“Yes, well . . .” It was an inane thing to say. “We should talk.”
Viola didn’t reply. She simply waited expectantly, and Ruby, who always knew what to say, didn’t know where to begin. It was vexing the way Viola stared at her as though she could see right through her, down to the parts that she hid from everyone except Theo—to the parts she hid even from Theo. In all the ballrooms she’d been in, swirled about in the arms of countless beaus, Ruby had never felt half as unsure of herself as she did with Viola’s eyes on her.
Ruby took out her small tablet and pencil. It was a simple enough action, but it helped to center her a bit. “What do you know of your brother’s association with John Torrio, Miss Vaccarelli?”
“Torrio is one of his guys,” Viola said. “Paolo, he’s grooming Torrio to take a stake in his businesses. He likes him,” she said with no little disgust. Her nose wrinkled, a clear indication that she thought differently.
“And your brother,” Ruby said, focusing the notes she was writing so she wouldn’t have to look into Viola’s eyes again. “What can you tell me about his businesses?”
“He has the New Brighton and the Little Naples Cafe, which are the ones our mother knows of, and then he has the Five Pointers.” She listed out a few more things, a couple of brothels and other connections that Paul Kelly had, but they weren’t anything Ruby didn’t already know. “My brother is un coglione . . . how do you say? He’s not a nice man. A bastard not by birth, but by choice.”
Ruby believed every word of what Viola was telling her, but other newspapers had already dealt with Paul Kelly’s connections to the underbelly of the city. It wasn’t what Ruby was interested in.
“He sent John Torrio to kill me, didn’t he?” Ruby asked, finally looking up from her paper. But this time it was Viola who wouldn’t look at her. “It’s okay,” she told Viola. “I know you were there, but I know you didn’t want to hurt me.” She laid her hand on the other girl’s knee.
Viola’s eyes flashed up to meet hers, and, embarrassed and suddenly too warm, Ruby drew her hand away.
“Do you know why Torrio was sent to kill me, Miss Vaccarelli?”
Viola shook her head. “You wrote something they didn’t like so much.”
“Exactly. I wrote a story about a train accident, and it had nothing at all to do with Paul Kelly or any of his Five Pointers.” Viola’s brows had drawn together, but she didn’t speak. Her eyes instead seemed to urge Ruby on. “The story was about a derailment outside the city, nine days ago. There was a man on that train, a friend of Theo’s from school—”
“I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend,” Theo said dryly. “Especially not now . . .”
“They were acquaintances,” Ruby corrected, trying to keep her own temper from erupting. “He told the medics who rescued him that he saw a man on the train who should have already been dead. When they pulled him out, he’d hit his head pretty badly, but he was talking about Mageus—about a magician named Harte Darrigan and a girl.”
Viola’s eyes widened slightly. “Harte Darrigan?”
Viola knows that name. But Ruby didn’t know what that meant. “And a girl,” she repeated. “I talked Theo into getting me access to this man, Jack Grew. He either didn’t know who I was or he didn’t care, because he told me everything that happened. It was a monumental scoop. And the Order did everything they could to kill it, up to and including trying to have me killed. So you see, I have a very personal stake in all of this. I will not be silenced, Miss Vaccarelli. I will not go be the good, biddable girl that they want me to be. I will expose them, and I will do everything I can to destroy the Order’s power in this city.” She paused, forcing her anger and impatience back down. “But this is bigger than the Order.”
“It is?” Viola asked, her expression thoughtful and serious.
Ruby nodded. “If Jack Grew was right—and I think he was, considering the lengths the Order has gone to, all to shut me up—that train derailment wasn’t an accident. It was an attack. And it was done with magic.”
THE SWP
1904—St. Louis
When Esta went inside the building, it was dark, but she could see a light coming from a hallway to the right. In the distance she heard something like the murmuring of a crowd. Because Harte wasn’t there, she took the risk of pulling her affinity around her and followed the source of the light until she found that it was coming from a set of stairs.
Keeping her hold on time, she went up the steps slowly, careful to keep the notebook balanced under her arm. At the top, there was another hallway, but at the far end of it, she saw a glow coming from beneath a door. As she walked toward it, the sound of her footsteps echoed into the silence that had been created by her magic. She found it unlocked, and with time still motionless, she slipped through.
On the other side was a large room filled with people. The high-ceilinged space stretched the entire width of the building, and the men and women within it were caught in the web of time gone slow, their mouths open and their expressions rapt as they listened to a speaker standing in the center. Though some sat on benches at the edges of the room, most were on their feet, crowded around the man elevated on the small platform of a stage. The speaker was dressed in shirtsleeves, which had been pulled back to reveal the broad forearms of a workman, but it was clear that his working days were behind him. His balding hair was nearly white, and his face was partially obscured by a full beard. His hand was raised, and his face was rapturous, his mouth opened and his eyes wild.
Esta had a sense that this man in the middle of the crowd was Lipscomb. She could leave the device here and go, but if she was wrong, it could mean trouble. She needed to make sure she had the right target.
Making her way through the crowd, Esta was careful not to touch anyone or bobble the parcel under her arm. She found a spot in the back corner, far from anyone who might notice her sudden appearance, and then she let go of her hold on time. The room spun back into life. The noise of the crowd was deafening, and the air suddenly held an electricity that had nothing to do with magic.
In the center of the room, the man’s voice boomed over the crowd. “The bourgeois care nothing for the workers,” he shouted. “They would print their money with the blood of our children. While our families work themselves to death in factories, the rich men of this city plan parties and balls. They feast while we starve! Look at the excesses of the Exposition,” he shouted, pounding his fist against his hand to punctuate his words. “Instead of celebrating the worker—the true spirit of this country—the Exposition celebrates a feudal past that cannot be allowed to rise again. They’ve built palaces and temples in our city, a city where native-born sons die without a roof over their heads.
“Look at the Society, with its heathenish ways. They look to magic, to the occult, because they understand that the workers of this country will not be silenced. They know that only the heathen power can subdue the power of the workers when they unite. But we will show them that not even their sorcery will be enough to extinguish the fire lit here, in this place, tonight.” He paused, looking around the room with satisfaction. “The Society has planned a parade—”