Spellbound Read online

  “Oh, let me help,” Jade said. “He might be small enough for me to get in a car trunk, if I can find the right thing to maneuver him with.”

  There was a knock on the door. Speak of the devil—Arthur found Rory fidgeting on the doorstep, in his ragged coat and newsboy cap, overgrown blond curls poking out under the brim. He had Arthur’s envelope clutched in bandaged hands.

  “You forgot your money.”

  Arthur leaned on the door frame, warmth curling in his chest. Rory could have sent the money back via courier. He was wary as a stray but he was here, on Arthur’s doorstep. “Hello again to you too.”

  “Yeah, yeah, manners and all that.” He thrust the envelope at Arthur. “I told you we couldn’t accept this. You forgot to take it back.”

  Arthur made no move to take the envelope. “I didn’t forget. I’m not taking it back, it’s yours.”

  Rory huffed and finally came into the flat, pushing past Arthur into the foyer. He set the envelope on the mahogany console table with some force. “No, it’s yours.”

  Arthur raised an eyebrow. “You could pretend to negotiate with the customer.”

  “Or you could go chase yourself.” Rory’s gaze had drifted to the parlor, where morning sun glowed in golden pools on the floor. Outside the windows, Central Park’s snow-covered tree branches glittered like a white sea. “Nice view.”

  He sounded like he meant it. But then, of course he meant it; Arthur had seen Rory’s dark and claustrophobic room. His chest clenched. “You’re welcome to enjoy it. I was just about to run for breakfast, but you could stay—”

  “You gotta whole big kitchen,” Rory said. “Why would you go out?”

  “Because while Ace is a man of many talents, cooking sadly isn’t one of them.” Jade appeared in the frame between the parlor and the foyer. She smiled warmly. “Hello, Rory.”

  Rory brightened. “Hey.”

  Arthur would have paid three times the amount in the envelope to get Rory to perk up like that for him. But then Rory turned back to Arthur, and he wasn’t smiling but he wasn’t glaring either. “Not using your kitchen’s criminal.”

  “Oh please,” said Arthur. “Like you cook.”

  Rory shrugged and looked away, but not before Arthur caught the pink on his cheeks.

  Rory cooked. “If you’re about to tell me you can make Italian food, I might propose right here,” Arthur said, only mostly joking.

  The pink on Rory’s cheeks deepened. He scuffed a foot on the ground, then said, without looking at Arthur, “Used to help in the restaurant where my mom worked.”

  It was gruff and surly and heart-wrenchingly vulnerable. Arthur opened his mouth, flailing for something comforting to say.

  But Rory was already walking past Jade. “Kitchen’s over here, right?” He disappeared through the parlor. “Tell me you at least got coffee.”

  “Did he just say he’s going to make coffee?” Arthur stared after him. “Last night that firebrand told me to go to hell and now he’s in my kitchen making coffee.”

  “You don’t have coffee,” said Jade.

  “Well, not at the moment. But I’ll import some straight from Italy if he’s willing to make it.”

  Jade grinned. “Are you spinning a domestic fantasy of Rory making you morning coffee?”

  “Certainly not,” he lied, as his traitorous mind immediately conjured a morning-after image of Rory making coffee in nothing but Arthur’s too-big shirt, a thought apocalyptically unhelpful to Arthur’s promise to keep his hands to himself. “I’m simply craving coffee.”

  “You’re certainly craving something.” Jade ignored his dirty look and grabbed her coat. “Good luck with your firebrand. I’ll catch you up later.”

  When Arthur walked into the kitchen, Rory was up on his toes, digging in Arthur’s cabinet. “So I think it’s gotta be instant ’cause you don’t have a caffettiera—sorry, what’s the English word?—a percolator.”

  Oh, he was cute.

  “Although actually, I don’t think you got instant coffee either—or anything, really, why are your cabinets so empty—”

  “I’m not good about shopping for myself, I’m afraid. I can order up service delivered—or we could go out.” Maybe a cup of coffee would make Rory listen to reason about Hyde Park. Or maybe he could just have a cup of coffee with Rory.

  Rory glanced over his shoulder. He looked at Arthur for a long moment, chapped lip caught in his teeth, then his shoulders drooped. “I gotta get back to the shop—”

  “Of course you do,” Arthur agreed. “Although...” He drew the word out. “Mrs. Brodigan does strike me as a woman who enjoys scones. A woman who might be very forgiving of an absent employee if he returned with one.”

  Rory made a small, surprised huff, one that almost sounded like a laugh. “Yeah all right,” he finally said, still biting that lip. “We going or what?”

  * * *

  Out in the crisp morning, Rory’s gaze predictably drifted across Central Park West to the snow-covered park beyond, and Arthur simply could not bear the longing another moment. He tugged on Rory’s sleeve. “Well, come on, keep up.”

  “Keep up?”

  “The place we’re going is on the other side of Central Park.” He’d seen the look in Rory’s eyes when he’d stared out Arthur’s windows at the park, seen the joyless room Rory locked himself into every night. He was not letting Rory deny himself the sunshine and the trees, not this morning, not when he was in Arthur’s hands.

  Arthur pulled harder as Rory’s mouth fell open. “I’m afraid I must have my coffee from this particular place,” he said, long-practiced at playing to everyone’s assumptions he was an entitled spoilt brat.

  But Rory snorted. “Pull the other one.” He leaned in. “I bet in the army you had to eat food even I wouldn’t touch. Bet you drank whatever you got your paws on. You don’t care where your coffee’s from. Why are we really going so far?”

  Arthur blinked, uncertain how Rory had just shredded a facade that fooled the rest of Manhattan. “For the best scones,” he said slowly, which was also true, at least. “I know a French place where one of the bakers is actually from Dublin.”

  “On the other side of the park?” Rory’s eyes lit, as much shine as he’d had for Jade but all for Arthur. “We get to walk?”

  He was already a step ahead of Arthur as they crossed Central Park West. He scampered over the snowy sidewalk and into the park, immediately eschewing the path to crunch through the snowy grass toward the lake. His shoulders were looser, head tilted up to catch the sun as it filtered through the trees.

  Arthur trailed a few steps behind, contentment warming his chest. The earlier jitters had eased and it was a pleasure to walk with someone like Rory. He was interesting company—if not polite company—and cute as a button to boot.

  The cutie in question paused near the lake’s edge to watch a group of children chase a ball onto the ice. The serious line of his mouth was soft for once, and Arthur realized the children were chattering in Italian. He straightened as a new thought fired him up. “You’re half-Italian.”

  Rory gave him a guarded look, the porcupine quills up. “What of it?”

  Yes, what of it, Ace? You’re too old for him and one reporter away from a scandal. You don’t get to care if his drunken nonsense at the Magnolia wasn’t nonsense. You don’t get to hope he meant that lovely, flirty Italian—

  “Do you speak it?” Arthur said, before he could stop himself.

  “Oh.” Rory shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, I spoke it more than English with my mom. I’m rusty, but I can still sell you an antique.”

  “Or call me handsome?” Arthur said lightly.

  Rory’s eyes went comically wide. “What did I say at the club?”

  “Ciao, bello,” Arthur repeated. “I know what it means.” You hopeless fool, you still couldn’t have him if
he said it now, sober as a judge—

  But Rory was covering his mouth with his hand. “I was bent outta my head,” he insisted, from behind his palm. “Talking bunk.”

  Damn. Well, maybe he didn’t like men, or maybe he just didn’t like Arthur. It didn’t matter, regardless.

  “Duly noted.” He buried his disappointment. That door was shut and Rory could trust that Arthur would never overstep and try to open it. “I’ll call the wedding off, then.”

  Rory made his surprised huff again, and as his hand fell away, Arthur saw—“Are you smiling?” he said in shock.

  Rory rolled his eyes, but he was smiling, small but real, and it transformed his face.

  “I made you smile.” Arthur’s heart skipped a beat. If Rory still enjoyed flirting, Arthur could certainly do that, no strings attached. “Sorry, wedding’s back on.”

  Rory’s smile grew. “Shut up.”

  “It’s your fault. You cook Italian food and you have an enchanting smile, that’s how you get yourself middle-aisled.”

  “You’re impossible.” He bumped Arthur with his shoulder. His cheeks were pinker, but it could have been the cold. “You talk like this to all the skirts in town? I bet you’ve got every last one on your private phone. How else would you know a word like bello?”

  Arthur coughed. “Must be the women.”

  They began to walk again, but now Rory kept stealing glances from under the brim of his hat. “You’re really not mad I called you handsome?”

  “It’s not exactly insulting.”

  “I know, but—” Rory bit off his words, straightening his spine like he was bracing himself. “Did anything else happen between us that night?”

  Other than the flirting, there was the magic, and there was a memory that was going to haunt Arthur. “You damn near gave me a heart attack,” he muttered.

  Rory flinched. “You just said you weren’t mad—”

  “I wasn’t,” said Arthur. “I was terrified.”

  “Terrified?” Rory came to a complete stop under the snow-covered branches of a cherry tree. “Because of my drunk Italian? You’re twice my height with muscles like a big six—you could’ve taken me out with one hit—”

  “I wasn’t scared of being called handsome,” Arthur cut in. “I was terrified when you touched my suit and got stuck in its creation.”

  “Oh.” They were both quiet, surrounded by the distant sounds of New York and the occasional bird. When Rory spoke again, he was hoarse. “So the tailor I remember wasn’t real?”

  He couldn’t tell real memories from visions? Arthur shivered. “His name is Mr. Dannenberg, and he’s real and the only reason I ever look respectable. But he certainly wasn’t drinking with us. You saw him making my jacket, and you were still seeing him, even when you let go of my suit.”

  Rory looked resigned, not surprised, as he stood alone under the white-frosted branches, and Arthur knew then with certainty that Rory had been through worse than even the ring.

  He chanced a step closer. “The vision that happened to you last night will keep happening every time the relic is exposed in this city for as long as that relic is unbound. And if that relic becomes bound to another paranormal—that’s a new set of problems. If you change your mind about leaving, my lifeline is there for you.”

  The deep brown eyes focused on Arthur, intense. “I can hold on to you, because you won’t let go?”

  Arthur recognized his own words from the back seat of the cab that had taken them home from the Magnolia. “You’re damn right I won’t.”

  Rory jammed his bandaged hands in his pockets. He didn’t look at Arthur as he scuffed his tennis shoe against the snow, then finally he muttered, “Thanks, Ace.”

  “Oh no, absolutely none of that,” Arthur said immediately. “Stick to telling me to go to hell. There will be no sweet manners and puppy eyes from you or I’ll end up wrapped around your paranormal pinky.”

  Rory made his surprised huff, the one that was nearly a laugh, although Arthur quite frankly hadn’t been joking. “You’re not like anyone else I ever met,” Rory said, as they set off again through the snowy park.

  “Says the boy who can see magical pasts.”

  “I don’t just see magic. I see regular pasts too.”

  “Exactly. So how on earth am I the strange one?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rory was in the freshly opened antiques shop the next morning when the side door swung open and a small head poked around the frame. “Oi, Rory! Phone’s for you.”

  “For me?” Rory said, nonplussed. “Not the shop?”

  Lizbeth Meyers shrugged, clearly an eight-year-old with bigger concerns. Rory went for the door, but she blocked his path, hands on her hips as accusing brown eyes stared up under heavy brown bangs. “We haven’t played jacks for three days.”

  “You have school, dear,” Mrs. Brodigan said from the register. “But I happen to know that Rory will have some free time this afternoon to play as many games as you like.”

  Rory rolled his eyes but had to smile as Lizbeth lit up. “You’re not gonna win nothing,” she said. “I’m gonna take you for a ride.”

  “Where’d you learn to talk like that?” Rory demanded as he let her drag him by the hand to the brownstone’s lobby.

  “From you.”

  Oh. Whoops. “Maybe don’t tell your mom?” Rory said hopefully. Getting cut off from Mrs. Meyers’s cookies would be tragic.

  Lizbeth only scoffed. “I didn’t snitch on your big six friend for wearing his pajamas out on the street, did I?” she said, which meant she’d seen Arthur leave the antiques shop yesterday. She leaned in and whispered, “He’s the bee’s knees.”

  “Oh yeah?” Rory curled his free hand, the carefully wrapped bandages on his fingers a lingering reminder of Arthur’s soft touch. “You talk to Ace?”

  “I asked if I had to keep his jammies a secret. He said it was my choice ’cause women got the vote and no man gets to tell me what to do.”

  Rory was grinning as he picked up the phone, expecting the man in question to be on the other end of the line.

  But it wasn’t Arthur, it was Jade. “I’m terribly sorry to call you at work,” she said, in that lovely clear voice that made him wonder if she could sing like her sister. “But I was wondering if I could impose on you and borrow your expertise this morning.”

  Rory furrowed his brow. “I’m listening.”

  * * *

  Arthur was running late to Chelsea and the small gallery where Zhang had tracked part of Gwen’s art shipment. Every ex-soldier inch of him protested being late, but he couldn’t exactly admit he had to leave a Kenzie family breakfast early because he was chasing the trail of a dangerous paranormal and a relic of unknown but likely deadly magic.

  The art gallery was tucked into the base of a brownstone with large, arched windows to the street, paintings lining the white walls and sculptures on pedestals every few feet. The proprietor was a white woman with a tidy red bob, dressed in sleek black from her hat to her shoes. She looked up as Arthur pushed open the door.

  “Mr. Kenzie?” At Arthur’s quick nod, she gestured to the back. “They’re in the anteroom.”

  They?

  There was a curtain hung on the back wall. As he moved it aside, Jade tugged him into the back room, noiselessly replacing the curtain as she put her finger to her lips. An unnecessary suggestion—Arthur had already gone silent. Rory was kneeling on the ground in front of a small painting of a sidewalk cafe, done in the art deco style but not by an artist Arthur recognized. Behind the glasses, Rory’s eyes were closed, and he was running bandaged fingers over the brush strokes, his movements deliberate and precise.

  The hairs on the back of Arthur’s neck stood on end. This wasn’t the little lost bunny drunk on the Magnolia’s brandy. This was Rory scrying with full control.

&n
bsp; “You brought him to scry Gwen’s art?” he hissed under his breath at Jade. “Are you mad?”

  “He’s psychometric,” she whispered fiercely back. “If he won’t leave town we should offer him a chance to help. He might be able to see something in the trail to give us a lead before Saturday’s gala—”

  “Or he might get stuck in the painting’s past—”

  “He scries antiques for a living, Ace, have some faith in him—”

  “Or try trusting me enough to tell me the truth.”

  Arthur’s stomach twisted as he realized Rory had opened his eyes. “You heard us?” In Arthur’s experience, scryers usually went too deep in their visions to hear whispers around them.

  “I knew the moment you walked into the shop.” Rory was glaring at Arthur, but worse, there was hurt thickly threaded through the anger. “Were you ever gonna tell me you knew the doll from my vision?”

  Arthur winced. “I was hoping to talk you into Hyde Park before you ever had to find out.”

  Rory’s expression crumpled with betrayal. “I’m not a child.”

  “I know, I just—”

  “I don’t need you to hide things—”

  “Except you’re shit at accepting the things you do need—” Arthur regretted the words as soon as he said them. Rory stood, fists clenched, but Arthur held up his hands and spoke first. “I didn’t mean that.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d just shattered Rory’s trust and stomped on his feelings. The least he could do was be honest. “You’re right, I’m being monstrously overprotective. I’m afraid it’s a bad habit of mine. If it makes you feel better, Jade is a telekinetic ex-spy who can kill a man with her mind, and sometimes I can’t sleep because I’m afraid she’s lost control and accidentally stabbed herself.”

  “He calls,” said Jade.

  “I do,” Arthur admitted.

  “Hmph.” Rory folded his arms. “So you think all paranormals are useless?”