Page 50

The weight of the leather pouch Maggie had carried with her from St. Louis suddenly felt heavier than it had a moment before. If they could get close enough, there was a way to ensure that Pickett revealed everything, but using the concoction she had in mind meant divulging secrets she’d never intended to reveal. At least not like this.

“Maybe there’s a way you could earn his trust?” Maggie said hopefully.

“It would take time we don’t have,” Esta said, dismissing the idea. “With those explosions you set off, someone is bound to start piecing things together. It’s not going to be hard to figure out no one died in the train explosion back in Texas. Once they do, they’re going to know to look for us. The faster we get the dagger and get out of town, the better.”

Esta was right. It had been a mistake to use the Flash and Bangs, and now Maggie had to deal with the consequences. As much as she wasn’t keen on revealing this particular secret, the artifact they were seeking was too important for Maggie to put her own personal worries before her duty to the Antistasi… especially considering that she was mostly responsible for the mess they were in. She wouldn’t allow herself to fail again, even if it meant Jericho might never look at her the same.

“I might have a formulation that could help with Pickett,” Maggie said slowly, knowing that what she was about to reveal would change everything.

North turned to her, clearly surprised. “You do?”

She hesitated, staring at a snag in her skirts because she couldn’t meet Jericho’s eyes. She knew what his reaction was going to be. “If we can give it to Pickett, he won’t have any choice but to tell us the truth about the dagger.”

“What, like a truth serum?” Esta asked, getting to the point far more quickly than Maggie would have liked.

“Something like that,” she admitted.

“You’ve been busier than I realized,” Jericho said with a low whistle. “First the confounding solution you used on that porter, and now this? How many new formulations have you been working on, anyway?”

Maggie could have let the omission lie, but she couldn’t bear one more thing between them. Better to tell him now than have him discover she’d withheld the truth from him twice. “It’s not new,” she told Jericho, finally risking a glance in his direction.

She must have looked as guilty as she felt, because understanding registered in Jericho’s expression immediately.

“You never told me you had anything like that,” he said, an unspoken question looming behind his words.

Maggie knew how he felt about some of the formulations Ruth had directed her to make. Oh, he was fine with the ones that flashed and banged, the ones that they needed for protection against their enemies, but he’d been uncomfortable all along with the idea of the serum, and with any formulation that took away a person’s free will.

“I haven’t used it in a long time,” Maggie told him. That, at least, was the truth.

Jericho looked a little sick. “Well, as long as you’ve never used it on me.”

Maggie didn’t respond. She couldn’t bring herself to lie, but the truth seemed impossible to tell.

Jericho frowned at her silence. “You haven’t used it on me, have you?” he asked pointedly. “Maggie?”

Maggie’s cheeks heated. “It was a long time ago,” she said softly, like that was any excuse at all.

The color drained from Jericho’s face, leaving his freckles stark against his pale skin. “When?” he asked, his voice sounding strangely hollow.

“You have to understand… We didn’t know you yet,” she tried to explain.

“When did you use it on me, Maggie?” Jericho asked.

“When you first arrived in St. Louis.” She stared at the ground, because she couldn’t bear to face him. “Ruth never trusted newcomers, so she usually used it whenever someone wanted to join us. We never gave a full dose, only enough to loosen a newcomer’s tongue but not so much that they’d realize what was happening. You were no exception, but I had a feeling you were going to be different. I knew it was a mistake as soon as I gave it to you.”

For a long stretch of seconds, the room filled with the kind of silence that chafed. “You never told me. Even after all this time we’ve known each other?”

“I didn’t know how.” She glanced up then, and the look on his face was even worse than she’d imagined it might be.

“All those nights we sat up late, talking about all sorts of things. I thought we were—” Jericho let out a dark laugh. His eyes, usually so warm and soft, glinted with anger. “You let me prattle on like a fool, and all the while you already knew everything there was to know about me.”

“It’s not like that,” Maggie said, stepping toward Jericho, reaching for him. But he pulled back, and she let her arm drop to her side. “The minute Ruth started asking you questions, I left. Don’t you remember? I left because I didn’t want to hear what you told her. I didn’t want to take your secrets from you.”

“You sure didn’t stop your sister from taking them, though,” North charged.

Esta and Cordelia were silent, but Maggie could feel their attention on her. This whole scene was bad enough, but somehow having these two witnesses made her shame burn that much hotter.

“You’re right,” Maggie admitted. There was no way around it, and no reason to pretend now. “I let Ruth pressure me, like I always did, but I knew the minute I met you that things were going to be different. I had the sense that you were going to change everything for me. I couldn’t stop Ruth—” She paused, shaking her head. “No… I didn’t even try. But making that mistake changed something in me.”