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

the watch’s face. The world flashed white, the way it always did, but as the day shifted into the coolness of night, North felt an invisible fist punch him in the gut, knocking the air from him. He stumbled, leaning into Esta. His legs felt like they were going out from under him. Esta swayed under his weight, and they both went down.

At first North didn’t feel any pain at all. He tried to sit upright, but he couldn’t bring the air back into his lungs.

“Jericho—” Maggie’s voice was shaking.

When Esta let out the kind of curse most women don’t know, much less say, North knew it was bad. He wanted to tell them that he was fine, but all that came out was a ragged groan as pain erupted, hot and searing, through his side.

With the two girls panicking, North’s mind was having trouble making sense of what had happened. The world was quiet now, dark as he’d intended. He’d taken them backward a few hours, and now above him, the Texas sky was swept with the brightness of stars he’d once marveled at. They lit the otherwise depthless night, but even the wonder of the stars couldn’t take away the aching pain.

With his free hand, North reached for the source of that pain, grasping his side. He couldn’t understand, at first, why his shirt should be wet. Then he looked down at his fingers and saw them coated with the dark stain of his own blood.

NO SUCH THING AS TOO LATE

1904—Texas

Esta staggered under North’s weight, struggling to keep them both upright, as the reality of what had just happened slammed into her. From almost the moment she’d pulled time slow, the shadow of Seshat’s power had been there, and the longer she’d held the seconds, the more intense it had become. By the time they’d run from the train, darkness had been swirling thick above her, like a storm threatening to break. And then it had broken, whole and complete, crashing over her until the world went dark. She didn’t remember anything else until she’d come to, slung over North’s shoulder like some kind of damsel who needed saving.

She’d dismissed the shadow she’d seen earlier, because she hadn’t wanted to think there was any way Seshat’s power could still affect her without Harte being close by. But Esta hadn’t survived for so long by ignoring the truth when it was staring her in the face. Something had changed.

There wasn’t time for her to consider what it meant, not when they were so exposed and not with the cowboy examining the blood on his fingertips like he didn’t know who it belonged to. All the while, the dark spot on his light shirt continued to grow.

My fault. Esta had lost her grip on time, and they’d been seen. There was no escaping that fact. North had been shot because she’d failed to do what she’d promised.

“No,” Maggie said, covering North’s wound with her hands, trying to stop the bleeding. “No, no, no…”

“Can you walk?” Esta asked North, ignoring Maggie’s growing panic. Even if the posse was gone and the night seemed quiet, they would be safer out of sight.

North’s jaw tightened as he met Esta’s eyes and nodded. Gently, he brushed Maggie’s hands away. “I’m fine,” he said, trying to straighten. He groaned when he moved, wincing with pain, but he managed to stay upright.

Clearly, he wasn’t fine, but Esta wasn’t about to argue if North was able—or at least willing—to walk on his own. North was tall, with a thin, rangy build, but he was solid beneath his clothing. She could help take some of his weight—and she did—but Esta doubted that even together she and Maggie would be able to carry him. The faster they found cover the better.

Esta suspected that North had taken them back a few hours, to the night before the train arrived, but she didn’t know when the news of their impending arrival might have been sent to the marshals in town. There was no telling who might be watching for them. Before, she might have wrapped them in the cloak of her own affinity, but now she didn’t dare risk using her magic again. Not until she understood why Seshat’s darkness could touch her apart from Harte. After all, Esta knew too well what the darkness could do.

Trains derailed.

Elevator cables snapped.

Holes big enough to swallow horses split the ground.

It was more than bad luck. Seshat’s ability to pull apart the Aether around them and unmake the order of existence was like Esta’s own power, but stronger. Infinitely more potent.

“How far back did you take us?” she asked North.

“About six hours,” he said with another pained groan.

It wasn’t much time. Not nearly enough to get clear of the danger the marshals posed, even if North hadn’t been injured.

“We need to get going,” Esta told the two of them, hoping that her voice didn’t give away her worry.

Thankfully, Esta didn’t have to do more than support North’s weight as they made their way toward the oil fields, where the enormous rigs stood like sentries against the night. The fields were two, maybe three hundred yards away, but they might as well have been in another country, especially since North seemed to be moving more slowly with each step.

Finally, they reached the edges of the oil fields and found an abandoned rig that had a small shed leaning close to its base. Inside, it smelled of dust and mold and a hint of something mechanical, but it was clear no one had been there for a while. The roof was only partially clinging to the walls, and moonlight streamed in from above, lighting the small space. Esta tried to help ease North down, but his legs went out from under him and he crumpled to the ground instead.

Maggie knelt next to him and started pulling away his jacket and shirt to see the wound beneath, but she went