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With any luck, the letter would set North on the path to Maggie and put him on course to the life he deserved to live. A life without the problems of the Devil’s Thief or the dangers of the Antistasi. A life with Maggie and their kids. There were others they still needed to help, like Harte’s brother, but this was a first step.
“It’s the least I can do after what you’ve done for me—for all of us,” Dolph told her. He paused, considering her as he sometimes did. As though he wanted to ask, as though maybe he knew. But the moment passed, as it always did when the girl on his lap squirmed and demanded another cookie. He smiled as he indulged her, but then he grew serious. “I’ve done nothing to deserve this second chance, but I’ll gladly take it.”
“What will you do about the Strega?” Harte wondered.
“I’ve made Jianyu my partner,” Dolph told them. “He’ll be running things from now on.”
“Only until you return,” Jianyu reminded him.
“If I return.” Dolph laughed. “Maybe I’ll discover that Chicago suits me. Or maybe, if it doesn’t, we’ll head farther west.”
“Bah,” Viola told him. “You’ll be back. You couldn’t stay away from this place, from this city.” From us, her eyes seemed to say.
“Maybe,” Dolph admitted. “But until then, the Bella Strega will be in good hands, and the Devil’s Own along with it.”
“You couldn’t have made a better choice,” Esta told him truthfully. It wouldn’t be easy, but if anyone was up for the work of bringing together the various factions in the Bowery, it was certainly Jianyu. Especially now that he had Cela by his side.
“Enough,” Dolph said. “There will be time for good-byes tomorrow. Tonight we drink to friends who have become family.” He lifted his glass, and the others all responded in kind.
Family. It was what Esta had wanted since she was a girl, and now she had it. At least for this one brief, shining instant. They settled in for the evening, talking and drinking and simply being together one last time before everything changed. Together they welcomed the new year, and with it, a chance for new beginnings.
It was nearly morning when Esta felt herself nodding off and Harte nudged her. “We should go,” he whispered.
They said their good-byes and promised to see Dolph and his daughter off at the station later that morning.
Outside the Strega, snow was falling on the Bowery. The soft, frozen blossoms of snow continued to tumble down, covering the trash-lined gutters and broken cobbles and turning the world around them white. A lonely milk wagon rattled by, its wheels cutting a fresh path through the snow.
“I think they’ll like Chicago,” Esta said, nestling into Harte for warmth as they made the long trek uptown to the apartment that had once been his alone. “I’m not sure they’ll ever come back. And Viola—she and Ruby will be happy in Paris. They can start a new life.”
Harte didn’t respond more than to nod in agreement.
But as they walked, the thought of new beginnings made Esta’s mind turn to her own future—to theirs. And when they reached Washington Square, Esta stopped. Harte pulled up beside her, but he didn’t speak. He seemed to sense that she needed to say something, and he gave her patience as he waited for her words.
“I’ve been thinking a lot,” she told him. “About everything that’s happened. About the future that lies ahead.” She took a step away from him, felt the quiet hush of winter in the city wrap around her. “You aren’t trapped anymore, Harte. The Brink is no longer a threat to our kind. Dolph is leaving. Viola is as well. You could go too. Anytime you wanted.”
“What about you?” he asked, his expression unreadable.
“You know I can’t leave.” It had been the price she had to pay—a price she would have happily paid a million times over.
“Does that bother you?” he asked, brushing the snow from her hair.
“No,” she told him honestly. “Everything I’ve ever wanted is here. This city, it’s home. It always has been. I never wanted to escape this place, not like you did.” Her throat felt tight.
“And you would have me leave you here?” he asked, frowning.
She didn’t want him to, but… “I don’t want you to feel trapped, Harte. I know how hard you fought to be free of this place, and I don’t want you to ever feel trapped again. There’s a whole world out there waiting for you. You don’t have to stay because of me.”
“What if I want to?” He stepped closer, wrapped her in the warmth of his arms.
“You’ll change your mind,” she told him. “I need you to know that it’s okay if you do. I don’t want to be the chain keeping you here. You can go. Whenever you need to go. It won’t change anything between us.”
He considered her in silence as the moon hung heavy in the darkened sky and the snow swirled around them in its light. “I’ve already seen the world, Esta. I saw the entire country, from one side to the other. I saw a future that was bigger and more unbelievable than even I could have dreamed.” He let out a soft sigh. “Everything I ever did to get out of this city—every lie I ever told, every person I ever betrayed—I was only looking for a way to be free.”
“You should be free,” she told him, meaning it. “You deserve to be.”
He shook his head. His stormy eyes were serious now. “Don’t you see? No matter how far I traveled, no matter when we were, the only place I ever felt anything close to free was with you.”
He kissed her then, tipping her chin up so their lips could press together, and Esta felt something ease inside her that she hadn’t realized was wound so tight. Ever since she’d survived what happened on the bridge, ever since she’d found herself without magic and trapped in the city that Harte had always hated, Esta hadn’t been able to stop from wondering what would happen between them. She knew it was only a matter of time before Harte would decide he wanted to leave the city.
