Page 37 of The Shattered City

Esta’s skin grew feverish, and the artifacts began to glow again, now with an impossible brightness. The Aether connecting them was a wall of light, a swirling mass of energy and magic that threatened to destroy everything it could touch. The stones lit as though burning from within. The power in the air swirled, filling the entire space with the terrible chaos of pure magic.

It lasted for ages.

It lasted for mere moments.

Time lost meaning as the men who had surrounded the circle screamed and grabbed their heads. One by one, the darkness was pushed from their eyes, replaced with a blinding flash of light, and as their eyes went dark, the men fell to the ground. When the last one fell, the power drained from the air, and Esta collapsed back to the floor.

She was breathing. Barely. But she was unconscious again. Her eyes had closed, and she looked even paler and more lifeless than before. Around them, the men lay dead on the station platform. The circle remained aglow, and the artifacts and the Book were still hovering in the air, floating just above the ground.

Harte was so focused on Esta that at first he didn’t hear the shuffling footsteps approaching or the odd tapping sound that punctuated them. He didn’t realize that a new danger was approaching until it had already arrived. An old man with a cane stepped from the darkened tunnel into the dim station. Harte might have dismissed the old man, but he immediately recognized the cane—the polished silver of the gorgon’s head was visible even from across the platform.

“Nibsy.” Harte said the name like a curse.

But the old man only smiled. His eyes were focused on the Ars Arcana, abandoned on the station floor.

THE DEVIL’S MARKS

1902—Little Africa

Jianyu’s words had Viola reaching on instinct for the pocket in her skirts, the one Cela had stitched for her to conceal the silver discs. Their now-familiar weight seemed almost a balance to Libitina’s heft.

“Che pazzo?” she asked, incredulous. “You cannot send her off, unprotected, with the only leverage we have. Assolutamente no. I took the sigils from the Order’s rooms, and so I will be the one to keep them here, close by, where I can protect them.”

Cela stepped away from Jianyu. “I don’t want to take them anywhere, and I’m not leaving my city.” Her mouth had gone tight and her eyes thunderous. “I’m not running like some scared rabbit.”

“Bene,” Viola said, nodding. “Cela, at least, talks sense.”

“It is the only way,” Jianyu said, looking more desperate than Viola had ever seen him. There was something in his expression that she had not noticed before when he looked at Cela. Something that reminded Viola too much of how she felt when she looked at Ruby Reynolds. A wonder, but a fear as well.

Abel had stepped forward. “We’re all leaving. That patrol in the next building is going to be here any minute now.”

“You must go, but we cannot go with you,” Jianyu told him. “Not so long as Nibsy can track us. We cannot risk it.”

“What are you talking about?” Viola asked, stepping forward.

“Logan did not die that night,” he told her. “He delivered the ring to Nibsy.”

She could not stop the curse that slipped from her lips, but the filthy words offered no comfort or relief. When they had seen the body falling from the tower, they had worried that Nibsy might have obtained the Delphi’s Tear. They’d suspected someone had, considering the desperation of the Order over the past few weeks. But they hadn’t known, not for sure. Now they did.

It didn’t change their current situation. “Let them come. Nibsy Lorcan can be taken care of easily enough.” She had already slipped her blade out, imagining the pleasure it would be to skewer him with it again. “We’ll see how long he keeps the ring.”

Jianyu turned on her with more emotion in his expression than she’d ever seen there before. “He has the marks, Viola. He can use them.”

Viola froze, silenced by this news. No. It can’t be.

“What marks?” Cela asked. “What are you talking about?”

But Viola understood too well the implications of Jianyu’s words. Once, the tattoos had been a simple statement of loyalty, but they were not an oath without consequences. Everyone who took the marks pledged not only themselves, but their affinity, and anyone who broke that oath could be unmade by them.

Everyone. Including Jianyu and herself.

Viola pressed her lips together. “But the cane, it belonged to Dolph.”

“Maybe once, but Nibsy has the cane.” Jianyu’s jaw went tight. “And he does not require the Medusa’s kiss to use it.”

“No…” But then a memory came back to her of a moment in a stairwell weeks before, when Nibsy had threatened her. “I didn’t think… Madonna,” Viola whispered, crossing herself. “I thought I’d been imagining it.”

“You knew?” Jianyu asked.

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