Harte took a breath, relieved that the carriage had finally stopped, but he didn’t let his guard down.
The docks that bordered the river in that part of town were a forest of ships’ masts and a maze of warehouses crouched close to the ground. Harte wasn’t familiar with the area. The river’s edge was the domain of the longshoremen and the river rats who raided the cargo. Most people were smart enough to stay away from the docks, where the roughnecks often looked away if a body was dumped into the river. ?And most Mageus would have never chanced coming that close to the Brink that silently circled the island somewhere just offshore. Even now, even with the water still some distance away, Harte could swear that he felt the chill of it.
Jack gave the driver orders to wait and then led them through the uneven grid of buildings bathed in moonlight, swinging his arms at his sides and whistling the occasional off-key tune like they were walking through Central Park and not one of the dodgiest parts of the city. Harte never had trusted that sort of blind confidence. Usually, it was a mask for ignorance, and in his experience, both were dangerous.
Everywhere, shadows lurked, rustling in doorways and curling against the walls of the buildings. Occasionally, one of the shadows would bring fire to its fingertips. A flicker of flame would come to life, the puff of smoke enwreathing a briefly illuminated face, and then the night would go dark again.
It isn’t magic, Harte reminded himself. Just a simple flare of a match, the mundane glow from the flickering tip of a cigarette.
This close to the river, Harte could almost detect the scent of the water. On the other side lay everything he’d never been able to reach, an entire land that was more than the stinking streets and the day-after-day scrambling urgency of the city. ?A world where he could be something more than a rat in a trap.
But in the next breath, the scent of water was covered by the heaviness of axle grease and soot, the ripeness of days-old fish and oyster shells. A reminder that he still had a long way to go before he could be making plans about a different future.
Finally, they came to a long, unremarkable warehouse. ?Jack took a ring of keys from his coat and made quick work of the heavy padlocks on the wooden door. But before the last one clicked open, he turned to Harte. “You probably wouldn’t even need a key, would you?” he asked, cocking his head to the side. Jack’s face was covered by shadows, but his body had gone rigid, like he’d finally sobered up enough to comprehend what he was doing. To have second thoughts.
“I’m not a thief, Jack.”
“I know that.” Jack shifted uneasily. “But I’m taking a risk in showing you this. I think you’ll understand, and I’m going to trust it’ll interest you enough that I won’t have to worry.”
“Whether I’m interested or not, you don’t have to worry about me. I don’t want any trouble.”
Jack frowned like he was puzzling over something. For a second Harte thought Jack would change his mind, so he pulled on a look of boredom and moderate impatience. “Look, I didn’t ask you to bring me here, but can we get on with it already? I need to get back and check on Esta, so if we’re not going in—”
“No,” Jack said, giving himself a visible shake. “You’ve come all this way, you should see it. I want you to.” ?He pushed the door inward. Beyond it, blank darkness waited, but Jack quickly lit a kerosene lamp near the door. “After you,” he said.
In the center of the room, there was a large misshapen object covered by a cloth. With a smile lighting his face as much as the lamp, Jack drew the heavy tarp off and revealed something that could have been pulled from the pages of Jules Verne. The machine clearly wasn’t complete yet, but Harte could make out the gist of it: a large central globe made from what looked like glass, which was surrounded by three concentrically ringed arms that glinted in the light.
It looked harmless enough, quiet and still as it was, but there was something about the machine that made Harte nervous.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Jack said, giving one of the great orbiting arms a push, which made all the others glide slowly through their separate rotations as well.
“What the hell is it?” Harte asked, trying to shake the sense of apprehension he had standing next to it.
“This is the future, Darrigan,” Jack said, beaming.
“The future?” Harte eyed him doubtfully.
“Come here and take a look.” Jack walked past Harte to a long worktable on the left side of the room. Various blueprints and maps were laid out in haphazard piles, anchored in place by drafting tools and angles. He motioned for Harte to join him.
Reluctant to get too close to the strange machine, Harte made his way around the outer edge of the room, to the table where Jack was standing. At the far end of it was a model, a small rectangular building with a single tower growing from its center. The tower was capped with an odd, onion-shaped roof that reminded Harte of a picture he’d seen once of a Russian church.
“What is all this?” Harte asked.
Jack pointed to the model of the building. “My uncle’s building a larger version of this out on Long Island. It’s going to be a wireless transmitter—Tesla’s doing the design. When it’s done, it will transmit telegraphs, maybe even pictures, through the air. My uncle believes it’s going to revolutionize the world of business.”
“You don’t think it will?” Harte asked, responding to the tone in Jack’s words.
“I think he’s thinking too small and missing the point entirely,” Jack said as he began shuffling through a pile of papers. “Here, look.”
Jack smoothed out one of the crumpled sheets for Harte to inspect.
“It’s the Philosopher’s Hand,” he said, glancing up at Jack before returning his focus to the paper. The image was familiar to Harte—he’d studied enough alchemy to recognize the symbol and knew what it stood for.
“Exactly. I knew you’d understand,” Jack said, excitement lighting his eyes. “Five fingers for five distinct elements, the basis of all we know and understand about otherworldly power. Everyone who studies the occult arts knows that the elements are the key to unlocking the secrets of magic. If you isolate the individual elements, you can harness their energy and command them to bend to your will. But look what holds them together.”
The image depicted a hand with its fingers spread wide, each tipped with a different symbol—a key, a crown, a lantern, a star, and the moon. In the open palm, the fish and the flame, the symbols for . . .
“Mercury,” Harte said, tapping the center of the palm. “The element that transcends all others. Sometimes known as quicksilver.”
“Or Aether,” Jack added. “The same substance the baron was able to isolate, if you’re right.”