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“Tricks upon tricks,” Seshat said, still struggling against Esta’s hold. “I see the desire in you. I see the duplicity as well.”
Against her skin, the artifacts burned hot, but Esta held tight to their power. Through the haze of Seshat’s illusion, she could see her friends on the bridge struggling. Their faces were twisted as if in agony as they fought with everything they had to keep the sigils steady. Just behind the illusion of Seshat’s face, she could see Harte’s features.
Outside the safety of their circle, the Brink was wavering and threatening to fall. They didn’t have much time.
Under Esta’s feet the desert sand rippled, just as it had once before in dreams. A desert serpent set to devour.
Maybe this was always how it was supposed to be. Maybe everything had led her to this. What was it Thoth had told her? That she was an abomination? That time would take what it was owed.
She’d been trying so hard to find a way to keep what she had—the life she knew—but she’d ignored the possibility that maybe it was never supposed to have been hers. Time wouldn’t have to take her. She’d give herself. Willingly. She’d end this, once and for all.
“Why do you hesitate?” Seshat mocked. “Now that you have me, now that you have all that you have dreamed about for centuries, can it be that you are afraid?”
“I’m not afraid,” Esta said. It wasn’t a lie. Afraid didn’t begin to describe what she felt. She was terrified and devastated and emboldened all at once. She looked at the people surrounding her, and she would not let them down.
Esta stepped toward Seshat, and she saw the fear in the ancient woman’s eyes. But caught in the power of the artifacts, Seshat could not move, much less escape. Esta held tight to the goddess and tore her from Harte. Freeing her.
The desert night evaporated, and the roaring warning of the Brink rose again. Harte was breathing heavily, and the others were screaming for her to hurry. To finish it.
Harte’s gaze shifted behind her to where Esta knew Seshat was still held, caught in her affinity, and then back. He blinked in confusion, like he couldn’t quite understand what he was seeing. Stepping toward him, Esta sent her affinity out into the stones, giving herself to them fully. Emptying herself of her magic and her power as she pressed a kiss against his mouth.
“Be happy, Harte,” she told him. “Be free.”
His mouth was moving, and she knew what he was saying. But she could not hear the words.
“I love you,” she told him as the world shuddered. Her legs fell out from under her as the last of her magic began to draw away. Beneath her body, the bridge was quaking, and all around her the beating heart of magic threatened her affinity. Threatened to consume. But this time she didn’t fight it. This time she let it go and gave herself over to it.
Above her the Brink surged. Color and light, like the beginning and end of creation. Chaos and the possibility within it. Time twisted in on itself, a devouring serpent, but as she felt herself flying apart, familiar ancient laughter rose from within her.
“Did you think you could destroy me, girl?” Thoth whispered from the deepest recesses of her soul. “How could you hope to destroy that which you carried inside you all along?”
TIME, CONSUMES
As Esta collapsed like a broken doll, Harte did not hear the low, dark laughter rolling through the silence. At first he heard nothing but the terrible beating of his own heart.
With the sigil held aloft in his outstretched hand, he could not have stopped her from kissing him, even when he knew she was saying good-bye. She was there—right there—her mouth against his, her breath in his lungs, and he couldn’t do anything to stop her from doing what she intended to do.
He felt her magic, the same power he’d only recently come to understand on the rooftop when she’d torn Thoth from this world. And he knew that something had happened—something had changed. It wasn’t Seshat that Esta was using to complete the ritual. She was doing it herself, and the terror of that realization had him almost dropping the glowing sigil he held in his hand. He felt the burn of magic, hot and bright and real, and he knew that Esta was giving herself to the Brink. Sacrificing herself for all of them.
At first he didn’t hear the laughter. At first he could only hear the roaring in his ears as he looked at the vision of Seshat standing over Esta’s unmoving body. She was there—a woman dressed in linen and silk, with hair dark as a desert night—and yet she was not. But it wasn’t victory on Seshat’s face but fear.
Seshat lifted her ancient eyes to look at Harte. “Why would she do that?” the goddess asked. “She had my power there in her hand, and she let me go.”
Harte didn’t know what had led her to change her mind about the plan. He only knew that Esta must have had a reason, but he didn’t have time to discover the answer before everything began to fall apart.
Suddenly, Esta’s spine arched and her head jerked back so she was looking up at the starless sky. Her body began to rise from the ground until it hung, suspended by nothing but the Aether she had once commanded. Her mouth was open in a silent scream. But as long as he held the sigils to keep the boundary intact, Harte could do nothing but watch as darkness flooded from Esta’s eyes and mouth.
Viola cursed, threatening and railing against what she was witnessing, but she was no more able to help than Harte was. Around the circle, they all shouted for her to fight whatever power had overtaken her, but they could not drop the sigils—could not break the boundary.
Harte heard the laughter then, the dark, rolling mirth that he’d heard before in the Festival Hall when Thoth had found him—and Seshat within him—and had tried to tear her from his skin. The others were struggling against the dangerous energy of the Brink and the magic from the Book, but Harte shouted for them to hold steady. He knew that everything depended on it. They couldn’t let the power of the Book loose into the world, especially not there in the center of the Brink, and they couldn’t release the demon that had come to claim it.
Harte watched, powerless and horrified, as the darkness that flooded from Esta coalesced before him, a shadowy figure like a man shaped from nightmares. The shadow-man turned to him, transforming slowly into a familiar figure. As his features sharpened, Harte recognized him—the man with the head shaved bare who had doomed Seshat to centuries of misery within the pages of the Book.
Thoth.
It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. They’d destroyed Thoth—unmade him on the roof of the Garden. Harte had been there. He’d felt the full force of Esta’s power as she’d ripped Thoth from this world.
“Not completely,” the shadow-man whispered in a voice cast from the darkest hours of night. “Not when she had a shard of me within her own skin.” He smiled his serpent’s smile. “Not when she carried me with her. Once she damaged her soul by murdering that fool, it was easy enough to find a place deep in the recesses of all that she was. It was easy enough to wait for her to carry me with her until it was time to claim my final victory.”
