Starcrossed

by Allie Therin

  Arthur doubted very much the police would find any animals unaccounted for at the Central Park or Bronx zoos, but at least it was a cover story. “John will be relieved the aldermen won’t be facing a diplomatic international incident. Still terrible, murders like that.”

  Wesley held out the cigarette to Arthur. “Any chance you might stop carrying on like a girl if you’ve got something else to occupy your mouth?”

  Arthur gave him flat stare.

  “Oh, of course. You refuse to smoke. I’d forgotten your sentiment and other childish traits.” Wesley brought the cigarette back to his lips. “I bet you still remember everyone else in the wedding party from your London days.”

  “I knew all your friends.”

  He blew out more smoke, carried momentarily by the wind before it disappeared into the city. “That made things easy, didn’t it? I never got questioned about you.”

  It had been easy to hide together, in ways Arthur would never be able to hide with Rory. No one had ever thought it strange that Wesley and Arthur spent so much time in each other’s company, and they were welcome in each other’s social circles. Wesley would never have to sleep in a staff room in Harry’s basement; Harry would probably give him the nicest guest room and make Arthur sleep on the third floor.

  Arthur looked down at Fifth Avenue again, the taxis pressed in too close to each other, a white man with a white woman on his arm, hurrying through the cold. “No one should have to cover up their partner like a criminal, not for race, not for gender. It isn’t right.”

  “Life isn’t right, or fair. Just ask the poor sods with graves at the bottom of the trenches.” Wesley gestured with the cigarette. “Or, well. Chester.”

  He doesn’t know what Chester was involved in. All he knows is he lost his valet. Arthur tried one more time to offer sympathy. “I thought we were done losing people we know.”

  But again, Wesley just snorted. “Serves you right for thinking sentimental rot.”

  Arthur bit back his retort and waited, trying to be patient, in case Wesley needed to talk about the crime. But Wesley didn’t say anything more, and really, what had Arthur expected? That Wesley would care his short-term employee was dead?

  Arthur made one more offer. “If you want to talk, you’re welcome to come find me.”

  He turned to go back inside, when Wesley said, “Where did you go last night?”

  To a man willing to trek groceries across Manhattan so I wouldn’t wake up to an empty kitchen. “I had an appointment.”

  “An antiques appointment?”

  Arthur stilled. “What an odd question.”

  “Not at all. You were so terribly friendly with your dealer on the phone.” Wesley dropped the cigarette to the terrace and ground it under his foot. “Brodigan, the name was? Is he actually Irish or one of your American mutts?”

  Arthur’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “He’s not a dog.”

  “It was a jest.” When Arthur’s eyes stayed narrowed, Wesley held up his hands. “Unclench, Ace.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, soft and crumpled from his pocket. “He must be quite the antiquarian for your mother bear side to be so offended. Perhaps I should engage him.”

  Not hardly. There was a meeting Arthur wasn’t letting happen—

  The French doors swung open. “Mr. Arthur Kenzie?” A middle-aged white man politely leaned out the door. “I’m sorry, sir, but you have a call.”

  Maybe Zhang, Jade, or Rory. Maybe news. Arthur turned away. “If you’ll excuse me, Lord Fine.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The clerk led Arthur past the bustling Gentlemen’s Café and into a small office down the hall, which held only an impersonal desk and a telephone. The clerk politely shut the door on his way out, leaving Arthur alone. “This is Ace.”

  “This would have been so much easier if you could see me on the plane.”

  “Zhang,” Arthur said with relief. “Is everything all right? Your family—”

  “Only the amulet missing, no one hurt,” Zhang confirmed. “But I have a question for you. Do you remember Gwen ever mentioning someone who confused her magic?”

  Interesting question. “I do.” It had been just Gwen and Arthur that day, at a sidewalk cafe in Dijon. Jade had been following a lead, looking for a supposed alchemist’s shop in the oldest part of the city. Gwen had been mostly silent at their shared outside table, watching the passersby from behind large sunglasses that hid the preternatural yellow of her previously hazel eyes. Only auras still, she’d finally said. I wonder if auras are all I’ll ever see again.

  “I told her it might be small comfort, but I was glad she was alive.” He and Jade both had been, and hang it all, Arthur still was. He wasn’t eager to see Gwen or Ellis now, but he’d meant what he said to Wesley; he wanted to be done losing people. “And Gwen said, the maelstrom saved me.”

  Zhang made a curious noise. “Saved her from what?”

  “The fire, I’d say, if I was gambling,” said Arthur. “Baron Zeppler’s compound had been burnt to the ground by Philippe’s fire magic. Most everyone died, but Gwen had escaped, and that was the only explanation she ever gave. Jade didn’t know what it meant either, and we tried not to harp on anything having to do with the baron.”

  “The maelstrom.” Zhang made a hmm. “A person?”

  “I assumed so.”

  “A person who can confuse magic. I’ve never heard of that ability in a paranormal, but it would explain why neither Rory nor I can see them with magic.”

  In Zhang’s background, Rory said something in a grouchy tone of voice, and Jade laughed.

  “Thanks, Ace,” said Zhang. “We’ll keep going.”

  Without you, he didn’t have to add.

  Arthur frowned as he replaced the telephone receiver on the candlestick stand. Why was he here when his friends were on the Lower East Side, when they had paranormals and a relic to find?

  He still needed his tuxedo from the Lower East Side. He could leave here early, visit Chinatown first, and still be back to Midtown in time for the wedding. He’d checked on John and Wesley both and there was no sign of Hyde here. He was needed with his friends far more than he needed to eat finger foods and make pointless conversation here.

  But as he strode toward the office door, it opened.

  “More calls?” Wesley stepped inside without asking, then leaned on the door until it closed behind him, the sounds of chattering disappearing as they were left completely alone in the private of the office. “At a wedding?”

  “Everyone is always so surprised to discover I’m more than a dewdropper. It’s a bit insulting, really.” Arthur went for the door, but Wesley didn’t move. “Wes, please. I have somewhere to be.”

  Wesley raised an eyebrow. “Where could you need to be besides the New York governor’s son’s wedding?”

  “I’ve already told you, my appointments aren’t your business.”

  Wesley’s expression faltered. “You said to come find you if I wanted to talk.”

  Oh. Arthur’s shoulders dropped. “Yes, of course. I am sorry about Chester.”

  Wesley’s gaze dropped to Arthur’s lips. “I didn’t come to talk about him.”

  And then he stepped forward and kissed Arthur.

  Arthur froze.

  No. Wrong.

  Wesley’s lips were easy to reach, the same height as Arthur’s, and soft, not chapped like Rory’s, and the eyes level with his were blue, not soft brown, and there were no eager hands on Arthur’s face and body—

  Arthur wrenched himself away. “Wes, what the hell?” he said ineloquently.

  “Come back to London.”

  “What?” Arthur took another step back.

  “You make sense with me.” Wesley moved forward, filling the space Arthur had just left. “We fit together, you and I. You think I c
ame all the way from England for a bloody wedding? I came to get you.”

  “You should have just sent a telegram,” Arthur said tightly, “because I would have told you not to waste your time.”

  He went for the door, but Wesley reached for him as he passed. “Arthur, stop—” Arthur pushed Wesley’s hand off his shoulder, and Wesley made an outraged noise. “What, I repulse you now?”

  “There’s someone else.”

  Wesley scoffed loudly. “Who, the antiques dealer? Are you really going to keep slumming when I’m asking you to come back to London?”

  Slumming. Anger rose in Arthur, hot and burning. “How dare you,” he said tightly.

  “Don’t pretend some working-class sod is worth your time.”

  “You have no idea what he’s worth.”

  The hostility in Arthur’s words must have gotten through to even Wesley, because he softened his voice placatingly. “But I’m better for you.”

  “You don’t even like me.”

  “I like looking at you.” Wesley’s soft and warm bedroom tones grated like fork tines on china. “I like how you looked in my home at night, and in my room when I woke. I liked looking across my parties and seeing your face among my friends. I liked you by my side, Arthur.”

  Arthur blew out a breath. “I realize this may be a shock, Wes,” he said through gritted teeth, “but there is nothing romantic about inviting someone to ornament your own life. There is a man out there who wants me, not as an easy accessory to his own self-centered world, but for me, the way I really am.”

  “You were good with me—”

  “I was lonely with you,” said Arthur, “and now I know that’s not the same thing.”

  He pushed past Wesley, but as he put a hand on the knob of the officer door, he heard Wesley behind him. “And how are you going to make it work?”

  Arthur clenched his jaw, his fingers stilling.

  “Have you even faced that?” Wesley’s voice was cutting. “Or are you hiding your head in the sand, refusing to acknowledge that anything you think you have with him is doomed? You’re not the first man to fall for someone of another class, Arthur. It never works. You can’t keep him any more than Romeo kept Juliet. You and your antiques man are a cliché; a pair of star-crossed fools.”

  Arthur’s fingers tightened on the knob.

  “But you and I, on the other hand, we’re two of a kind.” Wesley softened his tone, making it low and soothing as he came up behind Arthur. “No one thinks it’s odd that we’re friends. In the eyes of the world, we’re nothing more than two unrepentant bachelors. We could travel anywhere in the world in adjoining cabins. We could spend months at my estates.”

  Wesley was close enough now that Arthur could feel the heat of his body at his back, feel warm breath on his ear as Wesley whispered, “No one would ask questions about us, Arthur. It would be easy to make it work.”

  Arthur clenched his jaw. “Don’t follow me.”

  He was out of the office a second later, blending away instantly into the hall filled with more men exactly like him and Wesley.

  * * *

  Arthur didn’t wait for the valet to bring his car; he jumped in the back of the first cab he saw. “Chinatown, quick as you can,” he told the cabbie, then sat back against the seat, rubbing at his lips like he could wipe the taste of Wesley away.

  It’s fine. He barely kissed you. Probably not even worth mentioning to Rory.

  A little voice in Arthur’s head scoffed. So you’d be fine if no one told you another man had kissed Rory?

  Near-instant desire to murder this hypothetical stranger leapt up at the thought. Arthur pushed it away, rubbing a hand over his face. It didn’t matter how small a kiss; Arthur would want to know. Maybe he and Rory had never said they were exclusive, but Arthur didn’t need to say it, not for himself. It hadn’t ever been casual for him. Arthur had wanted Rory from the moment they met, and Rory—

  Rory had started an indoor tempest because he’d heard Arthur’s ex was back, and he had been right to be suspicious.

  Of course Arthur needed to tell him. He couldn’t risk losing Rory because of Wesley.

  And how are you going to make it work?

  Arthur tightened his jaw and stared out the cab window.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, the cab was pulling up in front of the Dragon House in Chinatown. Arthur paid the driver and stepped onto the curb. Lunch had only just begun, but through the window, all the tables looked full, and people were milling on the street outside the restaurant, waiting.

  Arthur carefully threaded his way through the crowd and into the teahouse. “Excuse me, sorry, beg your pardon.” Looking over the crowd’s heads best he could, he spotted Jade coming down the hall.

  “Jianwei saw your cab pull up,” she said. “You know we understood why you couldn’t come?”

  “I didn’t belong there,” Arthur said, a little more heartfelt than normal. “I’d so much rather be here.”

  She smiled. “It is good to see you,” she said, as he followed her through the door at the end of the hall. “Jianwei saw that the ships are being held.”

  “For a few more hours, at most, I’d wager. The governor closed the ports, his way of appeasing the wedding guests, but the police are already thinking animal,” Arthur said, heading down the stairs.

  But as soon as he turned the corner onto the landing, someone threw their arms around his ribs.

  “You’re here!” Rory hurriedly stepped away, before anyone but Jade saw. He tilted his head back to look up at Arthur. “I thought you had to be at that wedding—” He bit the words off, his gaze searching Arthur’s face. “Are you okay?”

  The only thing Arthur wanted in that moment was to grab onto Rory with both hands, pull him back into his arms, to run away with him somewhere far from New York, from the ghosts of Arthur’s past and the chains of Arthur’s present.

  He steeled himself for the unpleasant confession instead. “We’ll catch up in a moment,” he said to Jade, who raised an eyebrow but didn’t press.

  She disappeared into the library, leaving Arthur and Rory alone on the landing.

  Rory hadn’t moved away, their bodies still almost close enough to touch. “You’re stiff as a statue, what’s wrong?”

  Arthur made himself say it. “Wesley kissed me.”

  Rory sucked in a breath.

  “It was one-sided,” Arthur quickly added. “I told him off, said I wasn’t going back to London with him, and that’s the end of it, just a quick kiss, and it won’t happen again.”

  Rory stared at him, wide-eyed.

  “Probably seems like I’m making the elephant out of flies again, or whatever you want to call it, but I just, ah, thought you should know,” Arthur said awkwardly. “Seemed poor form to keep that a secret, even if we’ve never said we’re—well.”

  The silence on the stairwell was very tense.

  Arthur fidgeted. “You could say something.”

  “Arthur, darling.” That wasn’t Rory finally speaking, it was Jade, her voice far too light. “Perhaps you two ought to come down here now. The sphere with Rory’s ring hit the ceiling, and now it’s hovering up there and I can’t get it down. It’s enough to make one somewhat nervous.”

  Mentally cursing Wesley again, Arthur grabbed Rory by the wrist. “Come on, storm-starter, let’s go.”

  * * *

  Rory was gonna kill that fancy English bastard.

  And he wasn’t gonna do it quick—he’d seen some things in history, he could make Lord Fine suffer—

  “Um, Rory?”

  He glanced up at Jade’s gentle question. She, Zhang, and Arthur were all staring at him from their seats at the library’s big round table.

  Jade cleared her throat and politely looked up. The sealed brass sphere was still up at the top of the hanging pen
dant lamp, and from within came the loud clink, clink, clink of the Tempest Ring smacking itself against the ceiling like an angry trapped bee.

  Rory folded his arms over his chest. “Sorry,” he bit out.

  Clink went the ring.

  “What did you do?” Zhang said to Arthur.

  “Ace didn’t do anything,” Rory said immediately. “Not his fault and I’m not mad at him.”

  “You’re mad at someone,” Zhang pointed out.

  “I bet I can guess who,” Jade muttered. “Rhymes with crime?”

  “It doesn’t really rhyme with crime,” said Arthur. “Fine has an n, not an m—” He caught Rory’s narrowing eyes. “Not the point. Right.”

  An awkward silence fell at the table.

  Clink went the ring again.

  “Can’t you get that thing down?” Arthur whispered to Jade.

  “I’m telekinetic, not a tempest,” Jade whispered back. “It’s too strong.”

  Arthur frowned. “I still think I can reach it if I stand on a chair—”

  “I already said no one touch it,” Rory cut in. “I don’t wanna hurt anyone.”

  “Your magic wouldn’t hurt me,” Arthur insisted.

  “We don’t know that,” Rory said tightly.

  Another awkward silence fell.

  Zhang clapped his hands together. “Well, ring aside, we have other problems—”

  “Oh yeah?” Rory snapped. “Bet you’d think it was a problem if some ritzy asshole kissed Jade.”

  “Fine kissed you?” said Jade, as Zhang said, in the same breath, “Who tried to kiss Jade?”

  Arthur buried his face in his hands. “Don’t we have paranormals to find and not one but two relics to steal back?”

  “The ships aren’t going to stay forever.” Zhang tapped the table. “The amulet is the least of our concerns. If Hyde and Shelley and this possible third paranormal have it, there’s nothing they can do with it. It’s already bound to Gwen.”

  “But the pomander relic is ownerless, as far as we know,” said Jade. “And maybe enchanted with violation magic?”