by Allie Therin
Also available from Allie Therin
and Carina Press
The Magic in Manhattan Series
Spellbound
Starcrossed
And look for the next magical adventure from Allie and Carina Press, coming in 2022!
Content Warning
Wonderstruck deals with topics some readers might find difficult, such as child abuse and involuntary institutionalization.
Wonderstruck
Allie Therin
For my readers, for taking a chance—and this journey—with me.
Author Note
The Italian phrases in Wonderstruck were translated, with many thanks from me, by Cristina Massaccesi. Any errors that may have resulted from the use of her translation work are mine.
Although the Magic in Manhattan books are works of fiction, real history also runs through these stories. This series would not be possible without the hard work of historians and librarians to make the archives of the past available to the public.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Excerpt from Best Laid Plaids by Ella Stainton
Chapter One
The coffee wasn’t right. Oh, it had been expertly brewed and served in some of the finest china Montreal had to offer. But it wasn’t strong enough, and it wasn’t hot enough, and it didn’t taste as good as—
“Something wrong with your drink?”
Arthur looked up from where he was, admittedly, frowning at the small cup he held in one hand. “No, it’s fine.”
Across the wooden table, Zhang snorted. “Sure. That’s why you’re glaring like it insulted your throwing arm.”
Arthur huffed. “It’s a lovely cup of coffee,” he said. “It’s just when Rory makes coffee, he makes it stronger, and sometimes he heats up milk or adds sugar...” He trailed off, eyes narrowing at Zhang’s amused expression. “You can wipe that smirk off your face. I am aware of how ridiculous I sound.”
“You bought an Italian phrasebook this morning,” Zhang said simply. “I don’t think you’re ridiculous; I think you miss him.”
Arthur sighed and set the coffee down. The March afternoon was really too chilly to sit comfortably on the terrace, but chilly wasn’t snowing, and after being back in America for an endless New York winter, Arthur wanted to be outside.
Though, to be fair to New York, the search for a way to destroy the mind-enslaving supernatural pomander they’d acquired had kept them apart for nearly a month. First a wild goose chase to small-town Maine, which had plenty of beautiful forest and rocky beach but unfortunately no helpful magic. Zhang’s family contact, a fisherman in Kennebunkport, had pointed them to Burlington, Vermont, where they’d found a middle-aged nurse who sent them to find her paranormal sister in Quebec.
And now they were in Montreal, pedestrians weaving through trollies and cars by the universities downtown and tiny shops and eateries tucked along cobbled streets near the water. Jade had gone to speak to the sister alone, because they’d been warned that she didn’t care for English, and neither Arthur nor Zhang spoke enough French to do anything but wear on her nerves.
They’d come to a restaurant in the old part of the city to wait for Jade. Zhang was clutching his own coffee with both hands like he could draw out all of its warmth. “Jade is going to want to sit inside.”
“Just admit you want to sit inside,” said Arthur.
“We’re the only ones on the terrace!”
Arthur ignored that, and sipped black coffee, because why bother adding sugar when it only made him miss Rory more? The bulk of his overcoat made the sipping motion far more awkward than it needed to be. “Is Jade on her way?”
“She’s nearly at the Basilica.”
Only blocks away, then. And of course Zhang was with her on the astral plane, even if his physical body was across the table. Arthur took another sip of the coffee that was rapidly cooling in the cold air and bit back the questions he really wanted to ask: Did she have any luck with the sister? Has she found any leads on how to destroy the pomander?
Or am I going to have to search abroad and leave Rory even farther behind?
Zhang’s eyelashes fluttered, then he seemed more present, somehow. “She has a lot to tell us, but she said to start by passing on my mother’s messages.” He counted them off on his fingers. “The guardian magic on Manhattan Island is holding. There was a fire on the Staten Island Ferry; no one was hurt but they’re investigating. There’s a new rumor about the world’s fair.”
Interesting. The International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts was to start next month in Paris. Thousands of exhibits, perhaps millions of visitors over the course of its six months. “What’s the rumor?”
Zhang leaned in, lowering his voice. “Apparently that a group of paranormals are planning a hidden exhibit.”
Arthur’s eyebrows shot up. “Paranormal decorative arts? What on earth would it even exhibit, that man with the magic tattoo who gave us so much trouble tracking him?”
Zhang shrugged helplessly. “My mother apparently hasn’t heard anything else.”
“A secret paranormal exhibit at the world’s fair,” Arthur repeated in disbelief. “That sounds absolutely mad. How come you didn’t tell me sooner?”
Zhang gestured at the air, presumably indicating the astral plane. “Jade just told me.”
Arthur blinked. “You mother told Jade instead of you?”
Zhang made another helpless shrug, but his expression was affectionate. “They’re fond of each other.”
“Well, they’re both absolutely lovely, so no surprise there.” The Zhang and the Robbins families deserved every bit of happiness that came their way. “If she’s anything like my mother, she’ll be angling for marriage and grandchildren, but to be fair, you and Jade would have unthinkably cute—” He had an abrupt thought. “Would your children be unthinkably cute paranormals?”
“Possibly.”
“Why do you say that without fear?”
Zhang huffed a laugh. “Who knows? Magic is so unpredictable. My family tends toward walkers—I walk on the astral plane, my mother can pass through anything but lead. But Sasha and Pavel Ivanov have very different magic, and most of the time, people don’t have magic at all.” His smile faded. “A paranormal exhibit at the world’s fair would draw a crowd. Might draw someone who knows how to destroy a relic. Except...”
“Except France is next door to Germany, and Baron Zeppler is almost certainly going to visit an exhibit like that.” Arthur swallowed. “It would be a dangerous
place to take Rory.”
They couldn’t possibly take Rory to Europe, not with a mind full of history’s secrets that the telepathic Baron Zeppler could pluck from his brain. But going back to Paris would mean Arthur could be gone for months, not just weeks, without Rory.
Then again, it wasn’t just Europe that Arthur was worried about.
Zhang noticed his hesitation. “Anywhere could be a dangerous place for Rory right now,” he said gently, like he was the one who was reading Arthur’s mind. “Zeppler knows he’s alive. He’s got to be frothing at the mouth at the idea of getting his hands on a psychometric.”
Arthur stared into his coffee cup. “I’m aware.”
He’d been anxious and on edge since they’d left the city, because he wasn’t there to protect Rory when he could be a target. It didn’t help that in the space of a couple weeks, Rory had nearly lost his life to both the Hudson and Delaware Rivers, or that sometimes, when Arthur closed his eyes, he could still see Rory falling from the top of the ocean liner before the river itself had risen to save him.
“Pavel helped Ling and my mom set more guardian magic, before he put the lodestone on,” Zhang said, in a reassuring tone. “His alchemy is something else. No new paranormals are coming onto the island without us knowing.”
“I suppose.” If Arthur wasn’t literally trying to save the world—
“The sooner we destroy the pomander, the sooner we can get back to New York,” a woman’s voice said.
“Jade.” Arthur stood. “Did you have any luck?”
Zhang had stood as well, and without her heels, Jade had to stretch up and he had to stoop to kiss. “Hello, darling,” she said, grinning at Zhang like Arthur hadn’t even spoken.
“Stop being cute,” Arthur said impatiently. “Did Madame Legrand have anything useful?”
“Why are we outside?” Jade said to Zhang. “It’s freezing.”
Zhang gave Arthur a knowing look.
“It’s a beautiful day,” Arthur lied. He picked up his coffee and took a sip, only to find it had gone completely cold.
“Come on,” Jade said. “Let’s go in. I’ll tell you what I’ve found.”
* * *
It was warm and cozy inside the restaurant, the floors dark wood, the walls exposed red brick. The waitress brought fresh coffees and onion soups for each of them, the cheese on the croutons perfectly browned on top.
“Madame Legrand is a paranormal scholar specializing in magical phenomena in nature,” said Jade, who was digging into the melted cheese with the enthusiasm of someone who missed France. “She was very excited to find someone to talk to about her research, you know how scholars are.” That was punctuated with a playful look at Zhang. “Obviously I didn’t tell her about the pomander, but I got her talking about Niagara Falls.”
Zhang and Arthur exchanged a look. “I’m not sure I want to take the pomander over the falls in a barrel,” Arthur said.
Jade grinned. “Some things in nature can affect magic. Think of the lodestone that Pavel now wears, magnetite infused with magic. Madame Legrand says the power of the falls has a neutralizing effect on magic.”
Zhang sat up straighter. “Does it really?” he said with fascination. “But could the falls possibly neutralize a relic’s magic? That’s nothing ordinary.”
“According to Madame Legrand, natural phenomena can also affect each other,” Jade said. “We saw the full moon affect the relic amulet’s tidal magic on Coney Island two months ago. It’s a long shot, but...”
“But it’s the best lead we’ve had.” Zhang was nodding with interest. “I think it’s worth a try.”
“There’s a full moon on the ninth,” said Jade. “That’s two weeks away, enough time to make a plan and get to Ontario.”
Two weeks. Bollocks. “But not really enough time to pop back to Manhattan first,” Arthur muttered.
Jade gave him a sympathetic look, which meant he’d been obvious enough in his recent moping that she’d picked up on his hopes that their next step would swing close enough to New York for a visit. “Sorry, Ace.”
Arthur sighed. “It’s fine. It’s the fate of the world,” he added dryly. “We need to follow this lead.”
She patted his hand. “I’m sure Rory likes the postcards.”
Arthur had sent one every few days, scrawled with his carefully coded messages in case they were read by anyone else. It wasn’t anywhere nearly enough. He swallowed another sigh and forced himself to start planning.
* * *
It was chilly on Staten Island, a March day that felt more like winter than spring. Small waves lapped against the rocky shore as a light rain fell from a gray sky that mirrored the gray water.
Rory stared at the skyline in the distance. “Look at Manhattan.” He pushed his glasses up his nose, round black frames like his old ones but lenses about ten times nicer because Arthur had bought them, and apparently rich people even got to see better than poor folks. He could see every tiny whitecap on the waves here, where the ocean and the Hudson met.
He pointed to one of the skyscrapers under construction. “I think that’s the one I went up on with Arthur.”
“It’s lovely from a distance.” Sasha was repinning her new bobbed hair, probably to keep it out of her eyes from the constant breeze that smelled of salt and diesel. “It’s still likely that we’re all the only paranormals in the city. But...”
She trailed off. Rory wrapped his arms around himself. “But it is weird a boat caught on fire in the middle of the Hudson and had to turn around.”
They’d taken the first ferry from Manhattan to Staten Island that morning. It was a risk, leaving the magical protections that had been set in Manhattan, but if there was a chance someone was trying to breach those protections, Rory was going to find out.
Or at least, he’d planned to.
“Boats have oil,” Sasha said. “Perhaps someone threw their cigarette in the wrong place.”
“Boats also use lead paint.” He was still sore about it. “How am I supposed to see who’s lighting fires if I can’t see the past?”
“How rude of them not to take your psychometry into account when they painted the ferry,” she said, teasing.
He rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Fire happened to be on the one boat with a fresh coat of lead paint,” he said. “Could be a big coincidence. But all I’m saying is that if I were hiding my tracks from other paranormals, I’d pick that ferry too.”
She scrunched her nose. “True,” she admitted. “But even if you couldn’t scry, we can still carry out our other plan.”
Rory touched the heavy box in his pocket. She was right, because for this they’d needed to be somewhere without other people around.
From the ferry, they’d walked until they’d found a stretch of rocks with no one else to see. Pavel had walked up to the road for a quick scout, and now from behind them, he called down something in Russian.
“He’s ready,” said Sasha. “Come. Let’s set our barrier.”
Zhang’s cousin, Ling, had been helping them come up with a safe way for Rory to practice with the Tempest Ring. She’d given them a pink powder in tins, promising it would act as an absorbing wall for magic.
But what about a relic’s magic? Rory had asked.
She’d made a face. Let me know, she’d said apologetically, because how would she? They knew so little about what could control the ring’s magic, which was exactly why Rory needed to take advantage of this trip to practice.
Pavel was already dusting along the line where the shore’s rocks became grass. The powder wasn’t something he’d made; as far as Rory knew, he hadn’t made a potion since he’d started wearing the polarity-reversing lodestone to stop his magic from choking him. Now it hung on a longer cord so it could be hidden under his shirt. Rory had scried its history, seen the once-in-centuries moment five hundred year
s earlier, when the lightning bolt struck a paranormal and the fallen body had bled onto rocks, in the process transferring its magic to a chunk of magnetite.
Macabre, and Rory could’ve done without seeing that death, but he’d wanted to know it’d be safe for Pavel to wear, and as far as he could find, it was. The magnetite had been found and broken into pieces. What happened to the other pieces, Rory didn’t know, but he’d seen the history of the piece that was now Pavel’s.
The lodestone wasn’t the pomander.
Rory walked several yards down from Sasha and began to sprinkle the powder along the rocks. It’d been several weeks since he and Arthur had gotten away from Hyde with that particular relic. The pomander was with Arthur now, and Jade and Zhang, somewhere up in Canada, too far away for Rory to find Arthur’s location with the link. They were trying to destroy the pomander before it was ever used against the non-magical, and Rory could appreciate that, even if he had to work and couldn’t go off with them.
He still missed Arthur so much it hurt.
He met Sasha back on the rocks a few minutes later.
“You are ready?” asked Sasha.
The ring was in a new lead box in his pocket, its heavy weight unmistakable. “Not really,” he admitted.
She smiled sympathetically. “If the wind gets out of control, I knock you out. One hit.”
Rory chewed his lip. He hadn’t put the ring back on since Arthur had finally gotten it off the night Rory had wrecked Jade’s speakeasy. He wasn’t sure he’d ever want to put it on again.
But there was a telepath out there who knew about Rory now, who knew he saw history and had secrets in his mind. A telepath who had once sent his lieutenant to torture Arthur, who might send more people after them. After Arthur.
Rory’s jaw tightened. He couldn’t be afraid of the ring, because if he was ever gonna meet Baron Zeppler, he was doing it with a gale at his beck and call.
He knelt on the beach and, with a quick curse against the stinging lead, set the box on the sand in front of him. He took a bracing breath, then quickly popped open the top. The ring shone against the gray day, bright gold and brilliant jewels. Rory stared at it for a moment. Then, without letting himself hesitate, he slipped it back on his finger.