THE AFTERMATH
1904—St. Louis
Esta glanced back to make sure that Harte was coming with her as she followed North. Somewhere deeper in the building, she heard a noise that she couldn’t place until they came to a large, brightly lit room. Inside, Maggie and a couple of other women were trying to settle nearly a dozen children, most of whom were crying inconsolably.
“Thank god for more hands,” Maggie said, handing the baby she was holding to Esta, who was too shocked by the whole situation to refuse the armful of squalling infant. Her arms tightened around the squirming baby, which only made the thing scream more, but at least she didn’t drop it.
“Where did they all come from?” Esta asked as Maggie walked over to a toddler huddled in the corner and crouched down to brush the small girl’s hair from her eyes.
At hearing footsteps behind her, Esta turned to see Ruth darkening the doorway they’d just come through.
“It seems our attack on Lipscomb struck an unexpected nerve,” Ruth said. “The Guard just raided Dutchtown, probably looking for whoever carried out the attack. One of ours brought the children here. They know Maggie has a soft spot for little ones.”
“But why the raid?” Maggie said as she scooped the girl into her arms. “The meeting was for the SWP. The Society should have been glad to be rid of that lot.”
“I’m not sure why they retaliated,” Ruth said, “but this is the effect.”
“What happened to their parents?” Esta asked, adjusting the warm—maybe wet?—bundle in her arms. Definitely wet.
“Arrested,” Ruth said. “They’ll be charged and probably found guilty, which means either jail or deportation.”
“But they didn’t do anything,” Maggie said, rocking the girl until her cries died to whimpering.
The one in Esta’s arms didn’t seem interested in being consoled.
“When has that ever mattered?” Ruth asked.
Esta looked around the room at the cheeks and red eyes of so many children. They should have been in the arms of their mothers or fathers, and she knew that they would always remember this moment, when the people who were supposed to protect them were torn away.
She remembered the day Dolph had taken her around the tenements of the Bowery. There she’d seen children no older than these kept indoors and away from sight so their powers wouldn’t be exposed. He’d wanted to make a better life for them by destroying the Order and bringing down the Brink. He’d wanted a new future, and instead all he’d gotten was a bullet in the back. She wondered what had happened to the children he’d once protected in the two years since his death.
One thing was clear: The Society was no better than the Order. They used their Jefferson Guard to rule the city, the same as the Order used their power. It didn’t matter that they were outside the Brink, on the far side of the Mississippi and on the edge of the West. Even away from the prison that was Manhattan, there wasn’t any freedom here, not for Mageus. Not when the very magic that ran in their veins—the magic that was an intrinsic part of who they were—was despised and feared and hunted. Nothing would change. Not until it was forced to.
“North?” Ruth turned to him. “I want you to take some of our men and go round up the injured at the hospital.”
“The socialists?” North asked, clearly surprised.
“The Society’s retaliation was unexpected. I don’t trust the Guard to look after the injured. Better to have the newly woken on our side than to have them against us,” she said. Then she gave Harte and Esta appraising looks. “Take Ben with you. We’ll need to get them out before dawn, and he can help you with any who prove difficult.”
Harte met Esta’s eyes from across the room, and she understood what he was thinking. This was exactly the type of danger he’d been worried about them getting caught up in, but standing there with an armful of squirming, screaming child, she felt even more strongly that she had to stay.
She had seen the terrible thing that lived inside Harte, and she knew now, more than ever, that she would give up herself to keep that power from breaking free. If she didn’t make it, she needed to do whatever she could now to make a better future for him. She would help to ensure that neither the Order nor the Society could use the old magic against any Mageus ever again.