by Allie Therin
“Nah,” Rory said hastily. “I don’t know how you let some other fella shave you. I’m doing it myself.”
Arthur darted in close again. “Let me do it some time,” he whispered, breath against Rory’s ear, low voice rumbling across his skin.
Rory’s entire body reacted to the thought, the idea of Arthur’s muscles hemming him in, his hand on Rory’s throat to hold him steady as he slid a straight razor blade over his skin.
Yeah, yeah, let’s do that, Rory tried to say, but all that came out was an embarrassing squeak.
Arthur smiled like he’d known exactly what reaction Rory was going to have. “Fun for another day,” he said lightly. He kissed the skin just under Rory’s ear as he pressed the kit into his hand, the leather butter soft against his palm. “I’ll see you later. Be safe.”
“Hngh,” Rory said, and hopefully Arthur knew that meant you too.
He cleaned up best he could before heading down the hall to Gwen and Ellis’s room. With trepidation curling in his stomach, he knocked on the door.
Only Ellis was in the room. Before Rory could back away, he found himself pulled into a space almost identical to the one he had with Arthur but with a light blue dresser instead of a writing desk.
“Finally I get you alone,” said Ellis. “We haven’t had The Talk.”
“What talk?” Rory said churlishly.
“The talk about Arthur.” Ellis crouched so they were face to face as Rory furrowed his eyebrows. “Just want to make sure you don’t have bad intentions.”
“I’m not the one who chained him to the Wonder Wheel,” Rory said darkly. “You got a lot of nerve asking me about my intentions when you could’ve killed him.”
“Think what you like about me.” Ellis gestured to the dagger on his belt. “Maybe magic loosened the screws in my head, I can admit it. But Ace was my commanding officer and he was a good one. And now he likes you more than I’ve ever seen him like anyone else, and you could hurt him.”
Rory scoffed. “I would never.”
“He doesn’t have magic,” Ellis snapped. “Except for yours, because you thought you had the right to sink your psychometry into his aura without so much as asking him first. You could hurt him. A lot more than you know.”
Rory clenched his jaw. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just be careful with him,” Ellis said, which didn’t answer the question. “He’s got lots of family, but none of them know he likes men, so if you’re not good to him, you’re gonna answer to me and Gwen.”
Rory frowned, but how mad could he get about Ellis wanting Arthur safe? Rory wanted the same thing. “Yeah, I’m gonna be good to him. I’m crazy about him, all right?”
“You gonna stay crazy for him? Or you gonna bail for the next pretty face with deep pockets, run away and take your magic with you?”
Rory narrowed his eyes and took a step forward. “It’s none of your business either way,” he said tightly. “But Arthur’s it for me.”
“Hope you mean that,” Ellis said enigmatically, as the door opened itself to reveal Jade, her arms full of clothes and her eyes concerned.
“Your voices were raised.” Jade looked his way. “Are you all right, Rory?”
Rory snorted. “I should be asking you that,” he said. “I still don’t trust these two.”
Ellis just gave him a dark look, flopping down to sit on the edge of the bed.
Jade jerked her head. “Come on,” she said to Rory. “We’ve got your costume.”
Gwen was out in the hall. Rory found himself herded back in the bathroom, sitting awkwardly on the edge of the clawfoot bathtub. He watched her warily as she dug in a large makeup case. She was an enigma he didn’t know what to do with.
She had spared Jack Mercier’s life in London.
Just like she’d once spared his.
Gwen held up a black pencil. “Stage makeup from Carmen. Are you ready?”
“I bet you’re only doing this to mock me,” Rory asked darkly.
But Gwen only scoffed. “Why on earth would I?” she asked. “I know you don’t believe this, but I don’t actually want anything bad to happen to any of you.”
He pursed his lips. Did she mean that? She’d tortured Arthur’s aura to get Rory to scry a relic for her.
But he could still remember the Delaware River rising to meet him before he hit so hard he snapped his neck. Could remember the panic of plunging beneath pitch-black, ice-cold water, and the current that had rushed him up to the surface, holding his head above the waves until Arthur could save him.
“Are you ready?” she asked patiently. “I’ll need you to lose the specs.”
The cold Delaware River was very far away from a warm bathroom in Paris, but Gwen had saved his life that night when it would have been easier to let him die.
With a huff, he took off his glasses. He held them in one hand as Gwen started lining around his eyes with kohl.
“You’re not actually Irish at all—you’re Italian, is that right?” Gwen asked. “But your father’s surname is Westbrook; that’s English.”
Rory snorted, short and bitter. “And I’m using a fake Irish last name instead of his.”
“Oh,” she said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “It’s like that, is it? I’m sorry.”
Rory sighed. “You didn’t know,” he grudgingly admitted. “My dad hates the Italians in America. He hates all immigrants.”
“Except himself,” she said dryly, as she moved on to the other eye, “because all of America’s white people were immigrants at one point. And if he hates them so much, what was he doing shagging one? No wonder you don’t use that hypocrite’s name.”
Rory shrugged, but he felt a little better. All his life, people had said bad things about his mom for coming to America. It soothed an old wound to hear people as smart as Arthur and Gwen say his father had done wrong.
A few minutes later, he was in front of the dingy mirror, looking at his reflection in consternation. He had powder all over his skin and dark circles drawn around his eyes like a raccoon. “I’m supposed to look like this?”
“Yes,” Gwen said impatiently. “Now don’t touch it, you’ll mess up all my work.”
“Yeah, and you’d probably kill me,” Rory said, without thinking.
Gwen froze, her hand on the bathroom doorknob. They stood for a moment, the silence awkward and tense.
Finally, she looked over her shoulder. “We’ll meet you in the cabaret’s lobby—”
“I never said thanks for saving my life,” Rory blurted, at the same time.
Gwen’s eyebrows furrowed.
Rory stuck his hands in his pockets. “I mean, yeah, I’m still sore about everything that happened on Coney Island. And you were gonna make me come to England so you could keep that pomander away from Baron Zeppler.” He hunched his shoulders. “But the secrets in my mind would be safest from Baron Zeppler if I was dead, and you could’ve let me drown in the Delaware and solved your problem. And you didn’t.”
“I’m not one of the good girls, Rory,” Gwen said quietly. “Don’t go thinking of me as one.”
“I didn’t say I did.” Rory leaned back against the sink. “But I’ve got subordinate magic too, and I’ve had some bad days because of my magic. Real bad. I might already be dead, if I hadn’t met Ace.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it, like she’d wanted to say something but swallowed it down.
“I’m just saying that yeah, you got a past, and I don’t know what your plans are now,” said Rory. “But I don’t know what I’d do if I was choking on magic. And I don’t think you’re as bad as you pretend to be.”
She bit her lip. “We’ll meet you downstairs,” she said, and disappeared out the door.
Chapter Twenty
Arthur’s first choice of tailors was still in the same shop o
n the same Paris street he’d been in two years ago, and had a tuxedo in stock that could be altered to fit him in an expensive three-hour rush job.
He stood on the platform and waited patiently as the tailor took his measurements. As his gaze wandered around the shop, from French advertisements to a display of ties, his mind replayed a conversation they’d all had on the ocean liner.
You’re not the only one who gets to worry. Especially when you keep ending up handcuffed by paranormals in tuxedos.
Excuse you. What paranormals in tuxedos?
I meant when you’re in a tuxedo—like at the Wonder Wheel. Or on that ship in Philly.
So it only happened the one time. The two times. Look, if it happens a third time, then you can say it’s a habit.
Arthur frowned. But that was Rory bringing up a strange coincidence, wasn’t it? It didn’t mean anything.
“All right, sir?” the tailor asked, in his thick French accent. When Arthur blinked, the tailor added, “You are fidgeting.”
Oh, hang it all, Arthur was far tenser than normal, his muscles flexing as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. He shook himself and tried to smile. “The last two times I wore a tuxedo, things didn’t go well for me. But I’m being silly. Ignore me.”
The tailor gave him a look like Arthur was daft, then did ignore him and went back to work. A few minutes later, Arthur paid up front and then took the tailor’s recommendation for a barbershop a few blocks away.
The barbershop was in the first floor of a four-story building, in between a chocolatier and a bank. Arthur stepped inside the tasteful, pristinely clean interior to find it packed. It would be a long wait, but by the time Arthur could find a place with a shorter line, he’d be nearly served here anyway.
There was a waiting area with several chairs and a tufted leather couch, every seat full. Newspapers were stacked on a small side table, but it wasn’t like he could read the French, so he leaned against the shop’s glass window and schooled his expression to perfect calm despite the nausea in his gut.
With a moment of quiet, his brain decided to race, latching onto the question he had no answer to: how was he supposed to tell Rory about his aura?
Well, Teddy, apparently sometimes when someone without magic gets a little too close to some very bad magic, it can shred our auras, who could have guessed? By the by, how do you feel about ’til death do us part—literally?
Arthur swallowed.
A man’s voice interrupted Arthur’s thoughts. “Monsieur?”
Arthur looked over to see an unassuming man in a barber’s apron, light brown hair and clear blue eyes. He had a patient expression, like he’d had to prod Arthur more than once to get a response.
“That was fast,” Arthur muttered, because there were several other men waiting who’d arrived before him. “Shave and a haircut?” he tried, in English, feeling sheepish as he always did when visiting another country and hoping its residents happened to speak his language.
But the barber nodded. “Yes, sir.”
It was too quick and clipped a sentence for Arthur to be sure of his accent, but he didn’t sound French. So fine, Arthur was going to console himself that they were both foreigners.
The barber took Arthur to the back. As the door shut behind him, the city noises were muffled, replaced by the familiar sounds of running sinks and the snipping of metal scissors. At the end of the short hall were five large leather barber chairs and four of them were full, men with their eyes closed, their barbers busy as hair was trimmed and faces shaved.
The barber gestured to the final chair. “Sit.”
Arthur did, the leather cool even through his suit. The barber draped a white apron over his clothes and carefully tipped the chair back. Arthur glanced up at the carved ceiling and large hanging lights, and settled more comfortably into the chair and familiar routine.
Then, without warning, Rory’s magic flared to life, lightning bolts dancing on his skin with such suddenness he was surprised he wasn’t audibly sizzling.
Arthur stifled his gasp.
The barber’s pale face and blue eyes filled Arthur’s vision. “Shave first?” he asked politely.
Rory’s magic burst through his aura again, like a storm unleashing a downpour of rain and then moving on. “Mmm,” Arthur said noncommittally, his pulse too fast.
Perhaps Rory’s nervous about the stakes tonight, he told himself. Or perhaps you’ve just had too much coffee. Calm down.
The barber put a hot towel over his beard, hot enough to soften even Arthur’s thick stubble. He could hear the barber stropping the straight blade behind him, metal on leather. Familiar.
Arthur closed his eyes and took a quiet breath, trying to focus on all the familiar noises: running water, scissors, an occasional murmur in French from the other barbers or the customers in their chairs.
Calm down, he ordered himself again.
And then he caught his breath as Rory’s magic sparked back to life. Arthur had to grit his teeth as the barber leaned over him to lift the towel off his face.
A moment later, boar’s hair bristles brushed against his jaw, cedar and peppery citrus filling his nose as lather built. When Arthur’s stubble was covered with foam, the barber gently tilted his head back and slid the razor from cheekbone to jaw with surgical precision, not dragging or catching on his thick hair at all.
Arthur should have been able to relax and enjoy a comfortable, expert shave from a barber who obviously knew his way around a blade. Except Rory’s magic wasn’t getting the message to calm down at all. If anything, it was more agitated than ever, making Arthur feel like he was being shaved in a cloud of static electricity.
But then, that magic was literally knitting his life force together.
Could that be why he was feeling it now? Was his aura disintegrating further and Rory’s magic scrambling to patch it? Was that how this worked?
There was a sudden prick, just beneath his jaw, and a surprised hiss escaped Arthur.
“Sorry,” said the barber. “You twitched.”
Had he? Arthur frowned, but the barber was toweling him off, dabbing at the nick with a damp towel, and the pain was already gone.
Arthur’s chair was rightened a second later, and there he was in the mirror. He turned his face from side to side to see his perfectly shaved jaw, no blood in sight.
He looked past his own reflection to the space behind him, but the barber had vanished.
A different man was stepping up to Arthur’s chair. “La coupe de cheveux?” he asked, holding up scissors.
Arthur’s gaze went back to himself, in the mirror. The sizzle of Rory’s magic was fading; in another moment it would be gone. Arthur felt normal, he looked normal.
The man in the mirror didn’t look like a man whose aura was shredding.
With another quiet sigh, he sat back in the chair for his haircut.
* * *
Rory glanced around the cabaret’s dark lobby, with its black-painted walls and purple furniture and oversize posters of performers, including one of Stella in a sequined gown. He smiled faintly; he still couldn’t believe she’d sung “Happy Birthday” for him. “Bet she filled every seat in this joint too,” he said to Jade, as he stuck a finger in his shirt collar and tugged it away from his skin.
“She did,” Jade said, with a big sister’s pride. “And Benson used to help Carmen run this place. His wife Anita loved it here too; they may find their way here again.” She eyed Rory with a knowing smile. “Not a fan of the ruffles?”
Rory found a grudging smile back for her. She looked like she belonged on a poster too, in a form-fitting man’s tuxedo with long tails, with one of Carmen’s tiny top hats on top of her bob. Zhang, the only one dressed in his usual clothes, was sitting on the stool next to her, and seemed to be having trouble looking anywhere else.
“Collar’s too ti
ght,” said Rory.
“I’m wearing a cape. Stop whining.” Ellis leaned against the wall. He wore his own tuxedo well, looking the part of a magician’s assistant with a cape and white gloves. But he couldn’t keep up with Gwen, pretty as a movie star in a flouncy red dress and long black gloves, her curls pinned up and tucked under a feathered headband.
Rory, on the other hand, looked ridiculous. He was wearing all white, including wide-legged pants and a ruffled collar, with a black skullcap over his curls and his eyes with their kohl liner behind the glasses. “I look stupid,” he protested. “And I’ve never seen a clown wear glasses.”
“You look exactly as you’re supposed to look,” said Gwen. “Have a little faith in me.”
She said it distractedly, as she rooted through her beaded handbag, like she hadn’t thought about what she was saying.
Rory pursed his lips.
Did he have any faith in Gwen, or in Ellis?
Should he?
Pale evening light suddenly spilled into the club’s lobby, and Gwen looked up. Grief flashed over her face, so quickly Rory almost missed it.
He looked over to see Arthur walking into the lobby, black tuxedo and white tie, the afternoon sun haloing him compared to the darkness inside.
“Aw, damn,” Rory’s mouth said, without his permission, as he forgot everything but the sight of Arthur. “I could be with you a thousand years and never get used to how handsome you are.”
Arthur smiled at that, as Gwen looked at Ellis. “He is capable of being charming, I’ll give him that.”
Arthur was still smiling as he gestured at Rory’s Pierrot getup. “I like this.”
“You better not,” Rory warned him, which turned Arthur’s smile to a grin.
Jade hopped down off her stool onto high-heel boots and grabbed Zhang by the hand. “Come on. The show must go on, after all.”
