The Last Magician Read online

  “Hours?”

  “For you, it would have felt like moments,” Esta told him. “I thought I was just grabbing Harte. I didn’t realize you were there too when I reached through.”

  Jianyu looked utterly perplexed. “Reached through?”

  “Through time,” she said. “I couldn’t come all the way through. So I just kind of . . . pushed you past the moment you were in, to a different time.” She rubbed at her arm, and pain flickered across her expression. “It’s a long story.”

  Jianyu peered at Esta with confusion and no little amount of curiosity. “I would be most interested to hear your explanation.”

  “Later.” Harte turned to Esta. “We had to make the Order and Nibs, everyone, believe that I was gone,” he said, trying to explain. “Hell, you were supposed to believe it too. You were supposed to stay in your own time, when you’d be safe.”

  “There’s no such thing as safe anymore,” she said softly. Then she looked to Jianyu. “Does Viola know too? Was she in on this?”

  “I thought the fewer who knew, the better. Easier to avoid suspicion around Nibs,” Jianyu told her.

  “Nibs,” Esta said, her voice breaking.

  Then she told them about Nibs and Professor Lachlan, about Dakari’s death and Logan’s betrayal.

  “How did you ever get away?” Harte asked.

  “I improvised.” A small smile tugged at her lips. “And now I have this.” She pulled the Book from the bag that she had slung across her body, but her eyes were still staring into its interior, and the color was draining from her face. “No.”

  “What?” he asked, wondering what could have put that look on her face after everything they’d been through.

  She pulled out a charred piece of metal that looked strangely familiar.

  “Is that—?”

  “They’re gone,” she whispered, dumping the contents of the bag onto the ground. The artifacts he’d stolen, all charred so badly they were nearly beyond recognition. “This happened before. When I came here the first time to find you. I showed you, remember?”

  “Your cuff,” Harte said, remembering the strange images that had flashed through his mind when she’d kissed him onstage. “What happened to them?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I wonder . . . I felt the same heat and pain when I reached to push you through as I’d felt the first time I came back. There must be something to the stones. They must not be able to exist in the same time as themselves.”

  Harte thought for a moment. “Nibs wouldn’t have sent the stones back with this Logan character if he knew this would happen. He won’t be able to get to them either. Not where I’ve put them. We’re safe. It’s over.”

  “It’s not.” She looked up at him, her expression unreadable. “Someday he will get them. He has before. We have to get the stones before he does.”

  “They seem to be beyond repair,” Jianyu said, gesturing to the charred remains.

  “Not these,” Esta said. “The others.” She met Harte’s eyes. “The stones that should still be in this time.”

  “They’re outside the city, and he’s inside. He can’t get out of the Brink.”

  “But they won’t always be outside the city. Eventually they’ll make their way back in. I know, because I’ve stolen every one of them before.” She grabbed his arm. “And what’s worse, Logan is here now. I left him lying on the sidewalk about a week from now. He’s going to find Nibs, and he’ll tell him everything that happens in the future.  We can’t let him have that information and the stones. We have to get to the stones before he does.”

  Harte frowned. “There’s no way to get through the Brink without destroying it.”

  Her eyes were wide, her expression unreadable, but he could tell she was thinking, turning over ideas in her mind. And then something clicked, something shifted. “Maybe there is,” she told him, sounding strangely calm.

  “Esta, I’ve explained this . . .”

  “I know. You told me that the Brink was like a circuit—that taking the Book through would short it out with the excess power. But there are ways to get through a circuit. There are ways to touch electricity. Look at the birds on the wires—you just can’t be grounded.”

  He shook his head, not understanding. “Grounded?”

  “Maybe grounded is the wrong word. But you’re worried that the power of the Book would short out the Brink, right? We just need to keep the Book from disrupting the current of the Brink. Something Professor Lachlan—Nibs—told me might help. Aether and time are the same thing. Why can’t we use my affinity for time to block the Book’s power from disrupting the Aether of the Brink? Then it wouldn’t overload the circuit, and maybe there wouldn’t be any magical blackout.”

  “That might work,” Jianyu said, his voice thoughtful. “It is not so different from what I do with light to disappear. I bend it around myself. If she could direct the Aether of the Brink around the Book instead of through it—”

  “You don’t understand, Esta. That won’t work.”

  “Why not? If it’s a circuit, then all we have to do is—”

  He rested his hand on her arm, stopping her words. “It won’t work because all that power isn’t in the Book anymore.” He swallowed hard, finally forcing himself to accept what he’d known ever since the voices had crashed into him in the Mysterium. “All that power is in me.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “In you?”

  He nodded, unable to speak. Because he wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to live with it inside him, how long he’d be able to control it.

  “So this is what you were hiding?” Jianyu asked, his voice dark.

  He shifted, feeling vaguely guilty. Jianyu had risked so much to help him. “I told you everything I could.”

  “You should have told me everything,” Jianyu said, his voice carrying a note of anger that Harte had never heard before, not even that night when Jianyu found him on the docks.

  Esta shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now.  We need the stones.”

  He looked at her more closely then, with her hair falling down around her face and her clothes rumpled beyond repair. It was probably certain death for the both of them if he went along with her mad plan. But with the Book living inside of him, chipping away at him a little more every day, he already was a dead man. If her plan actually managed to work, maybe she could save them both. If not, he would happily take any number of minutes more he could in that crazy world, especially if they were minutes fighting with her.

  “You’ll need to find Viola and let her know what happened,” she said to Jianyu. “We have some time before we catch up to when I left Logan. If you can keep him from getting to Nibs, that will buy us more. Because once Nibs knows that I’m back, he won’t stop at anything to get the Book.” She turned back to Harte, her eyes already shining with determination. “He won’t know you didn’t actually jump, and he won’t know about the stones. That will give us an advantage, but even so, we’re going to need every bit of luck to get this right.”

  “We’re going to need a hell of a lot more than luck,” he muttered, his head still swirling at everything that had happened, all that she wanted to do.

  “I will find Viola, and together we can keep your friend from Nibs,” Jianyu promised. “We’ll give you all the time we can.”

  “But then what?” Harte said, still refusing to allow himself to hope.

  “Then we unite the stones, take control of the Book’s power,” Esta said.

  Harte frowned. “I’m not sure any one person should control it.”

  “I’m not either, but I’m not willing to let Nibs or the Order be the ones to make that decision,” she said. “Are you?”

  “I, for one, am not.” Jianyu stood and offered his hand to help Harte to his feet. He handed Harte a parcel that he took from inside his own coat. “You go with Esta. I will see to things here.”

  Harte hesitated for a minute. “I owe you my thanks. For trusting me, even when
I didn’t deserve it. For helping me. You could have let me fall.”

  “I did it for Dolph,” Jianyu said. “Do not forget your promise, and do not prove me a fool.” And with a small bow of his head, he disappeared, leaving Harte and Esta alone on the bridge.

  Harte watched the place where Jianyu had just been, and after a moment he unwrapped the parcel and put on the shirt that it contained.

  “So you’ll help me?” Esta asked as he buttoned the shirt. “You’ll show me how to get through the Brink using the Book?”

  It was no longer morning, Harte realized. The sun had just set and the whole skyline was aflame with the glow of twilight reflecting off the buildings. It looked like a city on fire, a dangerous and dazzling place.

  He tucked in the shirt, straightened the sleeves. “You shouldn’t have come back,” he told her.

  “I didn’t have much of a choice,” she said, and her golden eyes were clouded with pain.

  “What you’re asking me to do, what you’re planning, it could be the death of us both.”

  “If we don’t, it could be the death of everyone. Nibs cannot get those stones. The Order can’t either.”

  “And what if we make everything worse?” The voices in his mind were louder now, humming their promises and threats. They knew what she was. They wanted her. He rubbed the back of his neck, a feeble attempt to subdue the thing that now lived inside of him.

  “We still have to try.”

  He looked once more at that far side of the bridge, at the world he had come to believe he would never reach. But Esta is back, the voices whispered. So maybe, just maybe . . .

  There was no talking her out of it, no turning her away from this course. And there was a part of him that didn’t want to.

  He held out his hand. “If you’re ready?”

  She looked up at his open palm and shook her head as she pulled herself to her feet. “Nice try.”

  But then she slipped her arm through his, and together they began walking toward the cold power of the Brink.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This is a big book, and it took a lot of people to make it happen.

  Thanks go first and foremost to Michael Strother, who loved my pitch for this book and whose guidance made it so much better. I’m so grateful that Sarah McCabe was willing to adopt this behemoth and for her astute insights and support (even when the word count continued to grow). The entire team at Simon Pulse are my heroes for giving me the gift of more time to make it right and the gift of their support for this story. Craig Howell and Cliff Nielsen made the most amazing cover art, and I’m still blown away by the beautiful map Drew Willis designed. I could not be more indebted to the sharp eyes of Penina Lopez for her copyediting, to Valerie Shea for her proofreading, and to Clare McGlade for her cold read.

  Thank you to all of the people who read early drafts: Kristen Lippert-Martin helped me solve a major plot issue and saved the book, Hope Cook’s honest words helped me see mistakes I hadn’t intended to make and saved the book, and Olivia Hinebaugh kept my spirits up when I felt like the whole project was pointless and saved the book. Kathryn Rose and Helene Dunbar also gave me essential insights to make this story stronger, and I’m grateful for their help.

  Thanks to Flavia Brunetti, Guillaume Amphoux, and Christina Ketchum, who all assisted with some of the non-English phrases and words. Any mistakes are, of course, my own. The awesome people at the Lower East Side History Project were unbelievably helpful in walking me around the areas in this book and helping me find where everyone lived. They also give excellent dim sum recommendations.

  I’m not sure what I would do without my rock star of an agent, Kathleen Rushall.

  I should probably also thank Chris Cornell, who has no idea that his music was the soundtrack to writing this. Who knows why Higher Truth worked for 1902 New York, but it did.

  To my family, who has lived with this book for as long as I have. It wasn’t easy to write, which means there were times I wasn’t easy to live with. To J, who makes it possible to run off to the city for research and never doubts that this is what I should be doing, and to H, and X, who are my hearts: I couldn’t do any of this without their support, and I wouldn’t want to.

  Finally, like so many in this country, I’m the product of immigrants. A few years back I was looking at Ellis Island ship manifests, and I noticed that none of my great-grandmothers were listed as literate. I’m sure those women would have found me a strange creature with my fancy degrees and complete disinterest in housekeeping, but I hope they would be proud. After all, it was because of their sacrifices and determination that I find myself here, making a life out of the very words they came to this country unable to read. So for those women, and for all who came before, imperfect as they might have been, thank you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LISA MAXWELL is the author of Sweet Unrest, Gathering Deep, and Unhooked. She grew up in Akron, Ohio, and has a PhD in English. She’s worked as a teacher, scholar, bookseller, editor, and writer. When she’s not writing books, she’s a professor at a local college. She now lives near Washington, DC, with her husband and two sons.  You can follow her on Twitter @LisaMaxwellYA or learn more about her upcoming books at Lisa-Maxwell.com.

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  ALSO BY LISA MAXWELL

  Gathering Deep

  Sweet Unrest

  Unhooked

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON PULSE

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  First Simon Pulse paperback edition July 2017

  Text copyright © 2017 by Lisa Maxwell

  Front cover title typography and photo-illustration

  copyright © 2017 by Craig Howell

  Back cover photo-illustration copyright © 2017 by Cliff Nielsen

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  Cover designed by Russell Gordon

  Interior designed by Brad Mead

  This book has been cataloged with the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-4814-3207-8 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-3209-2 (eBook)

  ISBN 978-1-5344-0531-8 (export pbk)

 

 

 
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