It wasn’t unusual for people to go missing in his part of the city. Cross the wrong street and you could cross the wrong gang. Cross the wrong boss, and you might never be heard from again. But those with the old magic, especially those under Dolph’s protection, knew how to avoid most trouble. A handful of his own people disappearing in the span of a month? It couldn’t be an accident.
Dolph didn’t doubt the Order was to blame, but they’d been quiet recently. There hadn’t been a raid in the Bowery for weeks, which was unusual on its own. But even with their Conclave coming up at the end of the year, his people hadn’t heard a whisper to hint at the Order’s plans. Dolph didn’t trust the quiet, and he wasn’t the type to let those loyal to him go without answers. So Leena, Dolph’s partner in absolutely everything, had gotten herself hired as a maid in Morgan’s house. Morgan was one of the Order’s highest officials, and they’d hoped someone in the household would let something slip.
For the past couple of weeks, she’d polished and scrubbed . . . and hadn’t found out anything about the missing Mageus. Then, two nights ago, she didn’t come home.
He should have gone himself. They were his people, his responsibility. If anything happened to her . . .
He forced himself to put that thought aside. She’ll be fine. Leena was smart, strong, and more stubbornly determined than anyone he knew. She could handle herself in any situation. But her magic only worked on the affinities of other Mageus. It would be useless against the Order.
As though in answer to his dark thoughts, a hired carriage pulled up to the side of the house. They weren’t expecting a delivery that night, and the arrival only heightened Dolph’s apprehension. With the carriage obscuring his view, he wouldn’t be able to see if there was trouble.
Before he could move into a different position, angry male voices spilled out into the night. A moment later, the door of the carriage slammed shut and the driver cracked his whip to send the horses galloping off.
Dolph watched it disappear, his senses prickling in foreboding as the sound of fast footsteps approached. He gripped his cane, ready for whatever came.
“Dolph?”
It was Nibsy Lorcan. A castoff from the boys’ mission, he had shown up in Dolph’s barroom a few years back. Slight and unassuming, he would have been easy enough to overlook, but Dolph could sense the strength and tenor of a person’s affinity from ten paces. He’d thought Nibsy would be a valuable addition to his crew, and he’d been right. With Nibsy’s soft-spoken demeanor and sharp wit, the boy managed to win the respect of even the surliest of Dolph’s crew, and with his affinity for predicting how different decisions might pan out, he’d quickly earned a place at Dolph’s right hand.
As Nibsy came into sight, the lenses of his thick spectacles glinted in the moonlight. “Dolph? Where are you?”
Dolph stepped out of shadows, revealing himself. Despite the heat of the night, his skin felt like ice. “Did you find her?”
Nibs nodded, trying to catch his breath so he could speak.
“Where is she, then?” Dolph asked, his throat going tight as he searched the house again for some sign. “What happened?”
“The Order must have been expecting us,” he said, still wheezing for breath. “They got Spot first, right off. Knife to the gut without any questions. And then Appo.”
“Jianyu?”
“I don’t know,” Nibsy gasped. “Didn’t see where he went. I found Leena, though. Morgan had her in the cellar, but . . . I couldn’t get to her. They’d created some kind of barrier. There was this foglike cloud hanging in the air. When I got close, it felt like I was dying.” Nibsy shuddered and took another gulping breath. “She’s pretty weak. I couldn’t have dragged her out of there. But she tossed this to me,” he said, holding out a small object wrapped in muslin. “Told me to leave her. And there was more of them coming, so . . . I did. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” His voice cracked. “They took her.”
Dolph took the object from Nibs. A bit of cloth had been wrapped around a brass button—one Dolph recognized from the maid’s uniform Leena had worn. The scrap weighed no more than a breath between his fingertips. It was ragged on one side. It must have been torn from one of her petticoats. She’d used what looked like blood to scrawl two words in Latin across its surface. Her blood, he realized. The message had been important enough to bleed for. But at the sight of the smeared letters, already drying to a dark rusty brown, a feeling of cold dread sank into his very bones.
“We’ll get her back.” Dolph refused to imagine any other outcome. He rubbed his thumb across the scrap, feeling its softness along with the familiar echo of Leena’s energy. He pressed his own magic into the scrap, into the traces of her blood, trying to feel more and understand what had happened. While he could sense a person’s affinity if they had one, could even tap into it and borrow it if he touched them, reading objects hadn’t ever been his strength.
Still, Nibs was right—what little trace of Leena he sensed felt off, weak. He tossed the button aside but tucked the scrap of fabric into his inner coat pocket, the one closest to his heart.
“There’s still time,” he said, already heading toward the place where their carriage waited.
With the streets empty of traffic, they caught up to the other coach quickly. But as they followed it south through the city, he had a sinking feeling about where the carriage was headed. When they finally turned onto Park Row, Dolph knew for sure.
He directed their carriage to stop at the edge of the park that surrounded City Hall. Beyond the night-darkened gardens stood the great, hulking terminal that blocked the view of the bridge to Brooklyn. Steel and glass, it loomed almost like a warning in the night. Beyond it stood the first bridge of its kind to cross such a great span of water. And bisecting the bridge was the Brink, the invisible boundary that kept the Mageus from leaving the city with their magic intact. From corrupting the lands and the country beyond with what the Order—and most of the population—believed was feral, dangerous power.
Leena, like Dolph himself, had been born to the old magic. For the Order to bring her to the bridge meant only one thing—they knew what she was. And they were going to use the Brink to destroy her affinity. To destroy her.
He wouldn’t let that happen.
Dolph watched as the hired cab carrying Leena turned beyond the terminal, toward the entrance for vehicles crossing the bridge. “I’ll go on foot,” he said. “You stay here. To keep watch.”
“You sure?” Nibs asked.
“We can’t chance alerting them.” There would be no way to hide if they followed by carriage, but on the walkway above they might be able to surprise them, maybe have a chance to save Leena. “They’ll have to wait to pay their toll. It will be easy enough for me to catch up.”
“But with your leg,” Nibs said. “I could—”
He cut Nibs a deadly look. “My leg’s never stopped me from doing what needs done. You’ll stay here, as I said. If I’m not back before their carriage appears again, go warn the others. If this goes badly, the Order may be coming for them all.” He stared at Nibs, trying to convey the weight of the moment.