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“No, that one is simple enough,” she said. “Mostly because of what the piece of magic in the Book can do.” She closed the Book and stared down at the cover.

There was more. He could see it there, on her face.

“What else did you find, Esta?”

She didn’t answer at first, but when she finally looked up at him again, he knew he wasn’t going to like what she said.

“We need to talk, Harte. There are things I need to tell you. About Chicago.”

“You already told me—”

She shook her head. “Not about that. About what happened on the stage when Jack was about to kill you. About what the piece of magic in this Book can do and about the promise I made.”

Unease slid cold down the back of his neck. “What promise?”

“You might want to sit down.”

He took a seat on the other edge of the bed, away from the papers and definitely away from the danger inside the Book. Then Esta told him everything she hadn’t yet—about the conversation she’d had with Seshat, the danger of having a piece of magic held outside of time—how it threatened the world and reality itself if it were controlled by the wrong person or, worse, exposed to the killing power of time. Because if that piece of magic died, everything died with it. She told him, too, about the vow she’d made to finish what Seshat started. The promise to complete the ritual and place the piece of magic back into the whole.

“Why would you promise such a thing?” he asked, horrified at the implications of what she was saying.

“You were about to die,” she told him. “I would have promised anything to stop that from happening.”

“Esta, no—”

“You would have done the same, Harte. But it wasn’t only that,” she told him. “I believed her. What she told me about the danger that piece of magic poses to the world—she wasn’t lying. She was desperate. She just wanted to fix her mistakes.”

“She wanted to destroy you,” Harte reminded her. “She wanted to use you to destroy the entire world. I know because I felt it. Her anger. Her absolute desperation.”

“Only because she believed there wasn’t any other way,” Esta argued. “She truly believed that her unmaking the world would be a kindness compared to what would happen if that piece of pure magic escaped. I offered her another way, and she accepted.”

He started to argue, but she cut him off before he could form words.

“Seshat didn’t have to accept the bargain, Harte. She already had me. She could have done whatever she wanted. She could have pulled me apart, taken my affinity, and finished it. But she didn’t.”

She had a point, but he didn’t want to admit it. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Seshat isn’t a danger now, Esta. She’s trapped in the Book again. We’re safe.”

“What if we’re not?” Esta asked. “What if she wasn’t lying? Seshat damaged magic. By taking it out of time, she put everything at risk. If we don’t finish the ritual, if we don’t place that piece of magic back into time, anyone could touch it. Especially now, with the artifacts united. If the ritual remains uncompleted, magic will die, and when it does, it will take everything with it.”

“But, Esta, Seshat might have still been lying. Think about it—you grew up in a time even farther beyond the one we’re currently in, and magic hadn’t died yet. The world hasn’t collapsed. Nearly a hundred years passed from the time I first stood on that bridge until the time you came back, and magic was fine.”

“It wasn’t fine, Harte.” Esta was frowning at him, and he could sense her frustration. “Magic was basically extinct. Hardly anyone had an affinity. No one remembered what their families had even been. No one remembered what magic had been.”

“But the world spun on,” he argued, unable to stop the desperation he was feeling from seeping into his words.

“Maybe. But how much longer would it have lasted?” Esta’s eyes softened. “She let me save you, Harte. She gave me another chance. I have to honor that. I have to try to complete the ritual she started.”

Esta wasn’t going to be swayed. He could tell by the set of her mouth and the determination in her eyes.

“Did she tell you how to finish the ritual, by any chance?” Harte asked sardonically, because anger was easier than fear. Safer, too.

Esta didn’t take the bait. “No, but I think you know.” She looked down at the open page and read words he’d heard not that long before. “To catch the serpent with the hand of the philosopher—”

“No.” He tried to stop the memories of what had happened on the subway platform from flooding back. “No, Esta. Not that. You can’t be serious. That ritual killed the girl.”

“I know,” she told him. “I need you to tell me what happened, Harte. I need to know what happened with the other girl—the other version of me.”

“Esta, I can’t—”