Page 177

“I think it’s a bad sign that Nibsy hasn’t come after us yet,” she told them. “He’s not the type that just lets someone beat him.”

“We have been here,” Jianyu reminded her. “Hidden by the magic of this place.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “But we’ve been out there, too. There’s no sign that he’s even looking for us.”

“Maybe he already knows where we are,” Viola told her. “He has Logan. He’s been able to find us before, even when we thought we were well hidden.”

“That’s one possibility,” Esta admitted. “But I worry he’s not looking because he already knows where we’ll end up. If he has the diary—his version of it—it’s likely he knows we’ll go to the Conclave. He might simply be waiting to make his move there. Especially if he’s being guided by the messages from his future self.”

Silence descended as they all considered this.

“It feels likely,” Jianyu agreed. “But it changes little. Regardless of the threat Nibsy poses, the Conclave is where Jack will try to take power, and we must be there to stand in his way.”

“I know,” Esta said. “But we should do everything in our power to make it harder for Nibsy to do that.”

“What are you thinking?” Harte asked.

“I’m thinking that we have to start with the cane,” she told them. “If we could use the sigils to destroy Tom Lee’s bracelet, we can do the same with Dolph’s cane. We can’t chance it falling back into Nibsy’s possession.”

“You would unmake it,” Jianyu said, considering the proposal.

Esta nodded. “And once it’s been destroyed, we make sure that people know. We make sure that the Devil’s Own understands that they’re free.”

“You’d take his army,” Viola said approvingly.

“No,” she told them. “We’d free them.”

“They may not want to be freed,” Jianyu said finally.

Esta acknowledged that he had a point. “But at least they’d have the choice.”

Golde had stepped into the room. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s someone outside. I think it’s the boy who was hanging around with Lorcan. He’s looking up at the building like he knows that we’re here.”

Everyone around the table went still, and she knew what they were likely thinking. Maybe she’d spoken too soon about Nibsy coming for them.

“Is he with anyone?” Esta asked.

The woman shook her head. “He’s just standing there alone. But he shouldn’t be. He’s making the others nervous.”

Esta went to the window that looked over the front of the building and peered down. “It’s Logan,” she said, then turned back to the others. “I’ll go out and talk to him.”

“Not alone you won’t,” Harte said.

Viola was already standing as well. “I’m coming, too.”

PLAYING THE ANGLES

It took real effort for Logan Sullivan to stay where he was, standing in the drifting snow in front of the building. Something about the place made him want to turn and walk away, and the longer he stood there, the more painfully desperate that urge became. There was no chance of him going up to the front door, even though he wanted to. Even though he knew Esta was inside. Even staying there on the sidewalk was a struggle.

He’d been searching the city for days to find the Book, just like he’d been commanded, but every day that he couldn’t find it was another day closer to James finally losing his patience. Logan couldn’t risk that. Since he’d let Esta and Darrigan slip away that day the Strega got trashed, James had been nothing but fury. He had a group of new boys who were still standing by him—big, rough, bruising types who took the mark happily and displayed it where it could be seen. Guys like Murphy, whose cold eyes gave Logan the creeps.

James had made it well known that anyone who’d abandoned the Strega the day of the attack was no longer welcome. If they couldn’t stand and fight for the Devil’s Own, they were on their own, mark or no mark, without protection from the Hip Sings or the Five Pointers. But Logan had been around enough meetings that he knew the truth. It wasn’t only that James would no longer protect the people who’d left that day. He was using the deserters to shore up his alliances by handing over their names and locations. Between the new boys and his allies, he’d declared open season. And Logan knew it was only a matter of time before he was next.

He wasn’t going to let that happen.

Maybe he hadn’t found any trace of the Book within the city’s borders, but could sense Ishtar’s Key, and that was enough to keep his feet bolted to the sidewalk, no matter how unpleasant the sensation of staying was. He was going to talk to Esta. He was going to demand that she take him back. If he just waited long enough, he knew she’d be forced to appear.

He wasn’t wrong. It took longer than he’d expected, but finally the front door of the building opened, and Esta came out, alive and in the flesh. Following close behind her was Darrigan. Viola was with them as well, looking more alive than Logan had expected her to be considering that he’d watched James nearly tear her to pieces with that cane of his. When Darrigan had carried her out of the Strega, Logan had assumed she was a goner. Especially considering the lack of medical care available in this godforsaken time.