It wouldn’t do to follow them—that would be far too obvious. But there seemed to be only one entrance from the main terminal into the train shed. She could cut them off there. At least one ticket would be easy to lift. A second shouldn’t be too much harder.
Feeling more like herself with every step, Esta pulled a cloak of confidence around her that was nearly as effective as Jianyu’s invisibility. She kept the three men in her peripheral vision as she headed toward the entrance to the platforms. When she was about ten feet ahead of the men, she paused and pretended to read a poster advertising a variety show that had just arrived in town. She kept her expression calm and mildly interested in the sign in front of her, even as she kept her focus on the men. When they passed her, she waited one moment longer before turning to follow them. It would be easier to lift the tickets in the tunnel leading to the trains, where the flow of passengers was naturally constricted and where they wouldn’t notice—or think anything of—her proximity to them. Or of being jostled by a fellow traveler.
They were just ahead of her, and she could still see the ticket peeking from the satchel. Easy.
As they approached the entrance to the platforms, she picked up her pace. A few steps more and she’d be able to sweep past them. Maybe she could trip and pretend to fall. One of them would probably be polite enough to stop and help her, giving her the opportunity to lift a second ticket. Then she’d be on to the platform and then the train—with Harte—before they even discovered their fare was missing.
Esta was nearly at their heels now—but out of nowhere, she felt another brush of warm energy that made her stumble. She caught herself before she fell and then had to scurry to keep up with the three men, scanning the narrowing passageway as she walked. No sign of Harte. And the men were almost to the place where the passage opened onto the platforms. She moved until she was barely an arm’s reach away. Closer still . . . She was almost next to them, nearly close enough to slip the first of the tickets out of the satchel, when someone called her name.
“Esta?”
It wasn’t the unexpectedness of hearing her name that made her pause, but the familiarity of the voice. Her first thought was Harte, but the moment she turned, she realized her error. It was a stupid move, a rookie mistake that she never would have made if she had been more on her game that morning.
Before she could completely register who had spoken, Jack Grew had her by the arm.
THE NEW BRIGHTON
1902—New York
Viola kept quiet as she walked with her mother the seven blocks to the small athletic club where her brother spent most of his days. The midmorning air was heavy with the threat of rain, and the smell of ash and soot mixed with the usual smells of the neighborhood—the overripe fruit and trash that lined the gutter and the baking of bread and the thick scent of garlic and spices that wafted from doorways. When they passed a still-smoldering building, Viola knew implicitly who was at fault for the tragedy.
She was.
Because she had let the magician outsmart her, she had failed Dolph. She had failed her kind, and she had failed herself. The Order should have been destroyed, but instead they had grown more oppressive than ever, taking revenge on the entire city for the deeds of a few.
She would kill them all if she could. But she needed to stay alive long enough to do it, and Paolo was her means to that end. First she had to survive whatever penance Paul had in store for her, and that would be trial enough, considering how she had betrayed the family by leaving them for the Devil’s Own. Because for all intents and purposes, Paul was the family.
After their father died and the responsibility for the family had fallen on his shoulders, Paolo had supported them all as a bare-knuckle boxer. He’d anglicized his name to Paul Kelly because he thought it would pay better, and it had. But her dear brother hadn’t stayed a boxer. Leading the Five Pointers had turned out to be far more lucrative than getting his teeth knocked in every night. Because he was smart enough to grease the right palms at Tammany Hall, the police looked the other way.
Paul’s deals with Tammany ensured the success of his athletic club, which was only a front for less legal activities. Come nightfall, the club hosted bare-knuckle matches, where beer flowed and bets were made—all with Paul taking his cut from the top, of course. Because Paul hid the truth of his work from their mother, she never knew what activities truly put bread on their table.
Unlike The Devil’s Own, the boxing club Dolph had run, Paul’s place didn’t pulse with the warmth of magic. Paul, like their mother, was Sundren, without an affinity, and his gang was populated mostly by neighborhood boys whose childhood roughness had grown into a willing brutality. Viola was the black sheep of the family, an unexpected anomaly when her affinity appeared after generations of nothing. Her parents had seen it as a waste, bestowed as it was on a girl, but her brother had seen Viola’s power as an opportunity—one that he felt he had every right to exploit.
Viola, of course, saw things differently, not that it had mattered to Paul or her mother at the time.
It was still too early in the day for Paul’s usual crowd, so when her mother knocked at the unremarkable wooden door of the club, it was a boy about Viola’s own age who answered and let them pass with barely a word. The main room of the club was mostly empty. A well-muscled man in the far corner pummeled a heavy bag that swung from the ceiling. He was bare-chested, and his left shoulder blade carried the angry red mark of the Five Pointers, an angular brand that was also a map of the neighborhood that gave her brother’s gang its name. Another duo of men was sparring in the center of the floor, the heat and sweat from their bodies making the room feel too warm, too close. An older man smoked a thin cigar as he watched nearby.
As Viola and her mother entered, the man with the cigar glanced up, his face flashing with surprise to see her mother and then going flinty when he noticed Viola at her side. His hand went for the gun Viola knew would be hidden beneath his vest. The two men sparring and the other, larger man in the back of the room all paused to see what the interruption was.
“Get my son,” her mother said, not paying any mind to the unease filtering through the room.
At first the older man didn’t make any move to do as Viola’s mother ordered. “What’s she doing here?” he asked, nodding toward Viola.
Like Viola herself, Pasqualina Vaccarelli was not more than five feet tall. She might have been a broad, sturdy-looking woman, but her size should have put her at an immediate disadvantage. Viola’s mother didn’t so much as flinch, though. She gave the man the same look she’d given Viola and every one of her siblings—including Paolo—any time they were truly in trouble, the look that was usually accompanied by the sting of her wooden spoon. “Why do you think that is any of your business?”
The man’s nostrils flared, but he waved off the two fighters, dismissing them, and then took himself off into the back room to find Paul. Viola’s mother took the man’s seat. Viola didn’t join her. She would meet Paul on her feet.
They waited five minutes, ten, the time kept only by the smack of the other man’s fist against the canvas bag. Finally, Paul appeared, dressed in his usual well-cut suit and with his dark hair slicked neatly into place, looking more like a banker than the thug he actually was. He embraced their mother and fawned over her for a minute or two, ignoring Viola completely. She wasn’t fooled into thinking he hadn’t seen her, though, so she wasn’t surprised when he finally turned his attention to her.