The Last Magician

by Lisa Maxwell

  She found what she was looking for on a lower shelf.

  “Hello, beautiful,” she crooned, reaching for the long black box. She barely had it in her hands when the voices erupted in the hallway.

  “This is an outrage! I could ruin you with a single telegram,” Logan bellowed, his voice carrying through the heavy door. “When I tell my uncle—no, my grandfather—how abysmally I’ve been treated here,” he continued, “you won’t get another contract on this side of the Mississippi. Possibly not on the other, either. No one of any account will speak to you after I—”

  It must be Schwab, Esta thought, pulling a pin from her hair and starting to work on the locked box. Schwab had been trying to make his mark on the city for years. The house was one part of that, but the contents of the box were an even more important part.  And it was the contents of the box that Esta needed.

  “Be reasonable, Jack.” Another voice—probably Schwab’s. “I’m sure this is a simple misunderstanding—”

  Panic inched along her skin as her mind caught up with the man’s words. Jack? So Schwab wasn’t the only one out there.

  However good Logan might be, it was never optimal to be outnumbered. In and out fast, with minimal contact. That was the rule that kept them alive.

  She wiggled the hairpin in the lock for a few seconds, until she felt the latch give way and the box popped open.

  “Get your filthy hands off me!” Logan shouted, loud enough for Esta to hear. It was a sign that things were escalating too quickly for him to contain.

  She set the box back on a shelf so she could lift her skirts and remove the knife hidden there. Even with the scuffle in the hall, Esta felt a flash of admiration for Mari’s handiwork as she compared the knife from her skirts to the jewel-encrusted dagger lying in the black velvet of the box. Her friend had done it again—not that she was surprised.

  Mariana Cestero could replicate anything—any material from any time period, including Logan’s engraved invitation for the party that night and the six-inch dagger Esta had been carrying in the folds of her skirt. The only thing Mari couldn’t completely replicate was the stone in the dagger’s hilt, the Pharaoh’s Heart, because the stone was more than it appeared to be.

  An uncut garnet rumored to be taken from one of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, the stone was believed to contain the power of fire, the most difficult of all elements to manipulate. Fire, water, earth, sky, and spirit, the five elements that the Order of Ortus Aurea was obsessed with understanding and using to build its power.

  They were wrong, of course. Elemental magic wasn’t anything but a fairy tale created by those without magic—the Sundren—to explain things they didn’t understand. But misunderstanding magic didn’t make the Order any less dangerous. Just because the stone didn’t control fire didn’t mean there wasn’t something special about the Pharaoh’s Heart. Professor Lachlan wouldn’t have wanted it otherwise.

  Even in the soft light thrown by the fire, the garnet was polished so smoothly it almost glowed. Without trying, Esta could feel the pull of the stone, sensed herself drawn to it, not like she’d been drawn to the diamond stickpin, but on a deeper, more innate level.

  After all, elemental magic might be a fairy tale, but magic itself was real enough.

  Organizations like the Order of Ortus Aurea had been trying to claim magic as their own for centuries. Schwab had purchased the dagger and arranged the night’s auction in the hopes of buying his way into the Order, but since the only magic the Order possessed was artificial and corrupt ceremonial magic—pseudoscientific practices like alchemy and theurgy—they wouldn’t be able to sense what Esta could. They wouldn’t know that Mari’s stone was a fake until much later, when they were running their experiments and trying to harness the stone’s power. Even then they would assume it was Schwab who had cheated them . . . or that Schwab couldn’t tell the difference to start with. Schwab himself would believe that the antiquities dealer who’d sold him the dagger had swindled him. No one would realize the truth—the real Pharaoh’s Heart had been taken right out from under them.

  Esta made the switch, placing the counterfeit dagger into the velvet-lined box and tucking the real dagger back into the hidden pocket of her skirt. It was heavier than the one she’d been carrying all night, like the Pharaoh’s Heart had an unexpected weight and density that Mari hadn’t predicted. For a moment Esta worried that maybe Schwab would notice the difference. Then she thought of the house—his overdone attempt to display the number in his bank account—and she shook off her fears. Schwab wasn’t exactly the type to understand which details mattered.

  Outside the room, something crashed as an unfamiliar voice shouted. More quickly now, Esta locked the box, careful to put it back on the shelf exactly as it had been, and closed the safe. She was securing the bookcase when she heard Logan shout—an inarticulate grunt of pain.

  And then a gunshot shattered the night.

  No! Esta thought as she sprinted for the door, the crack of gunfire still ringing in her ears. She needed to get to Logan. He might be a pain in the ass, but he was their pain in the ass. And it was her job to get them both out.

  At the other end of the hall, Logan lay on the floor, trying to pull himself up, while Schwab attempted to wrestle the gun away from a balding blond man in a tuxedo that bulged around his thick middle. Struggling against Schwab, the blond leveled the gun at Logan again.

  Esta comprehended the entire scene in an instant and immediately took a deep, steadying breath, forcing herself to ignore the chaos in front of her. She focused instead on the steady beating of her own heart.

  Thump. Tha-thump.

  As regular as the cylinders of a lock tumbling into place.

  Thump. Tha-thump.

  In the next beat, time went thick for her, like the world around her had nearly frozen: Schwab’s wobbling jowls stilled. The angry sweat dripping from the blond man’s temple seemed to be suspended in midair as it fell in excruciatingly slow motion toward the floor.

  It was as though someone were advancing the entire world like a movie, frame by painstaking frame. And she was that someone.

  Find the gaps between what is and isn’t, Professor Lachlan had taught her.

  Because magic wasn’t in the elements. Magic lived in the spaces, in the emptiness between all things, connecting them. It waited there for those who knew how to find it, for those who had the born ability to grasp those connections—the Mageus.

  For those like Esta.

  She hadn’t needed magic earlier that night, not to escape the party or to pick the lock, but she needed it now, so she let herself open to its possibilities. It was almost as natural as breathing for her to find the spaces between the seconds and the beating of hearts. She rushed toward Logan, stealing time as she darted through the nearly frozen tableau.

  But she couldn’t stop time completely. She couldn’t reverse the moment to stop the blond’s finger from pressing the trigger again.

  She wasn’t quite to Logan when the sound of the gun shattered her concentration. She lost her hold on time, and the world slammed back into motion. For Esta, it felt like an eternity between the door of the billiards room to where she was standing, exposed, in the hallway, but for the two men, her appearance would have been instantaneous. For members of the Order, it would have been immediately recognizable as the effect of magic.

  The men froze for a moment, their eyes almost comically wide. But then the blond seemed to gather his wits about him. He jerked away from Schwab, lifted the dark pistol, and took aim.

  ON THE BRINK

  August 1900—East 36th and Madison Avenue

  Dolph Saunders was born for the night. The quiet hours when the city went dark and the streets emptied of the daylight rabble were his favorite time. Though they might have been criminals or cutthroats, those out after the lamps were lit were his people—the dispossessed and disavowed who lived in the shadows, carving out their meager lives at the edge of society. Those who understood
that the only rule that counted was to not get caught.

  That night, though, the shadows weren’t a comfort to him. Tucked out of sight, across the street from J. P. Morgan’s mansion, he cursed himself for not being able to do more. His crew was late, and there was an uneasiness in the air—it felt too much like the night was waiting for something to happen. Dolph didn’t like it one bit. Not after so many had already disappeared, and especially not when Leena’s life was at stake.

  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.

  Nibsy’s eyes widened a bit. “You’ll be back,” Nibs told him. “You’ll bring Leena back.”

  Dolph was glad for the assurance, but he wasn’t going to depend on it. Pulling his cap low over his eyes, he began to walk in the direction of the terminal. He ignored the stiffness in his leg, as he always did, and lifted himself up the wide steps that led to the entrance of the bridge. Once he was above, h
e kept away from the thin columns of lamplight on the planks of the walkway. Using the shadows for cover, he moved quickly despite his uneven gait—he’d lived with it for so long now that it was part of him.

  The hired carriage was pulled to a stop before the first tower of the bridge—just beyond the shoreline. Below, three figures emerged. One reached back to pull out the fourth. Even from that distance, he knew it was Leena. He sensed her affinity—familiar, warm, his. But she was hanging limply between her captors. He felt the weakness of her magic, too, and when he got closer, he saw what they had done to her, saw her bruised face and bloodied lip. Saw her flinch with a ragged exhale and struggle against the men as they started to pull her toward the tower, toward the Brink.

  His blood went hot.

  Dolph, like every other Mageus in the city, knew what would happen when a person with the old magic crossed that line. Once they stepped across the Brink, it drained them. If the person was lucky and their affinity was weak—closer to a talent than a true power—they might survive, but they’d be left permanently broken from that missing part of themselves and would spend the rest of their life suffering the loss.

  But for most, the Brink left them hollowed out, destroyed. Often, dead. So he understood what it would do to Leena, who was one of the most powerful Mageus he’d ever known.

  Keeping to the shadows, he calculated his chances of getting Leena away from the men. He could take one down easily enough, even with his leg as it was, and the poisoned blade in his cane could do well enough on the other, but the third? There wasn’t time to go back for Nibs, not that the boy would be much help in a fight.