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The boy came and stood above her, a dark shadow blocking the beauty of the summer day. “First Darrigan and now these two. You really should pick your friends with more care, Cela Johnson. For your brother’s sake, and your own.”
A NEW IMPOSSIBLE
1983—The Bowery
As the subway train rounded the corner, the abandoned station platform slipped away, and along with it, Harte’s final glimpse of the carnage it held. The new Guard, crumpled on the station platform. Nibsy, old and frail and unconscious.
And Esta’s body. Dead.
The train continued onward, screaming and clattering as it swayed and shook down the track, but Harte felt like he was sleepwalking. The train’s movement and noise were just another part of the nightmare. He didn’t know how he managed it, but somehow he released the latch of the door and let himself into the empty train car.
Inside, lights were a glaring, unnatural bluish-white, and as the door slid closed behind him, the noise of the tracks was dampened, leaving him alone, not in silence, but in a muffled quiet that was no relief. Before, Seshat’s earsplitting screams had overwhelmed him, and her wailing had drowned out nearly everything—the sounds of the city, Esta’s words, his own thoughts. But now his mind was painfully quiet. After weeks of being possessed, occupied by a being that was not himself, Harte felt strangely empty. Or he would have, if he could have felt anything but the frantic clawing of grief.
He’d left her there. How could he have left her there?
His chest felt gripped in a vise, and his throat was closing up. He couldn’t breathe, not deeply enough to keep his head from swirling. He felt as though he might never breathe again.
He couldn’t stop remembering how Esta’s eyes had gone white, lit from within by some unbelievable power. He couldn’t stop seeing her cheeks stained with bloody tears. Her body, still and lifeless, on the platform. Her wide mouth gone slack and her whiskey-colored eyes dull and empty. He would never stop seeing her like that. As long as he drew breath, that image would be with him, stark and clear and impossible. He would never be able to forget.
He didn’t want to forget. He would carry the memory with him, use it to fuel him and drive him onward.
The train squealed around another curve, nearly throwing Harte over. He couldn’t go back, but he wasn’t sure what to do next. He had no idea where the train was headed, but Harte knew where he had to go. For Esta.
A little while later, the train slowed into a station, and Harte prepared for… He had no idea what he was preparing for. An attack? More of the Guard? His hands reflexively tightened around the strap of the satchel that held the Book and the artifacts. Whatever happened next, he couldn’t lose them. He definitely couldn’t allow the Brotherhoods to get control of them. He couldn’t let all that had happened have been for nothing.
When the train doors slid open, the noise of an alarm tore through the quiet of the empty car. A disembodied voice blared with a garbled warning to keep a watch for suspicious travelers.
They were searching for unregistered Mageus—for him.
He slouched in his seat, peering through a break in the graffiti that covered the window. On the platform, a pair of Guards had surrounded an old man. Another set of Guards stood nearby, blocking the station exit, their silver medallions glinting at their lapels. A group of three guys about his age stepped on board, seemingly unconcerned by the alarm or the Guards. They played at punching one another as their half-drunken laughter filled the silence of the car. When they looked in his direction, Harte turned toward the window, pulling up his collar to obscure his face.
It felt like an eternity before the doors slid shut again, but finally the train lurched onward. Harte kept his head turned away from the other passengers, but he couldn’t relax. He had no idea what the next station would bring. Probably more of the Guard.
He couldn’t just stay there, stuck on the train like a fish in a barrel. Easy pickings.
As the train sped down the track, Harte glanced back toward the rear of the car, where the new arrivals were standing, their bodies swaying as they held the overhead poles. Their voices were a low rumble, barely audible over the noise of the train, but a single look told him they weren’t there for him. They weren’t even looking in his direction.
When the train rattled to its next stop, the alarm once again split through the quiet of the car, but there weren’t any Guards waiting on the platform. He considered leaving, but he had no idea where he was—or what might be waiting for him on the streets above. The signs were unreadable beneath the mess of graffiti, and he felt frozen with indecision. Once he got off the train, he knew what he needed to do next. But next seemed impossible when the memory of Esta’s broken body was all he could think about.
The doors slid shut, and he was once again trapped. The train was moving again, but he still couldn’t breathe. What if he’d made the wrong choice?
He didn’t want to breathe. He didn’t deserve to breathe. Not when he’d killed her. It hadn’t been the ritual or Seshat or Nibsy. It had been him, the choice he’d made to use his affinity, to do what Nibsy had suggested. He’d forced her to give her affinity to the ritual and give magic what it demanded. He’d done it knowing that it would kill her, knowing that she wouldn’t survive losing her magic.
Who could?
Maybe Nibsy had been right. Maybe people never changed. Harte had been a conman and a liar his entire life. He did what he did to save himself, knowing the cost.
Harte’s skin turned hot at the thought. His head was throbbing as the blood in his veins churned and pounded in his ears. He felt himself break out in a cold sweat. What if she didn’t have to die? His vision swam, started going dark around the edges as his stomach twisted, heaved.
When the doors opened, Harte lurched out of his seat, nearly falling as he scrambled to get off the train. He had to get out of the tomb-like car, had to get out of the oppressiveness of being underground.
Harte was barely on to the station platform when he heard a shout, and he knew he’d been seen. The guys who had boarded the train had suddenly turned their interest on him and were yelling after him. They’d already started to move toward the exit of the car, but they were too slow. The doors of the car closed on them before they could follow, and the train had started moving, taking the danger they posed along with it.
Even with the noise of the train receding into the distant tunnel, Harte didn’t feel any relief. Leaning against one of the filthy, graffiti-covered pillars, he tried to keep himself upright under the burden of his guilt and regret. He had to keep moving, had to make whatever sins he’d committed worth it in the end. For Esta. He forced himself to take a breath and was rewarded with the fetid reek of urine and something unmistakably rotten. It turned his stomach. It reminded him of home.
There was a person huddled in the corner, wrapped so deeply in ragged blankets that Harte couldn’t tell if they were alive. But he didn’t have time to check on some stranger. He had to keep moving. If the other riders had suspected him, they would alert the authorities when they reached the next stop. The Guard would know where he’d disembarked. They’d come for him. But he couldn’t be taken. Not yet. He had to keep going, had to make the sacrifice worth it. He forced himself to take one step and then the next. For Esta.
Everything he did from that moment forward would be for Esta.
