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

bay, in Oakland. They’d gone over the plan more than enough the night before. Maybe it was nerves or maybe there wasn’t anything more to say, but they rode in silence in the plush, leather-lined interior as Sam navigated through the rain-splattered streets and across the massive steel bridge that connected the two cities.

Harte was sitting in the front with Sam, and he watched out the window, his eyes alert as they sped through a changed world. Esta could tell he was taking everything in, but she was more concerned with watching for signs that they were being followed. She didn’t see any, but she wouldn’t relax until the Dragon’s Eye was safely in their possession.

Sam pulled the Mercedes into a spot about half a block from the bank. He cut the ignition and turned to Esta, draping one arm over the seat. “You’re sure you don’t need my help for this?”

Esta nodded. “We’ll need your safety-deposit box number and the key.”

He frowned as he held it up. “I’ll get it back?”

“Of course,” she lied, taking it from him and palming it. They hadn’t explained everything. As far as Sam knew, they were only popping back long enough to get the crown. He thought they planned to return. “We’re going to pay you back tenfold, I promise.”

Sam gave her a doubtful look. “I can’t help thinking I should be going in there with you,” he told them. “It would be nothing at all for me to let you into the vault myself.”

And then he’d have to explain how the people he’d been with had disappeared.

“It’s really not necessary,” Esta told him. “You have so much more to lose than we do if anything goes wrong.”

“Just because I’ve got some years on you now doesn’t mean I can’t still handle myself,” Sam said sourly.

“I don’t doubt it. But you’ve already done more than anyone could have asked of you,” Harte told him, speaking to Sam as if he were still a young boy and not the old man he’d become. “Remember, if we’re not out in five minutes, you leave. Just go. Don’t look back and don’t worry about us. Whatever you do, don’t come in after us.”

Sam frowned, but he didn’t fight them about the issue anymore.

Harte came around the car with the umbrella for Esta, and they started walking toward the entrance to the bank. She’d already removed her gloves. “Are you ready?” she asked, handing him one of the remaining tablets of Quellant.

“Not really.” But he placed it into his mouth anyway and couldn’t suppress a shudder. “That’s terrible.”

“I know.” Esta remembered too well what it had been like to take Maggie’s Quellant—to feel that essential part of herself sliding away. “Everything okay?” she asked when a strange look came over his face.

“I think so.…” Harte’s brows were drawn together, like he was trying to figure something out. Then his expression relaxed a little. “The only positive thing about this whole situation is that I get to do this,” he said, slipping his hand into hers.

His palm was warm, and Esta felt a shiver of awareness when his skin touched hers. She waited, her breath tight with something that felt too close to longing, but she didn’t sense the vining warning of Seshat’s energy. All she felt were the calluses on Harte’s palms as their fingers intertwined. In that moment they were simply two people—a girl and a boy—walking together in the rain. For a moment, Esta allowed herself to imagine a life like this, where they could be… normal—whatever that meant. Safe, if there could be any such thing.

And if that life could not be? Could maybe never be? Esta would relish this stolen calm before the storm they were about to create.

The bank was housed in an unremarkable brick building with a large clock above the heavy double doors. “Ready?” Esta asked when Harte hesitated at the bottom of the steps leading up to the entrance.

He glanced over without bothering to hide his nerves. “What if we make things worse?”

Esta had the same worry, but she squeezed his hand gently. “If we don’t try, they can never get better.” Then she tilted her face up to him, and before she could allow herself to think through all the reasons why she shouldn’t, she pressed her mouth against his.

Harte’s lips felt cool against hers, soft with surprise, but he reacted almost immediately, deepening the kiss. His fingers closed around hers, and when she finally pulled away, the tightness around his jawline had softened and his stormy eyes looked hungry.

“Why did you do that?” Harte asked, still sounding a little breathless.

“Because you looked like you needed it,” Esta told him. “And because I wanted to.” She couldn’t stop the smile that curved her lips. Before he could ruin the moment—before he started telling her all the ways that it had been a bad idea—she pulled him toward the bank. She tried not to let herself worry too much about the darkness she thought she noticed lurking in the depths of his eyes, a darkness that seemed to be waiting.

Inside the bank’s vestibule, the steady patter of the rain went silent. People spoke in the hushed whispers usually reserved for funeral homes or churches or for being in the presence of large quantities of money. Esta didn’t ask if Harte was ready, but instead simply pulled the seconds slow, until the soft sounds of the bank receded and the world went still.

They made their way into the cavernous marble and wood lobby. It was early enough that there were very few people around. Dodging behind the service counter, Esta carefully lifted a key ring from the belt of one of the tellers, and together they found the vault where the safety-deposit boxes waited. Luckily, the vault itself had already been opened for the day.

The vault was lined floor to ceiling with small, bronze-colored doors. The safety-deposit boxes would contain any number of things—important papers or keepsakes, but also gold