by Lisa Maxwell
But Esta’s face wasn’t the picture of satisfaction he’d been expecting. “Do you have it?” she asked. When Harte nodded, her expression didn’t ease. “They have Julien,” she said grimly.
“What do you mean?” Harte asked, stepping toward her and wanting more than anything to wrap his arms around her and pull her to him. But when the voice inside of him rose at that idea, he stopped short.
The plan had been straightforward. Dangerous, but easy enough once the necklaces were switched. The Prophet would take the decoy necklace from Julien and place it on the neck of the debutante who had been chosen as that year’s Queen of Love and Beauty, and then the two of them—Esta and Julien—would leave.
“They took the Prophet’s float off to the side street as soon as the attack happened. They had us in this small holding cell under the wagon’s bed, and when we got to the Festival Hall, they let us out. But they took Julien right off—necklace and all. Jack was there waiting for him,” she told Harte.
Harte froze. “Jack Grew is here?”
She nodded. “I tried to follow them, but the Guards wouldn’t let me. Said it was for the artifact’s security or something.”
Harte didn’t like any of it. There was no reason for Jack to go with Julien, unless Jack somehow knew. “Was Julien okay?”
“I don’t think the Guards suspected anything,” Esta told him. “They seemed more worried about the necklace than about Julien being any kind of threat. I think as long as he stays calm and keeps with the plan, we can go back and get him after they make the necklace switch.”
He didn’t like it, but things could have been worse. They could retrieve Julien, and maybe in the process, they could get the Book from Jack as well.
Soon they heard more hoofbeats approaching.
“Maggie has the cuff,” Harte murmured to Esta as Maggie came into view. She nodded to him, letting him know she understood.
“Tell me you didn’t do it,” Maggie said to Ruth even before she slipped down from the horse. Then she ran to her sister and grabbed Ruth by the arms. “Tell me it isn’t done. That it didn’t work, or—”
“Everything went as planned,” Ruth told her, frowning.
But Maggie was shaking her head like she didn’t believe it.
“It’s fine,” Ruth told her, gentling her voice in a way Harte had never heard it. “Everyone’s safe, and the necklace was switched. All is well.”
“No,” Maggie said. “No. We have to stop it.”
“There’s nothing to stop,” Ruth told her.
“But the serum—it doesn’t work.”
Ruth frowned. “Of course it works. We saw with our own eyes—”
“They’re dying,” Maggie said, her voice nearly hysterical. “I thought it was just that Arnie’s burns were too much for him this morning, but then this evening it was Greta. She’s gone already, and the rest are following, dying by their own magic. There’s nothing I could do for them. Even Isobel couldn’t do a thing to heal them. It’s killing them.”
Ruth’s jaw tightened, and her eyes went hard. “That’s unfortunate.”
“It’s not unfortunate. It’s a catastrophe. They’re all dying, and it’s our fault. If that necklace detonates, we’ll be responsible for the deaths of everyone at the ball. All those people—”
“So they’ll die,” Ruth said, pulling away. “How many of ours have they killed with their laws and their Guard and their hate?”
“We can’t—I can’t just let this happen,” Maggie said, horrified. “This isn’t what I intended. This isn’t—”
“There’s nothing we can do now,” Ruth said. “It’s already done.”
“We can stop it,” Maggie told her. “We can disrupt the ball—we can do something to get them out of the building before it’s too late.”
“I won’t risk any of mine for the Society.”
“It’s not just the Society in there, Ruth. It’s their wives and daughters, too,” Maggie persisted, not noticing how close to her Esta had gotten.
“Who live off the benefits of the evil their husbands and fathers commit.”
Maggie took an actual step back from Ruth and nearly ran into Esta. From the look of horror on Maggie’s face, Harte suspected that she’d never quite seen this side of her older sister before. “Ruth,” she pleaded.
They had the necklace, and from the look Esta was giving Harte, he knew she’d just lifted the cuff from Maggie. They could go now, before they got caught up in the fallout that was sure to come.
Except that he couldn’t. “We can’t leave Julien in there,” Harte told Esta. Her horrified expression told him that she agreed.
“We can’t leave any of them in there,” she said, her voice shaking.
“How do you plan to get into the ball?” Ruth asked. “There will be Jefferson Guards at every entrance. Even if you could get past them, you would have to contend with more inside and the president’s security on top of it.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Harte said. But short of charging the doors and hoping for the best, Ruth was right. Trying to save the people in the ball was a suicide mission. With all the dignitaries that were attending, they’d never be able to get past the security, and if they did, they’d never get back out again. It was the whole the reason they’d taken the necklace from the parade.
“I can help with that,” North said softly.
“I won’t allow it,” Ruth said. “It’s a fool’s errand. And you’re not going anywhere until I get that necklace,” she told Harte.
“You’ll have to take it from me,” Harte said.
“North,” Ruth commanded. “Take care of this.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, I’d rather not.” North stepped between them.
“What are you waiting for?” Ruth asked the others.
But the men and women who’d dressed themselves as serpents to disrupt the parade didn’t make a move to attack. Most of them studied the ground at their feet, their jaws tense and their shoulders hunched against the weight of what they had just helped to do.
“Then I’m done with the lot of you,” Ruth said as she reached for her sister’s hand. “Come, Maggie. Let’s go before we’re seen.”
“I’m going with them,” Maggie told her. She ignored her sister’s protests and stepped forward to slip her hand into North’s. The cowboy’s eyes shone with satisfaction.
Ruth’s face had turned a blotchy red, and her expression was a mixture of anger and shock. “Maggie, you’ll come now as you’re told.” Even Harte could feel Ruth’s impatience simmering in the air as thick and real as magic itself.
But Maggie looked over her shoulder at her sister and shook her head. “I haven’t been a child for a long time, Ruth. I’ve caused this, and I’m going to do something to stop it.”
NOTHING TO FORGIVE
1902—New York
Ruby took another look at herself in the long, mirrored panel of the ballroom’s back wall and frowned.
“You don’t have to do this,” Theo said, frowning at the outfit she was wearing—or perhaps he was frowning at the lack of it.
He had a point. The peach-colored garment she wore beneath the gown might have covered her from neck to toes, but it left nothing to the imagination. She was portraying Circe, from the John William Waterhouse painting of the witch offering a cup of her potion to Ulysses. Over the nearly nude garment, Ruby’s diaphanous gown was the color of the sea on a cloudy day. It hung loose over one shoulder, exposing more of her than she would ever have chosen to reveal on her own.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Of course I have to do this,” she told him, steeling herself for what was to come. “Being back here gives me access I wouldn’t otherwise have.”
“I don’t like it,” Theo grumbled. “It’s one thing to pass information on in the hopes of seeing what gets stirred up, but it’s another thing altogether to put yourself in the middle of the very storm you’ve created.”
“How am I supposed to kn
ow the truth if I’m not in the middle?” she asked, lifting the front of the gown in a vain attempt to get it to cover more. Frustrated, she gave up and let it fall again.
“Last time you insisted on getting in the middle of things, I distinctly remember being shot,” he told her, his tone more dry than truly angry.
Still, Ruby felt guilt flood through her. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for that,” she told him, her voice barely more than a whisper.
His expression softened. “There’s nothing to forgive,” he said. “I’m alive and well. I just don’t want to see you hurt.”
Especially since Viola is no longer in our lives. The words hung unspoken between them.
But she wasn’t going to think about Viola, not tonight. She’d wasted too much time not writing and not reporting in the last two weeks, and she was practically desperate to get a story that would make her editor look twice at her again.
She’d been rash, maybe, in passing along to Jack the information Viola had given her about Paul Kelly, even if she had sent it to him anonymously. She had thought to stir up the hornet’s nest that was the Order to see what happened, but in truth, she’d been acting out of hurt and anger and spite. And maybe she had been impetuous to have Theo talk Jack into allowing her to be part of the tableaux. At the time, though, the Order’s gala had seemed like a lifeline, a way back to the person she’d been before she let a pair of violet eyes sway her. But now, it felt like everything she’d once thought she had under control was slipping from her grasp.
She shook off that thought. It was nothing but nerves. Maybe she hadn’t completely thought everything through, but at least she was there, as close as anyone could possibly get to the Order’s biggest event since Khafre Hall had burned. Tonight, R. A. Reynolds would get a story like no one else’s.
Still, the dress was ridiculous. She had never shied away from a little bit of scandal, but now she worried what her wearing it—and wearing it in front of anyone who mattered in her mother’s circle—would do to Theo’s reputation.
“If you don’t want me to—”
Before she could finish, Jack Grew had come around the curtain. He eyed her for a second, looking far too pleased with himself, before he turned to Theo. “Barclay, you’re going to have to go. We’re about to begin.”
Theo gave her a long, unreadable look, and in that instant she thought about changing out of the gown and going with him. But before she could, he was gone.
“You look like perfection, Miss . . .” He frowned. “I’m sorry. I know Theo has introduced us before, but your name seems to have slipped away from me.” He gave her a smile that would have been charming had his eyes not been so calculating. “Product of the accident, I suppose—head injuries will wreak havoc, won’t they?”
“Reynolds,” she told him, wanting more than anything to get away from him and his leering. “Ruby Reynolds.”
“Reynolds?” he asked, his expression darkening.
It was the same thing that had happened a thousand times before. If someone didn’t already know whose daughter she was, their face would transform itself once they found out. But this was different. Jack’s expression was more one of fury than pity, and Ruby realized her misstep.
It had been an Order member who’d ordered her death. It could have been Jack.
“Well, then,” he said, his face still carefully blank. “You have everything you need?”
She nodded, trying to hide her fear with the brilliant smile she’d learned for her debut. “Yes, thank you.”
“Excellent. It should be quite the show.” He gave her an appraising look, and then he was gone, off to the next set of performers.
Ruby prided herself on being an intelligent woman, one whose intuition had gotten her out of countless scrapes over the years, so she knew she’d made a mistake. She needed to find Theo and get out of Morgan’s mansion before anything else could go wrong. She put down the cup and the wand she’d been preparing to carry and started to pull her cloak over the scrap of fabric she was wearing.
“What are you doing, miss?” The costumer was there with a look of horror on her face. “You don’t have time for that.” The woman was already taking off the cloak and tucking it over her arm before Ruby could argue. “Up you go,” she said, leading Ruby to the thronelike seat and handing her the cup and the wand she’d just discarded.
“I need to go,” Ruby tried to tell her, but the woman just gave her an impatient tut-tut.
“Everybody has nerves. It’ll be just fine. You’ll see.”
The music was already starting on the other side of the curtains, a trilling run of a harp and the soft sounds of a violin, and the woman was leaving with her cloak. And it was too late for Ruby to do anything more than carry on and hope that she was wrong about how badly things were about to go.
BASTA
1902—New York
It was only the weight of Libitina that kept Viola anchored as she took one step and then another into J. P. Morgan’s ballroom. She was on the arm of John Torrio and surrounded by people who hated her, people who would just as soon see her dead or deported as anything else, and it took every bit of her determination to keep the hate from her eyes as she followed Paul through the crowd, nodding and introducing himself to people as they went.
They’d trussed her up again in a corset and a gown covered in silken flounces. A ridiculous thing that did nothing to disguise what she was. Worse, it seemed only to encourage the Fox, who kept sliding glances at the slope of her cleavage above the neckline of her dress. His arm would occasionally rub against the side of her tette, and she knew from the leering look in his eyes that the small brushes were no accident. Had she not needed him—and needed to keep attention away from herself—she would have gladly introduced him to her most deadly accessory, the blade strapped to the side of her thigh.
Paul and Torrio made their way through the room, dragging Viola along with them, and as they went, the glittering jewels and perfectly tailored silks of the women all around her only served to remind her of who she was—and who she wasn’t. She’d never be one of these perfectly coiffed debutantes, so demure that they seemed able to blush on command. She didn’t want to be one of them. Even if one of them had a sharp tongue and a nose that crinkled when she smiled.
Basta. She tried to take a breath, but the boning of the corset reminded her that in this world, women were not even supposed to breathe. Focus. She needed to figure out which of these preening pigeons had the ring.
The quartet of musicians in the corner were starting to warm up and the other attendees were beginning to find their seats when Viola noticed a familiar silhouette that had her nearly stumbling. Theo was there, talking to an older man who had his eyes. If Theo was there, and Torrio noticed . . .
He wouldn’t do anything, she tried to tell herself. Not here, not in the midst of all the men they were trying to impress.
But if Theo was there, Ruby might be as well.
So what? She was done with them, finished. Wasn’t she?
She was about to turn away, to settle herself between Paul and Torrio, when she saw Theo give the older man that sad, lopsided grin he’d given at the park. He’d warned her then that it wouldn’t turn out well, and she hadn’t listened.
None of this was his fault. Ruby had dragged him into this mess and had nearly gotten him killed. But Viola had risked everything to save him once. To simply hand him over to Paul and Torrio now? It would mean that all the hurt and the anger Viola had lived with since Ruby had looked at her with hate in her blue eyes had been for nothing.
Besides, Ruby loved him.
Viola would save Theo for that reason alone. If it was her lot in life to always want and never have, so be it. She was strong and smart and could make her own way. And there were worse things than loneliness. There were the long hours in the dead of night when you had to live with the choices you made.
She excused herself to follow Theo as he headed toward the back of
the ballroom. Paul gave her a curious look, but the musicians were starting in earnest now, and he couldn’t do much without creating a scene.
It wasn’t that difficult to get ahead of Theo before he started back toward a side hall. When he rounded the corner, she pulled him into an unseen alcove.
He startled, but almost seemed unsurprised to see her. “Viola?”
“Shhh—” She pulled him farther into the alcove, away from prying eyes.
“I didn’t really think I was your type,” he said, giving her that lopsided smile again.
She opened her mouth to refute his words, her instinct after a lifetime of hiding and denying and refusing. But he wasn’t looking at her with the same disgust that Paul or her mother had when they noticed how captivated she’d been with her English teacher years ago. “You’re not,” she told him, which was as close to an acknowledgment as she’d ever given anyone except Esta.
“Where’s Ruby?” she asked, brushing past the moment because dwelling in it was far too dangerous. “Tell me she’s not here.”
“Of course she’s here,” he said. “Can you really imagine her missing something like this?”
No. “She has to go. Now.”
He looked suddenly confused. “That’s not possible. She’s playing Circe tonight, and everything is about to—”
The music suddenly went silent, and a man’s voice boomed over the crowd to welcome the attendees.
It’s too late.
A REUNION OF SORTS
1902—New York
From his place concealed in the corner of the ballroom, Jianyu watched Viola follow the light-haired boy into a side hallway. It had been nearly two weeks since that day on the bridge when he’d last seen her. But in everything that happened, she’d disappeared, and he’d been unable to search. Now he wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that she’d arrived with Paul Kelly.
Torn, he considered his options. He didn’t know when he’d get another opportunity to speak with her—to explain all that she did not yet know—but he would have only one chance to get to Evelyn while she was at the center of attention and less able to retaliate. On the far side of the room, positioned close to an exit, Cela and her brother were watching the High Princept of the Order introduce the evening’s honoree.