THE RIGHT TIME
1904—St. Louis
While North drove them toward the fairgrounds, Esta finished stripping off the Egyptian gown to the men’s pants and shirt she was wearing beneath it. She was grateful that she hadn’t given in to Julien’s pleas for her to leave off the clothing beneath the costume. Using the strips of white linen she tore from the gown, she scrubbed as much of the makeup as she could from her face as the carriage rattled on.
North parked one street over from the fair’s entrance and tied up the horses as Esta and Harte climbed out the back.
Maggie, who had ridden up front with North, was frowning, her eyes worried.
“Are you okay?” North asked, looking like he wanted to reach for her.
“Just thinking about Ruth—about how she looked when I walked away.”
North’s expression softened. “You did the right thing, Mags.”
“She’s my sister, Jericho,” Maggie said, her tone dull and hollow. “She’s my family, my flesh and blood, and what’s more, she raised me like her own daughter.”
“She’s used you,” North said, lowering his voice as he took Maggie’s chin gently in his hand.
Harte glanced at Esta, his expression impatient as the two talked, but Esta could only shrug. If Maggie didn’t make up her mind now, she’d be a liability inside.
“I know,” Maggie was saying to North. “I know all that, but it doesn’t change what we are to each other.”
North took Maggie into his arms for a moment. “Sometimes blood’s not enough, Mags.”
Maggie’s face crumpled. “I know.”
Esta understood the emotion in Maggie’s voice—the hurt that simmered below the confidence in the words. A betrayal like Maggie’s sister’s was one that would haunt her, just as Professor Lachlan’s betrayal haunted Esta, following her with dogged footsteps. But it had also urged her on—to be better, smarter . . . stronger.
“Let’s go,” Harte told them, apparently done with waiting. “We need to get in there. We don’t know how much time we have left. There’s no telling when the Prophet is going to switch the necklaces.”
But in the distance, the wailing of a siren erupted. The night was suddenly alive with sounds as bells clanged and more sirens droned.
“We’re too late,” Esta said, as the four of them paused to listen.
“The Festival Hall is on the other side of the fair,” North told them. “Even without the crowds, it’s nearly a mile from here. But maybe, if we hurry, we can still get some people out—”
“Once the acid hits the serum and the vapor forms, there will be no way in,” Maggie said, her voice a strangled whisper.
Esta thought about her cuff and how useless it was in that moment. She couldn’t risk using it now, because going back to stop everything meant crossing Ishtar’s Key with itself. If it were only her life in the balance, she could have done it to make up for her part in all of this, but it wasn’t only her life. She’d been so blinded by her own anger, so determined to be strong that she hadn’t realized how far she’d veered from what they were supposed to be doing.
Harte had been right—about Ruth and about the Antistasi. They should have stuck with their own plan. They should have grabbed the cuff from Ruth and found the necklace on their own instead of getting tied up into the Antistasi’s plot for vengeance. Maybe if she hadn’t been so set on being strong—on being ruthless—the Antistasi would have had more trouble with their attack. Maybe the innocent people in the ball wouldn’t be suffering right now.
She would carry the guilt of her part in the attack with her always, but she would not risk her cuff to change it. Not now. She couldn’t—Nibsy was still out there, and if they didn’t collect the stones, he would. She needed Ishtar’s Key, not just for herself, but to stop him from controlling the Book’s power.
But North was already taking out his pocket watch. “It’s not too late yet,” he told them, opening the cover and adjusting it. “They’ll have guards all over the place during the ball, but before it starts, we might have better luck. I don’t like to go back, myself. Nothing good usually comes from trying to fix what already happened. But I think this warrants it.”
“Go back?” Harte asked.
“In time. My mama always used to say I had a knack for being in the right place at the right time,” North told him. “I could be out in the streets running wild with the other kids and somehow know that dinner was on. In a blink, I’d be there at the table, right where I was supposed to be, before she’d even called me. If trouble was coming, I’d be out of the way before it ever arrived. Of course, I learned later on that it wasn’t just a knack. It was a touch of magic. But I never could control it until I got this.” North showed the two of them the watch.
It looked like any pocket watch: brass casing with a scratched crystal cover over the face. The minute and hour hands might once have been painted black, but the paint had rubbed away where North had touched them to change the time. The second hand stood still, and the watch itself didn’t make so much as a tick, but Esta could feel the pull of it—the tug in the energy around her that marked it as having an unseen power.
Harte frowned at the watch. “Ritual magic?”
“I don’t know about any ritual, but magic it’s got,” North told him. “I’ll just adjust this back a bit. An hour maybe?”
“They might already have the Guard in place by then,” Maggie said, worrying her lip.
“Right. Let’s go back a few then. Once we’re in, I can set us to the time we need,” he told her. “If we can get into the building while it’s still daylight, we can go forward again, until just before the Prophet arrives. That way, we can be ready for them.”
Esta caught Harte’s eye. “It will be fine,” she said, understanding his reluctance.
But his jaw was tense and his eyes wary. “What about the stones we have?” he asked in a low voice so the others couldn’t hear.
“I’ll have to leave them here. In the wagon?” she asked.
“You really think that’s wise?”
She didn’t. It felt like abandoning part of herself to think about leaving the stones behind. But if North could take them back without her risking the cuff . . . “I don’t see that we have any choice if we want to save Julien. We have to try to stop this if we can.”
“What about in the wall?” he asked. “They’ll be less likely to be found if Ruth comes for the wagon.”
He was right. While Maggie was gathering her supplies from the back of the wagon, Harte and Esta found a place close to the wall of the fairgrounds to hide the stones. They buried them, and then Harte used one of Maggie’s devices to set a trap. Anyone who might disturb it would get an unpleasant surprise.
“Come on over here.” North motioned them around the corner from the gates. “Now hold on.” Maggie reached out to take his arm first, and then Esta did the same. Harte hesitated, clearly dreading the thought of traveling through time again.
“If you’re afraid . . . ,” North teased.
Harte took hold of North, who only smirked as he clicked the watch shut.