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

North clearly was. He grabbed the box from Esta when she didn’t immediately open it, and she was still too unnerved to bother with fighting him.

Maggie moved closer to him. “Well?” she asked, her voice almost trembling, as North stared at the contents of the box.

After a few frozen seconds, North tossed the box on the table so violently that the coins and papers it held threatened to escape. “It’s not here.” Then he turned on Esta. “You told us it would be here. You promised that Pickett had the dagger.”

“The dagger?” Cordelia asked, her eyes going wide. “You’re talking about the Pharaoh’s Heart.”

North was still too busy glaring at Esta to answer.

“Y’all are going after the other artifacts,” Cordelia said, excitement coloring her voice. “You’re going to make the Sundren pay.”

“No one is going to make anyone pay,” Maggie said, sounding a little taken aback. “We’re only here for the dagger. Or we were…”

Cordelia’s excitement shifted to confusion. “But why would y’all ever think Bill Pickett would have an artifact?”

“Because that’s what she told us,” North said.

“He’s a simple cowpoke,” Cordelia told North. “He ain’t even Mageus, or I would’ve already recruited him.”

“He has to have it.” Esta forced herself to ignore the trembling in her limbs and the burning of the scar as she stepped closer to look through the box herself. Harte had sent her to Denver to retrieve the dagger. If it wasn’t there, she didn’t know what she would do next. But North was right. Inside was nothing but a pile of coins and some papers with scribbled IOUs.

“It must be somewhere else, then,” Esta told them.

“You already searched Pickett’s tent,” North reminded her.

“So maybe it’s not in his tent,” Esta said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Maybe Pickett keeps the dagger on him.”

“Or maybe he never had it in the first place,” North said, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Maybe this was all a bunch of misdirection, like that crazy tale you told us on the train about ancient goddesses and the end of the world. I knew we shouldn’t have trusted her,” he told Maggie.

“The fact that my tale was so crazy should tell you that it’s true. Why would I make something like that up when I could have left you in the dust? Pickett has the knife,” Esta snapped. “I wasn’t lying about that before, and I’m not lying now. We have to go back. We have to look again.”

“You’d be nuts to go back there right now,” Cordelia said. “Artifact or not, there’ll be marshals crawling all over back there for hours. Syndicate, too.”

“The Syndicate’s here?” Maggie asked, glancing nervously at North.

“Who do y’all think was in charge of that raid today?” Cordelia frowned like this was something they should have already known. “They’ve been gathering up people suspected of illegal magic ever since what happened in St. Louis. All the Brotherhoods have.”

“Do you two have experience with this Syndicate?” Esta asked. It was clear the Syndicate was another of the Brotherhoods, but that didn’t account for the severity of Maggie’s and North’s reaction.

“They helped run me out of Texas a couple of years back,” North said, apparently not wanting to tell the entire story. He was still looking at Maggie. “I didn’t want to worry you before, but…” His mouth pressed into a hard line before he spoke again. “I saw Jot Gunter back in Texas.”

At this news, the color drained from Maggie’s face. “You’re sure?”

North rubbed at the back of his neck. “He was with the men at the oil fields.”

They traded a meaningful glance, and Esta understood that there was some bigger story there—something that they were not saying.

“How do y’all know Jot Gunter?” Cordelia asked, her thick brows bunching. “He’s one of the Syndicate’s highest-ranking members.”

“We go way back,” North said darkly. “But I’d rather not run into him again anytime soon if I can help it.”

“Jericho, they’re definitely going to realize that my explosions today were the same as the ones I set off in Texas, and when they do…” Maggie raised her hand to cover her mouth, as though she could hold back the truth of what she’d done.

“It doesn’t matter,” Esta told them. Jot Gunter or the Syndicate or whoever was in her way—none of it mattered. She didn’t know why time had wavered around her, but the warning had been clear enough: Her time was running out. “We have to go back. Bill Pickett has the dagger, and I’m not leaving until I get it.”

A TRUTH TOO TERRIBLE

1904—Denver

Maggie hadn’t missed the way Esta had said “I” rather than “we,” and she wondered, not for the first time, if Esta would leave them as Ben had, empty-handed and without explanation. True, Esta had taken the Quellant, but Maggie had seen her in action over the past couple of weeks, and she didn’t believe that something as simple as a missing affinity would stop the Thief if she set her mind to something.

And yet… Esta didn’t look quite right. For all the confidence in her voice, she looked almost green and her hands were trembling. Maybe the emptiness of the box had shaken her badly, or maybe Esta had been shocked by the news about the Syndicate being in Denver. Whatever the case, Maggie couldn’t worry too much about Esta’s state. Not when they still didn’t have an artifact in their possession.

When Esta had told them about the dagger, Maggie had thought that maybe fate had given her a way to correct the mistakes she’d made. Maybe the necklace was gone, but with the possibility of collecting the Pharaoh’s Heart, she still had hope. Now she wasn’t so sure. The dagger hadn’t been in the box, and they were still empty-handed.

“Esta’s right,” Maggie told the others. “Bill Pickett’s the only lead we have. Even if the Syndicate is here, we need to put all of our focus into figuring out