“Oh! I’m not here to talk about your vices or faults, Mr. Lee.” Agnes imagines it would be quite a long conversation.
The dashing grin reappears. “Glad to hear it.”
“I’m here,” she says pleasantly, “to talk about witchcraft.” The smile freezes, hanging half-formed on his face. “I represent the Sisters of Avalon. You may have heard of us?”
It takes a beery two seconds before his eyes widen. “Oh hell. You’re that women’s club Annie’s been on about.”
“Oh, you have heard of us! How lovely. Well, I’m here because we’ve heard the most fascinating rumors about the Pullman Strike in Chicago.” His face stiffens when she says the word Chicago, and he rubs at the scar along his jaw. Agnes pretends not to notice, fluttering on with girlish innocence. “Some people said work was delayed by means that were . . . uncanny. Rusted machines, furnaces that never burned hot, timber that rotted overnight.” She leans forward conspiratorially, looking up at him through the long black of her lashes. “We were hoping you might be willing to tell us more about it. Share some of your ways and words.”
Mr. Lee watches her for a long, considering second before settling back in his seat, one arm flung along the back of the bench. He sips the foamed gold of his beer and asks neutrally, “Was that your girls, at the Square Shirtwaist Factory? And St. George’s Square?”
Agnes, who feels vaguely that it would be unwise to confess criminal activity to a near-stranger, merely smiles.
He lifts his beer in a mocking toast. “Quite impressive. Showy. I’ve seen your sign all over town.” Agnes has seen it, too: three circles drawn in soot on alley walls or scratched into the sides of trolleys; three flower wreaths hung together in a shop window, their edges overlapping; three loops embroidered into the tags of sweatshop shirts. The Sign of the Three had spread through New Salem like the underground roots of some great, unseen tree, tunneling beneath the cobblestones and surfacing in every mill-house and kitchen and laundry room.
Agnes tries to hide her too-sharp smile with an airy “Yes, it has gotten some attention, hasn’t it?”
“And there’s your problem, Miss Agnes Amaranth.” Mr. Lee’s tone is so perfectly condescending Agnes thinks he must have taken lessons. She pictures whole classrooms full of young, handsome men practicing their pitying smiles. He continues, “See, in Chicago we weren’t interested in attention. It wasn’t a damn stage-play. It was a war. Not a show.”
Agnes permits herself to imagine his expression if she were to grab his beer and toss it in his smug face. She bends her lips in another simpering smile. “Still, Mr. Lee. Surely it wouldn’t be too terribly taxing to spend an evening or two in consultation with us? We would be very grateful students, I promise.” Agnes thinks of Juniper, who might show her gratitude by permitting Mr. Lee to leave the premises on two feet rather than four, and fights back a laugh.
Mr. Lee is still sprawled against his bench, unmoved. He cocks his head at her. “Does all this”—he waves his beer at her, indicating everything from her eyelashes to her pinned-up hair—“generally work for you? Sweet looks and wiles?”
Agnes straightens very slowly, her simper flattening into cold appraisal. “Generally, yes.”
He shakes his head ruefully. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. Annie said you were a hell of a looker”—Agnes feels a sudden rush of warmth toward Annie—“and hard as a coffin nail”—the warmth subsides substantially—“which is frankly more interesting. I sympathize with your cause, truly I do. There were women standing on the train tracks in Chicago, too, and we were grateful. But it comes down to the laws of nature.”
“What laws, precisely?” There’s no honey in her voice at all, now.
Lee takes another drink, thumbs foam from his upper lip. “Women can’t work men’s magic.”
Agnes feels invisible thunderclouds rolling nearer. “No?”
“It’s no insult. It’s just the way we’re made. A man would make a mess of women’s witching, wouldn’t he? All those fiddly charms for housework and keeping your hair just so . . .”
The thunderclouds crackle closer, raising the hair on her arms. “Have you ever tried it?”
He looks mildly affronted, as if she’d asked whether he sometimes wore corsets and lace. “Of course not.”
“Give me a man’s spell to try, then, right here and now.”
Her tone cuts through the indulgent laze of Mr. Lee’s expression. He sits a little straighter in his seat, his eyes on the iron line of her mouth. “Does your father know where you are?”
She gives him a cold shrug. “Dead.”
“Your husband?”
Agnes raises her left hand and wiggles her ringless fingers.
“Huh. What about the baby, then? Are you sure a woman in your condition should be—”
Agnes lowers all her fingers except one, causing Mr. Lee to snort into his beer.
He mops the splatters with his sleeve, grinning in a helpless, boyish way that makes him seem suddenly much younger. He looks at her and mutters something that might be sweet damn.
Agnes feels an answering smile tugging at her lips, but she hammers it flat. “I have a proposal for you, Mr. Lee.” There is a voice in her head telling her this is a very stupid proposal; she ignores it. “If I can perform a spell of your choosing to your satisfaction, you will agree to assist us however you may.”
Mr. Lee crosses his arms and adopts an unconvincing expression of reluctance. Agnes would bet a week’s pay that he was the sort of boy who never turned down a dare or backed down from a bluff. “And if you fail?”
“Then I leave you in peace.”
“Seems a shame. I don’t care much for peace.”
“What, then?”
His eyes flash wickedly. “A kiss.”
She isn’t surprised: he’s a flirt and she’s a woman with demonstrably questionable morals, and in her experience there’s rarely anything else a man wants from her. But she’s surprised to feel a flicker of disappointment—that he’s so predictable, perhaps.
