Page 184 of The Serpent's Curse

“You don’t know that,” he said, wishing it were otherwise. “And it might not be only your life at risk.… What if what happened on the train—”

“Nothing happened on the train,” Esta said, her words clipped and her cheeks an angry pink.

“You mean—”

“There were no consequences,” Esta hissed. Her jaw was tight and her golden eyes flashed with anger. And with hurt. “Don’t worry. There’s no need for you to make an honest woman of me.”

“That’s not what I…” He paused, not knowing what he was supposed to say. Not knowing why he felt a twinge of disappointment mixed in with the relief. There was nothing to stop him now from doing whatever he had to in order to keep Esta safe.

“Promise me, Darrigan,” she told him, eyes narrowing as though she’d sensed the direction of his thoughts. “We leave together. Promise me that you won’t do something stupid.”

Harte didn’t want to make any promises that he couldn’t keep. He certainly didn’t want to waste any more time arguing with her when he knew already what he was willing to do.

“You know, you look lovely tonight,” he said instead.

Esta frowned at him, and it looked like she wanted to continue their argument, but then she seemed to sense that it was pointless. “I look like a boring old lady,” she told him with a droll twist of her lips. They weren’t painted the dark crimson of the night before, but that didn’t make them any less distracting. “Just like every other boring old lady here.”

She was right about the crowd—there were quite a few women in attendance, and they were definitely older for the most part—but Esta was utterly wrong about her appearance. True, her dress might have been a bit more sedate than the shimmering column of gold she’d worn to the Green Mill. Made from a dark olive linen, the color might have looked dowdy or utterly forgettable on anyone else. But not on Esta. The otherwise drab green somehow warmed the deep golds in her skin and made her whiskey-colored eyes look even brighter than usual.

The boxy frock had a low-set waist that obscured Esta’s shape, but it didn’t matter. With her height, the fit of the dress made her look willowy and graceful, and somehow its straight lines only drew more attention by hinting at the body hiding beneath it.

“Lovely,” Harte repeated, lifting their joined hands and placing a soft kiss on the back of hers. He paused, their eyes locked, before he allowed his lips to brush across her knuckles again.

Esta’s cheeks pinkened a little more, but this time it wasn’t anger that colored them. “We need to focus on finding Jack,” she whispered, gently pulling her hand away.

“I can focus on multiple things at once,” he said, drawing his mouth into a wry grin, glad that however mad at him she might be, there was still something undeniable there between them. But the sadness in her eyes made Harte’s smile falter. He wanted to know what had put that emotion there. “Esta—”

“We don’t have to talk about this, Harte. We need to focus on the one thing that’s important right now,” she told him, brushing off the moment. “The rest can wait.”

Harte wanted to argue. He wished they had a little more time and that he was a little less of a coward. There was so much he wanted to say—there were things he needed to tell her. He felt as though they were on the precipice of something he did not fully understand. It was somehow even more dangerous than the threat of the machine or the possibility of an unthinkable future. Whatever was between them felt bigger than the Order or the Brotherhoods and more powerful than the ancient being that waited deep within him.

It didn’t seem to matter that Harte had escaped from death so many times—in chains and in water and in a feverish delirium. This moment felt infinitely more fraught. Like that step from the bridge he’d been willing to take so many months ago, Harte knew that with Esta, there would be no going back. He could retreat. He could take this exit that she was offering.

Except… it was already too late. He’d already jumped, was already falling, without any chance of returning to where he’d once been. Depthless water below, endless sky above, and all that mattered was the gold of Esta’s eyes.

“What if I don’t want to wait?” Harte asked softly, taking her hand again.

She gave him the smallest of shrugs and untangled her fingers from his. “That isn’t your choice to make,” she told him, and then she turned and began to lead him through the crowds to the enormous hall that waited beyond.

AN AWAKENING

1920—Chicago

Esta’s knuckles still burned from where Harte had kissed them, and her cheeks felt like they were on fire. She didn’t know why she’d just lied to Harte. It would be a week or more yet until she had to worry about whether what they’d done on the train—

No. She wasn’t even going to think about that. Especially not there, surrounded by so many people wearing the Brotherhoods’ medallions and a crowd who would happily cheer on their destruction. Not when Jack—the Book and the dagger as well—were so very close. She would figure all that out later, if there was even anything to figure out at all. Until then, Esta would do what she always did. She would pull the hard shell of self-discipline and focus around herself as she plunged onward toward the job ahead of her. And she would not let herself wonder whether Harte would have felt the same about a future together if the threat of complications hadn’t been hanging over them.

The main hall of the Coliseum was an enormous arena with a vaulted ceiling running the length of the room and stadium seating ringing the main floor. Red, white, and blue buntings lined each level of the balconies, and flags were hanging in rows across the ceiling. Large signs with bold block letters demarcated the seating for the various states’ delegates, and in the middle of the arena stood a main stage decorated in the colors of the flag. On it, a small woman had been speaking ever since they’d entered the arena. Her voice boomed out through the cavernous space, and periodically the crowd would erupt into cries and cheers when she made another point they agreed with.

“How is she doing that?” Harte asked Esta.

“It’s a microphone,” she told him.

“Magic?”

“Technology,” she corrected. “It’s electrified.”

Heat swirled in the air, sultry and close, as the woman spoke. Her voice rose and fell, her words carefully crafted to condemn the women who would distract the men gathered there—important men—from the essential work of governing with inauspiciously timed demands for suffrage. Suffrage could wait, she cried, when the nation was whole and safe. When America put America first and took care of its own.

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