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She thought about all she knew of time and its opposite, all she’d seen falling through the years when time had revealed its truth. If the spaces between time could contain every possibility at once, then maybe the Book could as well.
“It means we might still have a chance to fix the Brink,” she told them as she flipped through the Book, searching.
When she reached a slip of paper, she stopped, and hope flared bright in her chest. It was a piece of stationery with the Algonquin Hotel’s name emblazoned across the top. She held it up and showed them. “I put this in the other Book. But time doesn’t matter in these pages.”
She turned to Harte, willing him to understand. “When the Professor trapped Seshat in that other version of the Book, he trapped her in all versions of the Book. If we use the sigils, we can remove the other artifacts from this Book. We can use them and complete the ritual that will stabilize the Brink. Everything we need is right here. The Book, the artifacts… and me. We can get her out of you. We can still use her power to complete the ritual—to fix the Brink and place the piece of magic within this Book back into the whole—just like we planned. With the Book and the artifacts, with Seshat, we can end this once and for all.”
The building beneath them shook again, and in the distance the Brink quivered, its bright boundary illuminating the night.
He shook his head. “You’d still have to give up your affinity,” he reminded her, remembering the girl who died on the subway platform. “It’s the only way to use the stones and control Seshat. I watched you do that once before. You won’t walk away. There’s no surviving that, Esta.”
But she didn’t believe that. “With power willingly given,” she said, reminding him of what Newton had written. “That other girl wasn’t willing, Harte. You forced her to give up her affinity. Maybe if she’d done it on her own, maybe if she’d been strong enough—”
“You can’t risk your life for maybe,” he told her.
“Maybe’s all we’ve ever really had.” She stepped toward him, wishing she could touch him now. Determined that she would soon enough.
The building quaked again, but it wasn’t only the building. The entire city could barely contain the power coursing through its streets. In the distance, the Brink was a wall of wavering light. But even now she could see the dark lines beginning to creep through the brilliance of it.
“We can still cut the power,” he pleaded. “There’s still time. You can steal us more time.”
But she understood the truth. All the time in the world wouldn’t change the choice before her. Everything had led here, and now she had to choose. The fate of the world or herself.
She’d seen the fate of the world if she chose wrong.
“I don’t know if it’s possible to change the future, but I do know that I can’t sit by and let the Brink fall or the Order continue to rule over the old magic in this city. I can’t watch Seshat destroy you, and I can’t walk away from this, not when I know I can fix it. All of it. The Brink, the Order, the future I saw—I can stop all of it.”
“What are we waiting for?” Viola asked. “If Esta says it will work, it will work.”
She met Viola’s steady violet gaze and was surprised at the trust there.
For her entire life she’d made a point of never needing anyone. It had always been easier that way. Safer. Lonelier, too. She’d never depended on anyone—not until Harte. Not until she’d learned to trust the people who were standing around her now. She looked at them now, one by one. Viola and Jianyu. Cela and Ruby. And, impossibly, Dolph, the father she had never known. All of them with her.
And Harte.
“I need you to trust me, Harte. We can do this,” she told him, correcting her earlier words. “But only together… Please. Because I can’t do it by myself.”
OUT OF TIME
Seshat was raging inside Harte, but everything fell away except for Esta. Proud and determined and beautiful in her conviction. She believed she could complete the ritual. She believed she could use Seshat’s power and give her own without dying, but if she was wrong…
“I do trust you.” Of course he did. “But what if you’re misunderstanding what Newton wrote? When you give up your magic, what if that’s the end?”
“I’m not wrong, Harte,” she told him with that same brash confidence that had attracted him to her from the very first. “But it doesn’t matter. We have to try. And if this is the end?” Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “You’ve given me more in the past few months than anyone could deserve in a lifetime.”
“You deserve a lifetime, Esta.” He wanted to touch her. Needed to touch her. But he couldn’t. Not with the demon goddess in his skin.
“All I’ve ever wanted was for someone to see me the way you do,” Esta told him, a sad smile tugging at her mouth. “For myself. Without qualification. Without having to earn it. You gave me that. Now let me give what I can give. Let me do what I was born to do, Harte. Stand with me. Please. Don’t make me walk into this with any regrets.”
The building quaked beneath them again. In the distance the electric power had turned the Brink into a wall of light, but that wall was cracking. Even now Harte could see the black veining through it, threatening to break it apart.
Esta was right. They were out of time.
He glanced at Abel and Cela. “We’re going to need to borrow Mr. Fortune’s carriage one more time.”
“No way in hell,” Abel said. “We’re coming with you.”
“We’re coming, too,” Jianyu said, stepping forward with Viola. “You’ll need us to hold the boundary steady and keep watch.”
