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

back at the bed, where Jianyu remained unmoving. His breathing looked steadier now, though, his color less faded. “He is better,” she said softly.

“But not completely,” Cela countered.

She turned back to them. “No. The wound wouldn’t be healed.” She tried to explain how her affinity worked, how she’d tried to knit the wound together and how it had resisted her.

“How is that possible?” Cela asked, her voice fraying a little at the edges. “You made the wound. Your knife did this. You should be able to fix it.”

“Cela…” Abel’s voice was a warning. He looked distinctly uneasy as he pulled his sister back gently.

Because he was afraid of her. Viola had given him a good enough reason to be.

Viola turned back to Jianyu and pulled herself to unsteady feet. She could feel their frustration, their suspicions, and she could not blame them. Placing Jianyu’s hands back across his abdomen, she tucked the blankets around him gently.

The movement must have disturbed him, because his eyes fluttered open suddenly. Unfocused, they stared toward the ceiling until she leaned over him, hope caught in her throat, and then he looked at her.

Jianyu tried to speak, but his voice was a scuffed thing, rough and barely there. His brows pulled together, ever so slightly, but Viola couldn’t tell if it was confusion or anger or pain that knitted them.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, hating the catch in her own throat and the way her eyes burned with tears. “I can’t—” His mouth moved a little, but she shook her head. “You must rest,” she said, pulling her hand back. She was suddenly afraid to touch him, because touching him meant facing her own failure.

His eyes were on her, still glassy and unfocused, when another unintelligible husk of a whisper came out. But she was already backing away.

Cela had gone to Jianyu’s side and was already leaning over the bed and speaking in urgent, hushed tones as she held his hand. But Jianyu’s eyes were following Viola.

“You can’t just up and leave,” Abel said.

Viola met his gaze and wondered what she would do if he tried to stop her.

“Vee—” Jianyu’s mouth formed the first syllable of her name. From across the room, his eyes met hers, and she knew that he saw her standing there. Knew that he understood what she had done, and what she had failed to do.

She should have stepped toward him. She should have tried again, but Viola felt the weight of Cela’s judgment and the unease in Abel’s posture. She felt their distrust heavy in the room and knew that there was nothing more she could do for Jianyu, so she turned and she ran.

Outside, the early-summer heat was already starting to make the city air feel too close and too heavy, but Viola barely felt it. She was already overheated and chilled all at once, and the shift beneath her skirts was damp with her own sweat. She turned to look around the neighborhood, trying to figure out where she was in the city. She knew which direction she needed to go. South. Toward the Bowery.

THE BULLDOGGER

1904—Denver

Esta arrived in Colorado with Maggie and North two days after the mess in Texas. She’d taken dose after dose of the Quellant, but she still wasn’t used to the gnawing emptiness where her connection to the old magic should have been. She doubted she ever would be. As unpleasant as the constant ache from her missing affinity was, at least nothing else had happened. The train had remained steady on its tracks, and no shadows had threatened the edges of her vision. And if Esta wanted to crawl out of her own skin from being so separated from such an essential part of herself ? It was a small price to pay for the assurance that Seshat could not touch her.

Before they’d boarded a train for Denver, Esta had checked the headlines and found that the ruse in Texas seemed to have worked. The Devil’s Thief was presumed dead, but any relief Esta might have felt was quickly erased by the sight of Julian Eltinge’s picture looking up at her from the second page. Julian was among those who were already showing strange symptoms from being exposed to the serum in St. Louis. Esta knew what would eventually happen to those poor souls. First a connection to the old magic would awaken, and then a few days later they would die. They would not have easy deaths.

Esta tried not to think about Julian, with his whip-smart humor and sharp intelligence, suffering like that. He’d been nothing short of heroic at the parade, despite being cornered into a terrible situation, and the idea that he’d been doused with the serum gnawed at her. She couldn’t stop herself from wondering what terrible affinity the serum might awaken in him, or whether he would have anyone at all to comfort him at the end. And as the train climbed into the mountains, she discovered the bitter taste of true regret.

When they finally arrived in Denver, Esta was completely on edge, but the sky that greeted them was wide and blue, and the mountain air didn’t have the heavy blanket of humidity that had made Texas feel so oppressive. The Colorado air was thin, but she forced herself to focus on what lay ahead instead of the path of destruction she’d left behind.

The three of them had spent their time aboard the train planning, and as soon as they arrived, they headed directly for the edge of town, where the Curtis Brothers’ Wild West Show—and with any luck, the Pharaoh’s Heart—waited.

Even without her affinity, Esta was confident that she could retrieve the dagger quickly, but when they crested the hill and saw the Curtis Brothers’ Wild West Show sprawling in the fields below, some of her confidence waned. This wasn’t a simple rodeo. Instead, the grounds stretched over multiple acres, with an enormous tent of billowing white canvas holding court at