“The Order never forgot, though. For years the highest members of the Order tried to find these pieces and bring them back together, but because of the work we’ve done, they’ve never managed to. Occasionally a piece would pop up at an auction, like the one at Schwab’s mansion, or rumors of another would surface, but since that original theft, these pieces have never been in the same room.” The Professor smiled, his old eyes sparking. “Until now.”
He didn’t have to tell Esta that there was something about the various stones that made them more than they appeared. Just as Ishtar’s Key called to her, the artifacts together seemed to saturate the entire space with a warm, heady energy.
“You see,” he continued, “there has been a method to what we’ve done these past years. One by one, I discovered the fate of the stones. One by one, I’ve collected them and kept them safe. But it’s not enough. Everything we’ve done has only been a prelude to one item, the last of the artifacts.” He leaned forward. “I’ve been more than careful, or haven’t you noticed? Each job has been a little farther back, each one a little more challenging. I was getting you ready for the one job that means everything.”
Esta straightened a bit. Professor Lachlan was still willing to trust her. He still needed her.
“What’s the mark?” she asked, her voice filled with a bone-deep desire to prove herself to him.
He smiled then. “We need the final item that was stolen that day. A book.”
Esta couldn’t hide her disappointment. She’d stolen plenty of books for him over the years. “You want me to get another book?”
“No, not another book.” His old eyes gleamed. “You’re going to get the Book—the Ars Arcana.”
Even with all her training and the many, many hours she’d spent learning about the city and about the Order, Esta had never heard that particular term before. Her confusion must have shown.
“It’s a legendary book, a text rumored to be as old as magic itself,” he explained with a twist of impatience. “For years it was under the Order’s control, and I believe it can tell me how to use these stones to topple the Order once and for all. Imagine it, girl—the few Mageus left wouldn’t have to hide who we are anymore. We’d be free.”
Free. Esta wasn’t sure what that word even meant. She loved her city, had never really thought about or yearned for a life outside it. But Professor Lachlan was looking at her with an expression of hope and warmth. “Tell me where it is, and it’s yours,” Esta said.
“Well, that’s where it gets tricky.” Professor Lachlan’s expression darkened. “The Book was lost. Probably destroyed.”
“Destroyed?”
Professor Lachlan nodded. “One of the team double-crossed the rest. He took the Book and disappeared. If the Book still existed, I would have found it by now. Or Logan would have.” His eyes lit again. “That’s why you have to stop the traitor before he can disappear. If you can save the Book and bring it back here, it would change everything.”
Anticipation singing in her blood, Esta kept herself calm, determined. “Who is he? Where do I find him?”
Studying her a moment longer, Professor Lachlan’s mouth turned up ever so slightly. It wasn’t a real smile, but it was enough to tell her that she’d started to win back a measure of his approval. “The spring of 1902, when the heist happened,” he said, tapping the news clipping. “You’re going to have to go back further than you’ve ever gone before. The city was a different place then.”
“I can handle it,” she said.
“You don’t understand. . . . Magic was different back then. Now the city is practically empty of magic. Now people think magic is a myth. But back then the streets would have felt electric. People knew that the old magic existed, and they feared those who held it. Back then there was still the feeling in the air that something was about to start. Everyone was picking sides.”
“I know,” she told him. “You’ve taught me all of this.”
“Maybe I did.” He sighed as he lifted Esta’s cuff from the table and examined it, frowning as he studied the crack in the stone. “But I’m still not sure you’re ready. This last job makes me wonder . . .”
Esta wanted to reach for the cuff, but she held back. It wasn’t exactly hers—the Professor only permitted her to wear it when he needed something from the past. Otherwise, he kept it safe in his vault. Still, the cuff had always felt like hers, ever since the first time he’d slipped it onto her arm a little more than six years ago, when she was eleven years old, and shown her that she was meant for more than lifting fat wallets out of tourists’ pockets.
“I won’t disappoint you again,” she promised.
He didn’t offer her the cuff, though. He was still punishing her, however gently. Teasing her with the promise of the stone but reminding her who Ishtar’s Key—and the power that came with it—really belonged to.
“We can’t afford to wait for Logan to heal. You’ll go after the Book now, and you’ll go alone.”
“Alone?” Esta asked. “But without Logan, how will I find it?”
“You’ll get yourself on the team that steals it.”
Confused at the change in their usual way of working, Esta frowned. “But if we waited for Logan to heal, we could get there before them. In and out quick, like you’ve always said. We don’t have to take the risk of it disappearing.”
“No,” Professor Lachlan said sharply. “It won’t work.”
“But with my affinity—” she started.
“It isn’t enough,” he snapped, cutting her off. “Do you think you could simply waltz into the Order’s stronghold and lift the Book? You’re a gifted thief, but it took a team to get in, to get past their levels of security. And the person who eventually double-crossed them was essential to that.”
“There has to be another, easier way,” she argued.
“Even if there were . . .” Professor Lachlan shook his head. “Every one of our jobs has been carefully designed so that the Order never knew when they were actually robbed. Every time you’ve taken an artifact, I’ve planned it so the theft was invisible, so they couldn’t trace it to us. I did that for a reason. But look what happened this last time—you changed something by being exposed. How much more of our present might be affected if you mess with the events of the past?”
He tapped again on the news clipping. “The heist has to happen exactly as it happened then. You can’t risk changing anything. Think about it—if the heist doesn’t occur or if the Order knows who was behind it, there’s no telling what that might do to the future. To our present. The only difference can be who gets the Book. Otherwise, think of what repercussions there might be.”
She thought of Mari and knew too well what the effects might be.
“Besides,” he said, examining the crack in the surface of the stone, “I’m not sure that Ishtar’s Key could handle taking two through time again. You put a lot of pressure on the stone with what you did at Schwab’s mansion. You’ll have to do this alone.” He still wasn’t smiling as he held out the silver cuff. “Unless you don’t feel up to the challenge?”