He let out a ragged breath. “You can’t know that.”
“I’m not some fragile flower, Harte. We’ll figure this out. We’ll do it together.”
She reached for him, but he drew back, avoiding her touch. The voice was too near to the surface of him. Then he turned away, because he knew that if he looked at her now, saw the hurt in her eyes and her body bared to him as it was, his control would crumble. “I apologize,” he said stiffly, his voice brittle and clipped.
“There’s nothing to apologize for.” She was on her feet now. He could hear her wrapping the blanket around herself. “In case you missed it, I was right there with you.”
But he was already grabbing his coat, heading for the door, which was still open. We didn’t even close the door. So much for control.
“You’re seriously leaving?” she asked.
“I’m going to walk for a bit.” He did turn back to her then, and her hair was rumpled and her lips were bruised red from their kissing. “I need some air.”
“Harte—”
“And some space,” he finished, striding out the open door. Once he was through it, he closed it behind him with an unmistakable finality.
His legs were shaking as he ran down the steps of the boardinghouse and out into the night. It was still warm, the air was damp from the rain, and the clouds had parted above to show the stars, but Harte didn’t notice any of that. He didn’t even notice which way he was going. He simply walked, as quickly and as doggedly as his feet would go.
He’d kissed her. He’d kissed her, touched her, and it had been everything—more than everything. More than he could have imagined.
He could have had her. She would have given herself to him, and he could have taken her there, on that narrow, dirty bed in that narrow, worn-out room. And she would have hated him for it later.
Onward he walked until the power inside of him receded and the soles of his feet felt as ragged as he did, as he vowed with every step he took that he would never let that happen.
THE REMAINS OF WHAT HAD BEEN
1904—St. Louis
Esta looked at the crackled paint on the back of the closed door as the realization of what Harte had just done settled in her blood. She was holding the blanket up over her bare chest, and through the open window she could hear the sounds of dogs barking and the occasional rattle of a carriage in the distance. Her heart was galloping, and her skin felt flushed and warm from Harte’s kisses, even as her fury mounted.
His words echoed in her mind: I’m going to hurt you.
At least he hadn’t been lying about that.
She had known all along that uniting the stones and taking control of the Book might mean the end of her. Professor Lachlan had told her as much when he’d tried to take the power of the Book himself. You’re just the vessel. Wasn’t that what he’d said?
She had hoped that the Book would hold some key to changing that fate, but the Book was in the hands of Jack Grew, and who knew where he was? The only way to get back to the time and place where they lost it was to get Harte under control. But when she touched Harte, she could barely slow down the seconds. She wasn’t about to trust slipping through time until they figured out how to control the power he had in him.
Power that, apparently, wanted her.
She shuddered at the thought of it. Suddenly the room felt too close—and at the same time, unbearably empty. Esta pulled on the chemise she’d worn earlier beneath her corset. For a moment she just stood in the silence, taking in the narrow, sagging bed with its stained cover rumpled and askew, the faded curtains looking so tired and worn that they would fall at any moment, and the pile of hair she’d left on the floor earlier.
She’d almost slept with Harte Darrigan. A few minutes ago she’d trusted him enough to lay down all her defenses. And he hadn’t even been there. He hadn’t even been the one—the thing—in control. Everything that had just happened—he wasn’t even sure it had been him.
A coldness settled over her as she reached up to push what was left of her hair out of her eyes. Her fingers still remembered what it had felt like just hours before to run through the long strands, to tuck the locks that had fallen back behind her ears, but now her own hair felt foreign to her. Tentatively, she brushed at the nape of her neck, where the ragged ends of her hair felt coarse and sharp, but it only reminded her of the way Harte had touched her.
Across the room, she caught her reflection in the scarred mirror, and without thinking, she stepped closer. She barely recognized herself—the dark rings beneath her eyes, the way her short hair made her jaw seem sharper and her mouth harder, even as her mouth was still rouged from the friction of Harte’s kisses. Her eyes were no longer softened by the makeup she’d used to darken her lashes. It was more than the haircut that had changed her. It was the fire in her eyes kindled by heartache and senseless tragedy. It was the determination in the hard set of her mouth.
For a moment she examined this new version of herself and realized the overwhelming reality of what she had done—to her hair, with Harte—of where they were and what was at stake. And of what might still lie ahead.
She didn’t yet know the person looking back at her, but she liked what she saw. Or she would learn to. She would do what she must to make sure that Nibsy could never have the stones. She would make sure that the Book and its power were protected from the Order and others who might use them to harm those like her. But she would harden herself against Harte Darrigan. She would be his partner, would even save him if she could, but she would not allow herself to open her heart to him.
She would not make the same mistake again.
At her feet, the remains of what had once been her hair littered the floor. She considered it, the long strands soft beneath the leather soles of the men’s shoes she still wore. That hair had belonged to a different girl. Esta could no more go back to being that girl than she could reattach the hair to her head. No more than she could wipe the memory of Harte’s kisses from her lips. Gathering the pile of hair from the floor, Esta tossed it into the stove, but the fire had already gone cold and dead.
TOO LATE
1902—New York
The fog that had descended upon the Bowery was thick and murky as the night itself. The soft halo of the streetlamps barely cut through the gloom. The streets, wet with the day’s rain, shone like the water that flooded the rice paddies around his village. For a moment Jianyu almost felt like he was there, standing on a hillside and looking over the endless sweep of fields around his family’s home, the water-soaked ground drowning the weeds that would otherwise choke the life from the rice. But then the image flickered, and it was only the city he saw—the grimness of the streets, the sloshing puddles that would never be enough to wash away the filth and poverty that choked the life from the Bowery.
He was late. He had already failed Cela, and now he would fail again.
Picking up his pace, he did not bother with magic. His affinity would be of no help, not with the way his footsteps could be traced from puddle to puddle, but he kept to the shadows and moved faster. He could not be late. If the boy reached Nibsy, the results could be devastating. With the boy, Nibsy would hold knowledge of what was to come. It could make him unstoppable.