Starcrossed

by Allie Therin

  He opened the car door and tested his ankle against the curb. It smarted, but it was a lot better than it had been last night, enough that he stood from the car without too much pain. The wind was cold against his bare head. It felt weird to be out without a hat, but he’d bought his new glasses last month. A cap was gonna have to wait till he had the funds.

  He watched Arthur get out of the car. The Cadillac wasn’t subtle, and it was a lot nicer than anything else on the block. Arthur himself was also nicer than anything else on the block, and was getting stares from everyone on the sidewalk and the steps across the street, and probably from anyone looking out the windows too.

  If it bothered Arthur to be an object of curiosity, he didn’t show it as he came around to Rory and the curb. “You have luggage and your ankle is sprained,” he said, opening the front passenger door for Mrs. Brodigan.

  “I’m walking on it and I got one bag,” said Rory. “Besides, I told you, I got things to do here.”

  “What things?”

  “Work,” Rory said. “March rent isn’t gonna earn itself.”

  Arthur opened his mouth, then glanced at Mrs. Brodigan, who was unlocking the front door of the antiques shop. “Maybe we should talk about your lodgings,” he said, his voice quiet but pointed, as Mrs. Brodigan disappeared into the shop to the familiar jingling of the door’s bell.

  “What’s to talk about?” Rory said, as Arthur reached past him and pulled Rory’s ratty messenger bag and Mrs. Brodigan’s cloth suitcase from the back seat. “I gotta pay bills or I’m gonna end up sleeping with even more rats.”

  Arthur stiffened, bags in hand. “You shouldn’t have to sleep with any.”

  Rory shrugged. “Everywhere’s got some rats.”

  “Not my place.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t even got roaches.” Rory reached for the door of the antiques shop and held it open. “How’d you manage that in New York, you pay ’em to leave?”

  “Cute,” Arthur said dryly, as he carried the bags across the threshold and set them by an antique chair. “I’ll call after I find out what John wants.” Then, as he straightened, his mouth brushed close to Rory’s ear. “Think I could convince you to sleep somewhere without rats tonight?”

  Heat ran through Rory, and he clenched his fists to keep from throwing his arms around Arthur’s neck. “I dunno,” he said, gaze fixed on Arthur. “Does it have monks?”

  Arthur laughed, a low, rich sound. “No monks. No other Kenzies, even.”

  He was too handsome to be real when he laughed. Rory forced his hands behind his back to keep them to himself. “What happened to your church talk?”

  “Oh, it’s coming,” Arthur promised softly, then said, more loudly, “Good day, Mrs. Brodigan,” getting an answering farewell in return as the door swung shut behind him.

  * * *

  John’s club was two blocks from City Hall, hidden on the fifth floor of a high-rise with only a small plaque next to the door to mark it. A white-gloved host led Arthur into the club, the wood paneling on the wall nearly black, the tablecloths bleached to arctic white, and the smell of cigars in the air. It was dimly lit and packed with men in heavy wool suits, but Arthur didn’t have to wait; the host led him straight to a private booth in the back, where John was already seated, a sizable stack of papers on the table.

  John glanced up as they approached. His eyes returned to his papers almost instantly. “You’re late.”

  “What’s that?” Arthur said, as he took a seat on the leather bench across from John, their host vanishing. “Why yes, there was bad weather, and it was frightfully decent of me to still come all the way down to Lower Manhattan to talk to you.” He picked up the glass already waiting in front of him, and the scent of ginger ale wafted up. “Would you mind terribly if I bribed the waiter to spike this?”

  “Yes. I don’t need that scandal.” John abruptly looked up. “Is that what’s keeping you busy? You better not be involved in bootlegging—”

  “And break the laws you and Father work so hard to pass? Perish the thought.” Arthur picked up the menu. “What’s good here?”

  “You’re having pigeon with jellied tomato cream and asparagus au gratin,” said John. “I ordered for you.”

  Arthur, who’d been eying the flavorless offerings and wishing he’d managed to fit in a stop at Zhang’s teahouse, sputtered. “You ordered my dinner? Were you planning to cut it into bite-size pieces for me too?”

  “Be on time to our next appointment.”

  To think he could have had dim sum. Arthur tossed the menu aside. “What do you want?”

  John hesitated. “I—” He snapped his mouth shut as the waiter materialized at the edge of their table and set their plates before them.

  John had ordered himself a steak. Naturally. Arthur narrowed his eyes over his own anemic fowl and sickly green vegetables. Well, he’d eaten worse. He picked up his fork. “You what?”

  “Nothing.” As John turned his head to track the waiter’s retreat, the restaurant’s lights caught the purple bags beneath his eyes, the shadow on his jaw, the tenseness in his neck. “Walter Hartman’s wedding is Saturday. It’s been in the papers.”

  Harry had mentioned that too, although Arthur would have bet all the family heirlooms that John had been about to say something else. “What of it? I hate society events; I threw the invitation away.”

  “He’s the governor’s son. You’re going, Father won’t hear otherwise,” John said, without sympathy. “Mother already accepted for you and a plus one.”

  For one brilliant moment, Arthur imagined showing up at the wedding with Rory. He could bear a dreadful upper-crust event with Rory on his arm: illegally cute in a tuxedo, playing with the scores of nieces and nephews, maybe dancing or singing along with band—

  Then John snorted. “I don’t know why she gets her hopes up. You’ve never brought a girl around, not even once.”

  The fantasy shattered, leaving only an ache in Arthur’s chest. “A girl,” he said tonelessly. “Of course.” He pushed his plate away.

  “But since you still don’t have a sweetheart, you’re available to shepherd another guest. This one is coming from London at the last moment and he’s apparently titled and a rather big deal. Walter’s bride is having fits on who can entertain him and who to seat his party with. So I offered you.”

  Arthur barely swallowed a loud groan. “Why would I escort a guest I don’t know to a wedding I don’t want to attend?”

  “Because he’s around your age, also a bachelor, and British ex-military while you were military too. It’s perfect, Arthur, it makes sense to pair you two.”

  The last British military man Arthur had known had also been titled, a viscount with a handsome face, gilded words, and a frigid heart. He had no interest in dredging up those memories. “Try harder.”

  “Because you have to go anyway,” said John. “And because Walter’s my friend.”

  And because Walter is one of the governor’s sons, and if you can bail him out of a tight spot, the governor will remember you when you make your play for the Senate. Arthur bit it back. Politics was an ouroboros of favors and friendships too intertwined to separate. John and Walter were friends, and their friendship came with perks, and on it went.

  John had no idea that Arthur had someone else he wished he could bring or an awkward history with peers of the Realm. He rubbed at his eyes in frustration. “Did you really make me drive to Lower Manhattan to learn I’m condemned to a wedding and assigned a plus one?”

  John opened his mouth—then shut it, glancing at the next table. “My car is waiting at City Hall. You can walk me back after dinner.”

  * * *

  The sun had set while they’d been in the club, the Woolworth Building stretching endlessly up to vanish into the dark sky. Unlike the dirty mounds of snow still decorating Hell’s Kitchen, the sidewalks here
were already bare beneath the glow of the streetlamps. Arthur and John drew second looks from the passing cars as they made their way through the small green space of City Hall’s park, two broad-shouldered men in black coats and hats, a matched set.

  As the small domed tower of City Hall loomed in front of them, John suddenly stopped. “So you do dream of the war.”

  Arthur glanced around. They were completely alone in the small park where the Victorian fountain had stood before it’d been shipped off to the Bronx. “Is it really so surprising?” he said tightly. “I’ve never claimed those were the best years of my life.”

  John was staring straight ahead and pointedly not looking at him. “Cleaning up Coney Island has been a nightmare. I’ve had everyone from the mayor to the ladies’ societies on my case. But hang it all, I can’t focus or care about it all.” Before Arthur could do more than utter a noise in surprise, John said, “I’ve barely slept at all the last few days, because every time I close my eyes, I dream about you in the war.”

  Arthur’s eyes widened.

  “It’s upsetting,” John burst out, with enough emotion to give a knife edge to the words. “The dreams are brutal—battles, freezing trenches, attacks on civilians.” He looked at Arthur then, his face pale and worn beneath the brim of the fedora. “But then you appear, alone in a cell, as young as you looked the day you went off to Germany, and I—it’s too much.”

  Arthur swallowed hard, pushing away the memory before it could assume its form. The ghosts of six years’ past still lurked in the corners of his mind, like monsters in the dark just beyond the streetlight’s glow. What a strange thing for John to dream of, but then, dreams were strange. Arthur didn’t want to look into the dark, but he made himself offer. “Maybe if you tell me about the dreams, they’ll stop?”

  John ran a hand over his face. “It’s always the same. Your cell is too small and there are no windows. There’s no bed, so you’re sitting on the concrete floor. Your left eye is blackened and your lip is cut, and the only other thing in the cell is the book in your hand.”

  Every hair on the back of Arthur’s neck rose. A sickening shiver went down his spine and he tasted bile. “What book?”

  “Jekyll and Hyde.”

  It took all of Arthur’s self-control to keep his expression steady.

  John shook his head with frustration. “I must sound mad. A grown man, carrying on about dreams—”

  “It doesn’t sound mad to me.” Arthur’s heart was pounding uncomfortably fast.

  John’s shoulders dropped a fraction. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but then I remembered the stories of the soldiers and their dreams, and thought, Ace might know what to do.” He put a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Nothing like that actually happened to you, did it? I know you have that medal, but you said—”

  “Your brain is very imaginative,” Arthur said quickly.

  “I suppose so.” John removed his hand and rubbed his forehead. “They’re altogether too vivid for comfort, as real and detailed as you and I speaking right now. I spent last night in my study, so I wouldn’t wake Emma or the children if I screamed. If I believed in magic, I’d think I’d been cursed.”

  John was practical and steady as a smooth sea, never prone to exaggeration or fancies. He could be overbearing and self-important, but he’d never bullied his younger siblings. Arthur could remember being eight and wanting to play every sport known to man, and nineteen-year-old John patiently teaching him a proper boxing stance, how to throw a right cross.

  Arthur plastered a reassuring smile on his lips. “I can help,” he promised. “But I need to start by borrowing your office phone.”

  John smiled wryly, relief in his eyes. “Going to call one of your interesting friends, are you? Is one of them a curse-breaker, by any chance? An Egyptologist who knows a thing or two about pyramids and mummies?”

  Arthur kept the smile glued to his lips. “You wouldn’t believe the half of it.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Before digging into eight days of missed work, Rory had gone up to the Meyerses’ apartment to give Lizbeth her letter. She’d squealed like he’d brought her a pony, and what he’d thought would be a five-minute drop-off turned into two hours as she demanded he tell her everything about the countryside and her new friend.

  Mrs. Meyers sent him back to the antiques shop with a tin of jam-filled rugelach. He grabbed the mail from the lobby on his way in and took it to the counter with the old cash register. As he set the stack down, the ring on his finger caught the light. He frowned at it, then grabbed it and gave it a hard yank.

  It didn’t budge.

  He sighed and shoveled a cookie into his mouth as he started sorting the bills.

  “Ahem.”

  Rory swore loudly, dropping his stack to scatter on the ground.

  Zhang’s flickering astral projection raised an eyebrow. “Italian?”

  Rory jerked his thumb toward the office. “I’m not gonna swear in English in front of Mrs. B.”

  “What’s that, dear?” Mrs. Brodigan poked her head out of the office and scanned the shop. “Who are you talking to?”

  Rory gestured in front of him, where she’d see nothing but empty space. “Zhang’s here. Sort of here. Here his way.”

  “How lovely! Offer him a cup of tea,” Mrs. Brodigan said, with clearly no understanding of how the astral plane worked, before ducking back into the office.

  Rory balanced on his good ankle as he scooped the mail back up. “Why’re you flickering like a bad bulb?”

  “Arthur’s on the phone with Jade. I’m at her place too.”

  Rory’s eyebrows flew up. “You can be in two places at once?”

  Zhang shrugged, like juggling conversations on the astral plane was child’s play. “Ace thinks his brother John is the victim of magic.”

  Rory’s eyes widened and he made a half step forward. “Is Ace okay? How ’bout John—?”

  “Arthur can’t give details over the phone; too many people. Even I’m staying out of City Hall until I can go in alone, in case it’s rigged with magic. We need him up at the Magnolia with Jade and me to speak freely.”

  “So why isn’t he already on his way?” Rory demanded.

  Zhang pointed at Rory.

  “Aw geez.”

  “He thinks he needs to come get you.”

  Rory set his pile of letters on the counter. “Tell him not to worry about me. I’ll finish up and then catch a dimbox to Harlem.”

  Zhang flickered out, then right back, making a face. “He’s not sure that’s a good idea on your ankle,” he said, in a wonderful imitation of Arthur’s accent.

  Rory narrowed his eyes. “Tell him his brother’s gotta come first—”

  “Or I could go back to Jade and stay out of your spat,” Zhang said dryly. “If anyone can convince him, it’s you.”

  Rory automatically reached for the link in his magic, finding the sense of Arthur to the south. He huffed. “Yeah, sure. I’ll just call up City Hall and ask for the office of the alderman in charge. They’re gonna put me right through.”

  Zhang hesitated.

  “What?” said Rory.

  “Not my business, except...” Zhang tilted his head. “Ace is trying to hide it, but he’s shaken. Maybe he’d like to hear your voice.”

  Rory opened his mouth, then paused. “Oh.” He straightened up. “I—really? You think so?”

  Zhang looked at him patiently. “You’re very new at relationships, aren’t you?” Rory made a sour face, and Zhang added nicely, “If you were worried, would you want to talk to Arthur?”

  “Course I would.”

  “Then why wouldn’t Ace feel better after a call from the twenty-year-old hellcat he dotes on?”

  Rory narrowed his eyes. Zhang touched the brim of his hat as he disappeared completely.

  Ro
ry’s stomach flipped over as he went into the lobby, but he made himself pick up the party line telephone. He hunched over the phone, ignoring the glances of the three or four people hanging out in the lobby as the operator’s voice sounded in his ear. “How may I direct your call?”

  Rory hesitated. “Um. City Hall?” he tried, feeling stupid, like he was trying to read out loud in front of a bunch of judgmental Fifth Avenue pricks. “The head alderman?”

  Great, now all the eyes in the lobby were shamelessly glued on him.

  “One moment, please.”

  He fidgeted as the operator connected the line.

  A woman finally came on. “New York City Aldermen, office of Aldermanic President John Kenzie.”

  “I’m calling for Ace. I mean, Mr. Kenzie. Arthur Kenzie. Mr. Arthur James Kenzie.” Rory cringed. “The alderman’s brother. He’s supposed to be there.”

  “I see.” She sounded unimpressed. “And who are you?”

  Rory chewed on his lip, but what could be the harm? He couldn’t be the only one in the city, even. “...Theodore Giovacchini.”

  He wasn’t expecting the rush of emotion that came with using his Italian name, the way his lips remembered the language. The way it felt to have someone he could be Italian with again.

  “Giovacchini, you said?” The woman’s voice was even cooler. “I will let Mr. Kenzie know.”

  A few moments later, a familiar deep voice was on the line. “Jade said you were about to call. You didn’t have to.”

  Arthur’s voice was perfectly polite. Too polite, like a mask. Rory frowned. “What’s going on with your brother?”

  “I was going to come pick you up,” Arthur said, which wasn’t an answer, but then, Zhang had said he couldn’t talk freely at City Hall. “I can wait until you’re ready—”

  “We got eight days of work at the shop,” Rory interrupted, “and if I leave, Mrs. B’s gonna do it all herself. Go to the Magnolia now.”

  “But—”

  “Ace, I’m fine.” Rory kept his voice quiet as the lobby’s loiterers were strained to listen in. “Go tell Jade and Zhang about your brother, and then I’m gonna come to you. The three of us got—you know. We got some talents. We’ll figure it out.”