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.”