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“I’ll be fine,” Theo said, looking far too pleased with himself. “You know, I believe this is the most excitement I’ve had in my life since Ruby decided to dress in men’s clothing and infiltrate a Knights of Labor meeting. She practically caused a riot when her hair fell out of her hat and they discovered she was actually a woman.” He laughed softly at the memory, his eyes gazing off into a past that Viola could not see.

Whatever Ruby might have said that night at the gala, Viola had the sense that Theo Barclay very much cared.

“You love her,” she realized, her heart clenching a little at the thought.

“Of course.” Theo gave her a small, sad smile. “Who wouldn’t love Ruby Reynolds?” He winked before opening the carriage door, effectively ending their conversation.

Viola hadn’t even noticed that they’d stopped, but now she saw that they’d arrived at the corner Theo usually dropped her at—one that was a safe enough distance from Paolo’s building. After she’d alighted, she turned back to him. “I wish I could talk you out of this.”

“I know,” he told her. With a small, impertinent shrug, he closed the carriage door.

As she watched his carriage rattle away, Viola felt a sudden, inexplicable wave of sadness rush over her. Who, indeed, wouldn’t love Ruby Reynolds?

She could not help but think of the moment at the gala when Ruby’s lips had touched hers. It had been completely unexpected, but along with the shock of it, she’d had the strange sense of the world being right in a way it never had before. It was as though every bit of her life that hadn’t quite fit together had rotated solo un pó, the pieces locking together in a way that finally made sense. Her affinity had never made her feel like that. Neither had her family or the hours she’d spent on her knees in church. But for the space of a heartbeat, the slice of a single moment, Viola had glimpsed a possibility that she had never imagined could be hers.

She’d immediately rejected it, of course. It was too unbelievably terrifying to think about what real happiness might look like—might feel like. It was too dangerous to even consider. She had the memory, though, and if it was all that she would ever have, Viola would take that memory and carry it with her—that perfect moment of happiness that was shaped precisely like Ruby’s mouth.

The clanging of a nearby shop closing its shutters for the evening shook her back to herself. She didn’t have time for dreams. There was too much work still ahead, too many lives she had to keep safe, and Paolo would be waiting for his supper.

A TWISTED KNOT

1904—New York

James Lorcan sat in the quiet of his rooms considering the telegram. Two years ago, he’d taken inspiration from one of Dolph’s books to wrestle the loose, unorganized pockets of resistance into a network that was a true adversary to the Brotherhoods’ power. For two years now, he’d plotted and planned and waited, certain that his patience would be rewarded. Certain the Antistasi would deliver Esta and Darrigan to him.

He turned the telegram over in his hand, but he knew that there was no secret message to be found in the ordinary sheet of paper. It simply confirmed what he’d suspected when he’d felt the Aether shudder the day before: Cordelia Smith was as good as dead. She’d been taken by Jack Grew and the Brotherhoods, and her capture had shaken the Antistasi’s network. Badly. His contacts across the country were nervous.

The Antistasi were the least of James’ worries, though. As their leader, James knew that the network could be brought in line easily enough once he took care of Ruth Feltz. Her death would send a message, and after he’d installed his own people in St. Louis, the Middle West would be back under his control. The bigger problem was Esta Filosik, and what he was going to do about her.

James took the notebook from his jacket pocket. He’d stopped worrying about the unreadable words years ago. What he needed wasn’t on those pages anyway. He carefully pried loose the back cover and removed the small slip of paper he’d found months after everything had collapsed around him at the Conclave. It was impossibly old and impossibly fragile, but he understood that it was also the key to bringing Esta back to him, and with her, the artifacts and the Book.

If Cordelia had been captured, and if the Brotherhoods weren’t crowing about apprehending the Devil’s Thief, it meant that Esta had escaped. Already, she would be on her way to California, undoubtedly to find Darrigan and the other stones. He tested the Aether, considered his options. With his network in disarray, it would be more difficult to bring them to heel. Too much could go wrong, as it had already. No… a different tack was necessary. It was time, James thought, to remind Esta of what was at stake.

As he walked toward Orchard Street, the Bowery smelled of the coal smoke from the elevated trains and the sour rot of the vegetables and trash in the gutters. He’d been paying the rent on an apartment at the top floor of the building for more than three years now—ever since Leena had died on the bridge that night and Dolph had not. Three years of continuing to conceal Leena’s darkest and most powerful secret. It was two years longer than he should have, based on what the notebook had originally told him. The timeline had changed, yet the girl was still there… and Esta was still alive.

Time was a twisted knot, as dangerous and impossible to untangle as a ball of snakes. Anyone who tried to pry it apart was liable to find time’s venomous teeth sunk deep into their wrist. But James Lorcan believed himself up for the task.

The matron who lived on the top floor was an old woman with rheumy eyes and a voice like a rusted gate. She opened the door immediately at his knock, used to his oddly timed visits. He paid handsomely enough that she did not question him, never scolded or tried to turn him away, not even when he came in the dead of night.

She knew better.

“Where is she?” James asked.

The woman pointed toward the back bedroom. “She’s napping, though.”

“I don’t care if she’s spinning straw into gold,” he said, brushing past the old lady and into the apartment.

He’d done what he could in the year after Leena’s death to make the girl comfortable. Now the child must be close to seven, and each time James paid her a call, she reminded him more and more of who she would one day become—the viper who would betray him.

If only he could kill the child now, or rather, let the city do what it would with her. It would have been far easier than raising her. But before it had become worthless, the notebook had taught James that taking the girl’s life would mean losing everything else. His only chance at regaining the destiny that had so far eluded him was through Leena’s daughter. He hoped that with a firm enough hand, he could still mold the child into what she should have been if not for that damned magician. Either way, he would use her as he could.

The girl entered the room a moment later, holding tightly to the old woman’s hand.

“Come here, child,” he said.

The girl shrank from him, the same as she had each time since the night he’d first marked her two years before. James didn’t blame the child for the fear in her golden eyes. It was another indication of how smart she was and how cunning she would become.

“We’re going to play a little game,” he told her, and held out his hand.