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

she had cornered them and blocked their escape, he couldn’t bring himself to knock out a female. But if he let her up, she was sure to alert the marshals, especially now that he’d attacked her. And he certainly didn’t want to take her with them.

“Do you have anything for her?” he asked Maggie. “Quellant or—”

But the woman had gone completely still, her blue eyes wide as she stared at his wrist.

Inwardly, North cursed. He knew exactly what she was seeing. The edge of his shirt cuff had crept up his arm during the struggle, revealing the dark edge of his tattoo. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in the palm of his hand, and he jerked away, looking at the red welts of teeth marks there with disgust, but the woman didn’t scream as he’d expected her to.

“You’re Antistasi,” the woman said. It wasn’t a question, and to North’s surprise, it also didn’t sound like an accusation. The woman looked up at Maggie. “You’re the ones who set off the explosions.” Understanding shifted quickly to concern. “You need to get out of here. If they find you—”

“That’s what we were trying to do before you got in our way,” North said, bristling with unease at the implication that this woman knew what they were.

Another shout sounded nearby. The group of men who were searching the tents were getting closer.

“If you get off me, I can help.” The sharpshooter seemed younger and less battle-worn than she had a few minutes before. Not that it made North trust her.

“If I get off you, you’re liable to turn on us,” North said.

“Why would I do that, when we’re on the same side?” Again the girl’s eyes tracked to where Maggie and Esta stood behind him, and recognition lit her expression. “I wouldn’t do anything that could help them catch the Thief.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“Esta Filosik.” The sharpshooter was ignoring North and speaking directly to Esta now. “I didn’t recognize you at first, but now I ain’t sure how I missed it. When the news came from Texas about your death, we all hoped it wasn’t true. We knew it had to be a mistake, but then no one heard anything after.”

There was a question in her statement, but Esta, thankfully, didn’t respond. She met the woman’s excited chatter with a long, cold silence. She seemed to be measuring the moment, the same as North was.

“You said ‘we’?” North asked, still suspicious.

The woman’s gaze returned to him. “Y’all didn’t really think Mother Ruth’s little band of Antistasi were the only ones interested in the Thief, did you? A lot of people paid attention to what happened in St. Louis. You must be Jericho Northwood.” The sharpshooter’s gaze flicked back to Maggie. “And Margaret Feltz, Ruth’s baby sister. I’m surprised she let you go at all.”

“I was never her prisoner.” Maggie was at his side now.

“But you were most certainly her weapon,” the woman said. “Everyone knows that. It was your affinity that kept Ruth in power.”

North glanced up at Maggie, but he couldn’t tell what was running through her pretty head. Maggie had been loyal to Ruth. She’d believed in her sister’s vision and in the serum she created, but when that serum had turned out to be dangerous, when Ruth had refused to be swayed, Maggie had been brave enough to leave everything she’d ever known—and her only family—to do what she believed was right. And, somehow, this woman knew all about it.

“Who are you?” North asked, his instincts prickling. She knew too much about them for his liking.

“Cordelia Smith,” the woman said. “I work here at the show, but I’m like y’all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” North demanded.

Esta came closer, still holding the pistol. “She’s Mageus. I felt her affinity back in the arena.”

“I’m Antistasi,” the sharpshooter corrected. “Check my leg. You’ll find your proof of my loyalty there.”

“Go on,” North said after a moment, refusing to let the woman’s flirting throw him off. “Check her.”

He kept focused on Cordelia Smith as Maggie pushed the woman’s skirts high enough to check her leg.

“Higher,” she said with a saucy curve of her lips, never breaking her gaze with North. “My left thigh.”

North ignored the way his cheeks felt like embers and forced himself not to so much as blink. Whatever game this woman was playing, he wasn’t interested.

“Let her up, Jericho,” Maggie said, her voice soft but determined.

Making sure to keep his hold on the woman beneath him, he glanced back to see Maggie crouched over the woman’s legs. Cordelia’s skirt had been lifted to reveal long, slender legs covered in silk stockings, but above her garters, a tattoo wound itself around her thigh. A snake. Not a living serpent, like his, but an ouroboros just the same, its fanged skull devouring the delicate bones of its tail.

“She’s not lying,” Maggie said.

The sharpshooter only smiled at him, like a satisfied cat.

“It could still be a trap,” North argued. He couldn’t help but wonder why Cordelia had chosen to mark herself with death instead of the living serpent that was at the center of all the stories he’d heard as a child.

“Let her up, Jericho. If this were a trap, we’d already be caught,” Maggie told him, lowering the woman’s skirts. “She’s not the one with the gun right now, anyway.”

Another shout went up, closer still. The smell of smoke was thicker now, and North wondered what exactly Maggie had set on fire.

“Jericho…” Maggie’s tone was firm, and she had that determined look she got sometimes when she wasn’t going to be swayed. “If she says she can get us out of this mess, I don’t think we have much choice but to give her a chance.”

North didn’t like the idea of letting the woman go, but he knew it was going to happen eventually. It wasn’t like he could sit on her indefinitely, even if there weren’t marshals searching the grounds. “Fine.” Slowly he let go of Cordelia’s arms, keeping himself