“Don’t look up,” he told Esta. He nodded to a bleary-eyed old man as he lifted a bowl of champagne from a passing tray.
“What—”
“I said, don’t look,” he said through clenched teeth as he raised the glass to his lips. He didn’t drink, but instead used the motion to cover his survey of the room. “There are two men up on the mezzanine now—maybe more.”
“Police?” she asked.
“The Guard.” His gaze slid to her. “We’re running out of time if they’re already looking for us here.”
“For me,” Esta corrected. “They’re looking for the Devil’s Thief.” Her eyes were steady and her jaw tight.
“Well, they’re not going to find her.” Harte glanced at Esta over the rim of the glass. “You could get us out of here right now.”
She shook her head. “You saw what happened in the hallway. I could barely hold on to the seconds. We don’t know what the Guard is capable of. And if they can track magic . . .”
She was probably right. If the Brink or the power of the Book inside of him had done something to her magic—or to his—it was better not to chance it until they knew more. “Let’s go.”
They left behind the relative safety of the mezzanine’s overhang to cut a line across the ballroom floor. Directly across the room, the double doors to the kitchens swung loosely on their hinges every time a waiter appeared with another tray of champagne or canapés. Behind the doors, the light of the service hallway was a beacon, urging them on.
If Harte could have made a beeline to those doors, he would have, but too fast or too direct and it might draw the attention of the men watching from above. As much as everything in him was screaming to Run. Go. Get out, he forced himself to keep the interminable pace as he meandered through the crowded floor, stopping at random intervals to pretend to watch the orchestra or take one of the hors d’oeuvres from the white-coated servers circulating through the crowd.
It felt like they would never reach the other side . . . and then, all at once, they were there, nearly to the edges of the ballroom. Only a few feet more and they could duck into the safety of the back of the house. But just before they could slip through the doors, the orchestra abruptly went silent. All around them, there was a delayed reaction, a ripple of awareness that filtered through the crowd as the men in the room, drunk as they might have been, realized something had happened.
Harte turned too, just long enough to see that one of the plainclothes officers had taken the stage and was lifting his hands, telling the crowd to be patient as the lights on the chandeliers suddenly grew brighter.
“If I could have your attention, gentlemen,” the officer shouted. “I’m Detective Sheehan of the St. Louis Police, and I’m sorry to interrupt your evening, but there’s a wanted criminal on the loose. She was spotted entering the hotel a few minutes ago, and we believe she may still be in the building.”
The rustling around them increased as the men craned their necks, searching for a woman among them. Next to him, Esta pulled the hat lower over her brow.
The officer continued. “We just need a moment of your time as my men secure the room and do a quick sweep.”
“I’m here, Officer,” a voice called over the din of the crowd.
Esta—and everyone else in the room—turned to look up at the balcony, where a figure stood dressed in a crimson gown. Her face was half covered by a red porcelain mask tipped with horns, and she stood on the edge of the railing with her arms lifted, as though she were about to dive into the crowd. The Guardsmen started charging around the mezzanine to where she stood. With a swirl of her arms, she took a sweeping bow, and in a sudden plume of scarlet smoke, the figure was gone.
“You’ll have to be quicker than that if you want to catch me,” another voice called from the other side of the ballroom. Again the heads in the room swiveled to find the source of the sound. This figure was wearing the same devilish mask, but she was dressed in a gown of midnight, and standing on the railing above, she looked like a shadow against the gilded walls.
“Or me,” a voice bellowed. This one was dressed in ghostly white, her face masked as well.
“Or me.” Another voice, again from a different corner of the mezzanine.
“Or me.” The woman in red was back.
Their voices echoed off the walls as the sound of thunder rumbled through the ballroom, and the air seemed suddenly charged and electric. A strange, impossible wind began to swirl through the room, eliciting more nervous rustling from the men who’d been having fun only a moment before. A single word circulated through the ballroom, as quickly as a wildfire fed by the air: Antistasi.
The men in the ballroom were already running toward the door, but the police had blocked the exits.
“Who are they?” Esta whispered, her hand on Harte’s arm.
“I don’t know,” he said, looking up at the women. Each was balanced precipitously on the balcony. “From the sound of it, we’ve found the Antistasi that Julien told us about.”
“Beware the Devil’s Thief,” they chanted in unison as more smoke billowed from beneath them. “Her enemies, beware her wrath.” With a flash of light, the figures were gone, but the trailing smoke was still moving steadily toward the ballroom floor, like something alive.
“They’re incredible,” Esta whispered, her voice filled with something like wonder.
But Harte didn’t feel the awe that was clear in Esta’s expression. There was something eerie about the apparitions. Something more than unsettling. And it didn’t help that the masked women were using that damned name, the one the papers had pinned on Esta, which could only mean trouble for them as long as they stayed in this town.
Then Harte felt the icy heat of magic in the air and knew it had something to do with the fog of smoke hanging over their heads. He wasn’t about to wait and see what that fog contained. “Let’s go.” He took Esta’s hand and moved in the opposite direction of the rest of the now-panicking crowd.
He didn’t bother to check if anyone noticed them crossing the final few feet toward the service doors. Once they were in the hallway beyond, they began to run.
“This way.” Esta pointed at a narrow staircase that led down toward the first floor.
They took the steps at a sprint, and at the bottom they found themselves in another hall of linoleum floors and cream-colored walls. Harte could already hear noise coming from the stairs behind them. To the right, other voices seemed to be drawing closer. He didn’t know whether it was more police or just the kitchen staff, but they couldn’t stay to find out.
Harte tugged Esta down the hall in the opposite direction and through a doorway.
“It’s a dead end,” she said, looking around for some other exit.
It was a storage room. One wall was lined with gleaming silver serving ware, soup tureens, and domed platters. In the corner, two large wheeled carts were filled with clean linens.
From just outside the door came the sound of voices, and Harte went to lean against it, cracking it open so he could listen. “There’s someone out there,” he told her as he tried to make out what they were saying. “I think they’re looking for whoever those women in the ballroom were. We need to get out of here.”