The Serpent's Curse by Lisa Maxwell (read an ebook week .TXT) 📕

do. Maggie gave you something to make your magic unstable, so you wouldn’t be tempted to use it against us,” North said. “The darkness you saw back in Texas—that wasn’t from any ancient creature. It was because of Maggie.”

“I know what I saw,” Esta argued. The darkness, the way the earth shattered from her affinity. It had to have been Seshat.

“It’s the same,” Maggie said, struggling with the words. “Always you.”

“Seshat used my affinity—she amplified it,” Esta said as understanding dawned on her. “That’s what your formula did as well?”

“Unstable,” Maggie rasped, closing her eyes against the pain.

“And the Quellant?” Esta demanded.

“Used your fear,” Maggie told her softly.

“Why have me take it at all? You could have just stopped drugging me.”

“Because I knew what you could do,” Maggie admitted, grimacing. “The Professor warned me. Before we left St. Louis… I knew.”

“Maggie used your worry to get you to agree to the Quellant,” North explained. “Her new formulation seemed too risky, considering what happened in Texas, but we knew for sure that the Quellant would stop you from leaving us in the dust like your partner did. Or at least it would give us a fighting chance.”

“You really are Ruth’s sister, ain’t yeh?” Cordelia asked Maggie. Then she started laughing again.

But Esta was impressed despite herself. For all Maggie’s failures with lying, she’d managed to keep this secret. Still, if what they were saying was true, Esta had been a fool. She could have used her affinity all along, but she’d been trapped by her own fear instead. Well, she certainly wasn’t going to be trapped by it any longer.

For a moment she considered leaving. After what North and Maggie had done to her, they almost deserved to be caught there by the Brotherhoods. But George doesn’t. He was an innocent in all of this, a bystander who’d tried to help—who was still trying to help. And if the Syndicate found him here with the other three? Esta doubted they’d believe in George’s innocence.

Esta took the antidote from North and crushed it between her teeth. The effect was almost immediate. Her affinity flooded back to her, warm and real and secure, and Esta could have wept from the relief of it. But she didn’t have time for relief. They still had to get through the mob that had surrounded them.

It took a second to get everyone situated, so that each one of them had some grip on her. “Whatever you do, don’t let go,” she said as she pulled the seconds slow. She waited, but there was no darkness, no shadow over her vision. There was only the absolute rightness of having such an essential part of herself back, the exhilaration of flexing her affinity and letting it unfurl.

When they left the tent, Esta heard George’s sharp intake of breath as he saw the crowd outside nearly frozen in time. He let out a curse—or maybe it was a prayer—but Esta kept her grip tight on his wrist so he couldn’t slip out of her control.

“It’s fine,” she said. “We need to get past the perimeter.”

To her left, she saw a familiar blond head of hair: Jack Grew was there, talking to a man with a white mustache. One of the Jefferson Guard was at his side, as the rest of the crowd waited for his orders. Esta made herself a promise that she’d come back for Jack and the Book, once the others were safe.

The group moved as quickly as they could, a many-headed hydra maneuvering through the crowd that had surrounded the tent. Finally, they made it through the grounds to the field where wagons and horses stood right alongside motorcars.

“Do any of you know how to drive one of those?” Esta asked, pointing to the cars, and when no one answered, she settled for a wagon with a pair of horses.

She had to release her hold on time so they could set Maggie in the back of the wagon. As George climbed into the driver’s seat, Esta helped North make Maggie comfortable. Maggie looked bad, and North looked completely shell-shocked, but Esta hoped that everything would work out. They’d find the doctor for Maggie, and with any luck, she would survive. But Esta couldn’t go with them. Not while Jack Grew was so close—and with him, the Book of Mysteries.

Esta started to back out of the wagon’s bed, but North grabbed her by the wrist. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“If Jack Grew is here, so is the dagger,” she told him, starting to pull away. “And Harte will be waiting for me.”

North was shaking his head as his grip on her wrist tightened. “No,” he said. “You’re coming with us. No way am I letting you run off to destroy our lives.”

“I have to go,” Esta told him, trying to keep her voice steady and calm. “You know that. If I don’t find Harte before the Professor does, if I can’t retrieve the cuff, you lose everything anyway.”

He was still shaking his head, still holding on to her like it was the only thing that mattered.

“Let her go,” Maggie whispered.

“It’s going to be okay,” North soothed. “Don’t you concern yourself with any of this, Mags. You focus on staying awake until we can get you to this Dr. Ford, and I’ll worry about Esta.”

“No, Jericho. You have to let her go.” Maggie coughed, a wet, groaning cough. “It’s the only way.”

“The only way for what? If I let her go, she’ll go back and change everything,” North said, his eyes burning with a kind of unholy fire. “I only just got you back.”

Maggie was shaking her head, or she was trying to, but the effort of it seemed nearly too much for her. “There’s nothing that could keep me from you, Jericho Northwood. Call it what you want. Fate. Destiny. Some things are meant. We’re meant. Time can’t unmake what we are. Even if this bullet is the end of me.”

“It’s not gonna be,” North said, clutching