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

He and Everett could have been mirror images, separated only by the passing of years.

The four of them went around the back of the building, where the lot was strewn with trash and old cigarette butts, and North led the way up the decaying steps to the back door. Inside, the house didn’t reveal anything more. Plaster crumbled from the walls, and the floor was weak and rotted out in more than one spot, but once the door was closed, the noise of the outside world went suddenly silent—a lot more silent than the rickety old walls should have warranted.

“What kind of a game are you trying to play?” Harte growled.

North didn’t answer, but a second later, a door on the other side of the room opened, and a small man emerged wearing enormous spectacles, with lenses so thick they made the eyes behind them look unnaturally small. Esta glanced at Harte, who looked every bit as unnerved as she felt by the guy’s unexpected appearance.

“The weather doesn’t look promising,” the small man told them.

North stepped forward. “When the moon shines red, it’s a nice enough night for a stroll.”

The man eyed them before he finally nodded. Then he stepped aside so they could pass through the doorway that waited behind him.

Harte glanced at Esta, but she only shrugged in answer. It could be a trap, but considering that North knew what he had to lose if anything happened to her, she doubted it was.

North went first, moving toward the open doorway without hesitation, and Everett followed just as quickly. Esta gave Harte another small shrug and followed as well.

As she passed through the door, though, she felt the brush of magic—warm and cool all at once. Natural and ritual mixed together in a dizzying swirl of energy, and the world seemed to contract, pressing in on them. Moving forward felt like pushing through some impossibly thick substance, and then all at once the sound of the world came roaring back and Esta winced against the brightness of a brilliantly blinding light.

When she opened her eyes again, she found herself in a warehouse. It was a long, narrow building with a peaked metal roof, and the sound of rain pattering above caused a kind of quiet roar to surround them. Strings of flickering bulbs were draped overhead, providing the only light, and the long space was filled with various stalls, each displaying an assortment of ordinary-looking objects. It looked like some kind of flea market or junk sale, except the vendors eyed each of the shoppers with sharp suspicion and everyone spoke in low, hushed voices.

“This is the Nitemarket?” she asked, feeling unaccountably disappointed by how normal it seemed.

North nodded as he started to lead them through the aisles. “Keep your eyes down and your mouths closed.”

“It’s raining,” Harte said, looking up at the ceiling.

In Chicago, the sky had been cloudless.

“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” Esta murmured.

North glared at her with confused frustration. “Chicago never was in Kansas.”

“It’s just an expression,” Esta told him as she shrugged off her mistake. “So what are we looking for? There’s not a lot of anything but junk here.”

“Junk that people would kill and die for,” North said in a low whisper. “Pretty much everything sold here is illegal in about twenty different ways, but the one thing it all has in common is that it’s infused with the old magic.”

Esta glanced over at him. “Like your watch.”

“Exactly.” North’s jaw was tight, and she realized he was nervous.

“Did you ever replace it?” she wondered, looking at the table they were passing. It looked like a collection of tools—hammers and awls, saws and vise clamps, each rusted and ordinary-looking.

“I thought about it for a while, but once I learned what it took to make a piece like that?” North shook his head. “I don’t need that kind of power. No one does.” His eyes cut in her direction, the judgment clear in them.

Esta found that she couldn’t disagree.

Harte was examining a table covered with a display of knives and brass knuckles. “Someone must sure want that kind of power. A lot of someones, from the look of this place.”

North pulled him away before he could pick up a pair of cuff links. “Doesn’t mean they’re right to. Come on,” he told them. “I think I see Dominic over yonder.”

Esta followed them down the narrow aisles. “Where did all of this come from?” She marveled at the sheer number of objects for sale. The variety as well. She’d assumed that magic-infused objects were rarer.

“From the same place as any magical object,” North said. “Someone gave up their affinity to make each item you see here.”

“Willingly?” Harte wondered.

“Does it matter?” North asked. “I imagine giving up even a part of your affinity would take a toll bigger than anyone could predict before they agreed. I don’t want to think about what something like that would do to a body, even if they had been willing.”

Esta didn’t have to imagine. She knew. When Professor Lachlan had trapped her in New York and tried to use her affinity to unite the stones, she had felt the very beginnings of her magic being ripped away from her. She already knew the terror of feeling herself about to fly apart far too keenly. But now she wondered if that was also what Leena had experienced when Dolph Saunders had taken part of her affinity for his cane. Esta thought maybe she understood a little better Leena’s decision to tell Dolph that their baby had died and to hide Esta away from him after she was born. Suddenly, the hall of goods around her seemed more sinister.

“Most of these are nothing but trinkets…” North was still talking, unaware of the direction of Esta’s thoughts. “Nothing like the stones in the Order’s artifacts. But even if someone thought they were making the decision freely, there’s a lot of complications that could come up—whether they really understood what they were agreeing to,