The Last Magician Read online

  He’d gone on his grand tour so naive, so full of expectations. He’d thought he would find great secrets in Europe’s hallowed libraries and laboratories to help the work of the Order, but he found a girl instead.

  She’d made him believe she was different from the others. For a while he’d been taken in by the sun in her smile and the glimmering promise in her eyes, and he’d started to think that perhaps the Order had misunderstood the threat Mageus posed to the country. But in the end she showed herself to be a miscreant, a criminal like all the others. In the end her betrayal proved that the Order had been right all along. If  left unchecked, those with the old magic would take advantage of good people, normal people. If left to go free, they would destroy everything in their path.

  But, egad, she’d been beautiful. With curves in all the right places and a mouth—

  The carriage came to a clattering stop, and Jack grabbed hold to keep from being thrown forward. That last round had definitely been a mistake.

  “Wait for me,” he commanded the driver as he alighted. “I’ll be just a minute.”

  Despite the cold, the air smelled of fish and the heavy metallic tang of oil and machinery. The wind cut harder there, close to the water, so Jack pulled his fur-lined collar up around his neck to ward off the chill as he walked toward his destination, a long, low-slung building nearly indistinguishable from the others. He used his key on the heavy lock and let himself in.

  Inside, it wasn’t much warmer, but a small stove glowed in the corner where an old man sat hunched over his work, his back to the entrance. Sparks from a welding torch flew up around the man, silhouetting him like a living gargoyle. When the man heard the door slam, he switched off the torch and turned to greet Jack.

  “How’s it coming?” Jack asked.

  The man lifted the heavy welding mask, revealing a face lined by age and scarred by some earlier mishap. “It comes,” he said with a shrug.

  “How much longer?”

  The man considered the question. “A week, maybe more. But you’ll need to find a way to stabilize the power it generates before it’ll work properly.”

  Jack frowned. A week wasn’t so long, and the Conclave wasn’t until the end of the year. He still had time to get it right. Still, with the failures of the night still fresh, impatience scraped at him.

  “Let’s see how she runs.”

  The old man frowned. “I haven’t connected the receptors. It won’t build up a sustained charge—”

  “That doesn’t matter. I want to see the progress you’ve made.”

  Jack walked to the center of the room, where a cloth was draped over a large object. He took the corner and snapped the cloth away, imagining himself in that moment not so long from now when he would make this same movement, revealing his creation, his greatest triumph, to the Order. No one would be laughing at him then.

  A large machine gleamed dully in the oil lamp’s wavering glow. Wide, orbital arms surrounded its central globe, like a giant gyroscope. Like a gyroscope, it would bring balance.

  The body wasn’t complete—there were unconnected wires and plugs sprouting from its missing panels—but eventually the machine’s inner workings would be covered with sleek, polished steel. A beautiful piece of machinery for a new age. A modern age, free from the threat of the feral and uncontrolled magic of the Mageus.

  Jack had been thinking about bringing Harte Darrigan along with him that night to show him the progress he’d made. He had a feeling Darrigan would understand, might even be impressed by what Jack had managed to accomplish in so short a time.

  It wasn’t enough, though. Jack still hadn’t figured out how to contain the energy the machine generated. The Brink could do it, but that was such old, outdated magic. If he could only figure out how the Brink did it,  Jack could solve his problem, could apply the old methods to his new project.

  But the Order kept its secrets close, even from its own members. Until he proved himself, they wouldn’t let him into the Mysterium to search for the answers he needed. So he would have to find them for himself.

  Jack thought Darrigan might be able to help with that. Considering the amazing feats he’d seen Darrigan do onstage—things that only someone with a deep knowledge and understanding of magic could do—the man must know something that could help Jack solve this last problem.

  And Darrigan understood the importance of an audience. Of a little drama. It was what the Ortus Aurea needed—secrecy and small strikes weren’t enough. Not anymore. Not with the ever-increasing hordes coming to their shores, and Mageus hidden among them.

  What was needed for this new century was a statement of power to prevent the maggots from seeing the city as a haven for their feral magic in the first place. No more simply containing the threat. No more trying to keep them out. It was clear enough that Ellis Island had been a failure. Despite the inspectors, Mageus were still getting in.

  No. They had to be eliminated.

  He had a feeling that Harte Darrigan would understand that as well, but his cousin had chased him off.

  Junior always had been a veritable horse’s ass, Jack thought bitterly. So full of his own importance.

  “Go on,” he told the old man. “Fire it up.”

  He circled the machine, admiring the metalwork and modernity of it. If it worked—and eventually it would work,  Jack had no doubt—it would change everything. He would show them all, and then he would be the one to lead the Order into the future.

  THE BELLA STREGA

  As Werner led her south through the city, the wind whipped like knives tearing at her skirts, but Esta barely felt it. Bridget had told Werner to take her to Dolph Saunders, which meant she was one step closer to her goal.

  There weren’t many traces of Saunders in the historical records—a journal entry here, a newspaper clipping there. Only whispered rumors had made their way through the years. He was described as a ghost. A madman. A genius. At some point, he’d simply disappeared.

  Unlike the other gang bosses, who were only interested in amassing their fellow countrymen and using ties to the old country as a way to recruit, Saunders collected Mageus the way some people collect old coins. But none of the records gave any real answers to how the man managed to bring so many disparate people together under his protection and control—individuals who, by all rights, should have been enemies.

  In short, Dolph Saunders had been as powerful as he was mysterious. But whatever he might have been—or might be, Esta reminded herself—she needed him. He was the one who’d organized the team to steal the Ortus Aurea’s treasures. With Bridget Malone’s introduction, Dolph Saunders would be more likely to trust her. But from that point, it would be up to Esta herself to earn a place on that team. From there, she would be working blind.

  They continued past theaters with their glittering marquees and restaurants with gilded lettering on their windows. As they walked, she could see the echoes of a future that had not yet arrived—the grids of streets that would remain unchanged through the years, the familiar shapes of buildings that would survive for a century more—but it wasn’t a future she could access. She had no way to reach forward through the layers of time and grab hold of the world where she belonged.

  As they walked, Werner’s posture changed. The comfortable, loping gait he’d had when they’d left the Haymarket went stiff, cautious, and by the time they turned onto the Bowery, the wide street that glowed even more brightly than Broadway, everything about his bearing said he was on guard.  Which put Esta on guard as well.

  Even in her own time, the Bowery was lined by the shorter buildings characteristic of most of  lower Manhattan. Now, elevated train tracks partially obscured them, casting shadows over the people bustling along on the packed sidewalks below. As Werner led her through the crowds, the nearly deafening rumble of a small steam engine shook the heavy metal girders overhead, showering the pedestrians below with soot and filling the air with a cloud of acrid smoke.

  They made their
way through a crowd gathered around a makeshift table of wooden crates set up beneath the glow of an electric streetlamp. Behind the crates, a boy in a thick scarf and fingerless gloves shuffled cards with the dexterity of a Vegas dealer. Three-card monte, Esta realized, and she couldn’t help but smile as she noticed another young boy making his way through the crowd, lifting coins and watches from the spectators as their attention was focused on the sucker losing his money at the table.

  Her fingers twitched. It would be so easy to make a living without the countless cameras that watched from every street corner and the wallets filled with plastic cards that could be traced. If she were stuck here for good, maybe it would be okay—

  No. She wouldn’t let herself even entertain that possibility. She was going to get on Dolph Saunders’ team, get the Book and Ishtar’s Key, and get back to her own city. She wasn’t going to be distracted by the promise of a fat wallet. People were depending on her.

  Eventually, they reached a corner saloon with an ornate marquee. Brilliant red and white lights spelled out the words BELLA STREGA, and the sign above depicted a woman in black with a waspish waist and dark, cascading hair. Her back was to the street, and she looked over her shoulder, her golden eyes glowing as a smile curved her scarlet lips.

  “This is it,” Werner said, and Esta thought that he sounded almost nervous about entering.

  She followed him through the double doors and practically sighed when the blast of warmth from within hit her frozen face. Cigar smoke hung heavy in the air, and the smell of sweat and old beer was stronger than it had been at the Haymarket.

  Along with the stale reek of too many bodies and the cloud of smoke, there was something else about the saloon—a frisson of energy that whispered along her skin and warmed her every bit as much as the coal stove in the corner of the room. It was that same sizzling sensation she’d felt right before Werner had taken the breath from her lungs.  Yet another reminder that in this time, magic was different. In her own city, she’d never encountered magic like this, affinities so strong they stirred the very air.

  The electric energy was a warning of sorts, but the warmth running across her skin was also a comfort. She had always struggled to feel like she belonged with Professor Lachlan and his team, but as she stepped into Dolph Saunders’ lair, Esta felt strangely at home.

  Werner pushed Esta ahead of him, toward the back of the saloon, where a man who could only be Dolph held court. He was younger than Esta had expected—he couldn’t have been much more than his midtwenties, but his dark hair sported a shock of white that made him seem older at first glance.

  Or maybe it was that he carried his authority with an ease that the overdressed boys around him didn’t. Dolph was dressed simply, the sleeves of his shirt rolled to expose his strong forearms. One bore the tattoo of a snake that wound around his wrist and crawled up into the arm of his shirt. His hair wasn’t slicked back like the other boys, but curled around his lean face, and he wore a patch over one eye that made him look a little like a pirate. Lying across the table in front of him was an ebony cane topped with what looked to be a silver replica of a screaming Medusa.

  He wasn’t a handsome man. He didn’t have the polished charm that Logan cultivated to disarm his marks, but even from across the room Esta could tell Dolph Saunders didn’t need something as ordinary as charm to get his way.

  “Go on,” Werner urged, pushing her forward through the parted crowd.

  Esta didn’t miss the nervousness in Werner’s voice, and she didn’t blame him. Though Dolph sat with a slouching indifference, the power he held over the room was obvious from the way everyone seemed oriented toward him. Even those not close to his table tossed furtive glances his way.

  Noticing that someone was approaching, Saunders looked up from the conversation he had been having with a light-haired boy sitting next to him. The eye free from the patch was a clear blue, but at their approach, his expression went tight. Her instincts urged her to run, but Esta knew she wouldn’t get a second chance, so she stepped forward. Toward the danger he embodied, and toward her only possibility of getting home.

  AMBITION AND DESIRE

  Dolph Saunders had never liked surprises. He valued the ears and eyes he had around the city, and he paid well for the lips that whispered the secrets many would rather keep silent. So he was less than pleased to see Werner Knopf, Edward Corey’s latest lackey, walk into his saloon without so much as a warning.

  Dolph glanced at Nibs, who was sitting next to him, but the boy shook his head, an indication that he didn’t know the cause for the visit.

  Someone was going to pay for this particular surprise. Especially since Werner wasn’t alone.

  Dolph squinted through the haze of smoke to make out the girl’s face. Even with his weakened affinity, he could sense she was powerful. Another unwelcome surprise. It was the last thing he needed. Especially now, when he didn’t have Leena by his side to neutralize the threat of the girl’s magic and when the streets were filled with murmurings about how he had been unable to protect Leena from the Order’s power.

  There were always murmurings, of course. The new arrivals already carried with them the fears passed down by parents and grandparents who had survived the Disenchantment—the witch hunts and inquisitions that marred Europe’s history. In the span of a century, the Mageus had gone from being revered as healers and leaders to being feared by those without affinities. In the span of a century, science and the quest for enlightenment had turned the old magic into a dangerous superstition and the Mageus into pariahs.

  Forced to live on the margins of society, they taught their children to hide what they were. Their descendants, desperate for a chance at a different life, believed in the tales told about this city, the promise that magic was protected here. They carried their fears across the seas with them, right alongside their meager parcels, and found themselves trapped.

  The girl was new to Dolph, which meant she was new to the city as well, but she didn’t seem to be afraid. She didn’t vibrate with that same worry and fear of being found out that marked most new arrivals. Interesting, he thought, testing the air for some sign of her intentions and finding only desire and ambition. Both admirable qualities—but also dangerous, depending on who wielded them.

  He tightened his grip on his cane and, making certain a scowl was firmly in place, he leaned forward to greet Werner and his guest.

  “Who’s this?” he asked in the boy’s native German.

  “Bridget found her,” Werner replied with a nod to the girl. “Thought you might be interested.”

  The girl was tall and stood with a straightness that indicated an internal strength he looked for in members of his crew. She had chestnut-brown hair that framed a heart-shaped face and a straight nose that was a bit too long to be called delicate, but that suited her. Her dark brows winged over honey-colored eyes that looked like they knew too much. But those eyes were innocent just the same. A mark against her—innocence didn’t do well in his world.

  He motioned for Werner to come forward and bent his head so the boy could whisper in his ear about the girl—about how she’d nearly killed Charlie Murphy, a fellow so deep in Tammany’s pocket, he’d never find his way out. About how the girl hadn’t confessed what her affinity was, but that she’d stolen the brooch from right beneath Bridget Malone’s chin and the madam hadn’t been able to lift a finger to stop her. Hadn’t even seen her take it.

  All interesting enough. But again, dangerous considering the fragile state of his own affinity these days.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked, watching every minute flicker of her expression.

  The girl was silent before she spoke, but when she did, her voice was clear, deferent but not cowed. “Miss Malone said you were someone who could offer protection.”

  Once he might have been able to read her as easily as an open book, but even with his weakened affinity, he could taste the lie in her words. She knew exactly who he was but wasn’t trying to
sway him with overblown praise, as many would have.

  “Why would I waste my time doing a thing like that?” he asked, curious about how her voice seemed to suggest fear but not own it. She was either a brilliant actress or someone had taught her—and taught her well.

  “I’m a good worker. I’d be loyal to you,” she pressed.

  “You’d have to be damn near a miracle considering the trouble you’d cause me if I took you on. Charlie Murphy wouldn’t be pleased, and the last thing I want right now is Tammany Hall after me.”

  In truth, Charles Murphy and everyone like him could go sit on his own thumb as far as Dolph was concerned. Those stuffed pigeons at Tammany thought they ran the city. Let them keep thinking it, Dolph had always said to any who worried. The truth would always out. Tammany could chase paper and manufacture votes—he had other plans.

  “I can make it worth your while,” the girl said, straightening her spine. She was nearly as tall as Werner when she stood at her full height.

  “I have more than enough dips right now,” he said after weighing his choices. He glanced to Werner. “Send her back to Corey.”

  “No,” the girl said as she twisted violently and freed herself from Werner. “You don’t have any like me.”

  The crowd around him went still and watchful at the commotion as she managed to evade the boy’s attempt to grab her again.

  Dolph raised a hand for him to wait, and the girl stepped closer to his table.

  “I can steal anything,” she said. “My marks never see me coming or going. I’ve never once been caught. Never.”

  It didn’t take any magic to see there was no lie in her words this time. Again, Dolph tried to sense the flavor of her affinity. Before that night on the bridge, it would have been an easy enough thing to accomplish, but not anymore. The barroom was too full of magic for him to separate the girl’s from the others.

  “You need me,” she added, pushing a loose piece of hair out of her eyes.