“And if she doesn’t?”
Her sister’s expression brightened. “Then she’ll already be part of this. Think of it, Margaret. If she delivers the device, there won’t be any way for her to change her mind. She’ll be responsible for the explosion and for everything that happens after. If it goes well, as you’ve assured me it will, that means that she will have a hand in the effects of the serum. Not only will she understand the power it contains, but she will have the pride of knowing that she was part of it. She’ll understand and be one of us for good. More important, everyone who might stand against us will know she’s ours. When the other Antistasi groups know that the Thief chose us, it will go that much further toward solidifying our leadership.”
Maggie couldn’t help but frown. “You don’t think you should tell her what we’re doing?”
“Why should I?” Ruth asked. “This will be a test of her resolve—of her loyalty to our cause . . . and to me. If she’s truly for us, she’ll be willing to kill for us. And if she’s not, we’ll know now, before she has the chance to harm more important plans.”
OUTMATCHED
1902—New York
Jack hadn’t been backstage at Wallack’s Theatre for weeks, not since he’d visited Darrigan, believing the magician to be an ally instead of an enemy. He would have gladly avoided the theater for the rest of his days, except that he was more certain Evelyn had something he wanted—and something that someone else was willing to kill her for.
It galled him that he still didn’t know what it was.
The day after she’d come to his town house, ready and willing, he’d awoken to find her gone and his head pounding from all the sherry they’d had together. Because he’d overindulged, the memory of that night was still hazy and indistinct. Clearly, she hadn’t been all that memorable, so he’d dismissed her. But then he’d read in the Herald about how she had been attacked. Intruders had broken into her home to rob her and shot her instead. Of course, she was using the attack for publicity, but that didn’t change the fact that she must have had something of value. Which had reminded him of her earlier teasing.
The promise of discovering what she had was worth overcoming his disgust and the anger he felt simply walking through the maze that lurked behind the stage. No one stopped him months ago, and they didn’t bother to now, either. Tucking the bouquet of roses beneath his arm, he knocked twice on Evelyn’s dressing room door and entered when he heard her voice answer.
Her dressing room was nothing like Darrigan’s. It was slightly larger, and the walls were draped with swaths of silks and satins, giving it a feeling of being both exotic and sensual. But Jack wasn’t taken in by it. This time he would remain in control of the evening’s progress.
Evelyn was draped across a chaise lounge, arranged like a painting in her silken robe. He couldn’t see her injury, but clearly it hadn’t been life threatening. Her red mouth curved up when she saw him. “Hello, darling,” she purred. “Are those for me?” She lifted herself from the couch to accept the flowers from him, and when she did, he noticed the glint of gold on her finger.
The ring was enormous. Its golden filigreed setting held a stone far too large for a common trollop like Evelyn, and he knew in that moment that it was what the thieves had been after and what he’d come for.
“What is it, Jack?” Evelyn asked, arranging the flowers in the vase on her dressing table. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Not a ghost,” he told her, his voice heavy with anticipation. “An angel.”
Her eyes glowed, and she went to him, willing and warm and ready.
Later, when he was riding in the carriage back to his town house, he came out of the fog of desire and realized that he’d forgotten completely about the ring—again. He’d been right there, and he’d never even touched it. And he couldn’t remember why. He couldn’t even remember what had happened between them.
His hands clenched into fists. This time he couldn’t blame it on the drink.
He should have known better. Something like this had happened to him before, in Greece, when he would wake without any idea of what had transpired in the hours before morning. He’d joked then that the girl he’d fallen for was a siren, tempting him to the rocks that would be his death, but he hadn’t known how right he’d been. How devious the girl had actually been.
With sudden understanding, he realized that Evelyn was the same. Like the girl in Greece who had nearly ruined him, Evelyn was a witch—maggot scum who thought she could best him at his own game. But Jack wasn’t the green youth he’d been then. Greece had changed him, and the Book that he had locked away safely in his rooms had made him into something new. Evelyn might have feral magic, she might even have a ring that amplified her powers, but she didn’t have the Book. She couldn’t begin to predict how outmatched she was.
THE SECRET ON ORCHARD STREET
1902—New York
James Lorcan had a feeling that things would become more interesting not long after he’d watched Logan Sullivan enter the apartment building and heard the hoot of something that wasn’t an owl nearby. He sent the others back to the Strega, except for Mooch, whom he kept nearby. He didn’t need the muscle; whatever was about to happen, tonight wasn’t the place for a fight. That would come later.
He kept to the shadows and watched the entrance of the building, until he saw the group of people appear. A sturdy-looking man with deep brown skin had Logan looped over his shoulder, and a girl James didn’t recognize kept close by Jianyu. An unexpected development, to be sure, but it answered one question. And at least his companions were Sundren. Uninteresting, except for the way they now had two people who should have been his prisoners.
Mooch took a step toward the group of them already scurrying down the sidewalk, putting distance between themselves and the building, but James caught his arm.
“Just follow them. Find out where they’re going, but don’t do anything else. Then come back to the Strega.”
Mooch looked like he wanted to argue, but James narrowed his eyes at the boy, and he seemed to decide against it.
Jianyu had Logan, but really, it didn’t matter. The boy was as much a liability as he was an asset. Besides, James still had all the secrets he needed on the shelves of Dolph’s bookcases, and now in the notebook tucked into his coat.
Jianyu’s appearance here, at this apartment where he had no real cause to be, told James one very important thing—Logan hadn’t been lying about who he was or what he could do. Which meant that the notebook he’d delivered wasn’t a trap or a trick. It was nothing more or less than the truth.
It was late—nearly midnight—but there was another stop James needed to make now that he knew he could trust the words tucked near his chest, the words he would himself someday write.
The lights in the building on Orchard Street were out when he finally arrived, but that didn’t concern him. He paid the woman on the third floor more than enough for the inconvenience of waking her.
She wasn’t happy, but she didn’t complain as she let James in and led the way down the narrow hall to the small room where the girl slept. He dismissed the woman and went to the girl’s bedside, kneeling beside it so that he could wake her. The small face scrunched at the interruption, but eventually she reluctantly opened her sleep-crusted eyes to squint at him.