Dolph thumped the bottle onto the desk. “Let them come.”
“And the people who’ll get hurt in the process?”
“I can’t save them all,” he said with a pang of guilt. He’d sent Spot and Appo to their graves, hadn’t he? And he hadn’t even been able to protect Leena, the one person he would have given anything—everything—to protect.
“Leena wouldn’t have stood for you acting like this,” Nibs told him, taking the risk to come closer to the desk.
“Don’t,” Dolph warned, meaning so many things all at once. Don’t speak of her. Don’t remind me of what I’ve lost. Don’t push me to be the man I’m not any longer. Don’t . . .
But Nibs didn’t so much as blink at his tone. “That’s the message she gave me that night, isn’t it? You’re still trying to figure it out?”
Instinctively, Dolph picked up the fabric and rubbed his fingers across the faded letters. “Leena would have wanted me to.”
“Can I see?” Reluctantly, Dolph handed the fragile scrap over to Nibs, who studied it through the thick lenses of his spectacles, his face serious with concentration as he tried to decipher the Latin. “Have you figured it out? What book do you think she means?”
“I can’t be sure, but I think she means the Book.”
Nibs glanced up at him over the rims of his spectacles, confusion and curiosity lighting his eyes. “The Book?”
Dolph nodded. “The Ars Arcana.”
Surprise flashed across Nibsy’s face. “The Book of Mysteries?” He handed the scrap back with a frown. “That’s only a myth. A legend.”
“Maybe it is, but there are too many stories about a book that holds the secrets of magic for there not to be some truth to them,” Dolph said, accepting the scrap with careful fingers.
“There are?”
Dolph nodded. “Some stories claim the Ars Arcana might be the Book of Toth, an ancient tome created and used by the Egyptian god of wisdom and magic, lost when the dynasties fell. Others say it was a record of the beginning of magic, stolen from a temple in Babylon before the city crumbled. They all end with the Book’s disappearance.” Dolph shrugged. “What’s to say that someone didn’t find it? What’s to say the stories aren’t true? If the Ars Arcana is real, what’s to say the Order doesn’t have it? Look at the devastation the Brink has wrought. . . .”
“But the Order—”
“The Order’s power had to come from something,” Dolph said irritably. “They aren’t Mageus. They don’t have a natural affinity for magic, so how did they come to have the power they wield now, even defiled as it is?”
Nibs shook his head. “I’ve never really thought about it.”
“I have. Who’s to say that this book isn’t the Book? What else would Leena have been willing to sacrifice herself for?”
Nibs hesitated. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know.” Dolph let out a tired breath and placed the scrap on the desk before him. “Leena was no green girl. If anyone could handle themselves against the Order, it would have been her. Even you didn’t see how badly it would turn out.”
“I’m sorry. . . .”
“I don’t blame you. It was her choice, and mine. But I don’t know if I can make that choice for anyone else.”
“But Leena’s message . . .” Nibs frowned. “What if this book—the Ars Arcana, or whatever it is—what if it is the key to our freedom?”
“I don’t know if I can ask anyone else to put themselves at that kind of risk for a hunch.”
“They’re already at risk,” Nibs said. “Every day more come to this city, believing they’ve found a haven only to find themselves in a prison instead. Every day, more and more Mageus arrive and become trapped by the Brink—by the Order.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Dolph grumbled, tipping the bottle up again and frowning when he found it empty.
“They need someone to protect them. To lead them.” Nibs took the bottle from Dolph.
It can’t be me.
Dolph rubbed his chin, and the growth of whiskers there surprised him. Leena would have hated it. She liked his face clean and smooth and often ran her fingers over his skin, leaving trails of warmth behind.
She used to run her fingers over his skin, he corrected himself. But she’d been gone for months now, and Dolph hadn’t felt anything since then except for the ice lodged in his chest. And the emptiness that filled his very soul.
“I can’t lead them, Nibs. Not anymore.”
The boy cocked his head, expectant, but didn’t push.
“It’s gone.”
An uneasy silence grew between them as Dolph wondered if he’d ever been so young. By the time he was sixteen, he’d already put together his own crew. He’d already started on this mistake of a journey to change their fortunes. He had just over a decade on Nibs, but those years had aged him. And the past few months had hardened him more than an entire lifetime of regrets could have.
“Everything is gone?” the boy asked carefully.
Dolph licked his dry lips. “Not everything, no. But when I reached through to get Leena, the Brink took enough.”
“The marks?”
“I can’t feel them anymore. I won’t be able to control them either.” He met Nibs’ questioning eyes. “They won’t fear me if they know.”
“So we don’t let them know.” Nibs gave him a long, hard look. “Control doesn’t have anything to do with fear. Control is all about making them think following you is their idea.”
“If they find out, they’ll turn, and without Leena—”
“Even without Leena, you still have Viola for protection. You’re not defenseless.”
Nibs was right. Leena’s ability to defuse the affinities of anyone around him who meant to do them harm had helped him build his holdings, but Viola could kill a man without touching him. He was making excuses, running scared, and that was something he’d never done before.
“Do it for her,” Nibs urged. “If she sent you this message, it’s what she wanted. Going after the Book, going after the Order, don’t you think it’s what she intended for you to do?”
“Fine. Put some people on it—people we trust. But I don’t want word getting out about what we’re looking for. If anyone else found out that the Ars Arcana exists . . .” He didn’t finish the thought, but they both understood how dangerous it could be if others knew that he was after it. A book that could hold the secrets of magic? Whoever had it could be as unstoppable as the Order.
Which meant that Dolph had to be sure to get it first.
“I’ll get on it,” Nibs said, “but would you do me a favor?”
“What now?” Dolph asked, furrowing his brow in irritation.
“Get yourself a bath or something. The gutter out back smells better than you do.”
ISHTAR’S KEY
Present Day—Orchard Street