The Last Magician Read online

  “You know it’ll ruin her,” Harte argued, unexpected anger curling in his stomach at the thought. “Her reputation won’t recover.”

  “That won’t matter if the Order kills us first.” Dolph pulled himself to his feet. “You worry about keeping your end of our agreement. She’ll let me know of any unwanted developments.”

  Harte could only stand there, his frustration rising as he watched Dolph limp off in the same direction the two boys had gone, dismissing him without so much as a good-bye. The reek of the sour, coppery dried blood wrapped around his throat, choking him. He wasn’t sure if he’d managed to negotiate a good deal or simply tied a noose around his own neck.

  “That’s it?” he called out. “You’re going to send me the girl, and I’m supposed to figure out the rest? I take on all the risk, and you sit, safe in your castle.”

  “I’ve already given you everything you need.” Dolph turned to look at him over his shoulder. “But—”

  “Yeah?” he snapped, his frustration mounting.

  “The girl’s currently under my protection,” Dolph said softly, “so if you actually do ruin her, you’ll answer to me.”

  RUINED

  The Docks

  The machine was in ruins. Metal fragments were lodged in the wood of the walls and in the chest of the old man. The hulking globe in the center looked like it had melted.

  Jack nudged the body with his toe. Dammit.

  All of his work had been for nothing. Months of work. Months of waiting. Wasted.

  “Get this cleaned up,” he told the boy who’d brought him the news. He tossed him a coin. “Then put out word that I need a machinist. Now.”

  “And the old man?” the boy asked, eyeing the body warily.

  “Dump him in the river.”

  Jack didn’t stay to make sure the work was done. The warehouse, even with all its square footage, felt claustrophobic. Like the walls were pressing in on him, squeezing him until there wasn’t a drop of blood left for him to give. He’d risked everything, gambled everything, and he had been so close. Dammit.

  He kicked over a barrel and sent a pair of rats skittering away.

  There was still something he was missing. Some key to making the machine work. There had to be, because he wouldn’t let himself believe that they were more powerful.

  Reason and logic would prevail.

  He would prevail.

  The machine should have been perfectly functional. The problem would have been easy enough to figure out if the High Princept would just let him consult the Ars Arcana. Certainly, the Order’s most important artifact, their most sacred text, would have the answers he needed. But there were parts of Khafre Hall only the Inner Circle had access to, and the Mysterium, with all its secrets, was one of them. So unless something changed, he was on his own.

  Tugging at the collar of his shirt, Jack stomped back out to the carriage. When his father found out what had happened to the money in his trust fund . . . when his uncle and the rest of the Inner Circle found out . . .

  Jesus. They’d never let him in. Worse, he’d never be able to set foot in society again.

  Dammit.

  He needed more information. He needed the Order to trust him enough to let him into the Mysterium, because he knew the answer was there. Solving the Metropolitan robbery would go a long way toward getting into their good graces, but Harte Darrigan had been avoiding him the last few days. He was trying to be patient, trying to give the magician a chance to work on the problem, but at this rate, the machine would never be done in time for the Conclave.

  He needed to figured out what he was missing, and fast, or he’d be ruined.

  But most of all, he needed a drink.

  DREAMS FROM WAKING

  Bella Strega

  Something had happened. It had come suddenly and absolutely, as a wave might overtake a small boat out to sea, leaving Viola struggling to stay afloat. For three days she’d watched her friend suffer, writhing and moaning despite the laudanum in the wine. For three days she had paced the floor in Tilly’s room or sat on the edge of her narrow bed, holding her hand and whispering everything she’d wanted to say for so long.

  Night and day she’d stayed. Tilly couldn’t hear her, but night and day Viola continued whispering, using her mother tongue, because the words felt right in that language. Her meaning felt somehow more suited for the soft melodic rhythm of the country that had made her.

  But her words and prayers had not been enough.

  Neither had her power.

  She was an assassin, but only because that was what the world had made her into. Because her brother had needed a black hand of death to smite his enemies, and his life was the one her family valued. His success was all that had mattered to them. She might have been made an assassin, but her affinity had never been intended for death. And nothing they did, nothing anyone could do, had changed that.

  But it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough.

  Even now she could sense Tilly’s blood, the beating of her fragile heart, the energy that was the very signal of life within a body. Even now she pushed everything she was, every ounce of power she had, into her friend. She had been doing it for days, but no matter what she did, the broken part wouldn’t heal.

  Because Viola could only command flesh, and what was broken in Tilly was something more.

  Around dawn, something had changed. The wave had come over them, cold as the lonely sea she had once crossed, and the fight had gone out of her friend. That spark of energy that signaled a life began to waver, and for the first time since Viola had seen Tilly writhing in Jianyu’s arms, she truly worried that Tilly might not pull through.

  Since then, Tilly’s skin had gone even more ashen, and now she lay still, her chest rising and falling in uneven, ragged breaths that rattled in her throat. Viola had heard that sound before, but now she could not—would not—allow herself to believe its message.

  She barely noticed when Esta went to find Dolph, or when he arrived. Even when the room began to fill with the people from his crew who had loved Tilly, who had depended on her calm, steady presence in the Strega’s kitchen, Viola was scarcely aware of them, she whose every day was filled with the rushing thrum of rivers of blood, the beating drumbeats of a world filled with hearts.

  The crowd in the room might as well have been made of stone that morning for all she noticed them as she fought against the truth lying in Tilly’s bed.   As she willfully ignored the way her friend’s hands had turned cool, the way her fingertips and nails had lost all color.

  Dolph stepped forward from his vigil at the foot of the bed. “You know what needs to be done, Vi.  You know it’s time to let her go.”

  Viola shook her head, pressing her lips together. “She’ll be better tomorrow. I know she will.”

  Dolph rested his hand on Viola’s shoulder. “I understand,” he said softly. “I know exactly what it’s like to watch someone you care for slide away from you.  To watch your own heart cease to beat.”

  Viola swallowed down the hard stone she felt in her throat and turned to him. “She is not dying.”

  “Her magic’s gone,” Dolph told her. “It has been for days. Now she’s going too. It’s time we let her. It’s time you let her.”

  “She will not die,” Viola repeated, her voice barely a whisper. “She will fight. She will be better. I just need to give her more time.”

  “You know that’s not true,” Dolph said gently. “Yes, she did fight. You’ve helped her, and she fought hard, but what’s happened is too much. It would have been too much for any of us. Think of what it would be like, what it would mean to lose your power. Can you imagine not being able to reach a part of yourself ? To feel it stripped away?” His voice broke, and he paused for a moment to compose himself. “To live without it.”

  Viola grimaced. “No,” she whispered. All at once she realized what he must have felt watching Leena die. No wonder he had seemed so changed after.

  “Till
y’s fought hard enough.  Allow her the rest she’s earned.”

  Anger spiked through her, drowning the pain with a sense of righteous fury. She would not be commanded. She would not be the instrument of death. Not this time. She would use her affinity to keep Tilly’s heart beating and in doing so atone for all those other hearts she’d stopped. And no one would stop her. Not Dolph Saunders. Not even with the threat of his mark.

  Dolph staggered a bit, his lean face twisting with pain as she let her power fill the room, as she found all the parts of him that made him a living man and started to pull them apart one by one. Slowly, so he could feel what she felt. She was so focused, she didn’t notice the way the others rustled in fear, backed away.

  “You know I’m right,” Dolph gasped, gripping his cane as he tried to stay upright. “Do this last thing for her.”

  Viola shook her head, her vision blurry with tears as her power crackled through the room.

  “Free her,” Dolph said, barely able to stand. The veins in his cheeks had turned dark, like tiny rivers floating to the surface of his skin. “Kill me if you must, but let her go,” he rasped.

  Yes. She would kill him for even suggesting it. She’d killed before, and for lesser reasons. But despite what people believed, she did not often kill like this. Years ago, she had learned to throw knives, to carve out a life with the sharp tip of a blade, because she knew her god damned her for using her gift to take lives, as her brother wanted, rather than to save them, as she could. But she would use everything she was now. She would risk the fires of hell and everything that came with them for Tilly. For herself.

  Dolph staggered to his knees as she pushed her affinity toward him, felt the pulse, the light . . . and the broken pieces that even she couldn’t heal.

  She realized then what he’d been carrying since that night they lost Leena. The secret he’d been hiding from them all.

  The fight went out of her. She released her affinity, let go of her hold on Dolph, and crumpled against Tilly’s barely moving chest, unable to stop the sob that tore from her throat. She stayed there, emptying herself of pain and grief, for who knew how long.

  Until she had nothing left.

  Until she finally felt the warm, steady hand on her shoulder.

  She shrugged Dolph off and wiped the wetness from her cheeks.

  “It’s time,” Dolph said. “Allow her to go in peace.”

  Viola turned to the crowded room, her eyes burning from the tears she’d shed. Who were these people? Not the family she’d been raised by, when blood was supposed to be thicker than anything. No, that family had turned from her. They’d wanted her to be what she could never be, and she had chosen again. She saw now in that motley group that she had chosen well. And so had Tilly.

  “She wouldn’t want them here for this,” she told Dolph. “She wouldn’t want them to see.” Because it would be hard for them to watch, and Tilly would have hated their suffering.  And because Viola knew somehow that Tilly wouldn’t want them to understand what she could actually do.

  Tilly had seen through the mask she wore, had never believed her to be the coldhearted assassin the rest saw. One person knowing her truth had been enough. It had to be, because Viola’s role was her shield. It allowed her to survive in a world that would rather see her dead.  Tilly had understood that as well, and she had given Viola friendship, even when she could not give more.

  Dolph nodded, and one by one the silent crowd in the room began to depart. A few were brave enough to come forward and touch Viola gently on the back or the shoulder before they went. Then the new girl, Esta, came forward to take her turn as well.

  Esta touched her shoulder gently, like a bird landing on a branch. “I think she must have known how you felt for her,” she whispered.

  Viola shook her head, wondering as she had before how this strange girl could see her so clearly. “She would have despised me,” Viola whispered.

  “I don’t think she would have.  Tilly understood people.” Esta gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “She loved you. Anyone could see that, even if it wasn’t in the way you hoped.”

  Viola looked up, wanting to believe those words, and found Esta’s eyes glassy with tears but free from lies. Free, too, from the judgment she expected there. “I still don’t know that I like you,” she said. “But Tilly did. And you’re right. She did understand people. Better than I ever could. You’ll stay?”

  “Yes,” she whispered to Viola. “Of course.”

  Viola’s throat was too tight to do more than nod her thanks, and then she turned her attention back to Tilly. She was afraid to look away, afraid that the moment she blinked or stopped watching, she’d miss Tilly’s last breath. Or that she would cause it.

  A suffocating silence blanketed the room, broken only by Tilly’s rasping, uneven breath.

  “Viola . . . ,” Dolph whispered gently. “It’s time.”

  Viola ignored him and took Tilly’s hand in hers, rubbing her thumb over the pallid skin as her whole body trembled with the effort not to let her grief spill out and drown her. She lifted the limp hand to her cheek, closing her eyes and imagining for a moment that she was strong enough to save her friend. That this was all a horrible dream.

  But  Viola knew dreams from waking. She knew the thick scent in the air and the rasping sound in Tilly’s throat, and she’d never looked away from death before. She wouldn’t look away now.

  Viola opened her eyes and took a long, deep breath as she placed Tilly’s hand gently across the girl’s own stomach. Then she whispered one last thing into her ear.

  Tilly blinked, turning her eyes ever so slightly to look up at Viola. For a moment her gaze was focused, as though she had come back to herself long enough to see who it was who stood above her—just long enough to say good-bye.

  Tears blurring her vision, Viola pulled her hand away, and with it, she pulled away her affinity, that fragile thread holding Tilly to this world.

  Life and death, two sides to the same coin. Her family saw her as a killer, and so she had become one. Everyone else believed her to be a killer, because they forgot that death is simply the other side of life. But Viola never forgot. She couldn’t. She’d tried to save her friend, and she’d failed.

  Tilly’s chest heaved in a final, ragged breath. And then her body sank motionless back to the bed, her empty green eyes staring sightlessly above.

  THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

  Esta felt the room go cold, the magic draining from the space like air sucked from a vacuum.  Viola reached over, her always-steady hands shaking, and gently traced her fingertips over Tilly’s face, closing the girl’s eyes. Then she stared, mute and tearless, at the girl’s still body.

  As Esta watched, she remembered suddenly what Logan had looked like, pale and unconscious in the narrow bed after the mess at Schwab’s mansion. How was it possible that she hadn’t thought about him for days now? Had life in this city been so all-consuming that she’d lost sight of why she was there? Then she thought of the clipping, still tucked safely against her skin—if the heist didn’t happen, if she changed too much just by being here, what would happen to all the people she’d left behind?

  “Come,” Dolph whispered, nodding toward the door. “We’ll give her the space she needs to grieve.”

  In the hall, he gave a silent jerk of his head to indicate that she should follow him. When they reached his rooms a floor below, he opened the door and ushered her through it. He gestured for her to take a seat in one of the chairs near the bookcases, and then he poured himself a drink.

  Esta was almost grateful to see that he seemed as shaken as she felt with what they’d witnessed. After downing the first glass of whiskey, Dolph poured himself another and then sat in the armchair across from her. He didn’t speak at first. Instead, he swirled the liquid in the chipped cup he held in his broad, calloused hands before taking another long swallow. Finally, he looked up at her.

  “Thank you for staying,” he said, his voice no more
than a whisper. His jaw was tight, and in his eyes she could see the pain of  losing Tilly, and if she wasn’t mistaken, maybe the pain of something more.

  “It was nothing,” she told him, still unsteady from the rush of Viola’s magic.

  “No, that’s not exactly true.” His eyes were shadowed with the evidence of sleepless nights and worry. “Most aren’t willing to bear witness to pain that can’t be remedied. Most find it easier to simply turn away. On behalf of  Viola—and Tilly—I thank you for not doing that.”

  They sat there for a long while, an impromptu wake. Dolph took a drink every so often from his glass of whiskey, while Esta waited for him to speak or to dismiss her so she could escape the heavy silence.

  He set his drink aside. “Harte Darrigan visited me yesterday. We’ve come to an understanding. I have you to thank for that.”

  “Good,” Esta said. “I’m glad I could help.”

  “I’m sending you to him.”

  “What?” She sat up straighter.

  “You’ll need to pack your things.”

  “Wait. . . . You gave me to him?” she asked, incredulous.

  “Of course not,” Dolph said. “I want a pair of eyes I trust on Darrigan at all times. What you did at the museum for Jianyu and the rest of the crew, what you did today for Viola . . . You’re one of us now. I’m trusting you can keep him on task.”

  Esta felt the instinctive need to argue. She didn’t want to leave the Strega, didn’t want to go stay with Harte Darrigan. But she stopped herself. This was what she’d been hoping for all along, wasn’t it? Dolph was handing her the perfect situation—a chance to get close to the Magician. A chance to stop him before he ruined all their futures. She wouldn’t waste it. “What do you need from him?”

  “Darrigan hasn’t always been the polished magician he is now. Once, he wasn’t any different from any of the boys in the Bowery. But he’s managed to carve out a new life for himself, and that new life comes with some very powerful friends.”