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But he didn’t want to think about that. He’d probably never get over the sight of her naked back or the way her affinity had bubbled up in blood and fire straight from within her skin. He didn’t want to remember, and he’d resisted taking the mark himself because he didn’t want to be next.
“Esta,” he said. “Thank god I found you.”
She was frowning at him. “What are you doing here, Logan?” Her eyes were sharp, narrowed in suspicion.
“Look, I’m sorry about the other day,” he told her. It was almost the truth.
“Are you?” she asked, her voice flat and angry. “You nearly got us killed.”
He ran a nervous hand through his hair and started having second thoughts about this plan. Or maybe they were third thoughts, since he’d already second-guessed himself a few times.
“Look, I didn’t mean to be so difficult back at the Strega,” he told her. “I wasn’t thinking straight, you know? You surprised me.”
“Enough with the bullshit, Logan,” she said. “I know you meant everything you said back there. You would have stopped us from leaving if it hadn’t been for Viola, so cut to the chase. Why are you really here, Logan? I’ve already told you I can’t take you back.”
He had the sudden insight that this wasn’t his Esta. She might have looked like the girl he’d practically grown up with, but there was something fundamentally different about her now. It felt like he didn’t know her, like maybe he had never really known her.
“Well?” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“I’m here because I’m done with James,” Logan told her. “He’s not the guy we knew.”
“He is,” Esta disagreed. “He’s exactly the man we knew. We just never saw it because we didn’t want to.”
She wasn’t exactly wrong. This younger version of Professor Lachlan at first had seemed like a completely different person, but the longer Logan had been with him at the Strega, the more he’d seen the seeds of the man their Professor would become.
“Look, the bottom line is that I can’t stay there anymore, Esta,” Logan told her. “He’s going after anyone he thinks isn’t completely loyal. Or he’s sending his allies after them. And the thing is, he gave me one job—to find the Book—and I already know it’s impossible. You don’t have it.”
Viola had a knife in her hand, and she lifted it in his direction. “I should have killed you then before you could cause us any more problems,” she told him.
“Wait, Viola,” Esta said, staying the Italian girl with a silent look. Then she turned back to Logan, her expression as implacable and unreadable as ever. “You’re sure I don’t have it?”
“I don’t sense it, and I’ve known you long enough to know you wouldn’t leave it somewhere. You’d keep it on you so you could protect it.”
Esta glanced at Darrigan, and some indecipherable conversation happened silently between them.
“You still haven’t told us what you want,” Esta said, turning back to him.
“I can’t go back to the Strega without the Book,” he told her. “If I walk in there and tell James you don’t have it, that it’s nowhere? I’m dead. I need to get out of here. You have to help me.”
“I can’t,” she said, frowning.
“I know you, Esta,” he said, leaning into his plea now. “You can snap me back in an instant. It wouldn’t be anything for you.”
“You don’t understand, Logan.” Her expression was intractable. “There’s nothing to ‘snap’ back to. The life you led, the world you knew? You changed all of that when you dragged me back here at gunpoint and handed Nibsy the diary.”
“You know about that?” he asked.
“I didn’t for sure,” she admitted. “But I do now.”
“Please,” he begged. “I’ll do anything you want.”
Esta considered his plea for long enough that he started to get nervous. She wouldn’t really say no to him, would she? No one ever really said no to him.
“There’s only one thing you can help us with,” she told him.
“Anything,” he promised.
“Get us the diary,” she said. “You do that, and I’ll take you back after the Conclave.”
