Perhaps others would appear tomorrow. Perhaps even now some were keeping themselves concealed because they knew what their symptoms meant. Because they knew what the world thought of the powers that were growing within them. If not, the serum would need to be adjusted further, and they were running out of time to get it right.
On the Fourth, dignitaries from all over the country would pour into the city for the Veiled Prophet Parade and Annual Ball, and her Antistasi needed to be ready. This year marked an opportunity unlike any other—with the Exposition, the Society was hosting more than their usual ball for the rich men of St. Louis. Instead, this year’s ball was an attempt by the Society to wrest control of the country from the Order. A desperate bid to move the center of power from the east to the west. The list of attendees included not only the members of the Society and the usual dignitaries, who made an impressive enough target on their own, but also representatives from the various Brotherhoods across the country. Everyone of any importance would be there—politicians and titans of industry, oil barons and railroad tycoons—and most important of all, Roosevelt himself.
The boyish president was popular, but Ruth knew the truth: He was a friend only to those who could help him consolidate his power, which meant he cared nothing at all for those like her. He’d allowed the Defense Against Magic Act to pass without so much as a word against it, and now he would know the cost of that decision. If the Antistasi could unlock within him the magic that others feared, everything would change. A new civilization would be born, with the old magic as the equalizer between them all. But if the serum didn’t work, or if it did not affect the most important targets, they would not have another chance.
Maggie was a smart girl—this early evidence of their success was proof of that. If need be, she would make the adjustments and her serum would work as it was intended. Ruth would accept no other alternative.
She turned away from her workers and went back into the solitude of her office, closing the door against the sounds of the storeroom below. In the top drawer of her desk, wrapped in a piece of flannel, was the bracelet they’d taken from the Thief when her men had searched the girl for weapons. It was an elegant silver cuff with an enormous dark gemstone that seemed to hold the colors of the rainbow within its depths.
The stone was too heavy for something so small. And it stank of magic. . . .
It wasn’t the old magic, not completely. But it also wasn’t the same as the objects she’d run across before, pieces like North’s watch, which had been infused with freely given power to augment an affinity. The trade in those objects was cutthroat, but this piece was different. Older and more powerful.
Objects like the cuff she was holding took more than a simple ritual to create. Objects with power so deep and heavy took a life sacrifice, and they took a very special, a very rare sort of affinity.
Ruth knew that all Mageus had a unique connection to the very essence of existence. Most had an affinity that aligned with either the living, the inert, or the spirit. Affinities were as unique as people and might show up as strong or weak, as highly specialized or relatively vague. Over time and across distance, they tended to wane. All Mageus knew that.
Once, though, there had been another kind.
Mageus with the power to affect the bonds of magic itself had always been rare. Most thought that such an affinity was nothing but a myth, like the tales of gods and goddesses of old. But every story held a kernel of truth deep within its heart, and the fear that this particular kernel would find root had been enough to spark the violent frenzy that was the Disenchantment. Those with an affinity for the very essence of magic had been eradicated, and thousands of others had become collateral damage as well.
Magic had suffered in those dark years, but it had not died, as its enemies had hoped. And it would not die now. Instead, with Ruth’s plan and the help of Maggie’s serum, it would flourish once more. But the appearance of this cuff was an unexpected windfall. Both the necklace and this cuff were powerful objects, capable of giving their holders power beyond the pale. Both would be essential in consolidating the Antistasi’s power once magic was awoken, or at least they would once she had the necklace, too.
North appeared in the doorway of her office. “We got the two new ones set up. The girl’s in with Maggie, and I locked the other one in a separate bunk. He won’t be any trouble until morning, at least.”
“Make sure the others know to watch him,” she told him. “I want to know if there’s any sign he’s going to prove troublesome.”
“Will do,” he said, going off again into the darkened building.
Ruth wrapped the stone back in the flannel and then, for good measure, she locked it in her safe. She would keep it close, but she would keep the girl who had carried it closer. It wouldn’t take much—the right words, a gentle push, and Ruth could mold the Thief into a weapon for her own use. And if the other one caused trouble? She would take care of it, just as she took care of all the problems that crossed her path.
IT’S QUIET UPTOWN
1902—New York
There were too many men around, taking up the air in the place, Cela thought as she watched her brother and Jianyu eye each other from across the room. At the rate they were going, someone was going to draw first blood before morning. If the boys kept up their preening and posturing, it was going to be her.
“Would you two quit it already?” she said as she handed Abel a cup of the strong coffee she’d just brewed.
“I’m not doing anything,” her brother said, still giving Jianyu an appraising glance.
“You’re trying to lay him low with nothing but a look,” she told him, her heart easing a bit at the very idea that he could give such a look. Abel is alive. “I should know, since you’ve tried to do it to me often enough.”
“I just want to make sure we haven’t made a mistake by bringing them here,” her brother told her, gesturing to Jianyu and the boy they’d taken from Evelyn’s apartment. “I didn’t exactly ask Mr. Fortune’s permission to have any more.”
Abel had brought them to the house he’d been staying at ever since the fire, a nondescript building on 112th Street, in a part of town called Harlem. The building belonged to one of the publishers of the New York Freeman, the most important newspaper for the black community in the city. They’d apparently taken a recent interest in the labor issues that Abel had gotten wrapped up in.
“Jianyu is fine,” Cela told him. “I told you already, he’s a friend.”
“Maybe he is, but what about that other one?” Abe asked, nodding to the white boy. He’d still been unconscious when they’d arrived uptown and was lying on his side, dead to the world.
“He’s my responsibility,” Jianyu said. He’d been quiet and watchful ever since they’d arrived at the building, cramped full of too many people. “I am in your debt for all that you have done for me tonight, and I will not impose on that generosity any further. I will take the boy and go.”
“That’s fine,” Abe said, but Cela was shaking her head.
She knew what it was like to walk into Wallack’s every day, the only brown face in a sea of white. It didn’t matter that they wanted her there for her talent and skill. She was always separate from the rest, from the basement workroom they gave her to the way the performers acted around her. She wondered if Jianyu felt that way as well when he walked through the streets of this city that would always see him as an outsider, and whether he felt that way now, in a too-tight room filled with people he didn’t know. But her brother’s friends were all huddled together, turned away from the newcomers and talking among themselves.