Page 5 of The Shattered City

Dom’s brows lifted. “This is why you were in Chicago?”

She nodded. “The sooner we figure out how to use those artifacts to control the power in the Book, the sooner we can take care of the Brink. The sooner you could expand the Nitemarket like you wanted.”

Dom’s eyes shifted from the page he was reading back to Esta. “The answers are in here?”

“I don’t know where else they’d be,” she told him, and it wasn’t even a lie. “The Order used that Book to create the Brink. It must describe how they did it and explain how we can end it.”

“Maybe, but you’d have to figure out what any of this means first.” Dom gestured to the markings on the page.

“I might be able to help with that,” Everett said. “I’ve been studying the Order and their type of magic since I was just a kid.”

“You’re still just a kid,” Dom said.

“Everett’s the one who knew how to disable the tower in Chicago and how to reverse its power,” Esta reminded Dom. But at the mention of Chicago, Everett’s mouth went tight. She gentled her tone when she continued. “If he says he can figure it out, I believe him. If you’re sure? You don’t have to do this.”

“I do,” Everett told her. “I can’t have it mean nothing. I need to help. I need to do whatever I can.”

She knew he was talking about North, about the way he’d died so tragically the night before. “Okay,” she said. “Thank you.”

Dom still seemed reluctant to part with the objects in his possession.

“The sooner we know what’s in those pages, the sooner you get your New York market. It’s just ‘good business,’?” Esta told him, echoing the very words he’d used the night before.

Dom considered Everett, and Esta felt danger stir in the silence that fell as he thought about his options.

So many people had betrayed them for less, and now Dom held the Book and the artifacts in his literal hands. Esta waited, ready for whatever decision he made. She wouldn’t allow him to take the Book, but attacking too early would mean turning their one possible ally into an enemy.

Finally, he made up his mind and slid the Book across the table. “It doesn’t leave this room.” Then he shot a warning look at Esta and Harte. “I’m gonna make some coffee. You two want some?”

Hours later, the burnt and bitter coffee had long since gone cold, but Everett hadn’t made much progress. Harte was clearly getting impatient, but he didn’t move far from her side. He’d taken to pacing within arm’s reach. Dom seemed less concerned about how long things were taking. He still had the satchel and was examining the stones in each of the artifacts with the same sort of small magnifying glass that jewelers used.

“Amazing,” he murmured, setting the Dragon’s Eye back onto the table next to the other two. “There isn’t anything about these stones that makes them physically different, but the power coming from them is something else.” Dom set the crown back on the table and picked up the necklace, turning it over in the light and watching the stone flash and glimmer. “I haven’t come across anything like them before. And I’ve seen plenty.”

“That’s probably because of how they were made,” Everett said. It was the first he’d spoken since he’d started examining the Book.

“You found something?” Esta asked, leaning over the table to look at the page Everett had open. Harte moved closer.

“I think so,” Everett told them. “Look at this.”

There on the page was a series of sketches that clearly showed the five stones surrounded by detailed notes written in faded ink. On the facing page was a detailed drawing of the hand of the philosopher.

“Is. Newton,” Esta read, running her finger along the inscription there. “Isaac Newton. This is how he did it, isn’t it? This is how he made the stones.”

“I think so,” Everett confirmed.

Esta had already known that Isaac Newton was the one responsible for infusing artifacts he’d collected from ancient dynasties with the affinities of five powerful Mageus in an attempt to control and use the Book’s magic. But the attempt had nearly driven him mad. In Chicago, she’d learned that Newton had been under Thoth’s control all along. Somehow, Newton had managed to fight off Thoth before the ritual could be completed. He’d given the stones and the Book to the Order for safekeeping, back when the Order still had magic themselves. Years later, the Order had brought the artifacts across an ocean and tried to replicate Newton’s work. They’d used them to create the Brink in an attempt to protect their magic and to keep the Book—and Seshat—under control. But the ritual had never been right—like Seshat’s ritual, the Order’s had never been finished, and the Order’s protective barrier had turned into a trap. And then it had become a weapon.

“It doesn’t look that different from the ritual that people still use to make magical objects,” Dom said.

“What do you mean?” Esta asked.

“It takes a ritual like this to break part of someone’s affinity away from them and infuse it into an object. This here…” Dom tapped on an elaborate design that looked strikingly like the one carved into the front cover of the Book. “Writing, like this design here, makes the ritual material.”

“Sigils are the earliest forms of ritual magic,” Everett told them. “The most common, too.”

“I wouldn’t be in business without them,” Dom said. “But I’ve never seen one quite this complicated. You can’t even really look at it straight, can you?”

“It’s definitely ancient,” Everett agreed. “Powerful, too. But this is different from the rituals used to make objects nowadays.” He glanced at Dom. “My understanding is that most magical objects only contain a part of someone’s affinity.”

---