“She’d hate this,” ?Viola said softly, her worried eyes locked on the pale girl in the bed.
“Hate it or not, it’s necessary. Keeping her calm is the most we can do for her now. Her affinity is still there, but it’s been broken somehow. It’ll be up to her to decide whether she’s strong enough to go on without it.”
“Of course she’ll be strong enough,” Viola told Dolph, her jaw set determinedly. “She always was.”
“I don’t disagree, but surviving this will require a different sort of strength than she’s had to draw on before. Time will tell.” Dolph turned to Esta. “Come with me.” He didn’t wait for her to follow.
Just before Esta made it to the door, Viola grabbed her wrist.
The girl’s strange violet eyes bored into her. “Thank you. For what you did for her,” she said, her voice breaking. “And for me.”
“It was nothing,” Esta told her, an easy enough truth.
But Viola only squeezed her wrist more tightly. “No one else came,” she said simply, before she let Esta go.
Esta slipped out of the room and found Nibs and Dolph waiting for her in the hall.
“Should I make the arrangements?” Nibs was asking.
Dolph shook his head. “Not yet. There’s a small chance she could still pull through. We’ll give her some time.”
Nibs frowned. “She’s a talented healer.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Dolph said as he led the way down to the staircase at the end of the narrow hall. “But Tilly’s always been stronger than most. And her magic isn’t completely gone. She’s been loyal to me, so we’ll give her—and Viola—time before I decide.”
“Decide what?” Esta couldn’t help asking.
“I won’t let her suffer,” Dolph said shortly. “And I can’t allow her to become a liability.”
A dark understanding rose in Esta. “So you’ll—”
“I’ll do what needs to be done to protect those who depend upon me,” he growled, pulling himself to his full height as though daring Esta to cross him. When she didn’t, he spoke again. “Darrigan sent me a note today, as you said he would. He’ll meet with me in two days’ time. With both Viola and Tilly otherwise occupied, I’d like you to be around—in case I need your help with him.”
Esta nodded. “Anything else?”
“Yes,” Dolph said, looking her over. “Go get some sleep. ?You look like something dragged from the gutter.”
A HOMECOMING OF SORTS
Wallack’s Theatre
Harte looked at the bottle of Nitewein someone had left on his dressing room table and considered his options. Going to Dolph Saunders for protection would be bad enough as a last resort. It was worse to be forced into it.
He picked up the bottle and tipped it side to side, watching the dark, viscous liquid coat the sides of the green glass. Removing the stopper, he took a sniff. Flowers and something sweet cut through with the bite of cheap wine. It smelled like an opium den and a saloon all mixed together, revolting and beguiling just the same.
How bad could it be if it made him forget what he had to do?
After pouring himself a glass, he sat staring at his reflection. He had his mother’s chin, and his hair waved like hers, but he saw too much of his father looking back at him for his liking.
His nerves were jangling as he slowly lifted the glass.
The smell hit him, sweet and floral and sickening, and all at once a memory rose from that time after he’d rescued his mother from Paul Kelly’s brothel. She never could stay sober for long, and every time she went missing, he’d have to hunt through smoke-filled basements to find her and keep her from any more trouble. He would try not to look as he pulled her clothes around her and dragged her back home, but she’d only hate him in the morning anyway. For seeing her like that. And for taking her away from the only thing she’d let herself love other than his father.
Unnatural boy.
He put the glass down and resealed the bottle. In the mirror, his reflection stared back at him, doubtful. After he was done cataloging his faults and putting away his regrets, he reached for his pocket watch before he remembered it had been stolen.
Not that he really cared if he was late.
? ? ?
Harte hated everything about the world below Houston—its rotten, trash-lined streets, the tumbled rows of tenements teeming with desperation and despair. Even the air, which was permeated by the stench coming from the outhouses behind them. So he hated what he was about to do even more.
He didn’t have to go in, he thought, as he came to The Devil’s Own Boxing Club. He should have stayed away months ago—maybe none of this would have ever happened. Nothing was stopping him from turning around and going right back to where he belonged, to his uptown theater and his clean, airy set of rooms. To his porcelain tub and a bath of boiling-hot water. To the life he’d built out of nothing. A life that could still be enough.
But the fire said otherwise.
He’d managed to get his mother sober enough to leave her at a new address, but how long would it be before Kelly and his boys found her again? And they would find her, because Harte had no intention of letting Paul Kelly anywhere near Jack. He couldn’t imagine what Kelly wanted with the Order of the Ortus Aurea, but if he ever managed to get their power behind him, it wouldn’t mean anything good for his kind, and especially not for Harte himself.
Much as he hated admitting it, Dolph Saunders was the only way he saw to get around that possibility. After all, Dolph had a reputation for protecting outcasts from the wrath of the other gang bosses downtown, including Kelly’s own sister, ?Viola. Let them fight each other while Harte made his move. If Dolph was right about what the Book contained, he’d be out of the city and safely on the other side of the Brink before any of them realized what had happened. They would be stuck inside, unable to reach him, and he’d be free.
He ignored the twinge of guilt he felt when he thought of the other Mageus who would still be trapped. But they’re already trapped. If anything, he told himself, their lives might be better if the Order didn’t have their Book.