A CHOICE IN THE MATTER
1904—St. Louis
Harte went very still. “They have your cuff?”
Esta nodded, her expression tight. “I think they took it while we were unconscious in the wagon.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” he asked, feeling a bolt of panic. Without the cuff, they were stuck in 1904. Without the cuff, they couldn’t control the Book, and if it got into the wrong hands . . .
“When was I supposed to tell you—while I was unconscious, or in the middle of the room while everyone was listening?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
She was right. Between being captured and being separated while the Antistasi forced her to run their errands, there hadn’t been any time to talk. “It’s fine,” he said, but he felt like he was trying to convince himself as much as her. “We’ll get it back.”
At first she only frowned, as though she were considering another option.
“You can steal it back,” he insisted, because that much should have been readily apparent.
“I don’t know if we should,” she told him. “Not yet, at least.”
“Of course we should. You’re a thief, and a damn good one at that,” he said, trying to figure out what she was thinking. “Why wouldn’t you want to take it back?”
“I do,” she insisted. “I’m just thinking . . . maybe we should wait. Hear me out,” she protested, before he could argue. “We don’t know where the necklace is right now.”
“Julien can get that information,” he reminded her. But they couldn’t get to Julien as long as they were stuck here with the Antistasi.
“Sure. But what if we need more than the two of us to get it? Ruth and the Antistasi want the necklace, right? Why not use them like they’re using us?”
He gave her a doubtful look. “They don’t exactly seem like easy marks.”
“Neither was Dolph,” she argued. “But that didn’t stop you from trying. Why not keep them as allies? Once they get the necklace, I can take both, and we can be gone.”
Harte shook his head. “This plan of theirs—to infect people with magic—I don’t like it. People should have a choice in the matter. Besides, it’s dangerous, and if we get caught up in their mess, we might not get the opportunity to find the other stones.”
But Esta brushed off his concern. “We won’t have to get caught if we help them,” she said.
“They’re attacking people, Esta.”
“They’re giving them magic,” she argued. “They’re trying to make a difference.”
Harte shook his head. How can she not see it? “Those people in the meeting didn’t do anything to deserve what happened to them. What if they didn’t want magic? What if they were happy with their lives as they were?”
Esta crossed her arms. “You heard what Ruth said about them—”
“Yeah,” he told her before she could go on. “I heard what Ruth said. But we don’t know those people. We don’t know anything about who they are or what they’ve done. You’re taking her word for it, when she’s basically kidnapped us?”
Even in the dim light, he could see the determination in her expression, and at the sight of it, the power inside of him lurched with excitement.
“I heard the socialists talking,” Esta told him. “I heard what they said about us.”
Harte let out a breath. “You don’t think that Ruth’s attack might have just proven them right?”
Esta lifted her chin, her eyes blazing. “Maybe it was worth it if it changes things,” she said.
“Esta—”
“No, Harte. Listen, we don’t know where Jack or the Book are. We don’t have any of the artifacts at this point. We are worse off than when we started,” she pointed out. “The only way we know of to stop the power inside you from taking over is if I use my affinity. If it takes over—”
“It won’t,” he said, his voice hard. He would not allow her to sacrifice herself for him.
“If that happens,” she repeated, “I won’t be able to take you back. You’ll be stuck here in 1904. If that’s the case, the Antistasi might be the only chance we have left to fix the things we’ve changed. If their plan works, if they can really restore magic, you’ll have a future. Every Mageus will. And neither Nibsy nor the Order will be in control of that future.”
He shook his head, refusing to agree. “I can’t believe that is our only option.”
“Maybe it’s not, but we have to at least consider that it might be.”
“No—”
“Let’s just give it a day or two,” she pleaded. “We still don’t know where the necklace is, and until we figure that out, we don’t know if we’ll need the Antistasi to get it. There’s no sense burning bridges. Not until we have to.”
He didn’t like it. He didn’t like this Mother Ruth or her Antistasi. And he didn’t like how the power purred at seeing Esta so set on this path. There was something about its approval that told him this path wasn’t the right choice.
But he knew Esta, and he knew that with her jaw set as stubbornly as it was now, there was no sense in arguing any further with her. Not at that moment, at least.
“Fine,” Harte told her. “But at the first sign of a problem, at the first indication that things are going too far or spinning out of control, we are gone. We leave and we don’t look back. Promise me that much, at least.”
But before she could, the door to his closet-like room swung open, and North stood eyeing the two of them, his expression like flint. He stared at them for a moment, suspicion clear on his face.
How much did he overhear?
“Come on,” North said, his voice as cool and flat as a penny. “The both of you.”
Every one of his instincts told Harte that they should run. Now. Take the cuff and get the hell out before they were any more entangled with these Antistasi. Their fight wasn’t his fight. The future they saw wasn’t one he needed. But Esta gave him a pleading look, and he found himself unable to refuse.