor lined with doors, and as they passed by, people began to emerge from the closed rooms, curious to see who had arrived. The warm buzz of magic in the air told her they were Mageus.
“Go on, the lot of you,” Golde said, turning to shoo back the growing crowd. “There’s nothing for you to see here.”
They stayed back, but they didn’t retreat.
“Who are they?” Esta asked. She was aware of them still watching from a distance.
“They’re Dolph’s,” Jianyu told her. “They were in trouble and needed a safe place.”
Golde grumbled. “Maybe they were Saunders’ before, but they’re my trouble now.”
“No one forced you to live here,” Jianyu said with a groan. But humor laced his words.
“Who else was going to?” Golde sniffed disdainfully. “It’s not like you know how to cook or clean, and I wasn’t going to let my Josef go without good food in his stomach or a strong hand to keep him in check.” The woman’s mouth wobbled a little.
“He still has not spoken to you?” Jianyu asked softly.
She shook her head. “Not yet,” she whispered.
“He will come around,” Jianyu told her. “It is not you that he is angry with.”
“You don’t deserve his anger,” she said with a sigh. Golde turned to Esta. “It’s thanks to this one that my boy is even alive.”
“I don’t understand,” Esta said.
Golde’s expression was serious. “My boy, Josef, and the others, they’re all hiding from the Order’s patrols. If not for Jianyu and Viola—”
