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

maneuver to see if his brother was conscious. He could already feel blood soaking into his own clothing, but he refused to acknowledge the truth of it.

Sammie didn’t respond. His face was slack and his eyes partially closed, but Harte couldn’t process what had just happened. He looked up to find Esta with her hand clasped over her mouth. She was shaking her head, and Harte knew then, without her even saying a word. But he still didn’t want to accept the truth of it.

“No,” he told her, moving so that he could gently lay his brother out on the floor of the vault and try to shake him awake. He couldn’t be the cause of another innocent life being snuffed out. Not again. Sammie couldn’t die because of him.

Harte was still holding his brother, tapping gently at the face that now wore the years of an old man. Those years didn’t seem to matter, though. All Harte could see was the boy beneath, the child he’d once given up everything to rescue and who’d then found Esta and rescued him in turn.

It can’t end like this.

Their attackers were still outside, though. Dimly, Harte realized someone was already working the heavy tumbler of the vault door, and soon enough, the door would open once again and they would be trapped.

“He’s gone, Harte,” Esta said softly. Her voice trembled, even as the hand on his shoulder was firm as she tried to pull him away.

Harte ignored her and concentrated on Sam’s face. If he would only wake up…

Esta tugged at him again. “We have to go,” she said. “That lock will only keep them out for a couple more seconds.”

“I’m not leaving him here,” Harte told her. “I can’t.”

She crouched down and took his hand, but Harte refused to look at her. He couldn’t leave his brother here to be found by their enemies. He wouldn’t. “We’re going to take him.” As long as Harte had ahold of Sam, Esta couldn’t leave him there.

“We can’t,” she told him. Her voice was soft, but the words still felt like a slap. “If Sammie disappears, they’ll know for sure what happened here.”

“I don’t care about that,” Harte told her.

“What happens when we get back to 1920, Harte?” Esta asked. “We can’t stop guns that have already fired. We can’t change what just happened by taking Sammie with us, but if we go now, it doesn’t have to be like this.” Her voice was more urgent now. “We can fix this, Harte, but we have to go. Now. You have to let Sammie go, because if they catch us here, this is how your brother’s life ends. The Brotherhoods aren’t going to let us get away again.”

Harte was still shaking his head. He’d tried to save Sammie once before, and in the end it had come to this. “What if we can’t change anything?” He looked up at her then. “What if we make it all worse?”

“I don’t know,” she told him. “But if we don’t go now, everything ends right here. Including Sammie’s life. Let go of him, Harte. Give me your hand.”

Esta was right. Harte knew she was absolutely right about everything, but it felt impossible to let go of his brother. To leave him like this, alone on the cold floor of a darkened vault.

The turning of the lock on the vault had stopped, and Harte could hear the lever being depressed.

“Harte, please…” Esta’s voice was gentle.

Before the door could open, she grabbed Harte’s shoulder, and the sound drained from the vault as they were caught in the power of her magic. Finally, Harte made himself release his brother and left him there on the floor, outside of Esta’s hold on time. Harte’s legs seemed to move of their own accord, as he forced himself to his feet. Without another word, he took Esta’s hand. She was trembling, he realized, the same as himself. But his legs were strangely solid beneath him.

Harte did not take his eyes from his brother’s face. His body was cold, his brain numb, and every bit of himself felt as distant and dead as the Quellant had made Seshat’s power. On the bloodstained floor of the vault, Sam stared up at them, sightless and silent.

“Let me…” Still holding Esta’s hand, Harte bent down to close his brother’s eyes. “This has to work,” he told her.

Esta’s face was dappled in shadow. “It will,” she told him, her voice as determined as her expression. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling Harte into the warmth of her embrace. The vault was silent, and time seemed to be holding its breath. All at once the world felt like it was contracting around him, ripping itself apart in a great roaring, and then, suddenly, all was quiet again, and Harte found himself spinning through the endless darkness.

No… not endless darkness, and it was only his own head that was spinning. The floor was solid beneath him as Esta let go of his hand and the world righted itself. Nearby he could hear her breathing, soft and steady, as though the world itself hadn’t been turned inside out.

Esta clicked on the flashlight that Sam had given them, and a beam illuminated the vault. Harte didn’t need the light to know that Sammie was no longer there on the floor. He could only hope that Esta was right and that they could change the past so his brother would never be there.

Esta had already launched into action and had located Sammie’s box. A moment later she opened the small metal door.

Harte felt the wash of power before Esta even lifted the golden crown from within Sammie’s box and replaced it with everything they’d stolen from the other security boxes. He wondered how he hadn’t recognized the fake Dragon’s Eye for what it was. Still, standing there with the memory of his brother’s body clear in his mind’s eye, he didn’t feel any relief. How could he, when obtaining the crown meant that