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“That’s impossible. Esta wouldn’t leave it unguarded. She’d have it with her.” He focused and felt the Aether, trembling and uncertain. Something wasn’t right. Something hadn’t gone according to plan.

“If it’s still in the city, I can find it for you,” Logan said, ever earnest.

“I know,” James told him. “It’s why I’ve kept you around despite your complete ineptitude. Esta and Darrigan aren’t going anywhere. For now I want you to find me someone to take care of this broken nose. You can track the Book for me after.”

There was one bottle of whiskey left unbroken. After taking two long swigs to help with the pain in his broken face, James went to the sink and pumped some cold water into the basin. Carefully, he washed away the blood that had already started clotting around his nose and lips. The shirt was ruined, but he took it off and soaked it anyway.

There was a part of him, an impatient boy deep inside, who cursed himself for not going after Newton’s Sigils weeks ago. He’d wanted to. He’d thought of nothing else ever since he’d taken Morgan’s papers and realized what they could do, what he could use them for. But every time he tried to form a plan, the Aether counseled patience. Any scheme, any attack that he began to map out sent uneasy vibrations through the ethereal substance around him and dread down his spine.

He needed to wait. He trusted his magic, and the Aether had never led him wrong, but he could not understand why. Especially now that Darrigan and Esta had bested him.

There had to be a reason.

He left the mess of the Strega in the hands of the people who hadn’t run at the first sign of struggle and headed back up to his apartment, dabbing at his still-bleeding nose as he went.

Once inside he took stock. They’d taken Morgan’s papers, but he already knew the contents of those. They’d taken the cane as well, which would make things more delicate. But he still had the Aether, and he still had the Devil’s Own.

Settling himself on the couch while he waited for Logan’s return, he took the small diary from his pocket and flipped through the entries. Most of it remained unreadable except for one page. But something there had changed. The future was becoming more certain.

Esta was back, and now the entry about the Conclave was settling itself.

Perhaps there was a reason he wasn’t supposed to have the sigils yet. Words rose up on the page, hints of a future that could become. Perhaps he didn’t need them quite yet.

They had taken the papers and had Newton’s Sigils as well. Neither were weapons that could be used against him. The sigils were strange, powerful occult magic with the ability to protect Mageus from the Brink and to control a power as dangerous as the Book. He’d let them take the risks, and then, when the time was right, he’d step in and claim the rewards.

Let Esta and Darrigan believe they’d won this round. James knew the truth. Closer and closer, the final gambit was coming, and if the Aether was true and the words in the diary were correct, they were positioning themselves exactly where he wanted them.

Until then, he had work to do. He could not allow the alliances he’d made to crumble, not so long as they were useful. And he could not lose his hold on the Devil’s Own.

GHOSTS OF THE PAST

Uptown

Viola refused to apologize for killing the bastardi that had destroyed the building that belonged to Cela’s friends. She had not acted in a fit of rage. No. She had acted to save the lives of those who had stood by her, and she had sent a message in the process. This is who she would stand beside. This is who she would fight for. And if the Order and their scagnozzi came for Cela’s friends, they would have to come through her.

And if she dreaded having to tell Jianyu what she had done? She would deal with it when she saw him. When he was well.

If he was well.

“Can’t this thing go no faster?” she growled as the streetcar plodded steadily south.

Cela shushed her, while the other riders pretended they hadn’t heard.

“We’ll be there soon enough,” Cela told her, but Viola could hear the fear in her friend’s voice.

It took too long, that trek back down to Dolph’s safe house near the river. She still couldn’t quite believe that her old friend had been able to hide such a thing from her. She did not have any trouble understanding why Dolph had confided in Jianyu, but she still wondered why he hadn’t told her as well.

Finally they arrived, Abel along with them, and it was Cela who was first through the cold warning of the front doors and led the way up to the third floor, where the apartment waited. Viola and Abel followed closely behind, but Viola paused before she entered. She hated visiting this place. She knew how they saw her—they thought her a murderer at best, and they feared her when she was around. It didn’t matter that she’d helped to save every life within those walls. Somehow it still wasn’t enough to erase the distrust in those they’d rescued.

She closed her eyes, girding herself for the judgment that was sure to come, and took a deep breath. The hallway was silent, peaceful, and she wished she could just wait there until it was over. Her attention snagged on a movement at the other end of the corridor, where a doorway to the back stairs stood open, but when she looked, nothing and no one was there.

Still… With all the dangers that surrounded them, it wouldn’t hurt to be careful. And she was in no hurry to go inside. She wasn’t yet ready to know whether their mad plan to save Jianyu had worked… or had failed.

At the end of the hallway, Viola found the staircase empty. She listened, just to be sure, and considered checking the other floors. But she knew she was being stupid. No one else could enter the safe house—Dolph had made sure of it. She was only delaying the inevitable. She took another deep, steadying breath, and along with the dust, she breathed in the scent of old books—aged leather and parchment and the acrid scent of drying ink—that reminded her somehow of her old friend.

She wished Dolph were still there. She wished he had lived to see the leader Jianyu was becoming and the peace that she herself had found. She wished most of all that they hadn’t failed him so utterly and completely.

A shout came from the open apartment door that shook Viola out of her melancholy. Ruby. Forgetting the ghosts of the past, she ran.