Without much choice, Viola ducked into the crowd, her eyes sharp for some sign of the perpetrator as she focused the warm energy that had nothing to do with the flames. She was halfway through the crowd when she saw a familiar figure standing on the steps of a building about half a block away. Nibsy Lorcan.
The boy’s gold-rimmed spectacles flashed in the light from the blaze, and next to him was a boy with hair the color of flame focusing all his attention on the burning fire station.
She sent her affinity out, searching for the heat of the boy’s affinity, the beating of his heart, and when she founded it, she tugged, just a little. Not enough to kill him, but more than enough to make him collapse to the ground.
Nibsy watched him go down, and then he began to scan the crowd. A moment later he found her, and his mouth curved up, as though he knew exactly how useless she’d become.
Too soft, an assassin who couldn’t properly kill.
But that boy—he’d been one of Dolph’s once. What was his name? She couldn’t remember, but she knew that he wasn’t the one who needed killing. That honor belonged to Nibsy, who was smiling at her as though he knew what she was thinking—and didn’t care.
What she would give to wipe that smile from his face.
Viola let her affinity find the steady pulsing of the blood in his veins and reveled in the understanding that she held Nibsy’s life. It would be so easy to end him. She could trade what was left of her soul for vengeance for Dolph’s murder. Her soul, tarnished as it was, was hardly a worthy trade, but in that moment she felt as though it might do.
Better. She would kill him with her own hands.
Around her the street was in chaos. The crowd, who had gathered to watch a fire that could not be quenched, jeered their disappointment as the water began to have an effect on the flames. But Viola barely heard the noise, and though her eyes watered from the smoke, she didn’t care as she walked toward Nibsy.
He started down from his perch, to meet her halfway. The nearer she came, the more amusement shone in his eyes.
“I hope you’ve made peace with your god, Nibsy,” she said as she approached him. “I’ve come for you.”
He didn’t so much as flinch. “If I believed in a god, I would have lost faith in him years ago. You don’t scare me, Viola. If you wanted to kill me, I’ve no doubt I would already be dead.”
She curled her mouth into a deadly smile. “Perhaps, in your case, I prefer to play with my prey.”
“I see that spending time with your family has only improved your delightful personality,” Nibsy said, rocking back on his heels a bit.
“Bastardo,” she spat. She would wipe the smugness from his face, and she would do it with her bare hands.
“I’m not your enemy, Viola,” he said softly.
“Funny,” she said. “You look just like him. I know what you did, how you betrayed Dolph. How you betrayed all of us.”
“I never betrayed you. Dolph Saunders was a danger to himself and to our kind. He would have started a war that we couldn’t have won. I protected the Devil’s Own—and all of those like us,” he said, sounding like he actually believed it.
“I never needed your protection,” she sneered.
“No?” he asked, his tone mocking. “You’re enjoying your time with your brother, then?” When she only glared at him, he spoke again. “You were meant for more than being Paul Kelly’s scullery maid, Viola. Yes, I know how he uses you. He brags about it to me. His blade. His sister, who has learned her place.” Nibsy shook his head. “Some blade—sharp enough to cut his potatoes and not much else these days, from what I hear.”
“I could cut you,” she told him.
“With what?” he asked, taunting her. “You miss her, don’t you?” he asked, the glint in his eyes mocking her as much as his words.
Libitina. “You aren’t man enough to wield her. But don’t worry. I’ll take her from you soon, and then I’ll cut your heart out and leave it on Dolph’s grave as a tribute.”
“So bloodthirsty,” he said, a laugh in his eyes. Then his face grew serious. “You’re welcome to try to take your knife, but I’d rather give her to you.”
She narrowed her eyes. It was a trick. This one, he was slippery as an eel, and just as treacherous. “Why would you? A boy as smart as you pretend to be should know I would only turn around and sink her into your heart.”
“Because, despite everything that’s passed between us, I think we could be friends.”
A FINAL GAMBIT
1902—New York
James Lorcan watched the disbelief flash in Viola’s eyes and then harden into hatred.
“Never,” she said, practically spitting the word.
It was no more than he’d expected, but it wasn’t enough to dissuade him. He inclined his head, conceding her point. “Then allies, perhaps.”
She shook her head, and he knew she wanted to argue—she always wanted to argue—but he continued before she could deny it.
“We want the same thing, don’t we?” he asked, measuring her mood. True, she could kill him in a blink, knife or no, but he knew her weakness, the secret that Dolph had hidden from everyone else—a misplaced sense of morality that kept her from killing with her affinity. Besides, if there had been any indication that she might strike, he would have known long before she did. So he pressed on. “We both want the end of the Order. Freedom for our kind.”
“Dolph wanted those things as well, but you killed him,” she pointed out.
“Is that what he wanted? Truly?” James paused, letting his words penetrate. He’d watched Dolph and Viola in the days before everything fell apart. Dolph’s preoccupations had made this particular play more than easy for him. “Did Dolph tell you that himself? I don’t think he did. He never told any of us the entirety of his plans. He didn’t tell you what might happen at Khafre Hall, did he? He let you walk into a trap set by Darrigan without bothering to warn you.”
He watched as her jaw tensed, but she didn’t deny it—she couldn’t.
“I would wager the Strega itself that he didn’t tell you how he drove Leena to her grave.”
“Lies,” she hissed. “He did no such thing. He would never have hurt her.”
James forced himself to keep his expression doleful and to hide every ounce of satisfaction this conversation was giving him. “You wear his mark, don’t you, Viola? How do you think he found the power to make them into weapons against us?” he asked. “He took it from her. Why else would she have been taken so easily by the Order?”
She shook her head, as though refusing these truths, but he could tell that his words were worming their way beneath her skin, wriggling into her thoughts. Eating away at her sureness.
“You don’t have to take my word for it,” James said, pulling a package from his coat. “Here—” He offered it to her.
The moment she took the paper-wrapped parcel in her hands, he could tell she knew what it was. Her eyes narrowed at him, as though waiting for the trick. She wasn’t stupid, after all. But that didn’t mean that she was any match for his cunning.