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

Jack only laughed. “When has evidence ever mattered to embarrassed and fearful men? They will look for someone to blame. They’ll need someone to hate, to punish. And when they find your body, broken and smashed on the walk below, they will point to you.”

Barclay’s expression was a mask of confusion. The fear in his eyes was delicious. “You can’t make me jump, Jack.”

“No?” Jack smiled pleasantly. He gave a shrug. “Perhaps not. But you’ll fall one way or the other by the time the night’s over, Barclay. Enjoy the view.”

Jack was already back inside before Barclay could realize what was happening. He closed the door and locked it before Theo had even started to move, barring it with the combination of the heavy leaden locks and the runes the Book had given him for this very purpose. On the other side, Barclay pounded on the glass, his screaming made silent by the barrier between them. Jack watched with some amusement as Barclay tried jerking on the door, but when he grabbed the handle, he recoiled as pale-yellow smoke started pouring from the place he’d touched. A rather convenient little charm, Jack thought.

Desperate, Barclay slammed his fists against the pane of glass again and again, as though he would willingly slice his wrists to shreds if it meant escaping. But Jack knew that nothing Barclay tried would work. The glass and the door together were built to withhold any blow, and they were warded with the same magic that had once protected the Mysterium.

Jack turned toward the stairs in the center of the room, toward the next steps in the plan he’d devised to retrieve the Delphi’s Tear. He left Theo Barclay to take care of himself.

With the enchantment layered into the smoke, Barclay was doomed anyway. The longer he stayed on that balcony, the better the ledge would begin to look. The wide-open expanse of sky would call to him, and by the time the sun had set, he would be so delirious that a different kind of exit would begin to look reasonable. Barclay would jump, and he would die, and in the chaos stirred by the events to come, Jack would walk away with the ring.

IN FOR A PENNY

1920—Chicago

Harte and Esta didn’t discuss anything more about what had happened between them on the train, especially not once the Quellant faded and Seshat began to stir again. Instead, Harte couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened—what he wanted it to mean—but he allowed the matter to drop, and they seemed to enter into an unspoken agreement, a fragile truce that was both a relief and a frustration.

What more was there to say about the matter? Wishing for a future or a long life with Esta wouldn’t make it so.

Harte knew exactly how headstrong Esta was, and he knew it would be pointless to argue with her about using her affinity if it cost her life. He knew how he felt as well. He would do everything he could to retrieve the Book, but if the Ars Arcana didn’t hold any answer to their dilemma—if it didn’t show them a way to control Seshat while keeping Esta alive and whole—Harte still knew of one sure way to end the threat Seshat posed without harming Esta. He didn’t need to argue with her about it. He would only need to act.

The truth of the matter was that Harte would not allow anyone else to lose their life for him or because of him. Not like Sammie had. He had been the one who had tried to steal the Book of Mysteries from the Order’s vaults, and he would be the one to accept the consequences for the mistake of letting Seshat loose into the world. Not Esta.

And if she carries your child? Seshat whispered, a dark amusement curling in her voice.

The goddess felt stronger than she had before—more like she had back in St. Louis—except now Harte knew she was furious with being muzzled and chained by the effects of the Quellant. It was clearer than ever that taking Maggie’s formulation had destroyed any hope of a truce, even with his continued promise to end Thoth.

Would you be so quick to sacrifice yourself and seek the easy escape of death? Seshat taunted. Would you leave them unprotected and make your child a bastard, as you are? If you do, Thoth will destroy them both.

Harte tried to push away Seshat’s words. He knew what she was doing—trying to weaken him, trying to make him waver—but by the time they arrived in Chicago, he was exhausted from trying to ignore the unresolved issue between them. The train slowed into the station, all steam and grinding of brakes. Esta was looking out the window of their small Pullman berth, her expression a study of concentration, and Harte wondered if she was considering the same thing he was.

“Esta, when would you…?” Harte hesitated, feeling unbearably, stupidly embarrassed.

“What?” Her dark brows drew together as she turned to him. “Are you okay? Is Seshat—”

“I’m fine,” he said, cutting her off. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about Seshat. But Esta only gave him a questioning look. “I mean, she’s still there, but that isn’t what I wanted to discuss. We need to talk about what happened between us.”

Esta grew wary. “What about it?”

“When might you know?” Harte asked, feeling his cheeks flame, and when she didn’t understand, he was forced to spell it out for her. “If there were any… complications.”

“Complications,” she repeated. Her expression had gone strangely, carefully blank. “Are we back to this, then?”

“You know I would never allow—”

“You wouldn’t allow ?” The wariness shifted to impatience now.

“That’s not what I meant,” he tried to say. “Only that if there is a child—”

“We are not talking about this right now, Harte,” Esta snapped.

“I could marry you,” he blurted.

Her mouth fell open, and for a moment, she looked as shocked as he felt from saying