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“No. Non é possibile.” She shook her head, refusing to believe something so preposterous. “Dolph, he would have known this. He would have wanted them, along with the Book of Mysteries.”
Jianyu leaned against the door, his head tipped back. “Dolph was focused only on the Book,” he reminded her. “You saw his journal, just as I did. There was no mention of Newton’s Sigils. If he had known about them, the information would have been there.”
A pounding came at the door, causing Jianyu and Viola both to jump. She reached for Libitina—an instinct she couldn’t quite quit—before she realized the voice calling on the other side was familiar. A friend.
“Viola? Jianyu? You all in there?” Abel called, as the pounding came again.
Jianyu let out a breath at the sound of Abel’s voice, and Viola heard her own relief echoed in it. Abel was back earlier than they’d expected him. He could get to Cela. Her brother was not trapped, as they were. He could protect her.
“Thank god,” Viola said, dizzy with relief as Jianyu opened the door.
But when Abel stepped into the room, the look on his face turned Viola’s relief to dread.
“She’s gone.” His voice broke as he stumbled into the room. “Her landlady said Cela didn’t come home last night, and her room looked like it had been ransacked.”
She met Jianyu’s eyes again, and they exchanged a silent look of understanding before she turned back to Abel. “We’ll get your sister back,” she vowed.
“We cannot go after Nibsy,” Jianyu told her. “Not with the marks—”
“I’m not going after that snake,” Viola said. “Not yet. First, I’m going to go skin myself a fox.”
MORE THAN MAGIC
1983—Times Square
Harte looked down at Esta’s blood coating his hand and cursed himself for not realizing that she was hurt. Just seconds ago, that same hand had been touching her in places that, once, he’d only dared dream of. He’d forgotten that they were trapped underground in the filthy darkness of a foul-smelling tunnel filled with who knew what kind of vermin. Once his mouth had touched hers, once his hands had found the soft curve of her waist, none of that had mattered. Nothing had mattered but Esta.
Now he felt like the worst kind of ass. Because she was clearly hurt, and badly, from the amount of blood.
“I’ll be okay, Harte.” She tugged at her clothes to see where the blood was coming from, but when she twisted, she couldn’t stop herself from sucking in a sharp breath.
“Come on,” he told her, taking her by the hand and moving toward the doorway that promised to be an exit. He didn’t even care what—or who—might be waiting as he forced Viola’s dagger into the jamb and wrenched the lock in two.
On the other side of the door, they found a small, windowless room with another door. He made quick work of that lock as well, and then they were out. Free. Or, maybe not free, exactly. It was another of the subterranean stations, and there were people everywhere. Luckily, no one seemed to care that they’d just emerged from some kind of service door. One or two people might have tossed disinterested looks their way, but for the most part, no one paid them any attention at all.
Harte blinked at the sudden brightness, trying to make sense of the chaotic crowd around him, as Esta took charge.
“This way,” she told him, apparently not thrown off by the noise and crush of the people around him. “It’s rush hour. That should give us some cover.” She tugged him onward through the crowd.
There was a battered mosaic on the wall that told Harte where they were: Times Sq-42nd St. Forty-Second Street, he understood, even if the crowds in the subway station didn’t make sense this far uptown. That area had been mostly train tracks leading to the Grand Central Depot in the city he had known. And he didn’t have any idea what a Times Square was.
But he didn’t have long to ponder it before they emerged from the closeness of the subway station into the impossible brightness of enormous buildings covered in lights. Gone was the Forty-Second Street he had known. Gone were the brick streets and carriages of his own time. In their place, a strange new city had erupted. Buildings soared stories above him, and traffic poured by in a constant stream of boxy vehicles, many of which were painted a garish yellow.
He hadn’t realized his feet had stopped and that he was standing in the middle of the crowded sidewalk until he felt Esta tugging on his hand.
“I know it’s a lot, but keep moving,” she told him gently.
She was right. If no one had paid any attention when the two of them had emerged from a maintenance tunnel in the station, people were noticing now. An older man in a heavy overcoat and a sharply brimmed hat glared at him and muttered something about tourists as he shoved by.
They joined the river of people moving along the sidewalks beneath the lit canopies of what seemed like a million marquees. There had always been theaters in New York, but not like this. Even Satan’s Circus hadn’t had lights like this… or shows like this, Harte thought, feeling his cheeks heat as he read the flashing lights advertising peep shows and barely clad girls, twenty-four-hour theaters and “burlesk.” A large silver bus rumbled past, its graffiti-marred windows mostly concealing the tired-looking people within as it spewed a cloud of dark exhaust to mingle with the cigarette smoke already hanging in the air.
Harte coughed, his eyes watering from the bus’s noxious fumes as he tried to keep pace with Esta. They crossed one street, then another, and then she stopped suddenly.
“No,” she told him, looking completely rattled. “This isn’t right.”
They were standing in a wedge-shaped plaza in the middle of traffic. Vehicles streamed around them, and now that they paused, Harte could see that the small lit signs on top of the yellow automobiles said “taxi.” Standing there in the middle of traffic felt a little like standing in the middle of a stampede, but Esta was unmoved by the bustle and speed around them. She was too busy looking up at a statue that glinted warmly in the setting sun.
Jack.
