The Devil's Thief

by Lisa Maxwell

  But this boy wasn’t yet the man the Professor would become. The Professor’s younger face didn’t even have a shadow of hair on it, and the eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses, while familiar, were clear of the cloudy cataracts that would haunt him in the future. Still, there was the same uncanny knowledge in his eyes, the spark of intelligence that had let Logan know the very first time they’d met that the old man wasn’t to be messed with.

  It will be fine.

  “Leave us.” The boy who would one day become the Professor made it to the bottom of the stairs and stood in front of Logan, eyeing him with a familiar expression.

  “You sure, Nibs?” the redhead asked, snapping the fire between his fingers as he watched Logan uneasily. “I can stay, just in case.”

  The Professor turned on the redhead. “You think I can’t handle myself?” he asked in a voice like acid.

  The fire on the redhead’s fingertips went out. “I just thought—”

  “We’d be in trouble if I depended on you to do the thinking, Mooch. But I don’t. I depend on you to do what I ask, when I ask it. And I’m asking you to leave me with our prisoner. I’ll deal with him myself.”

  “Right, Nibs. Sorry.” Mooch cut Logan another threatening look, but he took himself up the steps, leaving Logan with the younger version of his friend and mentor.

  “So,” Logan said after a long beat of uneasy silence. He was unsure of where to start. The man this boy would become had been like a father to Logan. He’d taken Logan under his wing and taught him everything he knew, but the boy in front of him was a stranger. “They call you Nibs?”

  “Only those who don’t know better.” The Professor’s nostrils flared slightly, just as they had every time Logan or Esta had managed to do something to piss him off. It was eerie to see the action on this younger boy’s face. “You can call me James, since I assume we know each other.”

  “Then you read the notebook,” Logan asked, still too nervous to feel relief.

  “I did.” The Professor—James—leaned on the silver-topped cane. “It’s quite an object you brought me. Too fantastical to be true, really.”

  “You don’t believe it?” Logan asked. Unease prickled at the nape of his neck. He has to believe. Logan was royally screwed if he didn’t.

  “I don’t believe anything without proof,” James said, pushing his glasses farther up his nose. “You spoke of the Delphi’s Tear?”

  “It’s here, in the city,” Logan told him. Apparently, the notebook hadn’t informed him about the package of other stones. Probably a good thing.

  “You know this how?”

  “It’s what I do,” Logan said, and when James narrowed his eyes, he explained further. “I mean, I can find things. Or, I guess I should say that I can find things that are imbued with magic. I can find other things too,” he said quickly, when James frowned at him, “but I’m most accurate when there’s some kind of power involved.”

  “What about the rest of the artifacts? The stones and the Book?”

  Logan felt his chest go tight. “The rest of them?” he hedged.

  “You were supposed to deliver them to me, according to the notebooks. If the notes in those pages are to be believed, you should have a package for me. If you don’t have the package . . .”

  “I had it,” Logan pleaded. “I swear I did.”

  “But you don’t now,” James said, looking more than ever like the disappointed professor Logan had known.

  “Esta took them,” he explained. “She knows how I am right after we slip through time, and she took advantage of it.”

  “Esta?” James had gone very, very still. When he spoke again, his voice was urgent. “She has the Book and the artifacts. You’re sure of this?”

  Logan nodded. “She left me here without them, and then those big guys picked me up before I could get to you.”

  “Kelly’s boys,” James murmured, but he wasn’t looking at Logan. He was staring into the dark corner of the cellar, clearly thinking through something. Then, all at once, he seemed to come to a decision. “It’s an interesting story.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “So you say. And I’m inclined to believe you, but I have no way of knowing for sure. You could have used the Book to deceive me.”

  “I didn’t,” Logan said, feeling again the itch of panic. “You have to believe me.”

  “Actually, I don’t. Which presents a problem—for you, at least.” He adjusted his grip on the head of his cane, a movement that was as much a threat as his words.

  “Let me prove it to you,” Logan begged.

  “How?” James asked. “What more proof could you possibly offer?”

  “Let me find the Delphi’s Tear—the ring. It’s close. I know it is. I’ll find it and give it to you, and then you’ll know I’m not hiding anything.”

  The boy’s expression didn’t betray even a flicker of interest. “You’re sure that you know where it is?”

  “Not exactly,” Logan said. “But I could take you to it.”

  James considered the offer. “Mooch!” he shouted, his voice bellowing louder than Logan would have expected from such a slightly built boy.

  “Yeah, Nibs?” The redhead appeared at the top of the steps with a speed that told Logan he’d been waiting.

  “Bring Jacob and Werner and come down here.”

  That wasn’t the reaction Logan wanted. While James watched the steps expectantly, Logan tested the ropes on his hands. If he could loosen them, maybe he could wiggle free. But the ropes were as tight now as they had been when Mooch first tied them, and before he could do anything, the three larger boys had come down the steps and were waiting for further orders.

  “You wanted our help?” the sandy-haired one asked, and Logan gasped as he felt the air pressed from his chest.

  “Not yet, Werner,” James said, his gaze on Logan. “We need him alive . . . for now.”

  BREAKING AND ENTERING

  1902—New York

  When they finally arrived at the building, Jianyu looked up and found the darkened windows of the apartment where Cela said Evelyn lived and wondered—not for the first time—if the path he had placed himself on was the right one. As a child, he had never intended to become a thief. And now, because of the choices he’d made, he was without country or home, far from his family and in a situation beyond his imagining or his control. For a moment he looked up at the darkened sky above him, the sweep of stars that were the same constellations of his youth.

  He found the stars that were the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, as he often did on clear nights. In the tale, the two were banished from each other, divided by the band of the Silver River, just as he was divided by a continent and a sea from his boyhood home. But Jianyu’s own choices had led him from his first home, and there would be no magpies to carry him magically back, and even if there were, he couldn’t go. Not without the queue that was prescribed by Manchu law.

  The future to come was unknown. His path was surely here now, in this land, but what might he do with it? Where might he go or what might he become if he were not bound by the Brink, now that he could not return to his homeland? And if the Brink was to remain, how would he choose to live in this world, where he was?

  But the questions were premature. No future would be possible if the stone fell into the wrong hands. So he would make the choice to become a bandit—a thief—once more, to have a chance at some other future.

  “You’re sure she lives here?” Jianyu asked.

  Cela nodded. “I had to fit her wardrobe a few months back when she was too busy or lazy to come in when the theater was dark. We should have plenty of time.”

  “We?” Jianyu said, turning to her as panic inched up his spine. He couldn’t get the stone and keep her safe. “You’re not coming,” he said, his tone more clipped and short than he had intended.

  “Like hell—”

  “I need you here,” he told Cela, trying to calm her temper before it erupted. There was
not time for an argument. “To watch for any trouble.”

  “And just what am I supposed to do if I see some?” Cela asked doubtfully.

  “Warn me.” Before she could argue further, Jianyu added, “Can you make a birdcall of some sort? The window is open.” He pointed to the way the curtain fluttered from the open window.

  He knew she was angry, but he could not linger. Before she could stop him, he had opened the strands of light, pulled them around himself, and started for the building.

  It was a simple thing to find Evelyn’s rooms, but when he let himself in, the apartment was not what Jianyu had expected. The woman herself was like the ostentatious kingfisher in her dress and adornments, but the rooms were cold and barely furnished, with clothes heaped about in haphazard piles. It was the kind of place someone came to sleep off the effects of too much Nitewein or because they had no other option—not because it bore any resemblance at all to a home. Jianyu almost pitied her for living in such a place, but then he reminded himself that her actions did not lend themselves to pity. Evelyn had made her choices, and now she would bear the consequences of them.

  There was enough moonlight coming through the open window that he could navigate easily enough, searching through boxes and under beds. He worked methodically, lifting silken stockings and then replacing them as carefully as he could, so it would appear that no one had been there. Better not to warn her.

  He was sorting through the piles on her bed when he heard the sound of an owl.

  Not an owl, he realized when the sound came a second time . . . and then a third. Cela.

  Placing the piles of clothing back the way he had found them, Jianyu was already heading toward the door when he heard the click of the lock releasing. With nowhere to go, he pulled the bronze disks from his pocket and used them to open the wan moonlight and wrap it around himself. Certainly, Evelyn would be able to sense him, but if he was quick, she would not be able to catch him.

  Positioning himself next to the door, he waited. But the person who came through was not Evelyn after all.

  SESHAT

  1904—St. Louis

  The excitement of the parade had done its job, pulling people out into the wide boulevard and leaving the winding streets of Cairo nearly empty. Harte followed Esta as they made their way through the various bazaars selling their cheap trinkets and past the restaurant that left the air perfumed with the scent of heavy spices and roasting meats. His stomach rumbled at they passed, but he kept his focus on the back of Esta’s narrow shoulders and the constant hum of energy from the power inside of him.

  When they came to the replica of the Egyptian temple that housed the boat ride, Harte nearly stumbled from the way the power inside of him lurched, letting its presence be known. There was something about this particular attraction that agitated the voice, but there was only one way in and out of the chamber that held the necklace, and that was through the Nile River. He did his best to ignore the power as he slipped the attendant a few extra coins for a private boat and then followed Esta into it.

  A moment later their oarsman pushed off, and they were entering the darkness of the first tunnel. The world of the fair fell away, and there was only the gentle sound of the water being parted by the oar and the stale mustiness of the canal. Harte didn’t need to see Esta to know exactly where she was in the darkness. Even with the odor of the water, he could sense her next to him. Since she’d decided on the ridiculous ploy to dress like a boy, she’d given up the soft floral soap she’d used before. Instead, she had been using something simple and clean, and when the scent of it came to him in the darkness, the image of her in the morning, damp from washing and freshly scrubbed, rose in his mind.

  It was a mistake—the power vibrated against the shell of who he was, pressing at the delicate barrier. Harte was intimately familiar with that boundary, because he often breached it himself when he let his affinity reach into a person to read their thoughts or shape their actions. Having his own threatened like this was an uncomfortable reminder of just how dangerous his affinity could be.

  The oarsman was reciting his script in a monotone, but Harte could barely pay attention—all his focus was on keeping the power inside of him from bursting out. They passed through scenes depicting life in ancient Egypt—the building of the pyramids and the flooding of the Nile, with its resulting harvest. Faintly, the names of gods and goddesses registered, but as the boat progressed, the power grew stronger, and it became harder and harder to hold it back.

  Esta was sitting next to him, her back straight and her attention forward—preparing, probably, for what they needed to do—but Harte could barely see straight. His hands felt clammy. His head swirled and the edges of his vision wavered as the voice echoed in his ears, screaming words he didn’t understand in a language he did not know.

  When they neared the end of the ride, the voice went silent and the power stilled, both falling away and leaving only a hollowed-out emptiness behind. Panting now, Harte forced himself to take a deep, steadying breath. They were nearly there. Two more chambers and then they would disembark and walk the so-called Path of Righteousness to the Temple of Khorassan, where the Djinni’s Star waited. But the moment the boat began to enter the chamber filled with parchments and scrolls, the power lurched once again.

  If Harte had thought it strong, or if he had thought himself able to control it, he realized that he’d been wrong. So wrong. Everything he’d experienced before had been nothing but a shadow of its true power. It had been hiding itself, perhaps waiting for this moment.

  The boat, the false Nile, and the room of scrolls transformed itself into a different time, another place. The walls were rounded up to a ceiling that had been painted gold, and in the center of the room stood an altarlike table that held a book. A woman stood over it, her coiled hair hung around her lean face. Her kohl-rimmed eyes were focused on the parchment in front of her, and the very air seemed to tremble with the urgency she felt. There was magic here, warm and thick and stronger than Harte had ever felt before.

  The woman’s mouth was forming words that he could not hear, but he understood their meaning because he could feel their power vibrating through the air, brushing against him with an unmistakable threat. It reminded him of what it had felt like when Esta pulled him through time, awful and dangerous and wrong. As though the world were collapsing and breaking apart all at once. He watched with dread as she took a knife and sliced open her fingertip, dripping the dark blood into a small cup.

  She picked up a reed and dipped it into the cup, mixing it before she touched it to the parchment. With each stroke, the energy in the air increased, whipping about with an impossible fury. Hot. Angry. Pure. Her face was a mask of concentration, her darkly ringed eyes tight and her jaw clenched as the power in the air began to stir the hair framing her face. She made another stroke with her reed and then another, until finally, her hand trembling, she finished.

  The woman looked up at him as though she could see to the very heart of what he was. Every mistake he’d made. Every regret he bore day in and day out. Every fear. Every want. She looked into him and she knew them all.

  And then, without warning, the woman dropped the reed and screamed as though she were being torn apart. The power swirling through the room swelled until there was only a furious roaring that felt as though it were bubbling up from the very heart of who Harte was. As though he had become her.

  As she made the final stroke, the screaming was coming from deep within her and it was coming from outside of her as well. The world was roaring its warning, but she could not listen. She would not listen. She would finish what she had started, even as she felt herself flying apart, a sacrifice and an offering to the power that was the heart of all magic.

  An offering that would transform her into something so much more.

  Even as she felt the very core of who and what she was shattering, even as she felt the spaces within her swelling and splintering, she screamed again, clinging to the table as
the power of the spell—her greatest and most awful creation—coursed through her.

  He was coming. But it did not matter. He was too late.

  Too late to stop her.

  Too late to take the power that was held within the parchment and ink, the skins and blood that she had created. He had tried to steal this magic and make it his own, tried to dole it out for favor and power, to give it to those who had no right to touch it.

  He was coming, and she would destroy him. She would rip the very stars from the sky if need be, but he would not triumph.

  Traitor. Thief. He would die this night, and her masterwork would be safe.

  But first . . . She took up one of the polished gems on the altar in front of her—a lapis lazuli—and focused her magic, pushing a part of herself into the stone. And then she took up another—malachite—and another, breaking herself apart so that she could become something more.

  She took up the last of the five and felt herself splinter once more, divided and broken for some greater goal. As the stones began to glow, all at once the pain she had felt—the horror of unbecoming—ceased. She slumped over, catching herself on the table in front of her.

  There was no time to rest. She moved quickly on unsteady legs as she placed the stones on the floor around the table. One by one, she positioned them around the outline of a perfect circle that had been drawn, even and balanced, to ring the table that held the Book.

  She heard the sound of footsteps approaching and she turned. There was someone waiting in the shadows.