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“You would have given your life,” Esta realized.
“My magic, my life. Time and chaos. Two sides to singular coins. I would have given everything, and in doing so, I could have created a place, a pocket within time where time could not touch the beating heart of magic,” Seshat told her. “By severing time, power would have been transformed, and both time and magic could have thrived together.”
A place.
Suddenly, it made sense in a way it hadn’t before. Time had always been linked to place, Esta realized. It was how she’d slipped through the layers. Seshat would have anchored the pure, protected piece of magic to a space—a literal place in the world—to keep the whole from dying.
Wasn’t that what the Order had been trying to do as well? It was why they’d originally built the Brink—not as a weapon, but as an attempt to keep what they knew they were losing. Because their magic had never taken root in this land.
“The Brink,” Esta told her. “If I give my affinity to finish the ritual, the Brink will become that place, won’t it? The entire city will be a space where the old magic cannot die.”
Seshat nodded. “A space severed from time’s power over magic. Give time what it is owed—give it your power and your life—and watch power be transformed. Within the boundaries of that space, time will have no power over the old magic or those who have an affinity for it.”
“The girl,” Esta realized. “If I do this, if I give everything—”
“Time’s terrible power will no longer be able to touch her,” Seshat said. “The space within the boundary you create will stand apart, cut from the chaos you have introduced into the world with your very existence. History can be remade. Time can be reclaimed.”
“I don’t understand—”
“What is history but a kind of magic?” Seshat asked. “A story written to create a truth, like ritual magic carves power with time. Make your choice, girl—your affinity or the world?—for I am no longer strong enough to complete the ritual. But perhaps we can. Give up all that you are, and I will help you complete the ritual I began. Together we can seal the beating heart of magic back into its place, protected in time. But it must be now, and it must be all.”
Esta knew what her choice would be. There was no hesitation, no regret. She would give up her power willingly. And she would die. But there was no other choice. Not for the world. Not for her friends—or for Harte.
Esta let go of the final piece of her affinity and felt herself flying apart, but despite the fear and pain of feeling herself being unmade, she gave everything over to time. Seshat was there as well, their powers locked together in the endless void that threatened everything. Together they pushed the swirling, beating heart of magic into the spaces of the Brink and made it one with time.
And then there was nothing at all.
Not darkness. Not light. Not pain or relief. There was only silence for the span of a minute or a lifetime.
Time shuddered, and suddenly it was a desert night that surrounded her. There was Seshat, goddess and woman. Her ancient eyes were aglow with power. Within their irises, Esta saw the Brink reflected. Every color that existed and some that she could not name swirled and churned, ribbons of power. Seshat smiled then, soft and sad, and Esta knew what she was giving.
“Why?” Esta asked, screaming into the void.
“You could have taken my power, but you were not like the others. You gave me my freedom, so I will give you your life.” Seshat flickered suddenly, like the room back in Colorado. There was a woman with hair like night, a goddess with eyes of fire, the image of her flashing through all the possibilities of what she could have once been—what she would never be again. “It was always my ritual to finish,” Seshat told her. “This is the price. Your magic for all of magic. Your life for the world. You must remain within the space we have created here, and you will not have your affinity for the old magic. But you will have a new world. A new beginning, without time’s claws to tear you from your fate. Power transforms…” Then she released Esta’s hand, and in a swirling of light and heat, she was gone.
Esta felt the loss keen and terrible and final, but as Seshat gave herself over, Esta felt a spark. A thread of connection between them broke, and the vision of the desert fell. The world around her struggled against its unmaking, as the beating heart of magic began to fill the spaces, remaking them anew. Transforming the Brink. She felt time and magic fuse, and she felt, too, her connection to it. Her affinity as part of that completeness.
She understood Seshat’s words then. She would never be able to leave. Not without severing that connection to the Brink. Not without undoing what had been done.
With a terrible crash, like the shattering of glass, she saw the Brink burst with light, and the city within its arms was suddenly separate from time. She closed her eyes, turning away and shielding her face, because she could not look into the searing brightness, not without coming undone herself.
When she opened her eyes again, the bridge had gone still. The soft light of morning was beginning to warm the sky to a lavender blush. Above her, the great towers of the bridge had been remade.
Then Harte was there.
She looked up into the stormy gray of his eyes and saw how her future could begin.
EPILOGUE
It was New Year’s Eve, and the barroom of the Bella Strega was filled with the pleasant murmuring of people celebrating and the warmth of the old magic. Esta remembered the first time she’d ever visited, a night when the power had flickered and the strength of magic had felt electric in the air. She hadn’t known then that the saloon would become a home to her and the people in it the family she’d always wanted.
She sat with Harte, curled into a booth tucked into the corner, and watched her friends. Viola stood in her familiar place behind the bar, serving drinks with a surly pout. Jianyu sat next to Dolph at the table in the back, with Cela talking animatedly at his side. Dolph laughed at something she said and adjusted the toddler on his knee.
“You’re really not going to tell him?” Harte wondered.
She nestled into the crook of his arm. “What’s there to tell? He has a daughter, doesn’t he?” Tomorrow they were leaving, Dolph and the girl who would never have to be sent forward—the girl who would never have to become a thief and a con. “He has a fresh start, and she has a future.”
“And what about you?” he asked.
