The Serpent's Curse, Lisa Maxwell [new reading .TXT] 📗

“We won’t need it for much longer,” she assured him. “We’re going to find a way to get her out of you. We’re going to find a way to control her once and for all.” We have to.

Harte didn’t immediately agree. He leaned closer now, and there was something unsettling and almost resigned in his expression as he lifted his hand, tentative at first, to brush a lock of her hair back from where it had fallen into her eyes. Apparently he’d decided it was safe, because he cupped her face gently and tilted his own forward so he could rest his forehead against hers. “I saw Jack holding on to you up on the stage, and I thought I’d lost you.”

“Not a chance,” Esta said, feeling suddenly weak in the knees at the memory of Jack about to drive the dagger into Harte’s chest.

But she couldn’t let herself think about that, so she kissed him instead.

For a moment, the entire world narrowed to the feeling of her lips against his. For a moment, nothing else mattered. The dark blood that stained her dress, the way Everett rocked quietly in grief, even the difficult road that still lay ahead of them—it all melted away. There was only Harte. His hands framing her face, his breath intermingling with hers. For a moment, she could forget. For a moment, she could hope.

Too soon, he broke the kiss with a sigh. But he didn’t move away.

“I won’t lose you,” he told her softly.

She pulled back a little. “What makes you so certain I don’t feel the exact same way?” she asked, giving his words back to him.

Esta knew they were standing at a crossroads, and the moment before them was far bigger than any single person, bigger even than she and Harte together. There was no way to save any one of them without saving the whole of magic, but they would be working against the snapping jaws of time itself. Still… they now had four of the lost artifacts. And they had the Book as well. The Ars Arcana was theirs again, and with the towers of the bridge awaiting them in the distance, and the promise of the city beyond, Esta would do whatever was necessary. She would find a way to to keep the promise she had made to Seshat. She would find a way to save them all.

WHAT WAS TO COME

1902—New York

James Lorcan waited in the shadows of Madison Square Park, watching the uppermost floors of the skyscraper for some sign of what had happened within. At the building’s base, police clashed with Five Pointers. No one else was looking up, and so no one saw the figure that seemed no larger than a bird leap from the top floors. No one saw him tumble downward for less than a heartbeat, before a parachute emerged and carried him on the wind.

It had worked. James had barely believed it could be possible when Logan had suggested jumping to escape the top floor of the building. It seemed like a suicide mission to trust your life to a bit of silk, but the Aether had told James to go along with the other boy’s idea, and so he had. Logan would either fly or fall, he’d figured. Either way, the ring would be his.

He watched for a long moment while Logan floated over Twenty-Third Street, and then he lost sight of him beyond the trees of the park. James waited a little longer before he snapped the reins and urged the horses onward down Madison Avenue. When he reached the corner of Twenty-Sixth Street, he stopped the wagon there and waited to see what would happen next. If Logan tried to run with the ring, he wouldn’t get far. James had made sure that his own people lined the neighborhood around the Flatiron, just in case.

But Logan didn’t try to run, as he might have. As perhaps he should have if he’d been a bit smarter. Instead, he emerged from the park a few minutes later. He’d already disposed of the parachute and the pack that had carried it. When he saw James in the wagon, relief flashed through his expression, and a moment later he was climbing inside.

“You have it?” James asked.

The boy’s mouth kicked up on one side as he pulled something from his pocket and then dropped an enormous golden ring into James’ outstretched hand. The setting held a stone as clear as a teardrop. The Delphi’s Tear.

It was everything James had expected it to be and even more than he’d hoped. Almost immediately, he could sense the pull of the artifact calling to him. Whispering to him of its power, cool and steady and absolute. He felt the power within the cane vibrate, as though it knew what was to come.

“I found that for you once before,” Logan said, his eagerness giving way to a cocky pride. But then his expression faltered, confusion replacing the confidence. “Or I will… someday. But maybe I won’t have to if you hold on to it this time.”

James didn’t bother to respond. The future was nothing more than a story that was his to write—or to rewrite, as it were. The ring was heavy, and the gold of the setting had the deep burnished color of metal that was older and purer than the fashion of the day. It felt strangely warm in his hand, and for a moment he let himself marvel at it.

At the power it held within it—the kind of power that required a life sacrifice.

At the possibilities now before him.

Silently, he slid the ring onto his smallest finger, and he felt the Aether around him lurch again. It felt kinetic, exhilarating.

Right.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The Last Magician series is, at heart, fantasy, but it is also a work ofhistorical fiction. From the very beginning, I wanted to make it