Of course, all the unrest was reported as more evidence of the threat the incoming masses of immigrants posed. After he wrote about the fire at Khafre Hall, Sam Watson turned his daily columns to denouncing the Mageus for the threat they posed to the city. Criminals, degenerates, and thieves were pouring across the borders, he argued, and nothing was being done. If they could destroy an institution as old and important as Khafre Hall, he reminded everyone, they could also threaten the country’s very way of life.
Near Herald Square, ladies in feathered caps and gentlemen in white gloves pursed their lips and shook their heads as they tsk-tsked the plight of the mayor having to control such a threat. ?Above Houston, the people of Manhattan went on about their lives as usual, willfully ignoring the madness that raged in the streets below.
But the citizens of the areas around Five Points and the Bowery lived on the knifepoint of fear. ?They knew the madness wasn’t their own doing. Everyone was running scared.
Everyone, it seemed, except Nibsy Lorcan, who had somehow stepped into the space left by Dolph Saunders with an ease that surprised Esta. No one had questioned it when Nibs began issuing orders while Dolph’s body was still cooling on the bar. While everyone else had turned inward, becoming silent and wary with the irrevocable evidence of Dolph’s death, Nibs seemed to have grown six inches overnight. He sat in Dolph’s old seat like it had always been meant for him.
Too soon, she thought. And she couldn’t help but remember Harte’s words—this has everything to do with him.
No one else seemed to question Nibsy’s rise, though. Or if they did, they were still too dazed with the shock of what had happened to care.
A week later, they were huddled in the kitchen of the Strega, away from the rest of Dolph’s gang, when a trio of bowler-hatted boys came through the door. The four of them—Nibs, Viola, Jianyu, and Esta—turned as one, already bracing for something worse. The tallest of the three boys stepped forward to where Nibs was sitting and then gave a jerk of his head, like he wanted to speak to Nibs alone.
Nibs took the boy aside and listened intently, his nostrils flaring and his features going hard as the boy talked.
“What do you mean his mother’s gone?” Nibs hissed loudly enough for the rest of the room to turn and watch.
“Just what I told you. They says you ordered her to be moved.”
“To where?” Nibs asked, his face furious.
“They says they didn’t know,” the boy said with a shrug.
“Well, who took her?”
The boy hesitated, a look of confusion on his face. “They says you did.”
Viola sent Esta a questioning look from across the table where they were sitting, but Esta shook her head. She didn’t know what the boys were talking about. She glanced at Jianyu, but he was too busy watching Nibsy and the other boy with a quiet intensity.
“I didn’t do any such thing,” Nibs seethed, barely able to control the volume of his voice now.
“There’s one more thing,” the boy said. He held himself on guard, like he was about to dodge a punch.
“What?” Nibs’ chest was heaving.
The boy held out a folded piece of paper. “They says I was supposed to give you this.”
Nibs took the paper with a vicious swipe that had the boy startling back. “Get out,” he barked, and he waited until the three boys left before he opened the message and read it. When he was done, he glanced up at Esta.
Both Jianyu and Viola straightened in their chairs.
“What?” she asked, not at all liking the look on Nibsy’s face.
He handed her the paper without a word.
It was an advertising flyer. On it, the bold block letters proclaimed that the great Harte Darrigan would attempt the impossible by cheating death with a jump from the Brooklyn Bridge. And across the image of the bridge was a message scrawled in a familiar script: If you want the Book, bring me the girl.
“Harte Darrigan, it seems, isn’t dead after all. Not yet, at least,” Nibs said, meeting her eyes when she looked up from reading. “There’s something I’m missing,” he said, staring blindly into space. Thinking, no doubt. Making connections. Then his eyes rested on Esta. “I can’t believe he didn’t give you any indication of what he had planned.”
Esta went on alert. Nibs had been watching her for two days now, and every time she caught him looking, it gave her an uneasy feeling. Like he saw something in her that he didn’t like. “He used me the same as everyone,” she said carefully. “If it looked like we were close, it was another part of his game.”
“No . . .” Nibs stared at her, the expression in his eyes unreadable. “I don’t think that’s the case at all. You meant something to him.”
She laughed, a cold, hard expulsion of air that she filled with every bit of her disdain. “I assure you, I meant nothing to him. Or maybe you forgot how he left me on that stage without any warning.”
“So you say,” Nibs said softly.
“So I know,” she told him. “He left me in a room full of the Order’s members. If it hadn’t been for Jianyu, I’d still be there.”
Nibs huffed out a laugh.
“She speaks truly,” Jianyu said. “He left her without any protection. He had no way of knowing that I would be there, waiting. That was something Dolph had arranged.”
Esta hesitated only a moment at the lie that had slipped so easily from Jianyu’s lips. “See?” she snapped. It took everything she had in her not to glance at Jianyu. “Harte Darrigan can go to hell for all I care.”
That much was true.
He’d left her. He’d betrayed them all, but he’d left her.?And she hated herself for caring about that, for forgetting—even for a moment—why she was there, in that city. But it wasn’t over yet. She would have one more chance to stop him from destroying the Book—one more chance to save them all.
She would not fail again.
ONE FINAL NIGHT
The Docks
Once night had cloaked the city, Harte watched the boat carrying the Order’s artifacts glide from the docks, its engines off. When it was out of reach of the shoreline, the great boilers fired up, and the squat craft began to move faster, cutting a path through the starlight reflected in the dark water. He stayed where he was until the boat was no more than a dot on the horizon, knowing for certain now that he would never have the chance to make that trip, would never know what those other shores held in store.
Nibs Lorcan had overplayed his hand by warning Harte. It had taken some doing—late nights and secrets kept from Esta—but in the days leading up to the heist, Harte had managed to grease the right palms for word of where his mother might be. In the end it had been easy enough, especially with the right kind of touch.