by Allie Therin
Arthur winced. “I don’t want magic in my smokes?”
Ellis rolled his eyes. “Open it,” he told the mobster, who did.
“Oh!” That was Gwen, her eyes lighting like Christmas. She scrambled forward toward Pavel’s three potions, glowing bright blue, orange, and purple. “What wonders are these?”
Arthur stared up at the ceiling in despair. “I don’t suppose you’ll use your witch-sight to tell me what those potions do?”
Gwen picked up the blue one and smiled.
Oh no.
“Why don’t I show you?” She stepped in front of him and held the vial under his nose, then uncorked it with a pop. “Good night, Ace.”
Rory was Arthur’s last thought, and then the world was dark.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Rory—”
Jade’s voice was distant over the pounding in Rory’s head, his skull about to split.
“Please, Rory, open your eyes—”
He wanted to, but his eyelids weighed a thousand pounds each. He was just going to lie here forever, maybe go back to sleep.
“Rory, please—they took Arthur—”
His eyes popped open.
“Oh, thank goodness.” Jade was leaning over him, face lined with worry. Beyond her, he could just make out bushes and the line of Mansfield’s mansion stretching up toward the stars and the brilliant full moon. “Can you speak?”
He licked his dry lips. “Arthur—who—”
“Gwen.” Jade’s face hardened. “And Ellis.”
“Ellis? Your invisible pal? You two said he was dead—” A pulse of pain jabbed his brain. He cursed and reached for the aching back of his head.
“Can you sit up?” she asked gently.
He nodded, wincing as she helped him into a sitting position. He put his back to the wall of Mansfield’s mansion and leaned heavily against the stone. Through the bushes, cars were driving up and down Fifth Avenue. “Ace threw me out a window.”
“We had a Plan B.” Jade’s mouth was set in a grim line. “I broke your fall with his jacket.”
Rory’s eyes widened. Arthur’s tuxedo jacket was still under him on the muddy snow.
“We didn’t tell you because you would never have agreed,” she said, as he pulled the jacket out from under himself. “But getting you to safety was our highest priority. We couldn’t let Gwen see your magic. If she told Mansfield you’re psychometric, he would have chained you up to scry relics until he’d wrung every last drop of your sanity—assuming he didn’t sell you to the Germans as a package with the amulet.”
The fine fabric of the tux was soft against Rory’s fingers, and despite the snow and mud it still smelled of Arthur’s cologne, still put goose bumps on Rory’s skin from the memories of Arthur’s touch. “But Arthur—”
“He’s too big. You’re three stone lighter, and I could only slow you, not catch you. You still hit the ground hard enough to knock yourself out.” Jade’s expression wrenched at his heart, and he knew she’d relive the moment in nightmares for months to come. “I would have killed Ace if we’d tried. I was going to send the rope up and go after him, but he locked the window so I couldn’t—”
Rory threw his arms around her neck, Arthur’s jacket still clutched in one hand. “He’s an asshole,” he said as he hugged her, throat so tight he could barely talk. “He’s an asshole who saved us instead of himself and when I get him back, I’m going to kill him.”
She let out a choked sound, half sob, half laugh, and hugged back. “I’ll help you.”
His eyes were hot in the frigid night as he squeezed them shut. “Thanks for saving my life again.”
“I’m so glad you’re okay.”
They held on for a long moment. Then the air beside them shimmered and Zhang appeared. “I lost the car.” His jaw was clenched. “Too fast, too erratic—I think they were trying to shake any tails, mundane or magic. I couldn’t keep up.”
“It’s all right.” Jade pulled back from Rory, wiping roughly at her eyes. “You heard her say Ellis, we would never have known without you. Do you think you were seen?”
Zhang shook his head. “There was a lead planter just outside the garage. I kept my projection behind it.”
Rory clenched his fists, balling up the edges of Arthur’s jacket. “But why take Ace? He’s not magic.”
“There are plenty of mundane reasons to kidnap a congressman’s son.” Jade frowned. “But I don’t think extortion is Gwen’s style.”
“What about murder?” Zhang said. “Mansfield’s body is on the library floor. Someone slit his throat.”
Rory shuddered.
“We can find Ace,” said Zhang. “Our contacts and friends can watch the trains, the ships, the roads.”
Jade nodded. “He’s not going to go without a fight.”
Rory let them talk. He closed his eyes and pulled Arthur’s jacket closer, breathing in his cologne. “He’s still in the city.”
“What did you say?”
Rory opened his eyes at Jade’s words. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud. “He’s still in the city,” he said again, more slowly.
Zhang and Jade exchanged a look. “And how do you know?” Jade said carefully.
Rory hesitated.
“Don’t overthink it,” said Zhang. “Let your magic answer.”
Rory clutched the jacket. “That day you helped me find Ace on the skyscraper, I knew Ace wasn’t at his pad. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. And I know they haven’t taken him far enough to have left the city yet.” He shook his head in frustration. “If I could feel where he was, I’d be running hard as I could to him. But I can’t tell, it’s too vague.”
“Yesterday,” said Jade. “You were on Central Park West. You should have been wandering east, into the park, toward the relic. But you had gone west, into the street.”
“Toward Ace.” Rory sat up straight. “Where’s the other relic, the ring? Where does he keep it?”
Jade and Zhang exchanged another look. “In a wall safe in the study.” Jade’s eyes had lit with a spark of hope. “We’ve both refused to learn the combination, but that’s not exactly a problem for you.”
Rory’s mind was racing. “Ace told me he’s got a car.”
“A Cadillac V-63, in a garage near his building,” said Zhang. “But none of us drive.”
I’m coming for you, Ace. “I know someone who does.”
* * *
“Are you sure, dear?” Mrs. Brodigan stared at Arthur’s gleaming Cadillac, shiny red with spotless white wheels and a tan roof. She wrung her hands. “This is a terribly nice car and I’ve only had the two lessons.”
“Which is twice as many as any of us,” Jade said reassuringly as she climbed into the cushy back seat next to Rory. Zhang’s projection shimmered in the front seat.
“Come on, Mrs. B.!” Rory stuck his head out the window of the back seat. “They got Ace!”
Jade leaned forward, over the back of the front seat. “It’s really all right, Mrs. Brodigan. Ace would choose his life over his car.”
“But I doubt he’d choose his life over the rest of yours.” Nevertheless, Mrs. Brodigan climbed into the driver’s seat. “Very well, I’ll try not to kill us all. Where are we going?”
“I’ll tell you in a moment.” Rory met Jade’s gaze. “I hope.”
Rory had freed the ring from the safe, and now Jade pulled the box out of her purse with a flinch. “I’m never going to like the feel of lead.” She set her teeth but held the box. “You all right there?”
“Not even a little.” Rory let out a breath and stared at the small box as Mrs. Brodigan fired up the car’s engine. “But I’m gonna find him.”
“Of course you are,” Jade said firmly. Her gaze went to the box. “He’s going to kill me when he finds out I let you near this.�
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“If he didn’t want us coming for him, he shoulda looked out for himself too.”
“Hear, hear,” Zhang said, from the front seat.
Rory put a hand out to hover over the box. “You and Zhang gonna be okay if we open this?”
“We’ve been around the ring before, we’ll be fine,” she said. “We don’t receive magic like you do and neither of us is fool enough to touch it.”
Rory nodded tightly. “I’m gonna talk a lot of bunk,” he warned Jade. “’S all right if you can’t follow, just shut the box before I’m too far gone.”
“You bet I will.” She squeezed his hand with an encouraging smile. “You can do this. For Ace, you could do anything.”
Despite his nerves, he smiled back. Then, as Mrs. Brodigan cautiously inched the car forward from its parking space, Jade opened the box and Rory reached for the ring.
* * *
The ship cuts through the black waters, no land to be seen, the night sky and the stars stretching endlessly in all directions. The ring glints on the finger of the man in clothes from history books, the long blue coat with gold trim, the white cravat. He’s standing beside the ship’s captain at the wheel, hard and unyielding as the ship rises and falls with each swell, his face to the bow and the ship’s course due west.
But the sky’s brightest star glints in the south.
The man from the past raises his hand and a gust of wind sweeps down the ship’s deck, billowing the linen sail with a thunderclap. The ship lurches forward with sudden speed, and a cruel smile twists his mouth. He wants more practice, wants to watch others beg for mercy. And with the galley full of worthless prisoners, no one will miss a few more mouths blown out to the sea—
But out in the sky, a southern star beckons.
That’s the way out, the way to Ace, Ace who needs Rory—
* * *
Rory’s eyes popped open. He blinked hard for a moment, still seeing the pale man with his cruel smile.
Then the man’s ghost was gone, banished by Jade’s beauty and worried eyes. The box was in her hand, closed now. Zhang’s astral projection had come through the car’s seats and almost seemed to be holding her hand.
“Rory?” she whispered, with guarded hope, as the city’s lights twinkled like stars behind her. “Did you get out of the ring’s past? Are you with me?”
He was. Best of all, the vision of the ring was gone, but somewhere deep within himself, he could still feel the faint path to Arthur. “They took Ace south. I can find him. But what’s south of Manhattan where you’d take an amulet that controls the sea?”
Zhang exchanged a look with Jade. “Long Island?”
“If it’s Brooklyn,” said Jade, “they could have gone to Coney Island.”
Chapter Thirty
Arthur woke from the blackness in a jarring instant to find himself in even more jarring circumstances: chained to the base of the Wonder Wheel on a freezing January night in nothing but trousers, a silk shirt, and his waistcoat.
Wonderful. He rested the back of his head against the wooden support beam behind him and looked around. Four armed guards scattered around the platform and Gwen, sitting inside the Ferris wheel’s closest passenger car. She was wearing a thick, long coat, her eyes closed and her legs drawn up and crossed under her. Ellis was nowhere to be seen, but Arthur knew better than to assume he wasn’t around.
“So.” He cleared his throat. “Once a friend, now a prisoner at an amusement park. Do I have you or Ellis to thank for this?”
“What do you think, Ace?” she said, not opening her eyes. Beside her was a small box, narrow and long like a pencil case. The amulet.
“My money’s on Ellis.” Arthur’s hands were cuffed behind him and he arched his back as he flexed his arms, testing his chains. He got only the cold bite of metal against his wrists and the painful jab of the wooden support beam digging between his shoulder blades. “Choosing Coney Island has his flair for the dramatic.”
“Dramatic?” There was a small pop and Ellis was suddenly visible on the loading platform just a few feet away. “Bit rich coming from you.”
“When have I ever chained you to a Ferris wheel?” Arthur pulled uselessly at his cuffs again. “I followed your wishes, you know, and scattered what I thought were your ashes in the Thames near Gwen’s home.”
The Ferris wheel’s lights and bright full moon lit Ellis’s coat and hunting cap as he leaned against the closest beam. “Philippe’s not really in a place to care that his final resting place is England.”
“Is that where you’ve been this whole time?”
Ellis held up his left hand, where a gold ring glinted on the fourth finger. “Can’t exactly live here. Mixed marriages are still illegal back in Carolina. This country’s got the laws on love all wrong.”
Arthur gritted his teeth. This would be so much easier if he could just hate them both. “We found Gwen’s art shipment in a Chelsea gallery.”
Ellis shrugged. “She bought the lot at a London shop.”
“And the burn mark on the sculpture was your doing, I suppose, to throw us off your trail again?”
Ellis hesitated. “Of course,” he said, but it was too quick.
Before Arthur could follow up, Gwen’s voice broke in. “Ellis, darling, can you check on the sentry?”
With a nod, Ellis disappeared with a pop. Arthur knew better than to assume he’d go far.
Gwen approached across the platform, her flat shoes silent on the wood. “When will your paranormal arrive, do you think?”
“I’m hoping for never,” Arthur said truthfully. “I don’t understand why you need him—”
“Are you still handsome?”
Arthur stilled.
Gwen was staring at him, her gaze not quite on his face. “When I met you in Paris, I thought you were the most handsome man I’d ever seen,” she said as she came closer. “And now I see your aura.” She stopped less than a yard away. “And nothing else.”
She traced the air as her gaze flitted around his outline, never connecting with his eyes. “For two years my magic has suffocated me.”
“Then let me help you!” Arthur burst out. “There is no cause for murder—”
“All I see is a light turn off. And Baron Zeppler’s is long past due.” She looked out, past the Wonder Wheel, where the darkness hid Coney Island’s boardwalk and the beach. “Zeppler is on a ship that will dock in New York in the coming hours. What a perfect revenge it would be, if his blood could unlock the magic of the Argonaut Amulet and tame my aura-sight.”
Gwen leaned against the beam Ellis had used. “One cut with the Venom Dagger would be all we need to take down the baron. But it’s a terrible risk to Ellis. Baron Zeppler knows his face, can see Ellis when he’s invisible, and will hear his thoughts, hear him coming. So now that we know there’s another subordinate paranormal, we have a better plan.” Gwen leaned forward. “Use your paranormal to unlock the amulet.”
“You don’t know his magic,” said Arthur. “If you can’t unlock it with yours, why should he?”
“If not his magic, then maybe his death,” Gwen said, with a calm that raised chills on Arthur’s skin. “One way or another we will unlock the amulet and bind it to me, and then Baron Zeppler will die without ever coming near us.” She smiled. “Because the baron is on a ship—and the amulet will give me the tide to control.”
“No.” Arthur yanked at his cuffs. “No, Gwendoline—if you try to drown him, you could sink his entire ship—”
“Zeppler has not forgiven America for her part in Germany’s loss in the war. You do not want him in New York, Ace. Sinking one ship is far less than he would do if he got his hands on this amulet’s magic.”
“But the passengers—civilians, women and children, all innocents—”
“They have lifeboats.”
“His ship i
s nearly to New York! If you make a wave big enough to sink it—”
“It may cause a tsunami that hits Manhattan,” she finished for him. “It is a risk that I must take.”
“Gwen—”
Ellis popped back into view. “Sentry hears a big engine coming in, maybe a V8.” He smiled meanly. “I think your sweetheart’s got your car.”
Arthur’s blood ran cold, and colder still when Gwen smiled again.
“You’re afraid for him.” She leaned in very close to Arthur. “And you should be,” she said, as she pushed up her sleeve. “Because perhaps you can withstand pain that would shatter a lesser man—but can your paranormal?”
* * *
The streets were eerily quiet as Mrs. Brodigan turned the car on Surf Avenue, only the soft murmur of the ocean in the distance. Rory leaned out of the car to stare as she parked. He’d heard stories of Coney Island, had dreamed of the ocean and summer crowds, the sun hot on his shoulders. Now, in the cold and dark, it was empty, the bright roofs of the carnival booths and food stands muted in the dark, the Wonder Wheel and the new Thunderbolt roller coaster rising like giant wood skeletons above the shorter rides and booths.
Jade glanced at the ring box on the back seat between them, her face conflicted. “It feels crazy to leave a weapon in the car, but considering what it is—”
“I don’t wanna touch it either,” he said immediately. “Let’s give it to Mrs. B.”
Mrs. Brodigan turned to look at them in the back seat. “But don’t you want its magic?”
“I want my sanity more,” Jade admitted.
“I don’t suppose I can argue with that.” Mrs. Brodigan accepted the box from Jade as Rory climbed out of the back seat.
“You’ll wait here?” He put a hand on the driver’s door, by the side mirror. “You’ll be safe?”
Mrs. Brodigan’s eyes softened. “Are you worried about me?”