Or, rather, she shoved it away.
Trying to find the right layer of time was a little like riffling through the pages of a book. Sometimes she could catch glimpses of what each layer held—the flash of chrome, a bright swirl of skirts. It took all her concentration to find a single image to latch on to, a single date to focus on, before she could slip through to it. And, of course, it took the power held in Ishtar’s Key.
As she looked past the present moment, the stone in the cuff answered by warming itself, almost humming against her already-heated skin. The tumble of trash and debris along the edges of the buildings, the pallid glow of a yellow security light over a door—all of it went blurry as she searched down through the layered moments of the past. Back, back, back . . . until she found what she was looking for.
A single day. ?A single moment waiting beneath her modern world.
She reached for it, preparing herself for the unsettling feeling of slipping out of her own time. Her destination was there, well within her ability to reach it, but just as she started to feel the energy of her own magic tingling along her skin, her foot froze in midair and her breath went tight in her chest as an unexpected feeling of absolute dread rocketed through her.
The image in her mind faltered, and her own world came into focus again.
“Shit.” Esta dropped her bag and took an actual step backward, away from the glimmer of the past and from what she had to do. Her fingers felt clammy and damp inside the smooth leather of her gloves, but the stone was hot against her skin.
Above her, the brightly lit top of the Empire State Building looked down, mocking her inability to erase it. To find a time before it had defined the skies of the city.
Esta didn’t do nerves, but there she was, struggling to shake off her trepidation, forcing herself to gather the courage to do what she’d done a hundred times before. She knew the city, its streets and secrets. Its people, and especially its past. Professor Lachlan had made sure that every minute of her childhood had been devoted to preparing her for this. She was ready.
So why did it feel so impossible?
“You okay?” Dakari called.
She took a breath to steady herself but didn’t look back at him. “I’m fine,” she lied.
She had to focus. This was what Professor Lachlan had saved her for. This was why he’d rescued her, kept her out of the system, and had given her the only home she remembered. If she couldn’t do this one thing he asked of her, where would she go? Who would she be?
Esta picked up her bag again and, teeth clenched in determination, expelled another a deep breath through her nose. Her head was pounding, but she adjusted the smooth handle of the bag in her gloved grip and started again.
There . . .
The time she was seeking was there, just beneath the ephemeral moment of now. She found the date Professor Lachlan had directed her to waiting for her beneath the layers of years and memories. In that moment, her fear receded a little, and the rightness of what she was about to do wrapped around her.
Lifting her foot to take a step, Esta could feel the familiar push-pull sensation of simultaneously flying apart and collapsing in on herself. But then the bewildering dread spiked through her again like a warning.
Something’s wrong.
But Esta didn’t do nerves. She forced herself through the feeling, through to the past.
Every cell in her body was on fire as the brick walls on either side of her began to blur and the cars around her began to disappear. The lights of the city dimmed, the tip of the Empire State Building started to fade, and as she began to feel the cold blast of winter from that other time, a barrage of shouts came from the mouth of the lot where Dakari’s car waited.
Esta hesitated, her body screaming with the effort of keeping hold of her present as the past pulled at her. Her vision cleared, and she saw Dakari struggling against a trio of hooded figures, his expression determined as he fought free of them.
I have to help him. . . .
“Dakari!”
“Go!” he shouted, looking at her with such determination that her hold of the present slipped.
“Dakari!” she screamed again as gunfire erupted and she watched his large body jerk and slump to the ground. The shock of it knocked her backward, far past the place where the dirty pavement should have caught her.
Esta couldn’t stop. She lost her grip on her own city, her own time, and was falling into light itself, barely catching herself before she landed hard, in a deep drift of snow.
SIREN’S CALL
February 1902—Wallack’s Theatre
Harte Darrigan brushed a piece of lint from the front of his crimson waistcoat before checking his appearance once more in the cloudy dressing room mirror. Lifting his chin, he examined the edge of his jawline for any place the barber might have missed during his regular afternoon shave, and then he ran his fingertips over the dark, shortly cropped hair above his ears to ensure it was smooth and in place. Stepping away from the footlights didn’t mean he’d stepped offstage. His whole life had become a performance, one long con that was the closest thing to freedom he could ever have.
A knock sounded at his dressing room door, and he frowned. “Yes?”
The stage manager, Shorty, opened the door. “You got a minute?”
“I’m heading out to meet someone in a few—”
“Good. Good,” Shorty said, closing the door behind him. He had the nub of a thick cigar between his teeth, and as he talked, ash from the still-smoldering tip fluttered to the floor. “Here’s the thing—the management has been talking lately, and—”
“This again?” Harte let out an impatient breath to hide his nerves. He knew what was coming, because they’d had a similar conversation last week. And the week before. There were too many theaters in the city, and it didn’t matter how good your act was; people got bored too quickly.
“Yes, this again.” Shorty took the cigar from between his teeth and used it to punctuate his point, jabbing it into the air and sending more ash floating to the floor. “They run a thee-ate-er here, Darrigan,” he said, snapping out the word to emphasize the second syllable. “This is a business, and a business has to make money.”
“They make plenty of money, and you know it,” Harte said, shrugging off the complaint as he turned to fix the knot in his cravat. “The house was decent this afternoon, and even pretty good tonight.”
“I know. I know. But decent and pretty good ain’t enough anymore. The owners have been talking about maybe switching some things up . . . changing the acts a little.” Shorty gave him a meaningful look.
His fingers stilled and the silk around his neck suddenly felt too tight. “What are you trying to say?”