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

the grounds of the Curtis Brothers’ Wild West Show had devolved into confusion. She barely had time to jump out of the way of a trio of horses as they thundered by, nearly trampling her in the process. Another cowboy on horseback followed, already swinging a rope.

A pair of strong hands caught her from behind, and she turned to find the older man who’d helped them earlier. “This way, and keep your head down,” George ordered as he pulled her through the chaos by the hand. “We gotta get you out of here.”

“What’s going on?” Esta asked, still feeling a little adrift, like she wasn’t completely part of the world quite yet.

“All hell’s breaking loose—that’s what’s going on,” he said as though she should have figured that much out for herself. “A bunch of Antistasi troublemakers set half the horses loose, and the Syndicate’s men are trying to round them all up—horses and men alike.”

“I thought you went with North and Maggie,” Esta said, following George without any argument.

“I got them all set up with Doc Ford a couple of hours ago. She’ll take good care of the girl, but Jerry sent me back for you.”

“Hours?” It had been more than a few minutes, then. “Why did he send you back?” she asked, suddenly uneasy.

“He said you might need a ride to the station.”

“I do,” Esta said, relaxing a little when she realized this was a rescue and not an attack.

George helped her into the wagon he had waiting for them at the far edge of the grounds, and they kept off the main roads as he drove her back to town. Once they saw the outskirts, where the streetlights glowed up ahead of them, he pulled the cart over.

“This is where we part ways,” he told her. “I went around to the south, so if anyone’s watching for people coming from the show, they shouldn’t be looking in this direction. But it’ll be safer for both of us if you go on foot from here.” He pulled a familiar leather pouch from the underside of the driver’s seat and offered it to her.

“Where’d you get this?”

“Miss Maggie sent it along for you,” George explained. “She said you might need it.”

Esta took the offered pouch, still heavy with the formulations that she’d helped Maggie prepare over the last few days. It contained a veritable arsenal that would surely come in handy in the days ahead—especially with whatever she would have to face in San Francisco.

“Thank you,” she told him. “For everything.”

“It wasn’t much,” George said. “Anyone would have done the same.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “That isn’t even a little bit true. Could you do me one last favor, though?”

George raised his brows in a silent question.

“Check on Bill Pickett for me? Keep an eye out for him if you can. I have a feeling that the people who were after us might go for him next.”

“You don’t have anything to worry about when it comes to Bill. We’ll make certain to keep an eye out.”

Esta gave George a sure nod, wishing that she could give him something else—one of Maggie’s concoctions or some protection or assurance beyond that. She was leaving him, Pickett, and everyone whose lives they’d touched in as much danger as they’d left Julian back in St. Louis. But there was nothing she could do except turn toward the city of Denver and the train that would carry her across the country to her magician. Esta picked up her pace, hoping that time wouldn’t take her before she could reach him.

OUTMANEUVERED

1902—New York

Viola Vaccarelli barely trusted herself to speak as she walked alongside Theo, back to his carriage. She wasn’t exactly sure how she’d lost the argument against him helping with the Order, but she had. Even Jianyu and Cela had agreed that if she wasn’t willing to use Nibsy, they needed a way to get more information than what she might glean from her brother. And she wasn’t willing to risk working with Nibsy. Viola knew her refusal to work with the little snake had confused them all—Viola included. But how could she explain to them why she was so afraid to take Nibsy’s bargain when she couldn’t even explain it to herself ?

They thought her reluctance was because she hated Nibsy—and she did. But they did not understand that she could not give Nibsy what he wanted—information against Paul. Information that would likely destroy her brother. It didn’t matter that Paolo could take care of himself or that he did not deserve her protection. Viola would have gladly destroyed Paul herself if it hadn’t been for what that action would do to their mother.

Pasqualina Vaccarelli loved her son like she loved her saints. In her eyes, Paolino could do no wrong, and if he had done wrong, Viola’s mother would never willingly admit it. Losing Paolo might well kill their mother. And if it didn’t kill her? If Pasqualina ever found out that Viola had been involved in orchestrating Paolo’s downfall? Certainly that would turn any love her mother might yet hold for Viola to hatred.

She wasn’t sure why it mattered. Viola could not even explain to herself why she still cared, when her family had never been particularly kind or loving to her. They had never accepted her, not for the magic that lived beneath her skin nor for her headstrong temper nor for her unwillingness to find a nice boy and settle for the life she was supposed to want. They’d never looked at her with the clear affection that Abel had shown Cela, but they were still her family, weren’t they? They were her blood, and she could not quite bring herself to betray them… not completely.

And if her mother had made life difficult for Viola, wasn’t that only a mother’s right? Pasqualina could not help having a daughter who refused to be meek and subservient, who would not take a man and settle down