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The old man’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. “Tell yourself whatever stories you must, but the truth is this—you will return to the past. You’ve already decided, or you wouldn’t still be here. Time would have already taken you. You will go back because you know that returning is the only way to save your friends, and now it’s also the only way to erase the chaos you unleashed on the world. You will return, and when you do, I’ll be waiting. You’ll bring me everything I need to change time and magic and the world itself.”
“We’re done here,” Esta said, trying to ignore the creeping dread that had started to sink its hooked fingers into her. He wasn’t wrong about her returning to the past, but they would never let Nibsy win.
“We’re not even close to done.” The old man lifted the pistol, pulled back the hammer.
Without hesitating, she turned and placed herself between the old man and Harte.
“Esta, no,” Harte said, trying to push her aside.
But she wouldn’t budge. Harte was expendable, but she knew the Professor needed her. “He’s not going to shoot at me,” she said. “He needs me alive.”
“She’s right,” the old man said. He hadn’t yet aimed the gun.
“Put the gun down,” she demanded, keeping herself in front of Harte. “I’m done with your games, old man.”
“No,” the Professor said. “You’ll play a little longer. I’ll even give you a fighting chance—it’ll make things that much more interesting. You have a world to save, don’t you?” He looked up from the dark body of the pistol. “I have the answers you need to save it. Think of what you could do if you knew how to unlock the secrets of the Book. You could fix the Brink. Free the city. Complete the ritual that the goddess started.”
Harte cursed. “He’s not going to give you anything real. He’s never going to help us.”
Esta knew that. But she felt rooted to the spot, like she was under some kind of spell. Because what if this old man wasn’t lying? True, Nibsy would never help them. He would never willingly hand them the key to his defeat. But if he needed her to take this knowledge back? Games upon games. Those papers might be nothing, or they might hold the answers she needed. Without her affinity, though, she couldn’t reach them.
“Come on, Esta,” Harte urged, tugging at her gently.
“Tick-tock, girl.” The old man lifted the gun. “Your time is running out.”
She didn’t think or hesitate. Esta simply moved on instinct, shoving Harte down and covering him with her body as the crack of the gunshot rang out.
There was only one. A single shot. And then silence.
Harte was already pushing her aside, checking her for injuries, but the silence in the room was more deafening than the shot itself.
“I’m fine,” she told him, taking his face in her hands. Meeting his eyes until he knew it was true.
His gaze shifted behind her, and the color drained from his face. But she didn’t need to turn to know what she’d see. Professor Lachlan slumped over a blood-splattered desk, the gun still resting in his lifeless hand.
ONE OF OUR OWN
1902—Atlantic City
Cela Johnson hated scrubbing floors. She hated the acrid smell of the cheap soap powder and the way the water and grime made her fingers prune and crack. She hated spending the day on her hands and knees when she was born to rise. She hated it almost as much as she hated hiding.
Once, her talent with a needle and thread had kept her from the housekeeping that most Negro women were forced into just to survive. Instead, she’d worked her way into the costume shop of a white theater, where the hours were good and the pay was even better. With her skills, she should have been able to find a position with any modiste in New Jersey, but that would be the first place anyone would come looking for her. People knew who she was, which meant she couldn’t use her skills now to make her living, not without the possibility of someone taking notice. Her only real choice had been a position as a maid in one of the enormous new Atlantic City hotels that drew crowds away from the heat and stink of the sweltering Manhattan streets. She hated the work, but it paid for her room in a clean and safe boardinghouse, and at least with all the people who came through, she could keep her ears open for any news from the city.
And if the middle-class tourists acted as though she wasn’t even good enough to breathe the same air as them? At least they tipped well. Sometimes. After nearly three months of work, she’d been able to save enough that, with what Abel earned as a porter, they would be able to start rebuilding their parents’ home come fall.
If I’m back in the city by then.
Pushing aside that thought, Cela lifted herself from the damp and soapy floor. She would be back in the city by then, one way or another. It was her home, wasn’t it? And she trusted Jianyu and Viola to figure out what the Order’s discs could do, didn’t she?
But it had been longer than she’d expected already. Eighty-seven days. It couldn’t possibly be much longer. At some point, she was going to be done waiting.
She wiped her raw hands on her apron before taking up the bucket of filthy water and starting toward the back hallway, the tucked-away corridor where the hotel staff kept the whole place running. Her shift was nearly over, and she wanted nothing more than to take off the constricting uniform, unpin her hair, and have a nice long soak in a cool bath. Abel’s train would be coming in later, and when he arrived, maybe they could grab dinner. It would be nice not to be so alone.
Turning the corner, she twisted just in time to avoid two young boys nearly careening into her and the bucket of dirty water. The water inside sloshed over, splattering on the clean floor, and with a sigh, she bent down to wipe it up before anyone could slip.
“Watch where you’re going, girl,” the father snapped as he passed. His wife simply lifted her nose, which looked like an overripe tomato from the sun, and gave a disdainful sniff.
Cela didn’t say a word, but she ducked her head and kept her eyes focused on the floor until they were gone. She couldn’t hide her loathing, and it wouldn’t do anyone any good to let them see it. She wished—and not for the first time—that Viola were there. Over the past few weeks, she’d found herself missing the prickly Italian, and for more reason than her ability to stop a heartbeat from ten paces.
