The Last Magician Read online

  She had to fix this. She had to go back and save him.

  Forcing herself to ignore the sounds of the sirens and the lights flashing around her, Esta focused on finding the layers of time. The stone in the cuff on her arm grew warm, but she ignored its heat and sifted through the moments, peeling back the minutes and seconds until she thought she was close to the instant the gunfire had erupted. She could almost see it—the lights from the police cars began to dim, their sirens fading into the quiet of the night before her original departure.

  But just as she found that moment, the same sense of foreboding came over her that had made her body feel as if it were burning all those weeks ago, the night she left. The stone felt hot, like a branded warning against her skin. Just as it had before.

  Something is wrong.

  She took a deep breath, fighting against her own panic, struggling to make herself slip back to the seconds before Dakari was attacked, but this time, her instincts worked against her. With a gasping sob, she lost her hold on time, and the present—with all its light and noise—came flooding back. She bent over to steady herself, her heart pounding and her skin cold despite the warmth of the summer night. Despite the heat of the stone against her skin.

  “No,” she whispered, as though hearing her own voice would help her overcome her fear. But her voice sounded scared, shaken. It was too much of a coincidence for her to feel this way twice, but whether it had something to do with this particular moment, with the stone, or with something else, she didn’t know. What she did know was that Dakari’s life depended on her. She needed to try again, for Dakari’s sake, but before she could, a hand grasped her by the shoulder and pulled her back as another hand covered the yelp of surprise that she would have otherwise let out.

  “Shhhhh,” a familiar voice said, close to her ear. “I’m going to let you go, but you need to keep quiet.”

  She turned to find Dakari standing behind her, but she couldn’t do much more than open and close her mouth numbly, searching for the words that wouldn’t come. “How did you . . .” she said finally, but she trailed off. She couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing even as she felt the relief of having him there, whole and alive, before her.

  He tore open his shirt, showing her the marred bulletproof vest beneath. “I’m always prepared, E.” He rubbed at his chest, grimacing. “Though those gunshots are going to leave a bruise,” he said.

  Esta noticed the blood on his pants. “Dakari, your leg.”

  “I know, but I had to wait for you to get back. Now that you are, we should get out of here.” In the distance she could already hear the scream of another siren bouncing off the buildings. “Come on,” he said, lifting himself from the pavement. “You drive.”

  She caught the keys he tossed her.

  “Maybe you could do that time thing you do? Get me back faster?” he asked.

  “Right,” she said, still so relieved to see him that she could hardly breathe. He’s not gone, she thought as she pulled the seconds slow. “I thought you were dead.” She helped him to the car, the city silent around them.

  “Nah. I’m damn hard to kill.” He patted his bulletproof vest again, wincing as he slid into the backseat with his injured leg propped in front of him.

  “Who were those guys?” she asked as she took the driver’s seat and glanced back in the rearview mirror.

  A shadow crossed his expression. “Who knows?” he told her, but he didn’t quite meet her eyes as he said it. “How long were you away this time?” he asked, tending to his leg as she started the car and began navigating through the strange tableau of a city gone nearly still.

  “Weeks,” she said, suddenly overwhelmed by the knowledge that they were all dead. Whatever had happened on that bridge, it was more than a hundred years later. Jianyu, Viola, the rest of the crew at the Strega, they’d all be dust in the grave by now. And she would never have the chance to say good-bye.

  “Did you get it?” he asked, watching her with careful eyes in the rearview mirror.

  She nodded, and the relief that flashed across his face was so stark, it surprised her. Had he thought she wouldn’t?

  “The Professor’ll be pleased.”

  “Maybe,” she told him.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, his brows drawn together in concern.

  “I don’t think we can destroy the Brink,” she said, remembering everything Harte had told her. “Even if we could . . . I don’t know if we should.”

  Dakari’s expression was stern. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I don’t know anymore. I need to talk with Professor Lachlan. He’ll know what to do.”

  Dakari didn’t speak for a long moment. “You’re right, E. You’ve been through a lot. Maybe you’re not thinking straight. Let’s just get back and we’ll work it all out then.” He wouldn’t say anything else, but he kept eyeing her uneasily as she drove the final blocks to Orchard Street.

  The exterior of the building on Orchard Street didn’t look any different than it had when she left weeks ago, but then, why would it? For the people in her own time, she’d been gone only a few minutes. She looked up at the dark brick, seeing it through new eyes. It was an old tenement, and in the moonlight, with the lights out all around and the neighborhood quiet, it could have been a hundred years in the past. She could almost imagine walking the four blocks to Elizabeth Street and letting herself in through the Strega’s back door. For a moment she imagined that the people she’d met there and come to admire weren’t all dead and gone.

  Dakari opened the front door and let them into the empty foyer. To Esta’s relief, the foyer looked like it had before her mistakes at the Schwab mansion. It was, she hoped, a good sign—a sign that maybe she’d managed to fix her mistakes.

  But it didn’t feel like home anymore.

  There was a clean, almost sterile quality to the place that felt wrong to her now. A building like this one should be teeming with life. There should be the sounds of children in the halls and the smells of five different apartments cooking dinner. But there had never been the sound of children in those hallways while she lived in them.

  The door of 1A opened to reveal the true entrance of the building. Logan was waiting on the other side.

  “You’re up,” Esta said, surprised to see him whole and healthy. “You’re feeling okay?”

  He frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You were shot,” she told him, confused.

  He glanced at Dakari. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  Her stomach sank. “You were shot on the Schwab job. When I left, you weren’t even conscious yet. . . .” Her words trailed off. “You don’t remember being shot by the blond—by Jack?”

  “There wasn’t any blond,” Logan said, looking at her as though she’d lost her mind. “There was you trying to save some serving girl and almost getting thrown out, but I don’t remember any blond guy.  And I definitely would have remembered being shot.”

  “Well, I’m glad to see you’re okay.”

  He gave her another doubtful look. “The Professor’s upstairs. He’s waiting.”

  Dakari followed her into the elevator and pushed the button for the top floor.

  “There really was a blond,” she told him, needing him to believe her. “Logan almost died. I brought him back. Something changed. Somehow things are different.”

  “Am I different?”

  She glanced up at him. “No. I don’t think so.  You’re still here.”

  He seemed surprised at that. “Where else would I be?”

  “Nowhere,” she said. “What about Mari?”

  “She’s probably in her workshop. What about her?”

  She didn’t have time to explain about Mari. The elevator was already coming to a stop, and Dakari was pulling back the gate and opening the door for her to step through.

  I must have done something right. But the victory felt hollow when she thought of all the mistakes she’d made. When she thoug
ht of Harte Darrigan standing on the edge of that railing and willing her to go.

  The Professor’s library seemed mostly the same, but the piles were neater and there was something different in the way chairs and tables were organized. At the other end of the room, Professor Lachlan sat, peering through a large magnifying glass at the pages of an open book. He didn’t look up, even though he must have heard the elevator arrive, but finished the passage he was reading and made a note in a notebook.

  When he finally looked up, his eyes narrowed. “Do you have it?”

  She held up the cloak. “Right here,” she said.

  “Good.” He held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

  Esta hesitated. He seemed different. More distant, more demanding.

  He’s always been demanding, she reminded herself. Still, something felt wrong. For a moment she thought about trying to remove the Book from the inner pocket of the cloak herself, so that she didn’t have to hand over both. It seemed wrong, somehow, to give this piece of Harte to anyone else, since it was all that was left of him.

  “Esta?” Professor Lachlan asked, his jaw tense. “Give me the Book.”

  Dakari stepped up behind her. “Come on, E. Give the Professor the Book,” he said softly, but there was a thread of steel in his voice he’d never used on her before.

  Confused by their mood, she handed the cloak over without any further argument.

  It took the Professor a moment to find the secret pocket, but rather than bothering with figuring out how to access it, he took out a small knife. There was nothing she could do but watch as he tore open the material and pulled out the Book.

  It was smaller than she’d expected from the weight of the cloak. “That’s it?” she asked, looking at the small, dark volume.

  But she knew it was. On the cover was the symbol she recognized from the painting in Dolph’s apartment and the book he’d shown her. She had no doubt that this small, unremarkable tome was the Ars Arcana, the Book that so many people had wanted. That so many people had died for.

  Professor Lachlan’s eyes were bright, eager. He ignored her disappointment as he ran his fingers over the symbol on the cover. “After all this time.”

  “Esta was telling me she doesn’t think we should destroy the Brink,” Dakari said.

  “That’s not what I said. And I was going to tell him myself.” Esta glanced up at Dakari’s flinty expression, and the feeling of unease she’d had since she walked into the building grew.

  “What, exactly, were you going to tell me?” Professor Lachlan asked.

  “It’s about destroying the Brink. I don’t think we can, not even with the Book,” she said, swaying a little on her feet. She wanted nothing more than to collapse into the ancient sofa and tell him everything, but she had the sense that this was too important to relax.

  “And what makes you think that?”

  “Harte . . . I mean the Magician told me when he gave me the Book. He said destroying the Brink could destroy magic.”

  The Professor didn’t look pleased. “And you believed him?”

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “But I think we should be careful with that, and with the Brink. I think we should make sure we understand what we’re doing.”

  “It’s not your job to think about these things.”

  “I know. It’s just . . . I thought you should know before you do anything.”

  The second hand on a clock ticked, the only sound in the silent library. “He got to you.”

  “No, it’s not that,” she told him, but she wasn’t sure if she spoke the truth.

  “He turned you,” Professor Lachlan said, his voice flat and filled with disgust.

  “No. I brought you the Book. I did my job.”

  Another long silence strangled the room. “Of course you did,” he said, but the Professor didn’t sound pleased. “I’m sure you’re simply tired,” he told her. “Overwrought. After all, I imagine you’ve been through quite an ordeal. Perhaps you should return to your room and rest.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “It’s been a long day.” She gave a weak laugh. “It’s been a long month.”

  “We can talk more about this tomorrow,” Professor Lachlan told her, but his attention was already on the Book in his hands.

  Esta turned back toward the elevator. She was halfway across the room when something caught her eye—a flash of silver in a shadowbox frame she didn’t remember seeing there before. For a moment she looked at the art, not understanding what she was seeing, but then, all at once, she understood. “Those were Viola’s,” she told Professor Lachlan. Her stomach twisted at the sight of the slim stiletto blades crossed and mounted in the frame. There was no mistaking the deep Vs cut into the exposed tangs of each. “How did you get them?”

  “Excuse me?” Professor Lachlan asked.

  She went over to the wall, to look closer at the knives. “How could you possibly have these?”

  Professor Lachlan glanced at her. “I’ve had them for ages,” he said. “Or don’t you remember?” He gave Dakari a nod. “Perhaps it would be best if you escort her to her room?”

  “I’m fine,” Esta started to say, but Dakari was already at her side again.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her, his soft, dark eyes pained.

  “What?” she asked, confused by his words. Before she understood what was happening, his arm snaked out to cage her against him and she felt the sharp bite of something in her biceps. “Dakari?”

  She looked down at the place where the syringe was sticking into her upper arm, but her words already felt thick and the edge of her vision was already going black.

  AN OLD FRIEND

  Esta came to slowly, her head throbbing as she opened her eyes to find herself on the floor in a windowless room. She was still wearing a corset and long skirts, her clothing from the past, so at first she thought it had all been a bad dream. That she was still back in her narrow room above the Strega, but she could hear a siren in the distance, a wailing reminder that she was no longer with Dolph and the rest. She was home, but the ache in her arm where Dakari had jabbed her with the needle and the foggy numbness that filled her head wasn’t the welcome she’d expected. Everything felt upside down.

  She wasn’t sure where she was, or if she was even still in Professor Lachlan’s building. Her head was spinning as she pulled herself up and felt around the walls of the room, trying to find the door. She made it around the three corners of the small space before she found two seams where a door should have been, but there was no handle and no lock, only a smooth plate of metal over where the locking mechanism should be.

  No matter how much she searched, she couldn’t find any place to pick a lock or jimmy a hinge. It was a prison built for a thief.

  It was a prison he’d built for her.

  It could have been minutes or hours that she sat there in the darkness before she finally heard voices coming from the other side of the wall. She scuttled back and tried to focus enough to pull the seconds slow. But time slipped away from her—she couldn’t find the spaces. She felt like she had in the basement of the Haymarket, unable to call on her affinity and at the mercy of whoever was coming for her.

  The wall split open, and she blinked, shielding her eyes from the light of the hall. “Come on, E.”

  “Dakari? Is that you?” She wanted it to be him, but she also didn’t know if she could trust him anymore.

  A moment later he had hoisted her up onto still-shaky legs and was leading her out of the room.

  “What’s going on?” she asked him, and when he didn’t answer, she tried to pull away. “Where are we going?”

  He kept a tight hold on her, though, refusing to answer her questions as he half led, half dragged her down the hall toward the elevator.

  “Why are you acting like this, Dakari? It’s me. You know me.” If she only had his knife, maybe she could have gotten through to him. But the knife was lost to the past, and if things didn’t improve, she didn’t know wha
t her future held in store. “Please,” she tried again.

  He wouldn’t look at her as pushed her gently into the elevator, and he kept hold of her the entire time the cage made its slow, rattling climb to the top. “Just answer his questions and do what he asks. Prove yourself to him, and it’ll be fine. Everything can go back to how it should be.”

  But she doubted anything could ever go back to the way it had been before. Too much had changed.

  When the elevator stopped at the library, Dakari led her forward. “Come on.”

  It was night, but she had no idea how long she’d been out of it with the drug they’d given her and no idea how much time had passed in the windowless prison they’d kept her in. The lights in the library were off, except for the small desk lamp that illuminated the Professor’s face as he bent, serious and focused, over the Ars Arcana. Near him on the table were the five artifacts laid out in a straight line.

  When he heard them approaching, he glanced up. “Are you feeling better?”

  “You drugged me and locked me in a doorless room,” she said, well aware she was pushing him. “What did I do to deserve that? I brought you the Book.”

  “You were also talking nonsense about the Brink being indestructible.”

  “I was only trying to warn you.”

  “Yes, and where did you get the information?”

  “From Harte,” she said, knowing how damning that sounded.

  “Of course you did. Because you came to trust him, didn’t you? It was exactly what I was afraid of happening. It’s exactly why I gave you some incentive to return.”

  “An incentive?”

  Professor Lachlan didn’t so much as blink. “You’re impulsive, but you’re also predictable. I knew that if you believed Dakari’s life was in danger, you’d be sure to return, no matter how you might have come to feel about those in the past.”

  She felt numb from more than the drug they’d given her now as the image of Dakari’s body jerking from the impact of the bullets rose in her mind. He’d been wearing a vest, but those bullets hadn’t been blanks. They’d torn through his legs. “You could have killed him!”