Harte shook his head. “This plan of theirs—to infect people with magic—I don’t like it. People should have a choice in the matter. Besides, it’s dangerous, and if we get caught up in their mess, we might not get the opportunity to find the other stones.”
But Esta brushed off his concern. “We won’t have to get caught if we help them,” she said.
“They’re attacking people, Esta.”
“They’re giving them magic,” she argued. “They’re trying to make a difference.”
Harte shook his head. How can she not see it? “Those people in the meeting didn’t do anything to deserve what happened to them. What if they didn’t want magic? What if they were happy with their lives as they were?”
Esta crossed her arms. “You heard what Ruth said about them—”
“Yeah,” he told her before she could go on. “I heard what Ruth said. But we don’t know those people. We don’t know anything about who they are or what they’ve done. You’re taking her word for it, when she’s basically kidnapped us?”
Even in the dim light, he could see the determination in her expression, and at the sight of it, the power inside of him lurched with excitement.
“I heard the socialists talking,” Esta told him. “I heard what they said about us.”
Harte let out a breath. “You don’t think that Ruth’s attack might have just proven them right?”
Esta lifted her chin, her eyes blazing. “Maybe it was worth it if it changes things,” she said.
“Esta—”
“No, Harte. Listen, we don’t know where Jack or the Book are. We don’t have any of the artifacts at this point. We are worse off than when we started,” she pointed out. “The only way we know of to stop the power inside you from taking over is if I use my affinity. If it takes over—”
“It won’t,” he said, his voice hard. He would not allow her to sacrifice herself for him.
“If that happens,” she repeated, “I won’t be able to take you back. You’ll be stuck here in 1904. If that’s the case, the Antistasi might be the only chance we have left to fix the things we’ve changed. If their plan works, if they can really restore magic, you’ll have a future. Every Mageus will. And neither Nibsy nor the Order will be in control of that future.”
He shook his head, refusing to agree. “I can’t believe that is our only option.”
“Maybe it’s not, but we have to at least consider that it might be.”
“No—”
“Let’s just give it a day or two,” she pleaded. “We still don’t know where the necklace is, and until we figure that out, we don’t know if we’ll need the Antistasi to get it. There’s no sense burning bridges. Not until we have to.”
He didn’t like it. He didn’t like this Mother Ruth or her Antistasi. And he didn’t like how the power purred at seeing Esta so set on this path. There was something about its approval that told him this path wasn’t the right choice.
But he knew Esta, and he knew that with her jaw set as stubbornly as it was now, there was no sense in arguing any further with her. Not at that moment, at least.
“Fine,” Harte told her. “But at the first sign of a problem, at the first indication that things are going too far or spinning out of control, we are gone. We leave and we don’t look back. Promise me that much, at least.”
But before she could, the door to his closet-like room swung open, and North stood eyeing the two of them, his expression like flint. He stared at them for a moment, suspicion clear on his face.
How much did he overhear?
“Come on,” North said, his voice as cool and flat as a penny. “The both of you.”
Every one of his instincts told Harte that they should run. Now. Take the cuff and get the hell out before they were any more entangled with these Antistasi. Their fight wasn’t his fight. The future they saw wasn’t one he needed. But Esta gave him a pleading look, and he found himself unable to refuse.
THE AFTERMATH
1904—St. Louis
Esta glanced back to make sure that Harte was coming with her as she followed North. Somewhere deeper in the building, she heard a noise that she couldn’t place until they came to a large, brightly lit room. Inside, Maggie and a couple of other women were trying to settle nearly a dozen children, most of whom were crying inconsolably.
“Thank god for more hands,” Maggie said, handing the baby she was holding to Esta, who was too shocked by the whole situation to refuse the armful of squalling infant. Her arms tightened around the squirming baby, which only made the thing scream more, but at least she didn’t drop it.
“Where did they all come from?” Esta asked as Maggie walked over to a toddler huddled in the corner and crouched down to brush the small girl’s hair from her eyes.
At hearing footsteps behind her, Esta turned to see Ruth darkening the doorway they’d just come through.
“It seems our attack on Lipscomb struck an unexpected nerve,” Ruth said. “The Guard just raided Dutchtown, probably looking for whoever carried out the attack. One of ours brought the children here. They know Maggie has a soft spot for little ones.”
“But why the raid?” Maggie said as she scooped the girl into her arms. “The meeting was for the SWP. The Society should have been glad to be rid of that lot.”
“I’m not sure why they retaliated,” Ruth said, “but this is the effect.”
“What happened to their parents?” Esta asked, adjusting the warm—maybe wet?—bundle in her arms. Definitely wet.
“Arrested,” Ruth said. “They’ll be charged and probably found guilty, which means either jail or deportation.”
“But they didn’t do anything,” Maggie said, rocking the girl until her cries died to whimpering.
The one in Esta’s arms didn’t seem interested in being consoled.
“When has that ever mattered?” Ruth asked.
Esta looked around the room at the cheeks and red eyes of so many children. They should have been in the arms of their mothers or fathers, and she knew that they would always remember this moment, when the people who were supposed to protect them were torn away.
She remembered the day Dolph had taken her around the tenements of the Bowery. There she’d seen children no older than these kept indoors and away from sight so their powers wouldn’t be exposed. He’d wanted to make a better life for them by destroying the Order and bringing down the Brink. He’d wanted a new future, and instead all he’d gotten was a bullet in the back. She wondered what had happened to the children he’d once protected in the two years since his death.
One thing was clear: The Society was no better than the Order. They used their Jefferson Guard to rule the city, the same as the Order used their power. It didn’t matter that they were outside the Brink, on the far side of the Mississippi and on the edge of the West. Even away from the prison that was Manhattan, there wasn’t any freedom here, not for Mageus. Not when the very magic that ran in their veins—the magic that was an intrinsic part of who they were—was despised and feared and hunted. Nothing would change. Not until it was forced to.