He was dressed in trim, olive-green pants paired with a matching waistcoat and lighter-colored jacket. With the straw boater shading his face and the easy way his arms swung relaxed at his sides, he looked fresh and crisp, like the portrait of a summer day. She knew the moment he saw her waiting—his mouth flattened and his eyes went tight, like he was preparing himself for something. But then his expression relaxed, and it was as though the tightness from a moment before had never existed.
As he approached, she had the oddest vision of his face lighting with a smile and him offering her the crook of his arm. She could almost see them, walking arm in arm, taking in the sights and sounds like anyone else. For a moment she wished they could let go of everything hanging over them and make that vision come to life. For a moment she wished that they could forget what they were about to do and pretend that they were just two people enjoying a sunny day at the fair.
But wishes were for suckers, and Esta didn’t plan on being one of those, not ever again. Especially not when it came to Harte Darrigan.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get over this place,” Harte said, pausing long enough to look at the water. The lagoon itself extended into the heart of the fair, and at the far end stood a pristinely white domed building—the Festival Hall. It glimmered with lights, even at noon. All along the tree-lined edges of the water, fountains sent cascading arcs of water into the air, while the cool white marble statuary stood as silent guards.
“The world isn’t really like this,” she said, her mood suddenly darker. She leaned against the railing and pretended to take in the scenery, but her attention was elsewhere. The stone beneath her hand looked like carved marble, but it was just painted concrete. Fake, just like everything else in this place. “Half these buildings are just shells. They’ll come down in a few months, and it’ll be like none of this had ever been here.”
“I know . . .” His voice was wistful, and she glanced over to see him watching the gondolas gliding across the smooth, clear surface of the water. “Still. They put on a damn good show.”
He wasn’t wrong. The fairground itself was a marvel, even to Esta’s jaded eyes. The buildings flanking the wide lagoon looked like they were made from marble and granite. They reminded Esta of buildings she’d seen in pictures of the great cities of Europe. But even with all the grandeur of the Exposition, compared to New York, St. Louis itself looked half-formed. Outside the walls of the fairground, the city was still a city on the edge of the frontier and worlds away from the crowded streets of New York. Beyond the city, the world waited.
“Did you take care of it?” he asked.
“Of course,” she told him, pretending to look at the scenery while she made sure that no one was watching them. It hadn’t been very difficult to pick the lock on one of the maintenance gates not far from the Pike. She’d left it closed, so it looked secure, but it would provide them an easy exit once everything happened. “You?”
He nodded. “No one was watching the armory. I replaced all the bullets I could find, but I’m not sure if it’ll be enough.”
“It’ll have to be,” she told him. “This will work.” It has to.
But it wouldn’t be easy.
The trickiest part about the entire job wasn’t that it would happen in the bright light of day or in the midst of a crowded midway. It wasn’t even that it was just the two of them. Julien wouldn’t be there—they’d picked a day with a matinee show to ensure that he had an airtight alibi. He’d done what he could to help them, and now they would do what they could to keep him out of the rest. No, the trickiest part was that they would have to do almost everything without magic. With the Jefferson Guard on high alert, they couldn’t chance using either one of their affinities—not unless they absolutely had to. They’d have to go in straight and use sheer skill. And, thanks to both Harte and Julien, a bit of showmanship.
“The parade starts in about fifteen minutes. We need to both be in Cairo by that time. You’ll have to move fast. You have the charges?”
“I’ve got it, Harte,” she said, annoyed with how quickly he’d shifted from enjoying the day to fussing at her. It reminded her a little of the way Logan used to, and suddenly she couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to him. Had Jianyu found him? Or had Logan been able to reach Nibsy? But there would be time to consider that later. For now, she had to focus.
Theirs wasn’t an elegant plan, but it was workable. They had smoke charges that they’d placed on fuses at various places along the Pike, and she would set them off right before she and Harte went into the Nile ride—just before the parade arrived at the area in front of the Streets of Cairo.
There was only one way in and out of the chamber where the necklace was displayed, and if they’d timed the fuses right, the charges should go off, flooding the Pike with strange-colored smoke that would, hopefully, be taken as an Antistasi attack. They were betting on the Guard rushing to the area and leaving the stone less guarded than it otherwise might have been.
If the schedule was accurate—and so far, it had been—before the smoke completely dissipated and the crowd realized there was no danger, the veterans of the Boer War, who reenacted their skirmishes twice a day, would be starting their first assault. Since Harte had replaced the blanks they usually used with more smoke charges, all hell should break loose again as soon as they fired their first volley of shots.
Between the people flooding out of the Boer War demonstration and the confusion on the Pike, the Guard should be nicely tied up. She and Harte should be able to slip the necklace out of its case and be on their way.
“If anything is off by even a few minutes, we could be stuck,” Harte reminded her as he checked the pocket watches they each had to make sure the times were the same.
“I know.” She was itching to get started. “We’ve gone over this a million times.”
She snatched one of the watches from his hand as a family came up to the railing to look at the water. The parents were young—about the same age that Dolph had been. The father had by the hand a small golden-haired boy who looked like his miniature. When the boy started to cry, the father lifted him up gently so the boy could see the fountains just beyond the railing, while the mother fussed with the little boy’s hair.
Esta didn’t even realize she was watching them until Harte cleared his throat next to her, drawing her attention back to him.
“You need to focus.” His voice was gentle, but the reprimand stung nonetheless.
“I am focused,” she said, trying to ignore the way the little boy squealed in delight at the view of the water.
“You know that everything has to go perfectly for this to work, and we aren’t even in control of most of the pieces. It isn’t going to be easy.”
“It never is.” She glanced one last time at the family.
Maybe it was the brightness of the day or the sweetness of the vanilla and caramel wafting through the air, but as she watched the family go about their day—their lives—without a care in the world, Esta’s hands curled into fists. She let her nails dig into her palms, accepting the flash of pain so that she could hold back the spike of anger that had caused her blood to go hot. They have everything, and they have no idea. And she would fight and scrabble and scheme . . . and in the end, she would get nothing at all. And no one would even know.