But Viola didn’t seem to heed the warning in his voice. “You used to trust me, you know.”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “I still trust you, Vi.”
“You keep secrets from us.” She shook her head. “You’ve always kept secrets from us, I suppose, but now I think there’s something more. If you aren’t careful, you’re going to get us all killed.”
“Are you saying you want out?” he asked tightly.
She studied him with eyes as sharp as the knives she had hidden in her skirts. The clock tick-tick-ticked out the seconds as they passed, each moment feeling like one closer to everything unraveling.
Leena would have known what to say to soothe ?Viola. She would have told him if this whole gambit was a mistake. But would he have listened?
“Are you saying I have a choice in the matter now?” ?Viola asked, her eyes never leaving his.
“You’ve always had a choice,” he said, keeping his voice level, his expression placid. “But when you pledged your loyalty and took my mark, you understood the consequences of making it.”
Her expression didn’t so much as flicker. “I don’t need your threats, Dolph. Mark or no mark, I keep my word.”
“I know that, Viola,” he told her. “If you don’t want in on the Metropolitan job, I don’t want you there. ?Too much is at stake for anyone not to be all in.” He paused, lowered his voice. “We could use your help on it, though.”
“Fine,” she said after another long moment. “But if the girl crosses us—”
“I don’t think she will.”
“Will you give her your mark before?” she asked.
He should. Anyone he let close enough to do a job like this should have been made to take his mark, but with his affinity hollowed out and weak, the marks were pointless. He wasn’t sure what would happen—what he would reveal—by marking the girl without his magic intact.
Viola frowned at his hesitation. “You’re too soft on her.”
“I’m not.”
“You admire her,” she insisted.
“She’s a talented thief, but—”
“I can see why,” Viola continued, ignoring him. “She’s stubborn and too bold. She reminds me a bit of Leena in that way. But you’re letting your sympathy cloud your judgment. I worry you trust her for the wrong reasons.”
“I worry you dislike her for the wrong reasons,” Dolph said softly.
“What are the right reasons, Dolph?”
But when he went to answer, he found that he didn’t know anymore.
THE METROPOLITAN
Central Park East
Esta checked her reflection in the glass covering an eighteenth-century watercolor. The disdainful eyes of the wigged man in the portrait stared back at her, and she had the sudden, uneasy sense that he could see right through her. She only hoped no one else could.
Ignoring his disapproving gaze, she craned her neck from right to left to make sure that every stray hair was still tucked up into the silk tarboosh, the fezlike hat that all the servers were wearing that night. It was lucky, she supposed, that they were wearing them. She was nearly as tall as most men, and it was easy enough to wrap her chest to hide her curves, but without the hat, it would have been harder to hide her hair and pass as one of the male servers. Otherwise, she didn’t doubt Viola would have made an argument for cutting it.
The silken pants and long tuniclike coats—all part of the exhibition’s general theme—were a bonus too. To finally be out of the long skirts she’d been wearing made her feel freer than she had in weeks. Not that the serving uniforms or any of the decorations were even remotely authentic. With the shine of the silk and beaded details that glittered as she moved, the outfit looked more like something from a Vegas show.
To her own eyes, she still looked too feminine. There was no disguising the soft skin on her face or her thick, dark lashes, but she knew enough about people by now to know that they only ever saw what they expected. If they even looked at the help at all.
“You—boy,” a voice shouted from the end of the hall. “Get away from there!”
Esta startled at the voice, and turned to find a large, broad-shouldered man in a dark suit coming her way. One of the museum’s guards. She stepped away from the portrait and lowered her eyes.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“On my way now, sir,” she said, coughing out the words in a tone lower than her usual voice. She kept her head down and tried to put some swagger in her step as she moved past him.
Steady, she told herself. Not much farther now . . .
But as she passed, she felt tendrils of energy reach out and brush against her. Her skin tingled with awareness, and she nearly stumbled from the surprise of it.
He’s using magic.
There shouldn’t have been any other Mageus in the museum—Morgan was part of the Order, and the exhibition would be filled with its members—but the flicker of magic came again as she continued to walk away.
She kept her eyes down and moved as fast as she could without looking suspicious, but she didn’t relax until she turned out of that gallery, into the quiet emptiness of a wide hall filled with statuary.
When she was well out of earshot, she cursed to herself and broke into a jog. She rounded the corner and took the steps in a far stairway two at a time. At the bottom, she turned into a larger sculpture gallery and kept her pace up as she rushed through it.
“Leaving so soon?” A shadow stepped out from behind a large urn.
Esta stopped dead, her heart in her throat, and turned to find Nibs. “What are you doing in here?” He was supposed to be outside, waiting to orchestrate their getaway.
“I could ask you the same,” he said with a frown. “You should be upstairs with the other servers. I vouched for you.”
“I wasn’t trying to leave,” she said. “I was coming to find you.”
He gave her a doubtful look.
“We have a problem with the guards—they’re Mageus.”
His brows bunched over his round glasses as he studied her. “You’re sure?” he asked, suspicious.
“Of course I’m sure. I know magic when I feel it, and the guy who saw me upstairs? He was using it.” She glanced over her shoulder to make sure he hadn’t followed. “I think he might have been checking me somehow.”
Nibs frowned. He didn’t seem half as concerned as Esta thought he should be. “If he was checking for your affinity, he must not be strong enough to find it unless you use it.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“You’re still standing here.”
The fact that he was right didn’t make her feel any better. “I thought Morgan was a member of the Order.”
“He’s in the Inner Circle, their highest council.”
“Then don’t you think Mageus are the last people who should be here tonight?”
“You’re here,” Nibs pointed out. “I’m here.”
“Yeah, to take the art. Not to guard it.”
Nibs considered that. “It could be another team.” His brow furrowed again, and he stared off in that half-vacant way he did when he was thinking. “But that doesn’t feel right.”
“They’re working for Morgan?”