He’d gone on his grand tour so naive, so full of expectations. He’d thought he would find great secrets in Europe’s hallowed libraries and laboratories to help the work of the Order, but he found a girl instead.
She’d made him believe she was different from the others. For a while he’d been taken in by the sun in her smile and the glimmering promise in her eyes, and he’d started to think that perhaps the Order had misunderstood the threat Mageus posed to the country. But in the end she showed herself to be a miscreant, a criminal like all the others. In the end her betrayal proved that the Order had been right all along. If ?left unchecked, those with the old magic would take advantage of good people, normal people. If left to go free, they would destroy everything in their path.
But, egad, she’d been beautiful. With curves in all the right places and a mouth—
The carriage came to a clattering stop, and Jack grabbed hold to keep from being thrown forward. That last round had definitely been a mistake.
“Wait for me,” he commanded the driver as he alighted. “I’ll be just a minute.”
Despite the cold, the air smelled of fish and the heavy metallic tang of oil and machinery. The wind cut harder there, close to the water, so Jack pulled his fur-lined collar up around his neck to ward off the chill as he walked toward his destination, a long, low-slung building nearly indistinguishable from the others. He used his key on the heavy lock and let himself in.
Inside, it wasn’t much warmer, but a small stove glowed in the corner where an old man sat hunched over his work, his back to the entrance. Sparks from a welding torch flew up around the man, silhouetting him like a living gargoyle. When the man heard the door slam, he switched off the torch and turned to greet Jack.
“How’s it coming?” Jack asked.
The man lifted the heavy welding mask, revealing a face lined by age and scarred by some earlier mishap. “It comes,” he said with a shrug.
“How much longer?”
The man considered the question. “A week, maybe more. But you’ll need to find a way to stabilize the power it generates before it’ll work properly.”
Jack frowned. A week wasn’t so long, and the Conclave wasn’t until the end of the year. He still had time to get it right. Still, with the failures of the night still fresh, impatience scraped at him.
“Let’s see how she runs.”
The old man frowned. “I haven’t connected the receptors. It won’t build up a sustained charge—”
“That doesn’t matter. I want to see the progress you’ve made.”
Jack walked to the center of the room, where a cloth was draped over a large object. He took the corner and snapped the cloth away, imagining himself in that moment not so long from now when he would make this same movement, revealing his creation, his greatest triumph, to the Order. No one would be laughing at him then.
A large machine gleamed dully in the oil lamp’s wavering glow. Wide, orbital arms surrounded its central globe, like a giant gyroscope. Like a gyroscope, it would bring balance.
The body wasn’t complete—there were unconnected wires and plugs sprouting from its missing panels—but eventually the machine’s inner workings would be covered with sleek, polished steel. A beautiful piece of machinery for a new age. A modern age, free from the threat of the feral and uncontrolled magic of the Mageus.
Jack had been thinking about bringing Harte Darrigan along with him that night to show him the progress he’d made. He had a feeling Darrigan would understand, might even be impressed by what Jack had managed to accomplish in so short a time.
It wasn’t enough, though. Jack still hadn’t figured out how to contain the energy the machine generated. The Brink could do it, but that was such old, outdated magic. If he could only figure out how the Brink did it, ?Jack could solve his problem, could apply the old methods to his new project.
But the Order kept its secrets close, even from its own members. Until he proved himself, they wouldn’t let him into the Mysterium to search for the answers he needed. So he would have to find them for himself.
Jack thought Darrigan might be able to help with that. Considering the amazing feats he’d seen Darrigan do onstage—things that only someone with a deep knowledge and understanding of magic could do—the man must know something that could help Jack solve this last problem.
And Darrigan understood the importance of an audience. Of a little drama. It was what the Ortus Aurea needed—secrecy and small strikes weren’t enough. Not anymore. Not with the ever-increasing hordes coming to their shores, and Mageus hidden among them.
What was needed for this new century was a statement of power to prevent the maggots from seeing the city as a haven for their feral magic in the first place. No more simply containing the threat. No more trying to keep them out. It was clear enough that Ellis Island had been a failure. Despite the inspectors, Mageus were still getting in.
No. They had to be eliminated.
He had a feeling that Harte Darrigan would understand that as well, but his cousin had chased him off.
Junior always had been a veritable horse’s ass, Jack thought bitterly. So full of his own importance.
“Go on,” he told the old man. “Fire it up.”
He circled the machine, admiring the metalwork and modernity of it. If it worked—and eventually it would work, ?Jack had no doubt—it would change everything. He would show them all, and then he would be the one to lead the Order into the future.
THE BELLA STREGA
As Werner led her south through the city, the wind whipped like knives tearing at her skirts, but Esta barely felt it. Bridget had told Werner to take her to Dolph Saunders, which meant she was one step closer to her goal.
There weren’t many traces of Saunders in the historical records—a journal entry here, a newspaper clipping there. Only whispered rumors had made their way through the years. He was described as a ghost. A madman. A genius. At some point, he’d simply disappeared.
Unlike the other gang bosses, who were only interested in amassing their fellow countrymen and using ties to the old country as a way to recruit, Saunders collected Mageus the way some people collect old coins. But none of the records gave any real answers to how the man managed to bring so many disparate people together under his protection and control—individuals who, by all rights, should have been enemies.