Page 193

1920—Chicago

Esta watched the crowd in the arena surge to its feet in response to Jack throwing the lever. They stomped and whistled their encouragement as the lights of the arena flickered overhead. She looked up to see bolts of energy circling around the apex of the tower like strange lightning pulsing in the night sky—a beacon and a warning all at once to anyone within sight of the Coliseum.

Suddenly, two figures were falling through the split in the ceiling, caught in a strange embrace as they plummeted to the ground. At first Esta couldn’t understand what she was seeing—a stunt or a dummy? It had to be—but no. They were men. One had red hair—Esta was sure she saw red hair. North, she thought, her hope falling right along with him. Then the sound of their bodies hitting the ground seemed louder than anything. It was a dull, sickening thud that left the crowd gasping and Esta hollowed out by grief.

For North. For Everett. For them all.

Too late. Too late to run, too late to save themselves unless they stopped this. She had to find a way to stop it.

“You don’t have to do this, Jack,” Esta said, trying to speak to Jack instead of the demon that had possessed him.

Jack turned to Esta, and she saw that the watery blue had pushed aside the black. “Don’t I?” he asked, his voice somewhere between Jack and Thoth.

“You can fight him,” she pleaded. “Think of the people you’re about to kill. Think of what he’s turning you into.”

There was more blue in his eyes now than black, more of Jack in his voice when he spoke. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking of,” he said, and he pushed the lever even farther, causing the power to surge once more.

In that instant, the darkness swelled again in Jack’s eyes as well, overtaking the blue until only a deep blankness looked back at her. “Did you honestly think that anything he’s done has been against his will?” Thoth asked, laughing. “I forced nothing upon him.”

“You turned him into a monster,” Esta said, still trying to pull away. If she could only reach the lever…

“You’re telling yourself stories, girl. He dreamed of a machine that could create beautiful chaos—one that could destroy those who taunted him with their power—long before my servant in Greece found him. I didn’t create his hatred or his fear. I simply used them to my advantage. They provided me an entrance to his mind and a willing body to bring my vision to light, and in return I bestowed upon him the power to make every one of his dreams come true.”

A scream from the crowd suddenly tore through the room, punctuating Thoth’s words. Jack threw his head back and laughed as another scream split through the noise of the hall, and another. “You thought you could defeat me?” Thoth laughed at her. “You thought you could escape me, and instead you ran straight into my arms. And now it’s too late. There is no escape for you now. I will have your power—your life—at my disposal.” The tower was glowing and crackling with energy above them. “And then I will take Seshat’s power as well, and with it I will finally be able to control the beating heart of magic. I will become infinite.”

He was right. Thoth, Jack, it didn’t matter who was speaking to her now. It was too late to run, too late to stop the bright bolts of light streaming from the tip of the tower, searing like lightning into the night sky. But as the panic grew in the arena around her, Esta didn’t feel the cold power she’d expected to come over her. Something else was happening instead in the crowd of delegates and spectators.

At first Esta couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing, but then she understood: The medallions the Brotherhoods had given out were starting to burst into flames. It wasn’t the old magic that was being affected by the tower but the corrupted magic of the Brotherhood, and Esta could not repress her laugh at Everett’s cunning. He’d explained to her how they could give the Brotherhoods a taste of their own poison, and his idea had worked.

As each medallion burst, the flames began to spread at an incendiary pace, and in a matter of seconds, the arena erupted in pandemonium. Flames from the medallions consumed the coats and shirts and dresses where they’d been pinned, and the people who’d willingly taken them were screaming, tearing their own garments from their bodies to escape.

They did it. The relief flashed through her bright and hot and complete, but it was short-lived. She still needed to get the Book away from Jack—and somewhere caught in the now-riotous crowd was Harte.

Everywhere, people were trying to escape from their burning garments and from the hall itself. The whole crowd was moving almost as one, pushing and climbing over one another as they tried desperately to reach the still-locked doors.

Slowly, Jack—or the thing inside of him—seemed to realize something had gone wrong. When the medallion Jack himself was wearing burst into flames, he released Esta to tear it from his coat. But even once the medallion was gone, smoke still poured from beneath his collar and cuffs. Jack pulled at the buttons of his shirt, tearing it open to reveal rows of strange symbols that glowed like embers on his skin. He seemed to scream more in rage than pain at first, but as he clawed at his skin, the markings only glowed brighter.

Esta was beginning to back away when Jack suddenly went strangely still. His head whipped around to look toward the steps that led up to the stage.

“Seshat,” Thoth’s voice hissed from Jack’s mouth, its weathered rasp as old as time itself, and a serpent’s smile crept across his face. His chest was still smoldering, but now Jack did not seem to be feeling the pain of the flames. “I thought you might join us.”

The smell of burnt skin and sulfurous smoke was thick in the air as Esta turned to see Harte climbing the steps to the stage, his stormy eyes steady on her.

“No!” she screamed. But Jack had already leapt for Harte. It happened so fast—Jack lunged across the stage, pushing Harte back down the steps, until they were both on the ground, wrestling for control. In a blink, Jack had the advantage. His hands were around Harte’s neck, strangling him.

Two of the men who had been onstage with them lunged for Esta, grabbing her by the arms to hold her in place. She twisted, catching one off guard as she kicked out viciously at the other’s knee. In a fluid movement born from years of training under Dakari’s watchful eye, Esta twisted again and again, meeting the men blow for blow until they were down and she had freed herself.

The men had been easy enough to dispatch, but she’d wasted precious time. Harte was no longer fighting, and Jack was looming over him, with his knee on Harte’s chest. The Pharaoh’s Heart was in his hand. Jack was already bringing the dagger down, directly toward Harte’s chest, when Esta pulled time slow. Without hesitating, she was down the stairs, using all of her weight and all of her strength to knock Jack away from Harte.

Jack fell to the ground. His chest still glowed where the ritual magic he’d tattooed onto his skin continued to smolder, but the dagger clattered away and his coat lay open, revealing the Book. It was so close. Everything they’d fought for was right there, within reach, but Esta’s eyes turned to Harte—

She wasn’t thinking about Seshat or the danger of touching him when she made her choice. She wasn’t thinking about anything other than how his lips had already gone blue, how his eyes already looked glassy and unfocused. She wouldn’t lose him. Not now. Not after everything.

She pulled herself up and was at his side in an instant. “Harte,” she said, cupping his face with her hands, drawing him into the net of her affinity.

He didn’t move, but a shuddering breath was released from his lungs. “Harte, you have to wake up,” she said, bringing her face close to his to listen. “We have to go.” But Harte lay as quiet and unmoving as if he was still frozen in time. He wasn’t breathing.

Not knowing what else to do, she placed her mouth over his and filled his lungs with her own breath, but before she could pull back, his hands were on her arms, pinning her in place, and she felt herself falling into darkness.