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“Thank you,” she whispered, relief softening her expression.
The unease he was feeling dissipated a little. She would be okay. They would be okay.
She got to work almost immediately. Completely focused on her task now, Esta placed the artifacts at separate points, evenly spaced along the circle on the floor. Before she placed the dagger that held the Pharaoh’s Heart in its place, she used the ancient knife to slice open the tip of her finger.
It took everything Harte had not to stop her when he saw the bright red blood welling. I trust her, he reminded himself. More than he’d ever trusted anyone. So he held his tongue and prayed that they weren’t wrong.
Back in the center of the circle, Esta knelt before the open Book again. Then slowly, carefully, she used her bleeding fingertip to trace over the design on the page as again she spoke words he couldn’t understand, syllables that rattled strangely in his ears. As she worked, Harte could feel the power beginning to swirl around them. Beneath his feet, the space within the circle Esta had sketched onto the floor started to glow, faintly at first and then brighter.
On instinct, Harte took a step back from the Book. He had to get out of the circle, away from the enormous power flowing from the Ars Arcana, but at the edge of the circle, he ran into an invisible wall. Cold, deadly energy sizzled in warning, holding him in place. Stuck within the circle, he watched as light continued to pour from the page of the Book, lifting the short hair around Esta’s face and illuminating her.
Another empty train slid into the station, its wheels screaming as it slowed and rounded the bend. But Harte barely noticed it. By now there was a wild energy growing in the cavernous space, a dangerous magic building. Within his skin, Seshat was screaming and wailing, more desperate and terrified than she’d ever been.
As the energy increased, there was a roaring in his ears that grew and grew until it blocked any other noise—the train, the far-off tracks, his own shouting. Even Seshat’s screams eventually were drowned out by the ancient and indescribable cacophony that was filling his mind. Something was coming to life—a magic like chaos blooming. He could feel it tearing through the air, and the enormity of it took his breath away.
There was too much magic, too much power. But the energy, the chaotic wildness of it, had pinned him in place. He couldn’t even begin to stop Esta from finishing the ritual.
He had to stop her. He knew suddenly that she had been wrong. This power? There was no surviving this. There was only sacrifice.
Harte knew what would happen next because he’d seen Seshat start this ritual before in the visions that had assaulted him back in St. Louis. Esta and Seshat, the reality and the memory—he could see them both, superimposed and simultaneous. What had been. What was. What would be.
“Esta,” he screamed, but his voice was lost in the noise. She didn’t look up. She couldn’t hear him. Or if she could, she was too far into the ritual, too far gone into the totality of the magic swirling around her.
One by one the artifacts around him began to lift themselves into the air, floating in the invisible net of Aether that held all of creation together. One by one they began to glow with a strange, ethereal light, and Harte felt another power join the first—a familiar brush of magic that could only be Esta’s. She was using her affinity to unite the stones, just as Seshat had eons ago. Just as the Book had instructed her.
There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t stop her from sending her affinity outward, into the stones, or from connecting all she was to the artifacts and, with them, to the magic trapped in the Book. They joined together in a swirling eddy of power and light, like a Brink made visible.
Sweat was beading at Esta’s temples, and her expression was strained. The power that could only be the piece of original magic trapped in the Book—the portion of the beating heart of magic that Seshat had trapped ages ago—was flowing through Esta now, consuming her. Linking her very self to the stones and to the Book. When she finally raised her eyes to meet his, their usual golden warmth was gone. In its place were bright hollows, empty sockets lit from within.
All at once a terrible bolt of energy coursed through the room, and then through Harte himself.
From somewhere deep, deep within the recesses of his very being, Seshat let out a soul-shattering scream that was anger and pain and terror made real. Harte felt the goddess’s anguish as though it were his own. The power tore through him, and suddenly Harte could feel everything: the net of time and Aether that held the whole world together, the individual affinities and lives that had been stolen to power the artifacts, and the thin thread of Esta’s own affinity connecting it all. Seshat clawed at him in a last, desperate attempt to stop her inevitable end. And then Harte felt the sureness of what would come, the absolute horror of knowing that he could be destroyed by the very magic that made him whole.
There were tears of blood streaming down Esta’s face now, and Harte knew—knew absolutely and without doubt—that she had been wrong. The fear in her eyes—the pure surprised terror there—cracked his heart in two. She’d believed that this would work, and she’d been wrong. This ritual was killing her, would kill her. But Harte still couldn’t move. He was rooted in place by the terrible beating heart of magic that surrounded him.
Then he, too, was being pulled apart.
When Seshat lost her grip within him, Harte felt himself shattering as the goddess’ power drained from him. The pulsing power around him swirled, glowing ever brighter and hotter as Seshat’s power joined it, growing like a storm about to crash over them both.
And then it did break. The light trembled and the power shattered, and Harte felt the sucking of some unseen wind drawing him toward the Book. With a flash of light, the Book pulled it all inward, slammed itself shut, and suddenly went dark.
The screaming stopped. Silence filled the station as Esta collapsed to the floor, her body limp over the now-closed Book.
Harte, finally able to move, ran to her. Sliding on his knees, he scooped her up and cupped her face. Begged her to stay with him. Begged any power listening to save her.
Esta’s eyes fluttered open, but he wasn’t sure if she could see him. She wasn’t there, not really.
“He lied,” she whispered, the surprise of this fact flashing through her expression. And then she was gone.
OUTSIDERS
1902—Little Africa
Cela took one look at her brother’s expression, saw the fear etched in his features, and knew he wasn’t exaggerating the danger.
“Police?” Viola asked, already reaching for her knife.
Joshua shook his head. “Whoever they are, they’re nobody official. They’re trying not to be noticed, but they’re not from the neighborhood.”
