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

and coins, cash and jewelry. Maybe it would have been safer to keep time completely still, but each box required two locks to be simultaneously unlocked—one with the master key they’d stolen from the teller and one that they needed to pick on their own. She couldn’t do that and hold on to Harte, so Esta released time and started on the first lock. Beyond the entrance to the vault, she could hear the sounds of the bank coming back to life.

“I don’t like this,” Harte whispered.

“Me neither, but the faster we get to work, the faster we can get out of here,” Esta said as she finished popping the lock she’d been working on.

Inside she found gold coins and a few pieces of jewelry, which she pocketed before moving on to the next and then the next. She couldn’t let herself think about the people she was stealing from, or what these small treasures might mean to them, and in a matter of minutes she had quite a haul—cash and jewels, antique coins, and some old stock certificates as well. None of it would be traceable, because she was taking it all with them, back where no one would be looking for it.

Harte started working as well. His years of training for his act had made him a deft lockpick, and he worked almost as fast as she did with the master key. They replaced the boxes as they went, so that at first glance no one would notice anything had been taken. They were working so efficiently that in a matter of minutes they’d cleared enough to make Sam a very rich man.

Esta was finishing up when they heard footsteps approaching. She barely had time to lunge for Harte, who was on the other side of the vault, but before she could pull the seconds still, Sammie appeared in the doorway.

“The watchmen.” His eyes were wide, and he was panting.

Esta understood immediately and reached for Sammie, but shots erupted and he shuddered, jerking violently—one, two, three, four times—and staggered out of her reach, falling sideways into Harte’s arms.

Esta sprang into action, slamming the vault door closed and pulling the seconds slow all at once. The world went starkly, deafeningly silent.

At first all she could do was stand there, her heart pounding in her ears as she looked at the scene in front of her—the shocked anguish on Harte’s face, his arms outstretched to catch his brother, and the blood that had splattered the bronze doors from where Sam had been hit squarely in the back.

Esta was frozen with indecision. If she released time, the people who had shot Sammie would have the door to the vault opened in a matter of minutes—maybe even seconds. But she understood that she couldn’t simply pull Harte and Sammie into the net of time with her. If she brought the two back into the regular march of seconds, Sammie’s wounds would bleed and Harte’s brother would die. All Esta could do was stand there between the seconds that separated life from death. Between the past that had been and the future she could remake, knowing that she couldn’t stay there, trapped in time within an airless vault forever, but neither could she let go.

UNEXPECTED

1902—New York

Jack Grew was sitting in the back parlor of the Vanderbilt home with a group of other men, doing his level best to avoid the preening debutantes on the dance floor. The fact that the whiskey he was drinking seemed to be mostly water did nothing to help his growing irritation. It wasn’t enough that the Order had decided he was worthy of trust. No. Jack’s family had decided that he was in need of something more—namely, a wife. They had collectively decided that he should spend more time out in society and were determined that he suffer through every summer soiree since the gala.

It would be good for his reputation, his mother insisted. The more the important families of the city saw him, the less they would think of that girl’s unfortunate death, his aunt had agreed. Marriage, the women had decided, would serve to help rehabilitate his image.

Rehabilitate. That was the actual word they’d used, as though Jack were some invalid convalescing with tuberculosis. Morgan, of course, was no help. Jack’s uncle was clearly in the minority of opinions in the Inner Circle and was perfectly happy to allow the women of the family to arrange Jack’s life. Morgan made it no secret that he would have preferred his nephew not be involved with the plans for their new headquarters, and he reminded Jack of this every time their paths crossed.

That night was like every other dinner party he’d been forced to attend. He made his required appearance to appease the cackling hens in his family, but that was Jack’s limit. Instead of the crush of the ballroom, he found his usual spot with the men in the back parlor, far from the mothers with their sharp eyes and unwed daughters in tow. The last thing he needed was to be tied to one of those bits of muslin, not when he had more important things to accomplish.

Jack was playing a hand of rummy with a few of the older fellows, since they, at least, tended not to put much stock in gossip or marriage marts, when he noticed a familiar face—one he hadn’t seen for weeks. Theo Barclay was walking through the parlor with the High Princept and two other men from the Inner Circle.

There was something about the group that bothered Jack. Maybe it was simply Barclay’s appearance, or the ease with which Theo seemed to be conversing with the older men. Something was wrong with the portrait they made as the men cut through the back parlor, and Jack’s instincts were prickling. He folded his hand and excused himself from the table, then made his way toward the trio.

“Barclay?” Jack called out. When Theo Barclay turned,