He knew she was angry, but he could not linger. Before she could stop him, he had opened the strands of light, pulled them around himself, and started for the building.
It was a simple thing to find Evelyn’s rooms, but when he let himself in, the apartment was not what Jianyu had expected. The woman herself was like the ostentatious kingfisher in her dress and adornments, but the rooms were cold and barely furnished, with clothes heaped about in haphazard piles. It was the kind of place someone came to sleep off the effects of too much Nitewein or because they had no other option—not because it bore any resemblance at all to a home. Jianyu almost pitied her for living in such a place, but then he reminded himself that her actions did not lend themselves to pity. Evelyn had made her choices, and now she would bear the consequences of them.
There was enough moonlight coming through the open window that he could navigate easily enough, searching through boxes and under beds. He worked methodically, lifting silken stockings and then replacing them as carefully as he could, so it would appear that no one had been there. Better not to warn her.
He was sorting through the piles on her bed when he heard the sound of an owl.
Not an owl, he realized when the sound came a second time . . . and then a third. Cela.
Placing the piles of clothing back the way he had found them, Jianyu was already heading toward the door when he heard the click of the lock releasing. With nowhere to go, he pulled the bronze disks from his pocket and used them to open the wan moonlight and wrap it around himself. Certainly, Evelyn would be able to sense him, but if he was quick, she would not be able to catch him.
Positioning himself next to the door, he waited. But the person who came through was not Evelyn after all.
SESHAT
1904—St. Louis
The excitement of the parade had done its job, pulling people out into the wide boulevard and leaving the winding streets of Cairo nearly empty. Harte followed Esta as they made their way through the various bazaars selling their cheap trinkets and past the restaurant that left the air perfumed with the scent of heavy spices and roasting meats. His stomach rumbled at they passed, but he kept his focus on the back of Esta’s narrow shoulders and the constant hum of energy from the power inside of him.
When they came to the replica of the Egyptian temple that housed the boat ride, Harte nearly stumbled from the way the power inside of him lurched, letting its presence be known. There was something about this particular attraction that agitated the voice, but there was only one way in and out of the chamber that held the necklace, and that was through the Nile River. He did his best to ignore the power as he slipped the attendant a few extra coins for a private boat and then followed Esta into it.
A moment later their oarsman pushed off, and they were entering the darkness of the first tunnel. The world of the fair fell away, and there was only the gentle sound of the water being parted by the oar and the stale mustiness of the canal. Harte didn’t need to see Esta to know exactly where she was in the darkness. Even with the odor of the water, he could sense her next to him. Since she’d decided on the ridiculous ploy to dress like a boy, she’d given up the soft floral soap she’d used before. Instead, she had been using something simple and clean, and when the scent of it came to him in the darkness, the image of her in the morning, damp from washing and freshly scrubbed, rose in his mind.
It was a mistake—the power vibrated against the shell of who he was, pressing at the delicate barrier. Harte was intimately familiar with that boundary, because he often breached it himself when he let his affinity reach into a person to read their thoughts or shape their actions. Having his own threatened like this was an uncomfortable reminder of just how dangerous his affinity could be.
The oarsman was reciting his script in a monotone, but Harte could barely pay attention—all his focus was on keeping the power inside of him from bursting out. They passed through scenes depicting life in ancient Egypt—the building of the pyramids and the flooding of the Nile, with its resulting harvest. Faintly, the names of gods and goddesses registered, but as the boat progressed, the power grew stronger, and it became harder and harder to hold it back.
Esta was sitting next to him, her back straight and her attention forward—preparing, probably, for what they needed to do—but Harte could barely see straight. His hands felt clammy. His head swirled and the edges of his vision wavered as the voice echoed in his ears, screaming words he didn’t understand in a language he did not know.
When they neared the end of the ride, the voice went silent and the power stilled, both falling away and leaving only a hollowed-out emptiness behind. Panting now, Harte forced himself to take a deep, steadying breath. They were nearly there. Two more chambers and then they would disembark and walk the so-called Path of Righteousness to the Temple of Khorassan, where the Djinni’s Star waited. But the moment the boat began to enter the chamber filled with parchments and scrolls, the power lurched once again.
If Harte had thought it strong, or if he had thought himself able to control it, he realized that he’d been wrong. So wrong. Everything he’d experienced before had been nothing but a shadow of its true power. It had been hiding itself, perhaps waiting for this moment.
The boat, the false Nile, and the room of scrolls transformed itself into a different time, another place. The walls were rounded up to a ceiling that had been painted gold, and in the center of the room stood an altarlike table that held a book. A woman stood over it, her coiled hair hung around her lean face. Her kohl-rimmed eyes were focused on the parchment in front of her, and the very air seemed to tremble with the urgency she felt. There was magic here, warm and thick and stronger than Harte had ever felt before.
The woman’s mouth was forming words that he could not hear, but he understood their meaning because he could feel their power vibrating through the air, brushing against him with an unmistakable threat. It reminded him of what it had felt like when Esta pulled him through time, awful and dangerous and wrong. As though the world were collapsing and breaking apart all at once. He watched with dread as she took a knife and sliced open her fingertip, dripping the dark blood into a small cup.
She picked up a reed and dipped it into the cup, mixing it before she touched it to the parchment. With each stroke, the energy in the air increased, whipping about with an impossible fury. Hot. Angry. Pure. Her face was a mask of concentration, her darkly ringed eyes tight and her jaw clenched as the power in the air began to stir the hair framing her face. She made another stroke with her reed and then another, until finally, her hand trembling, she finished.
The woman looked up at him as though she could see to the very heart of what he was. Every mistake he’d made. Every regret he bore day in and day out. Every fear. Every want. She looked into him and she knew them all.
And then, without warning, the woman dropped the reed and screamed as though she were being torn apart. The power swirling through the room swelled until there was only a furious roaring that felt as though it were bubbling up from the very heart of who Harte was. As though he had become her.
As she made the final stroke, the screaming was coming from deep within her and it was coming from outside of her as well. The world was roaring its warning, but she could not listen. She would not listen. She would finish what she had started, even as she felt herself flying apart, a sacrifice and an offering to the power that was the heart of all magic.