Witch in the White City: A Dark Historical Fantasy/Mystery (Neva Freeman Book 1), Nick Wisseman [best novels for students .TXT] 📗

tugged the gossamer threads circling her shoulders. Now that the web no longer had to suspend her, the tension had slackened, and it took only a moment to slip the loops off her arms. That done, she studied Augie.

He was back in his original seat, feet up and arms crossed behind his head, an impassive expression on his face as he watched the Fair’s final transformation into a pyre—much of the Midway was burning now too. Nothing this far west was alight, but it wouldn’t be long. Flames from the Javanese Settlement were already licking at the German Village.

Augie would have to be dealt with swiftly.

Neva had tried talking to him; there was nothing more to be said. And guns had proven of little use. That left only one thing she could think of, mad though it was. “We have to emancipate the Wheel,” she said to Brin.

The Irishwoman squinted as if she’d misread Neva’s lips, or read them correctly and assumed she hadn’t.

“Your stick babies,” Neva elaborated, overenunciating each syllable. “They’re still in the supports? You didn’t move them?”

Brin’s eyes widened. “They’re still there. Might not be good, though—rain probably got through the air holes I left for the fuse.”

“Can you check?”

Brin grinned and dashed to the closest of the Wheel’s supports, casting frequent glances at Augie. But he seemed indifferent to her movements. Or oblivious. Either way, he didn’t stir as she made a rapid inspection.

Derek and Neva ducked into the Parisian Store to avoid a three-way scuffle. One of the men involved was a soldier, but she couldn’t tell whose side the other two were on.

“Did you say, ‘stick babies?’” asked Derek.

“Dynamite. In the Wheel.”

He squinted at her, just as Brin had moments earlier.

“Anarchists,” Neva added, hoping that would be enough for now. “Do you have any matches?”

Derek patted his pockets, then shook his head.

Brin darted into the store and shut the door. “Most of the sticks are bad. A few might light if we’re lucky. But the fuse is a ruin. Wasn’t tarred as well as I’d hoped; it’s a sodden mess.”

Neva grimaced. She hated to ask more of Derek, but ... “Can you manage one more current?” she said, turning to him.

He didn’t look like it. His face was wan, and he still couldn’t stand well on his own—at present, he was bracing himself against an empty display case. He said yes anyway.

“You’re sure?” asked Brin as he moved to a broken window, using the case and then a bookshelf to stabilize himself. “You don’t want to wait for the fire to spread to the Wheel?”

“Not if the fuse is bad,” Neva said. She offered Derek the last cowry shell. “See if this helps.”

He closed his hand on it, and she closed her hand on his. Derek didn’t try to pull free. He seemed to understand that she needed to be a part of this, needed to help ...

Kill their brother.

Because that’s what they were doing: they were going to kill Augie. Dear God.

How had it come to this? What was wrong with the world that they had to administer justice to their last remaining family member? And that he deserved it? But what else could they do?

Brin waved her arms in front of them. “Shouldn’t we get clear? If this works, and the Wheel falls this way—it won’t be easy to run if we’re inside a wee building.”

“Have to be close,” Derek replied, his skin flushed with the shell’s energy and the resurging fever. “Doubt I’ll be able to run anyway.”

Neva gestured from Brin to the door. “You go. We’ll finish this.”

She snorted. “Already said no to that. Just target the far support—there.” The Irishwoman pointed through the window.

Derek nodded and aimed the hand Neva still held. “If that’s real,” he said, glancing at her belly, “you should let go.”

She didn’t move. “I’ll keep you steady.”

He hesitated.

She swore and folded her stomach back in. “I’m fine. Take the shot!”

Shrugging, Derek loosed a current several times smaller than the one he’d launched at Kam, but much longer. It took only an instant to reach the spot Brin had recommended. Yet each inch of the bolt’s advance seemed to send another round of charge searing through Neva’s body, racing round and round as if she were a human coil. Then Derek somehow made his electricity hotter, less blue and more red, fiery and fast and ...

Explosive.

Neva didn’t hear the dynamite detonate—her bone plugs remained firmly in place—but she felt the shockwave as the first stick went off. Followed by another, and another, until the Wheel’s northern support became a chain of fireworks that crumpled the leg and caused the entire structure to list.

But even as a less spectacular series of explosions wracked the other support, and her muscles quivered from the current’s aftereffects, she had eyes only for Augie. The first blast had startled him, but the subsequent concussions knocked his mouth into a ... smile. An expression of acceptance—and relief. Staying balanced despite the Wheel’s growing tilt, he stood in his carriage, walked to the window Brin’s shot had shattered, and stepped out.

Augie fell in a slow tumble, no web parachute extending from his shoulders as he completed a partial rotation before ...

He hit the low wall encircling the teetering attraction’s base.

His spine snapped.

The falling Wheel buried him.

Epilogue

ON BRIN’S THIRD CALL to push, Neva did so with everything she had left, and her baby emerged into the Irishwoman’s waiting hands.

“It’s a boy,” Brin murmured, gently wiping the squalling little thing off and tending to the umbilical cord.

Neva watched with eyes she could barely keep open. Brin had urged her to ease the baby’s passage by stretching her womb, or enlarging her birth canal, or making her skin more pliable—anything that would accelerate the process and reduce the pain.

“Childbearing’s dangerous,” Brin had said at least once an hour. “You could have bent the kid out ages ago and been done with it.”

And at least once every hour, Neva had said no. She wouldn’t resort