The Last Magician

by Lisa Maxwell

  “The Last Magician?” Harte’s head was still spinning. “I’m afraid I’m not sure who that is.”

  “No?” Jack’s brows wrinkled in surprise, and an unwelcome wariness flashed in his eyes.

  “At least not by that particular name,” Harte amended. It felt as though everything were spinning out of control.

  Jack studied him a moment longer. “The Last Magician was someone like us, devoted to studying the hermetic arts many centuries ago. It’s rumored that he succeeded in ways others haven’t since. Some of his breakthroughs helped to create the Brink.”

  “He was a member of the Order?”

  “Not exactly, but the Order built upon his work. We have his journal, a record of all he’d learned and all he accomplished—a tome called the Ars Arcana. Arcanum, of course, being another name for the philosopher’s stone.”

  “That can’t be a coincidence,” Harte said knowing that Jack could never, never get the Book. “You think this book will help you isolate Aether?”

  “I do, but the Order keeps it under lock and key. Only the highest ranking members have access to it. I’ve been trying to take a look for months now, but I’m not a member of the Inner Circle. Now, that no longer matters.” Jack smiled, an unholy excitement lighting his face. “If you’re right about your Miss Filosik, I might not need to see those records. Not if we can get her to share her father’s secrets with us.”

  Harte’s mind raced to stay ahead of Jack. The machine changed everything. . . .

  Harte suddenly remembered the old man’s prediction, that he would somehow destroy the Book. He hadn’t completely believed Esta, hadn’t believed in the prediction. But now he understood, because he could see clearly what he had to do.

  He needed the Book, now more than ever.

  “You’d have to get her to trust you,” Harte said as an idea struck him: If Jack was interested in Esta, if he was still on the hook, they could still run their game. If they could hold off Jack and get the Book, maybe he could still get out of the city. As soon as he was out, he would destroy the Book and any chance Jack or the Order had of finishing this machine.

  He wouldn’t be able to tell Esta until it was over. She didn’t understand what was at stake, if not now with Jack, then someday with someone. And he knew that with her faith in the old man’s words, he would never convince her that the Book was too dangerous to exist.

  But that didn’t mean she couldn’t still help him.

  When everything was done, when they were safe, maybe he’d be able to explain. Maybe she’d even forgive him.

  And if she didn’t?

  He’d lived with worse.

  “I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” Jack said with a devilish smile. “It’s possible my machine could be working before the Conclave, as I planned.”

  “The Order won’t have any choice but to recognize your genius,” Harte told him, hiding his true feelings behind his most dazzling smile. Inside, he felt like he could barely breathe.

  “And the maggots won’t have a chance.”

  Harte nodded his agreement and clapped Jack on the back, but silently he vowed to do everything in his power to make sure that future never came to be.

  A CHANGE OF HEART

  It was nearly three in the morning before Harte finally got rid of Jack and made his way back home. He let himself into the apartment, expecting to find Esta already locked in his room. Or, more likely, wide-eyed and ready to throttle him for leaving her. After what Jack had shown him, though, he’d be happy to take his chances with her anger. He couldn’t get away from the docks, and from that nightmare of a machine, fast enough. But when he lit the lamps, there was no sign she’d even been there.

  He told himself he’d wait an hour and forced himself to sit, watching the clock on the side table as the seconds ticked by. By the time thirty-seven minutes had passed, he’d had enough. Grabbing his coat and hat, he headed out again to find her.

  The streets had been long since cleared by the time he made it back to the Haymarket. Police barriers were up, and the front door of the dance hall had been boarded over. The smell of smoke still hung in the air. The sidewalks were mostly empty, but a boy was asleep in one of the doorways nearby, curled against the street. Harte tapped him gently to wake him. When the boy’s eyes blinked open, angry at the disruption, Harte held up a dollar and watched the boy’s eyes go wide.

  “Did you see a woman in a gold-colored gown tonight?”

  “I’ve seen lots of women,” the boy said, straightening his soft cap and reaching for the money.

  Harte pulled it away. “She was wearing a necklace with garnets and diamonds that looked like a collar. And black feathers in her hair.”

  “I might have seen her,” the boy said, eyeing him.

  “Where?”

  “I think she was with everyone else they took off to the Tombs.” The boy pulled the money from Harte’s grip. “But they all looked the same, so maybe it wasn’t her.” He tucked the money into his shirt and turned back over.

  The Tombs? A memory of a damp floor and a crowded room filled with rough hands rose to strangle him. It was his fault. He’d been so angry with her after her little stunt onstage that he’d purposely pushed her. He’d let her wander off. Then he’d left her behind.

  He had to tell Dolph. They had to get Esta out before something happened to her. Because there were plenty of ways to die that didn’t require being put six feet under. He should know.

  • • •

  The Strega was nearly empty by the time Harte got to the Bowery.  Viola was wiping down the bar top when Harte walked in.

  “We’re closing,” she said as he came through the door. When she recognized him, “Oh, it’s you.” She gave him a stern look. “Where’s Esta?”

  He looked around the barroom before waving her over. “I need to see Dolph,” he said.

  “He’s not here.”

  “Where the hell is he?”

  Viola shrugged. “He sometimes gets restless this time of night. He went out.”

  “Well, when will he be back? I need to talk to him.”

  “Who knows? He’s been in a mood lately.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Where is our girl?”

  Harte frowned. “That’s what I need to talk with Dolph about.”

  In a flash, her knife was out and at his throat. He could feel the sharp bite of its tip pressing against his neck.

  “What have you done with her?” Viola demanded.

  “I haven’t done anything with her,” he said keeping his eyes steady on her, so she would know he wasn’t lying. “But there was a raid on the Haymarket tonight. She might have been taken.”

  The tip of the knife pressed more firmly against his skin. “What do you mean, taken?”

  “We were separated in the confusion, and she didn’t come back to my apartment. She might have been taken to the Tombs. I need help to find out for sure, and to get her out if that’s what happened.”

  “I knew I didn’t like your too-pretty face.” He felt the prick of the knife and then the heat of his own blood as a drop trickled down his neck.

  Harte remained motionless, because he didn’t want Viola to know exactly how nervous he was. Or for her knife to slice any deeper. “If you’re going to kill me, get it over with already,” he told her, all false bravado. “Otherwise, tell me where Dolph went so I can get her back.”

  She scowled at him a moment longer. “I really don’t know,” she said, pulling the knife back and wiping its bloody tip on her skirt. “The boy might. Dolph tells him things sometimes.” She frowned as she glanced in Nibsy’s direction. Then she eyed Harte. “You will get her back.” It wasn’t a question.

  “That’s the plan,” he said, moving toward the place where Nibs sat, working out something in a notebook at one of the back tables.

  “I need to find Dolph,” he said, without any other greeting. “Now.”

  “He’s out.” The boy didn’t bother to look up. “Should be back in a f
ew hours.”

  “I don’t have a few hours.”

  Nibs looked up then, but there wasn’t any concern on his face. Only curiosity.

  “It’s Esta,” Harte explained. “She got caught up in a raid. I think she’s been taken to the Tombs.”

  The boy cocked his head to the side and peered through the thick lenses of his glasses. “Dolph did say you were meeting with Jack Grew tonight. Did you manage to hook him?”

  Harte ran his fingers through his hair, frustration spiking in him. “Yeah, nearly.”

  “Nearly? Or for sure?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Harte snapped. “Jack can wait.”

  “Got under your skin, did she?” Nibs looked entirely too pleased with himself. “I thought she might.”

  “It’s not that,” he denied. But even as he said the words, he knew they were a lie.

  “No?” Nibs asked, curious.

  “No,” Harte said, refusing to admit that Nibs was right. “We need her is all. We can’t get the Book without her.”

  “Sure we can,” Nibs told him with a shrug. “Pickpockets and thieves are a dime a dozen.”

  “Not like her they’re not,” he said, not realizing until the words were out that he actually meant them. “We have to get her out of there before something happens to her.” Because he needed her, he told himself. Not for any other reason.

  “Playing the white knight now, Darrigan? The role doesn’t exactly suit you,” he mocked. “Forget about the girl. Right now your job is to focus on Jack Grew. Esta will get out when she gets out. Or she won’t. It doesn’t really matter now.”

  “Of course it matters,” Harte growled.

  Nibs shook his head. “She already did what we needed her to do,” he said. A taunting smile erased the innocent, guileless expression he usually wore as something shifted in his eyes. “She hooked you, didn’t she?”

  He had known all along that he’d been played, but somehow hearing it straight from Nibs, understanding that Esta was nothing more than a pawn for Dolph, had Harte’s temper snapping. In an instant he had the boy out of his chair, pinned against the wall. He sensed Viola’s watchfulness from across the room, but he didn’t care.

  Nibs didn’t even blink.

  “I’m not some stupid mark,” Harte growled.

  “That right there is your biggest weakness, Darrigan. You think you can’t be played. But Esta proved you wrong, didn’t she? I knew she would, almost from the second I saw her. She played you beautifully.”

  In that moment Harte didn’t want anything but to make the boy pay for his words. All he saw was fire and blood and anger as he drove his fist into Nibsy’s face. He heard the crack of bone and felt the sickening crunch. At the same time his magic flared, and he pushed every bit of his affinity at Nibs, digging deep below the boy’s innocent-looking surface.

  The shock of what he saw plowed into him like a prizefighter’s fist. Harte had always known there had to be something more to the boy than his innocent-looking smile and soft-spoken temperament, but he’d never expected this. Dolph was too smart, too powerful—how had the boy tricked him? Tricked them all?

  Shaken by what he’d seen, Harte released Nibsy’s collar and let the boy fall to the floor. A moment later, though, he felt another jolt—the shocking impact of Viola’s magic slamming against him. Gasping, he stumbled toward the wall, barely able to keep himself upright.

  “We’re fine,” Nibs called, as he pulled himself to his feet. “Let him go, Vi. It was a simple misunderstanding.”

  Harte couldn’t focus enough to see Viola’s reaction, but a second later the hot power she’d shoved toward him dissipated, and he could breathe again. He kept one hand on the wall at first, because his legs were still shaking. Across the room, Viola was watching him with careful eyes.

  “I would have let Viola kill you if I didn’t still need you,” Nibs said. “Don’t ever forget that. When you stop being of use to me, you’re a dead man.”

  Harte ignored the threat and lowered his voice so Viola couldn’t hear. “You can’t actually think what you’re planning will work?”

  Nibs dabbed at his nose with the back of his hand. “I think it already is.”

  “You’d betray your own kind? For what?” Harte said, his mind racing. “Dolph would free you. Hell, he has some do-gooder notion of freeing everyone.”

  “You don’t actually believe that.” Nibs shook his head, disgust shadowing his features. “Dolph is no saint—you know that.  You’ve seen what he’s capable of. You’ve seen what he’ll do for power. He loved Leena more than he loved anyone, and he managed to use her, to break her.”

  “What the Order did to her wasn’t his fault,” Harte said, finally accepting that truth. Harte might have wanted to blame him still, but Dolph hadn’t created the Brink. He hadn’t been the one to push Leena over it.

  “No, but the marks were.” Nibs nodded. “How do you think the marks worked, Darrigan?”

  “Ritual magic. You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know,” Harte sneered, refusing to let Nibs goad him into attacking again. Not with Viola watching.

  “So you know he used Leena’s affinity to create them?” Nibsy’s eyes were dancing. “Of course you didn’t know that. No one knew that particular fact.”

  “Dolph never would have done that to Leena,” Harte said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

  “Don’t kid yourself. Leena had always been his protection. Her ability to block any Mageus within her sight from using their affinity against Dolph or his people kept him safe. But everything they worked together to build wasn’t enough for him. So he did a ritual to bring the marks to life, but he used her affinity in it. It weakened her. It made her angry, too. She said she forgave him, but I’m not sure that was completely true.” He tilted his head, thoughtful. “Maybe if he hadn’t taken so much from her, she could have fought the Order. Maybe she wouldn’t have died on the Brink.”

  “Everyone dies on the Brink,” he said, not taking the bait.

  Nibs inclined his head. “So I wonder why you would want to keep it up?”

  “I’ve agreed to help Dolph, haven’t I?” Harte said, unease creeping through him. He couldn’t know. “We have a deal. You know that.”

  “I know what you’ve told Dolph. But I also know you’re a talented liar, Darrigan.” Nibs shook his head. “I know a lot of things. About you. About Dolph. About how people work and the choices they’ll make. You might say I have an affinity for it.”

  So that was his talent? The absolute sureness the kid seemed to have made his skin crawl. “You don’t know shit.”

  “I know that Dolph is blinded by his need to put things to rights for Leena. To avenge her. But bringing down the Brink won’t destroy the hate and suspicion that feeds the Order’s power. It’ll only be the opening shot of a war he’s not ready to fight. Do you really think he’ll simply give the power of the Book away when he realizes what we’re truly up against? He couldn’t even leave Leena what she already had.”

  Harte shifted uneasily. He didn’t trust Nibs—not after what he’d seen in the boy’s heart and mind—but what he was saying made a sick sort of sense. Still, he knew what Nibs intended. . . .

  “So you’d take it upon yourself to undercut him? You’d take the Book’s power for yourself ? Use it to rule the Mageus who are left?”

  “Saw that, did you?”

  “I saw everything, Nibs.”

  “Then you know that you and I aren’t so very different, Darrigan. We’re both working against Dolph. Neither of us has any desire to destroy the Brink. Which is why we’re going to keep working together. And in exchange, I’ll give you what you want most—a way out of the city.”

  “Are you forgetting that you pledged Dolph your loyalty? When he finds out what you’re planning, you’re as good as dead.”

  “You mean because of the mark?” the boy asked, ripping back his sleeve to show the tattoo below the crook of his elbow. “I’ll let
you in on a little secret, Darrigan. When Dolph tried to save Leena, the Brink took his ability to control us. The marks are useless now.”

  It couldn’t be true—and yet Dolph had agreed almost too easily to Harte’s demand to refuse his mark. “Even if that’s true, you’re underestimating him.”

  “No, I think my estimates have been perfect. My estimations are always perfect.” He gave a shrug that couldn’t hide his smugness.

  “Not so perfect. I bet you weren’t estimating that you’d have a broken nose tonight.”

  Nibs frowned, but he didn’t argue. “All that matters is that Dolph’s done everything I’ve expected him to do so far. And so have you.”

  “Not anymore. I’m out,” Harte said, backing away. “I don’t want any part in what you’re planning. You might need me, but I don’t need you.”

  Nibs laughed. Blood dripped down his lips and chin as he talked, but he didn’t seem to notice it. “You don’t understand, do you? There isn’t any way out for you, Darrigan. You’re in this to the end.”

  “Like hell I am.”

  Nibs took a step toward him. “What do you think you’re going to do? I know what you’ve been planning all along. You think you’ll take the Book and run, don’t you? Leave us all trapped in here while you find freedom. But let me ask you one question—do you have any idea where your mother is right now?”

  Harte froze. “What does that matter?”

  “You tell me.”

  “After what she did to me, she can rot for all I care,” Harte said stiffly, but panic was already roiling in his stomach.

  “Oh, that’s good,” Nibs said, clapping slowly. “Quite the performance. If you hadn’t asked Dolph to hide her from Kelly, I might even have believed you just now. But she’s your soft spot, Darrigan. Always has been. Dolph knew that. It’s why he sent Kelly after you.”

  “Dolph wouldn’t work with Kelly.”

  “To get you, he would. He did. It was my suggestion, and it’s worked out beautifully. They made a little trade—Dolph’s secrets for Kelly’s lackey. And you reacted exactly as he expected you to.” He licked his lips. “Dolph’s still too tied up with Kelly to bother giving me any trouble, but you ran right into his snare. The fact is you do care what happens to that mother of yours, and as long as you won’t cut her loose, the string she has you on is always going to be your noose.”