She nodded and, understanding, traced it over Krzysztof’s fingers and the ring.
“Let’s give it a try,” he said when the entire hand was aglow with the imprints from the seal. His fingers twitched as he readied himself. He could have used Esta right then, with her ability to lift any object in a blink, and for a heartbeat he regretted leaving her behind on that stage. But then he steadied himself and focused on what he needed to do.
The moment his finger touched the ring, he felt cold energy prickle along his fingertips, but he pulled it off as quickly as he could. As soon as it slipped free of Krzysztof’s finger, the man’s body fell lifeless to the floor. Viola cursed and crossed herself again, but Harte forced himself to keep moving. They were taking too long already.
“I’ll work on this one. You do Frieda.”
He found the location for the ring and then together they found the indent where the crown fit, before they turned to Bridget.
“We’ll have to take out the knife,” he realized. His stomach turned with the very thought of it. “You’re better with knives than I am.”
Viola only glared at him, so he traced the seal around the place where the knife was protruding from Bridget’s stomach, and when he couldn’t delay any longer, he grasped its garnet-encrusted hilt and pulled hard. He felt the resistance of flesh and muscle against the knife, heard the suck of her body as it released the metal. Bridget fell, deadweight, to the floor, and blood began to ooze from the wound.
Harte turned away before his stomach revolted and focused on the task at hand. There was one space left, and he had to insert the knife vertically, so its blade sank into the glittering floor. When the stone in its hilt finally clicked into place, the last branch lit and the entire floor began to shake. And then it began to move.
The altar in the center began to rise, floating on the silvery discs. Beneath it, a portion of the floor lifted as well, and as the thick column of the floor rose, Harte saw that the altar was actually the top of a much larger cabinet, and within the cabinet was a book.
They approached slowly, watchful in case the table above them was some kind of trap. The Book didn’t look like anything special—it was small, no bigger than any of the ledgers Shorty used at the theater to keep track of ticket sales. The cover was crackled and dark with age, and it bore the same geometric design as the silver disks on the floor. Its pages hung out unevenly, as if the book had been added to over the years.
“That’s it?” Viola asked, her voice laced with disgust. “All of this mess, all of this waste, and it’s an ugly little thing?”
Harte reached his hand out slowly, waiting for some other trap. The moment his fingertips made contact with the cover, the green flames on the walls rose, flashing in a bright explosion of color that both he and Viola backed away from. Smoke filled the air, sickening and sweet and too familiar. Opium.
“We need to go,” she said, reaching for the Book.
But Harte had not come so far to lose now. Before she could get the Book, he grabbed it.
The moment his fingers were around its cover, a hot, searing energy shot up his arm and into his chest, and his head was filled with the sounds of hundreds of voices. Thousands of voices. The noise lasted only a few seconds, but to Harte it felt like a never-ending barrage of screams and chants and voices in languages he didn’t have words to describe. It felt as if time were standing still as they assaulted him, and then, just as quickly as they came, they were gone.
Or if not gone, they quieted. He could feel them still, inside of his head. Inside of him. They felt hungry.
He shook himself, trying to dismiss the last of the noise still whispering at the edges of his mind. He shouldn’t have been able to understand the strange languages, but he understood what they were trying to tell him. Touching the Book felt like reading a person—all impressions and images—but stronger, clearer.
All at once he understood how wrong he had been about everything. How shortsighted they all had been to misunderstand so thoroughly. All at once he knew what had to be done.
“What is it?” Viola asked when he just stood there with the Book in his hands.
“Nothing,” he said as he placed the Book in a bag and then went around the room to collect the other artifacts. “Let’s go.” He tucked the bag under his coat as the table began descending again. “I need to get back into the safe before they realize I’m gone or the whole thing is blown.”
“I’ll take that first,” she said, holding him at knifepoint. He began to feel a sharp driving pressure inside his skull, Viola’s way of warning him not to push.
He hesitated for a moment. But with voices still haunting his mind, urging him on, he knew what he was meant to do.
The opium smoke was growing thick in the room, but he wasn’t sure how much it had affected her. He’d have to take his chances that it had weakened her enough for him to get away. Before she could make the pain in his head any worse, he threw the bag into the air, and when her eyes followed it, he attacked.
THE REVEAL
The minutes ticked by.
Ten.
Fifteen.
What’s taking so long? Esta didn’t doubt that Harte had a way out of the safe. She’d seen him do more difficult escapes before—at least the safe wasn’t filled with water—but he wasn’t a thief. Once Harte was out, she had no idea how he would be able to manage the rest on his own before the Order realized what was happening.
Twenty minutes.
The audience began to murmur expectantly. Esta forced herself to keep a pleasant, unworried smile pasted on her face, but she felt every pair of eyes in the audience focused on her.
“It’s taking him quite a while,” the High Princept said, his expression unsure.
She knew he was worried. It was one thing to play a harmless prank on a performer, but it was another to watch a man possibly dying onstage while you stood by doing nothing to help.
Sam Watson looked a little too pleased. He leaned over as though to whisper but spoke loud enough that anyone onstage could have heard him. “Perhaps the great Harte Darrigan isn’t quite the master of the elements he claims to be?”
Across the stage, Evelyn smirked.
“I’m sure you’re mistaken,” Esta said, trying to pull away without much luck. “I have every faith he will succeed. He has command over forces far beyond your understanding.”
But as the seconds ticked by, that faith began to falter.
At half an hour, the audience was shouting for them to open the safe and let the magician out, but Esta told them to wait. If there was any hope that giving up all her secrets had worked, she needed to give Harte time—to get the Book and the artifacts and to get back into the safe, so they could both escape together.