The auditorium looked like one of the old movie palaces that people in Esta’s own time were always trying to preserve. It was designed to look like an outdoor Roman amphitheater set under a canopy of sapphire blue. Long-limbed nude statues graced marble railings and towering columns. Above, instead of a ceiling, wisps of enchanted clouds plodded in a steady path across a star-studded sky.
Jack waved to them from the front of the room, near the stage, his expression anxious.
“Are you ready?” Harte murmured.
“Not even a little.”
Evelyn knew what they were planning—Esta would stake her life on it—and nothing good could come from that. Especially with how she’d treated the other woman.
She could still fake sick or create some kind of diversion to get out of there. They didn’t have to go through with this. They could leave, regroup. Try again when things were safer or more certain . . . But she knew instinctively it was too late for that. There was the news clipping tucked against her skin—the one with Sam Watson’s name in the byline—to remind her what was at stake. If she ran now, she might never have another shot at the stone, so she allowed Harte to lead her through the crowd toward where Jack waited near the stage.
At least everyone was in a mood for celebration. The members of the Order and their bejeweled wives were floating on the rivers of champagne they’d been drinking during the cocktail hour, and laughter punctuated conversations all around them.
It’s a good sign, she told herself. It has to be.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was hours, minutes away from knowing once and for all whether everything she’d done was enough. She would either succeed and be back in her own city by daybreak, or she’d—
No. She wouldn’t even think about the alternative.
Jack seemed to have relaxed a little, though that might have had something to do with the glass of amber liquid in his hand. He led them backstage, where they would wait for their cue, and then he left them to take his own place in the audience.
From their vantage point, they could see the entire crowd as they took their seats and turned their pale faces to the man on the stage.
The men and the women in the audience didn’t look like monsters. None of the crews of rough boys who patrolled the Bowery looking for Mageus were sitting in those seats. The silk-clad women, the tuxedoed men . . . she would wager that none had ever gotten their hands dirty in that way. Maybe they didn’t know what the effects of the Order were. Maybe they didn’t realize the pain and suffering the Order of Ortus Aurea caused for the people in the streets of lower Manhattan.
But the moment the High Princept—one of the highest-ranking members—stepped forward to speak, any charitable thought she might have been entertaining evaporated.
“As above,” the High Princept called out, and the audience responded as one with the rest of the phrase, “so below.”
“We gather tonight to celebrate the equinox, that time of balancing, of new birth, a reminder of our solemn duty to our people, to our way of life.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Esta whispered.
Harte shushed her, but his jaw was tight, his hands clenched in fists at his sides, so she had a feeling he felt the same.
“We gather together this night, brothers who have dedicated themselves to the principles of Reason and the project begun by our forefathers, pillars of the Enlightenment,” the High Princept droned on. His tone and cadence made clear that this was a well-worn speech. “We stand on the shoulders of giants, and we build on what the founders of this great nation have accomplished. As the great thinker John Locke reminds us, no man’s knowledge can go beyond his experience, and so we have made it our duty to immerse ourselves in experience, to push the boundaries of what is known about the Great Chain of Being, unlocking its secrets with our dedication and work.”
The audience erupted into applause, and the speaker waited for it to subside, a small smile threatening at the corners of his mouth. The energy in the room was electric, but it wasn’t the warmth of magic. Instead, the room was filled with the pulse of excitement that often runs through a mob before they explode into action: the sizzle of electrons, the tang of ozone, and the heady sense of righteousness that can only come from belief in purpose, no matter how insidious that belief may be. No matter the hate that might sustain itself from that darkly beating heart.
The Princept went on, buoyed by the crowd: “We have worked tirelessly for more than a century now to increase our knowledge for the good of our land, and this land owes our Order a great debt. Since its beginning, the Order of Ortus Aurea has continued the project of Enlightenment on these shores. But now we face an ever-growing threat. Hidden among those who would come to our shores with an innocent willingness to become part of our great nation is an undesirable element.”
Someone in the crowd shouted out a slur, as the rest of the audience rustled. But the High Princept merely smiled benevolently.
“Yes. These Mageus come not with open hearts, willing to throw off the superstitions of their past, but with insidious intent. They hide in the shadows of our society, using their powers to take advantage of the innocent, set on the degradation of our standard of living and the debasement of our citizenry. It is against this element that we have worked tirelessly, for there is no cause more important than the character of our citizenship and the standard of living of our people.
“So let us join together to reaffirm our purpose and our dedication to this great land. Let us welcome all those who come to our shores willing to take up the mantle of democracy and Reason. But let us be always aware that there are those who pose a threat to our very way of life. For their power, uncontrolled and based not upon study and Reason but from uneducated impulse, is the antithesis of the foundations of democracy. Should their power be allowed to take root in this land, it would leave the once fertile soil of our nation barren and drained of promise.
“Let us recommit this day to our divine calling and prepare for a new dawn, a golden dawn of Reason and Science to balance against this danger in our midst. . . .”
“I’m definitely going to be sick,” Esta whispered to Harte as the High Princept finished his speech to a thunderous round of applause from the audience. She’d known—of course she’d known—what the Order stood for, but to have to stand and face it, to pretend that the words weren’t about her, about everyone she knew and cared for?