THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
1904—St. Louis
Harte didn’t have any idea where the Antistasi had put him, but it had the subterranean feel of a coal cellar or a basement. They hadn’t taken any chances, because not long after they’d dumped him on the floor, he’d heard the same pop-hiss he’d heard earlier, in the back of the wagon. A moment later he smelled the same thick odor that made his head feel like it was floating and his affinity go dull. Whatever it was had evaporated some time ago, but his affinity still felt like it was miles away.
The ropes on his wrist were too tight for him to wriggle out of, so he just sat there in the darkness they’d forced upon him and waited. The only positive development was that whatever the drug was, it shut the voice up inside of him. He figured it had to be something more than opium for it to have that kind of effect.
By the time he heard a door open, his arms had gone completely numb from being tied behind him. He scrambled to his feet, ready. If Esta had failed, they wouldn’t be coming to celebrate.
“Come on, then,” a familiar voice said. It was the cowboy—North.
The hands that took him by the arm weren’t exactly gentle, but they didn’t do anything more than lead him along.
Finally, they stopped, and when the sack was removed from his head again, he blinked past the sudden brightness to see that he was in a small office. And he wasn’t alone. The woman was there—Mother Ruth, North, another girl with silver spectacles perched on her nose, who’d been there earlier, and Esta. She had a tired, worried look on her face, and even once she saw him, it didn’t change. But they didn’t have her tied up, and he wasn’t dead yet, so he figured that meant something.
Even in that ridiculous suit with her hair chopped close around her face, she looked damned near perfect.
His eyes met hers. You okay?
She gave him the smallest of nods, but then her gaze shot to Ruth. “I did what you wanted, just like I promised. You can untie him now,” Esta said. There was something in her voice that bothered him, but she looked unharmed.
“We’ll untie him when we’re ready,” the cowboy said, his mouth hitching a bit on one side.
“She did everything you asked, North.” It was the girl this time. She was a mousy-looking thing, especially with those glasses, but he didn’t let that sway him. The last time he’d underestimated a person wearing glasses it had been a mistake.
“Maggie’s right,” Ruth said. “The girl has proven herself . . . for now. You can untie him.”
In a single, fluid movement, the cowboy took out a thin knife and flicked it open. Show-off. But Harte kept his feelings to himself and masked his irritation with a look of utter boredom.
“Considering what you had me do, I think we’ve earned your trust, period,” Esta told the woman.
“You delivered a package,” Ruth said. “That’s hardly grounds for you to make demands.”
“I nearly killed a man,” Esta said, her voice steady. “I set off some sort of magical bomb that did who knows what to all those people—people who never did anything to me.”
The power inside Harte lurched at her words, stirred up with something that felt too close to pleasure for his liking. He must have made a sound, because North glanced at him. But Harte gritted his teeth and forced himself to remain composed.
Ruth gave Esta a pitying look. “Any one of those people would have done the same to you had they been given the opportunity.”
“You don’t know that,” Esta said, but she didn’t sound convinced.
“Do you know what the SWP is?” Ruth asked.
“They’re socialists,” Esta answered. “Workers who want a better life.” But there was something unsettled in her voice. Something that made the power inside Harte pause and take notice.
“They do, but at what cost?” Ruth asked, stepping toward Esta. “I know those workers as well as I know the Society. They’re the people who look up and dream of one day being tapped by the Veiled Prophet himself. Year after year they elect those who would erase magic from these shores. Year after year they buy into the fears of rich men; they lift up those fears and carry them on their shoulders, all because it’s not they who will be harmed. The Act, the Guard, even the Society itself—none of it affects them.
“Perhaps they were innocents,” Ruth continued. “Perhaps they simply wanted a better wage and more food on the table for their families. But Caleb Lipscomb knows exactly what he’s doing. He uses them for his own advantage. Who do you think those workers are truly angry at? The capitalists who live in the fancy houses on McPherson Avenue?” She let out a derisive laugh. “No. Every man in that warehouse listening to Lipscomb speak wants to become those men. They picture themselves in those same fine houses, their children in silken pinafores and their wives dripping with jewels bought with the blood of the common worker. The people who follow SWP aren’t really angry at the men who run this city. They’re angry at those beneath them—the freshly arrived immigrants who are willing to work for a fraction of the wages they themselves demand. And they’re angry at Mageus, who did nothing at all to achieve power they can’t even begin to imagine.”
She gave a shrug that also managed to broadcast her irritation. “Lipscomb knows that. His people were the cause of a riot three weeks ago over in Dutchtown. Three people died because Lipscomb started a rumor that the people who lived there were harboring Mageus who would use their power to take food from the mouths of the ordinary worker. He sees our kind as a threat because he knows that our power means we have a loyalty to something bigger than his group of angry men. He uses the people’s anger because he can, because they fear what they don’t know and won’t understand. Do you know what Caleb Lipscomb is planning?”
“Something with the Veiled Prophet Parade,” Esta told her.
“He was planning to place bombs on the parade route. You did the world a favor by putting him in the hospital, where he won’t be able to stir up his followers.”
“Why would you care about saving the Veiled Prophet Parade?” Harte asked.
Ruth turned to him. “I don’t care about the parade, but every time there’s an action by some group like the SWP, the Society turns the people’s hatred toward the old magic. It helps them shore up their power, preying on the people’s fears and prejudices. The loss of innocent lives would have been blamed on us.”
“Then why the attack last night?” Esta asked. “It wasn’t just a bomb that went off. I know there was magic involved. Won’t those people blame you too?”
“Blame us?” Ruth laughed. “They’ll thank us. But you’re right. That wasn’t a bomb. It was something infinitely more powerful—a gift of sorts that Maggie created.” Ruth walked over and tipped the girl’s chin up affectionately. “The Society and those like them might think they understand alchemy, but my sister has a talent for it they can only dream of.”
“It’s what you used in the attack last fall,” Harte realized. And in the fog that they used to keep him and Esta subdued. It wasn’t just opium and it wasn’t simple magic. It was some combination of the two, some new thing altogether. At this realization, the power inside of him swelled, and he heard a voice echoing in his mind. See? It seemed to whisper. See what they are capable of? The damage they will continue to do?
But he shoved the voice aside, even as part of him realized that it was right. It was bad enough that men like those in the Order would pervert magic to claim power, but for Mageus to do it as well . . . ?
“No,” Ruth said, releasing Maggie’s chin. “Not quite like last fall.”
Maggie turned to them. “Then, we were simply trying to slow down their progress,” she told them. “My serum wasn’t ready quite yet, and we needed more time.”
“Serum?” Esta asked. She met Harte’s eyes, but he didn’t have an answer to the question.
A knock sounded at the door, and Ruth called for the person to enter. It was one of the guys from before—one who had been close to the wagon.
“You have news?” Ruth asked, her expression rapt.
“It worked,” the guy said, beaming at Ruth. “They just brought in the first case to City Hospital. A girl who causes flowers to sprout from everything she touches.”
Ruth let out a small breath, and Harte could see the relief—the victory—flash across her features. “Good. Have Marcus keep track of them and let me know if anything changes.” Then she turned to Maggie. “You did it. This time, you finally did it.”
“Did what?” Harte asked, frustration getting the best of him.
“She solved the problem that has been plaguing our kind for centuries.” Ruth’s eyes were practically glowing with satisfaction.
Harte shook his head, not understanding.
“Why do the Sundren hate what we are? Why do they cut us off and round us up and force us to suppress what we are until we become shells of ourselves? Until generations pass and the power in our veins passes with it?”
“Because we have an affinity for the old magic,” Esta said, her voice oddly hollow. “Because we’re different, and they know we have power they can’t ever equal.”
“Yes. Because they’ve forgotten,” Ruth said fervently. “There was once magic throughout the world. Everyone had the ability to call to old magic. But through the ages, people have moved from where their power took root, and they left their memories behind them. Those who had forgotten what they might have been began to fear and to hunt those who kept the old magic close. Do you know what it means to be Sundren?” she asked. “It means to be broken apart, to be split from. Those who have let the magic in their bloodlines die are separated from an essential part of themselves. They’re wounded and broken, and they have no idea what lies dormant deep inside. It’s why they claw at the world, destroying anything in their path to get some relief from the ache they cannot name, the hollow inside themselves.” Ruth paused. “But what if we could awaken that magic? What if we could heal that break? What if we were no longer different, because everyone had the magic that they fear in us?”
“The fog—” Esta’s brows drew together.
“Don’t you see?” Maggie asked, her expression hopeful. “We cured them.”
But Harte wasn’t so sure. He knew the difference between the warm, welcoming natural power that Mageus could touch and the cool warning of ritual magic. Everything he’d seen and experienced in his short life had told him that unnatural magic was a corruption. A danger. Dolph had believed he could use it, and he’d died instead. He’d taken Leena along with him.
“You mean you infected them,” Harte said. “You didn’t ask their permission or give them a chance to refuse.” He couldn’t see how that would turn out well.
North took a step toward him, but Ruth held up her hand. “What we did goes far beyond the individual people in that building tonight.” Her voice carried the tremulous surety of a true believer. “We proved tonight that those ancient connections to the old magic are still there, waiting and latent. We simply woke them up and reminded them of what this world was supposed to be.”
“According to whom?” he wondered. Harte had known people like Ruth, people who were so certain of the path before them. Dolph Saunders, with all his plotting and planning, willing to hurt even those he loved for what he thought was best. Nibsy Lorcan, who saw a different vision but believed it to be no less valid. Even the Order and men like Jack, who thought they knew exactly what the world should be. It was clear to him that Ruth and her Antistasi weren’t so very different.
The mood in the room shifted as Ruth’s eyes went cold. “You think this is my plight alone?” she asked. “The Antistasi are as old as the fear and hatred of magic. Their mission is one that has come down through the centuries. The Thief has proven herself admirably tonight as an ally to that cause. I wonder . . . will you?”
Esta’s expression was pleading with him to keep quiet, but with the unsettled power inside of him, he couldn’t help himself. “I make my own choices. I’m not a pawn, and I won’t be used,” he said, and the moment the words were out. Esta’s jaw went tight, and her gaze dropped to the floor.
Ruth’s mouth curved, but her expression was devoid of any amusement. “Well, then, if I were you, I’d choose quickly, Mr. O’Doherty.”