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“You’re sure the ritual took care of Seshat?” she asked Harte.

He nodded. “She’s back in the Book. I felt her there, through you—through the girl. When I used my affinity to command her, I knew what she’d done to Seshat.”

Esta wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, but there would be plenty of time for explanations later, once they were safe. First they had to get out of that building and away from the danger they were currently in.

She took his hand and pulled her affinity around her, silencing the buzzing alarm and the faint hissing from whatever the Guards were doing to the door. The screens stopped flickering, leaving the intruders all frozen in their tracks, caught in her net of time. Still, she didn’t move. Not immediately. She waited for the telltale brush of Seshat’s energy, the sizzling power that threatened to pull her under. And only after a stretch of seconds, only when she didn’t feel Seshat’s power, did she breathe again.

“She’s really gone,” Esta whispered, still only barely believing it.

Harte’s mouth went tight. “Not gone but contained.”

“I’ll take it.” Contained was fine. Contained she could work with. Especially since she hadn’t been the one to die in the ritual. They still had a chance. As long as they got through the next few minutes.

“My cuff,” she said. “Tell me you have it?”

Harte lifted his sleeve and slid it from his forearm.

“You have the rest?” She frowned as she took it and slid the silver cuff over her arm, felt the rightness of the stone’s energy against her skin.

He patted the satchel. “They’re all here. The Book, too.”

But he’d kept her cuff, the artifact that meant the most to her, closer. He’d worn it on his own arm, against his own skin.

She leaned in and kissed him, quickly. Fiercely. Because she understood. And since they weren’t dead yet, because she could.

INCONSEQUENTIAL

1902—East Thirty-Sixth Street and Madison Avenue

Jianyu pressed himself into the corner of the room to avoid detection as Morgan took his place behind the enormous desk, opened a box of inlaid wood, and offered cigars to the others as they took their seats.

“Has there been any news at all?” Morgan clipped the end from his cigar and lit the tip. He took a couple of deep puffs, then offered the heavy brass lighter to the older man across from him, a man Jianyu recognized as the High Princept.

“There have been some… developments,” the old man said, examining the end of his cigar before lighting it.

“What developments?” Morgan asked, the cigar still clenched between his teeth. “Why is this the first I’m hearing of it?”

The other two men exchanged glances, but the High Princept ignored Morgan’s outburst as he finished lighting his cigar. He took his time savoring the first few drags on the tobacco before finally licking his thin, papery lips and focusing on Morgan. “We felt it was unnecessary to involve your family any further.”

“My family…” Morgan’s eyes widened slightly.

The Princept took another puff and then settled back into the cushioning of the leather chair, as though this were his room, his meeting.

“You aren’t actually considering freezing me out because of my stupid upstart moron of a nephew?” Morgan asked, clearly incredulous. “He’s not even a Morgan. He’s my wife’s problem.”

“He became your problem as well when we allowed him membership at your suggestion,” one of the other men said. “He’s been nothing but a menace ever since.”

“I’ve taken care of that. Jack won’t be a menace to anyone out in Cleveland,” Morgan said, his temper clearly rising.

“Maybe you did your duty by sending him away, but Barclay’s right,” the Princept told him. “Because of Jack, we lost Khafre Hall. Because of the fiasco at the Fuller Building, the alliance we were building with Tammany is all but destroyed. We had the Delphi’s Tear, and now it’s gone. Newton’s Sigils are gone as well.”

“There’s no evidence that was Jack’s doing,” Morgan said. “Barclay’s grandson was named as well.”

“Theodore was already on a ship bound for the Continent,” the other man—Barclay—said. “And unlike you, I’ve made sure that he won’t cause any problems in the future. How much more do we need to lose?”

Jianyu studied the man closer, startled to recognize the lines of Theo’s profile in the older man’s face. But where Theo was all affable kindness, the elder Barclay was stone and flint. He had no doubt that anyone who pressed the man was sure to catch his spark.

The nostrils of Morgan’s large, bulbous nose flared. He was growing more frustrated by the second, but so far he was smart enough not to lose control of himself, or of the situation.