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The door was open, and the man was caught mid-lunge. Behind him were two others. Harte pulled her back, putting himself between them.
Almost too frustrated to be annoyed with Harte’s protectiveness, Esta stepped to his side and considered the situation. She’d hoped to get out of the building without being seen, but it was too late to worry about that now.
“I’m going to have to touch them. To get them out of there,” she explained. “They’ll see us. Unless you can make it so they don’t remember?”
He shook his head, his frustration palpable. “The entrance was booby-trapped. More of that fog. I still can’t reach my affinity.”
“Okay then.” There was nothing they could do about the Guard seeing them. They just had to keep moving. Determined, she nodded, but she knew she was trying to convince herself as much as him. “We can do this.” When it looked like he was about to argue—again—she cut him off. “It’s the only way out, Harte.” Then she stopped the rest of his arguments by grabbing the arm of the Guard closest to them and yanking the man into the room.
The Guard barely had time to register what was happening—and to see them both—before he stumbled forward and froze once again, caught back in the net of time she’d spun around them.
“I’m going to need your help on the next two,” she told him.
This time, thankfully, he didn’t bother to argue with her. Together, they managed to get the other two men out of the elevator. With each dazed, shocked look, she knew they were backing themselves into a corner. The Brotherhoods—or whoever was now in control of the Guard—would know they’d been there. They’d never stop hunting them.
But that was a worry for later. First they needed to get out of the building, preferably with all of Nibsy’s secrets.
Once the elevator was empty, the two of them stepped inside, and Esta released her hold on the seconds. She pushed violently at the button for the top floor, even as the rattled men were pulling themselves to their feet and starting toward the closing door. The door slid shut just before the men reached it, but Esta couldn’t feel any relief. They had no idea what might be waiting for them in the library.
Holding tight to Harte’s hand, they watched the dial move as the elevator inched upward. They passed the third floor and then the fourth, and she knew with each second that the Guard back in the control room could have already alerted the others. Even now, they could be waiting in the library for them to arrive.
But when they reached the top floor and the door slid open, the library was empty. Without waiting, Esta reached for her magic and pulled time still. The buzzing alarm ceased, and the world fell silent again.
“The door,” Harte said, pulling her toward the staircase door that was standing open. But even once the door was secured, even with time pulled close around her, she didn’t feel any relief. Not in that room. The lack of Guards wasn’t enough. She wouldn’t feel any relief until they were out of the building, until she could walk away and never have to look back.
“The papers will be in the safe,” she told him, shaking off her apprehension as she pulled him toward the painting on the other side of the room.
When they removed the picture of Newton, she saw that the safe had been repaired from where she’d mangled it earlier with Viola’s dagger. Not surprising. She wouldn’t have expected anything less of Professor Lachlan. This library was his citadel, and the safe had always been its inner sanctum.
Once more, she pressed Viola’s dagger into the seam around the edge of the safe, and the magic-infused blade again sank into the metal. She was nearly through when she heard something from the other side of the library’s door.
“That’s impossible,” she whispered, turning to look over her shoulder. There shouldn’t have been any noise as long as she held the seconds in her grip.
But a sizzling hiss, like the sound of the Guards trying to cut through the door on the floor below, was coming from the far side of the room.
“Thoth,” Harte whispered, and when she turned to him, his expression didn’t contain the confusion she felt. It held only fear.
“He’s gone,” she told him. “I destroyed him in Chicago, when I killed Jack.”
“You didn’t,” Harte said, his expression bleak. He didn’t bother to explain. Instead, he took the knife from her and, wrenching it, pried the safe open. He grabbed everything inside. “We have to go.”
“Wait, Harte—” The hissing had turned into a pounding now. “What are you talking about?”
“Later.” He tugged her toward the elevator.
“We don’t even know if we got everything,” she said, looking back toward the mess of papers and books scattered around the room. “We have to make sure—”
“You promised, Esta,” he said, turning on her. He nodded toward the pounding on the other side of the door. “That is the definition of trouble.”
He was right. The stack of ledgers and folders in his arms would have to be enough.
They weren’t quite into the elevator when the door fell forward, completely severed from its lock and hinges. Even before she could let go of time, before they could close the elevator and try to escape, two Guards lurched into the room. Their eyes were completely black, and Esta knew for certain that Harte hadn’t been wrong.
Thoth wasn’t gone.
As the Guard advanced, they spoke in unison. “The Book,” they said, Thoth’s voice echoing from their lips. “Give me the Book, girl. Or you will both die.”
But she’d had enough death for one day—hell, for an entire lifetime. And Esta had no intention of giving anyone the Book. Instead, she focused on the seconds, searching for what she needed, and when she found an empty space, she pulled them both through.
