THE WOMAN
1904—St. Louis
Harte was a breath away from Esta. He could feel her skin hot against his, the softness of her body against the firmness of his own, but it wasn’t her he was seeing. The dingy room had fallen away as well, and he felt the oppressiveness of summer—a dry, baking heat that licked along his skin.
There was a woman dressed in white linen robes that draped the floor, and the woman was screaming. She was Esta and she was another woman all at the same time, and she was—they were—screaming. The sound echoed in his ears so loudly that he couldn’t hear anything but the terror and agony and rage in her voice. The woman was looking at him, her face superimposed over Esta’s, and though there was a part of Harte that dimly realized none of this was real—that this was some sort of vision or waking nightmare—he could not shake himself free of it.
He wanted to scream at Esta to get away. He needed to break the connection between them, but it was too late. The voice had swelled within him, blotting out Esta’s face completely.
And then there was only darkness and it was as though he was the woman. As though he was seeing what she saw, feeling what she felt.
Ahead there was a light, and she went toward it until it grew brighter and brighter and became a chamber that was lined with scrolls and parchments piled high upon the shelves. Knowledge and power and all the secrets of the world.
She’d done this.
She’d created it all, but none of it had worked. There was still more to do, or the power in the world would fade as surely as moonlight in the brightness of dawn.
In the center of the room stood a long, low table, and upon its surface gleamed five gemstones—stones not hewed from the earth but made.
The power she wielded was dying. Magic had been fading for some time, growing weaker with each division, with each breaking apart. She had tried to stop its slow death. She had created something to suspend power, pure and whole. To preserve it. So she had created the word and the page. But it had not worked. It had been stolen from her, perverted and abused.
She had meant to save them all, and instead she had created magic’s undoing.
But she would stop that. Now. Here.
She ran her fingers over the stones that she had created, and he could feel the way they called to her. He could feel the pull of them, strong and sure and clear.
And then the vision tilted and changed again. The world tipped and there was a woman—or perhaps it was Esta? Her dark hair was wild around her face. Her eyes had gone black and empty and she was screaming. The stones were aglow, and she was trapped within their power. Pain and rage and fury whipped about the chamber. And fear. There was a fear thick in the air—fear, and the pain of betrayal.
“Harte?” He felt cool fingers touch his face, drawing him up from the depths, and he flinched away, surfacing from the nightmare that had intruded into his waking.
“Don’t touch me,” he said, his voice strained and sharp. He pulled back. Scuttled away from her with an awkward jerking step, falling out of the bed to get away. “Just—stay over there. Stay away.”
The vision still haunted him. The woman and Esta, their faces alternating as he tried to shake the image of the woman screaming from his mind.
Esta turned on her side to look at him. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s gotten into you?”
“I want you—” But he clapped his hands over his own mouth, because it wasn’t him who’d spoken. The voice had taken advantage of his weakness and had forced itself up from within him, taking his body and using it as if he were nothing more than a puppet.
Her mouth curved and her golden eyes went dark. “Well, I think what just happened proves that you can have me,” she said impishly.
“No!” he roared. And the word was his own. He was himself. Harte Darrigan, not whatever lived inside of him.
Esta flinched, and he saw hurt flash across her face. “Harte, what’s wrong?” She was reaching for him and looking so beautiful and fragile and utterly breakable.
He knew what the vision meant—he would break her. The Book—the power inside of him, whatever it was—would break her and use her and it would be his fault. All my fault. He would break her like he broke his mother, but this time there would be nothing left afterward, nothing but the blackness that still haunted him long after the vision had faded.
The blackness, just like the darkness that Esta had told him she saw when their affinities connected.
Swallowing hard, he forced himself to look at her—to make sure that the blackness in her eyes wasn’t real. Her hair was a mess, the short strands chopped in uneven lengths and falling around her face like some sort of fairy creature, but her eyes were her own. There was concern and pain and a question in their whiskey-colored depths. “I can’t hold it back,” he told her. He saw the flash of pleasure in her expression before he killed it with the words he said next. “It’s the Book. . . .”
“The Book?” she asked.
“The power of whatever it is inside of me. I—” He stopped, corrected himself. “It wants you. It wants to use you, and if it does . . .” The blackness was so empty, like nothing at all. Like it will bleed into the world and no one will be safe.
“What are you saying?” she asked slowly, her tone cooling now. “Are you telling me that you didn’t want to kiss me?”
“Yes,” he said, shaking his head. But it didn’t feel like the truth. “I don’t know.”
Esta sat up the rest of the way, frowning at him. She pulled the sheets around her, but not before he saw the flash of brownish pink and the smooth expanse of skin that had almost been his.
Yes . . . Mine . . .
“No!” he said. His voice was like the report of a gun in the tiny room, and she flinched again. But he would not let it have her. “I don’t know what this is inside of me,” he told her, his voice rough. “I don’t know what this is between us. I don’t know if I want you or if it’s the power that does, but this can’t happen. This can’t ever happen.”
“Harte . . .” There was an ache in her voice that pierced him.
“I’ve seen things,” he whispered, the memory of the visions crashing over him again.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“Visions. At the station, at the hotel, just now . . .” He looked at her, willed her to understand as he told her what he’d seen. “I’m going to hurt you. If I touch you, if I let myself go with you, I’ll destroy you.”
“You won’t—”
He let out a ragged breath. “You can’t know that.”
“I’m not some fragile flower, Harte. We’ll figure this out. We’ll do it together.”
She reached for him, but he drew back, avoiding her touch. The voice was too near to the surface of him. Then he turned away, because he knew that if he looked at her now, saw the hurt in her eyes and her body bared to him as it was, his control would crumble. “I apologize,” he said stiffly, his voice brittle and clipped.
“There’s nothing to apologize for.” She was on her feet now. He could hear her wrapping the blanket around herself. “In case you missed it, I was right there with you.”
But he was already grabbing his coat, heading for the door, which was still open. We didn’t even close the door. So much for control.
“You’re seriously leaving?” she asked.
“I’m going to walk for a bit.” He did turn back to her then, and her hair was rumpled and her lips were bruised red from their kissing. “I need some air.”
“Harte—”
“And some space,” he finished, striding out the open door. Once he was through it, he closed it behind him with an unmistakable finality.
His legs were shaking as he ran down the steps of the boardinghouse and out into the night. It was still warm, the air was damp from the rain, and the clouds had parted above to show the stars, but Harte didn’t notice any of that. He didn’t even notice which way he was going. He simply walked, as quickly and as doggedly as his feet would go.
He’d kissed her. He’d kissed her, touched her, and it had been everything—more than everything. More than he could have imagined.
He could have had her. She would have given herself to him, and he could have taken her there, on that narrow, dirty bed in that narrow, worn-out room. And she would have hated him for it later.
Onward he walked until the power inside of him receded and the soles of his feet felt as ragged as he did, as he vowed with every step he took that he would never let that happen.