Spellbound Page 6

  Understanding bloomed on the cabbie’s face. “I didn’t see nothing,” he promised, the wad of cash disappearing into the front seat.

  As Arthur climbed out, he found Rory paused on the thankfully deserted sidewalk, staring up the side of his eight-story building with wary eyes. Far above the roof’s high peaks and gabled dormers, the moon was only a waxing crescent. One small mercy, at least; Jade always said full moons were a wild card for magic.

  Rory pointed at a balcony. “This ain’t Hell’s Kitchen.”

  “No. It isn’t.” Arthur reached for his upper arm, to tug him in the direction of the front door.

  But Rory was backing away from Arthur. “You heard me talking bunk.” There was fear on his face, as there had been in the antiques shop, when Arthur had handled the ring box. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  And he turned and began to run.

  “Rory!” Arthur darted after him, but Rory wasn’t going anywhere with the brandy still in his magic, making him clumsy as a rummy. He tripped almost immediately over his own feet. Arthur dove, catching Rory in his arms and taking the brunt of the cold concrete with his own knees instead.

  “Let me go!” Rory thrashed in his arms. “I’m not going with you!”

  “All right, all right.” Arthur clutched him tight around his ribs, like trying to wrestle a frantic cat. Rory’s wiry muscles were stronger than they looked. “You don’t have to come to my flat, I’ll take you to Hell’s Kitchen!”

  Rory abruptly stopped struggling. He jerked his head around to stare at Arthur with drunken suspicion. “Why’re we going to your place?”

  “Because you’re drunk and sick and it’s my fault,” Arthur said. “The least I can do is watch over you while you sleep it off.” He took advantage of the moment of calm to hoist him up to his feet, holding Rory upright by the biceps. “I wasn’t going to do anything else with you, on my word.”

  “Oh.” Rory’s eyebrows furrowed. He tilted his head back to look up at Arthur. In the streetlamp, behind the lopsided glasses, his eyes were lost and confused. “I thought you were taking me back.”

  “Back?” But Rory staggered again in Arthur’s grip, and Arthur had to scramble to keep him from crashing to the sidewalk. He got his arms under Rory’s and hefted him up enough to see his face. “Back where?”

  But Rory’s eyes were closed, and he didn’t answer.

  Who are you, Rory Brodigan?

  Chapter Eight

  A bright winter sun lit Manhattan, bouncing off the snow and through the crack in the curtains like a knife stabbing into Rory’s head.

  He groaned loudly and flailed, trying to cover his eyes from the cruel light. He was gonna bury himself under these soft blankets and never come back out—

  “Good morning, Rory.”

  Rory froze at the woman’s voice. He shoved the covers down, but without his glasses, he couldn’t see anything but a blur. “What’s going on? Why am I—what—”

  “Your glasses are on the nightstand.” She had a lovely voice, bright and clear. “Do you want to try sitting up?”

  He felt around to the side until his hand landed on a nightstand and blessedly, his glasses. He slid the frames on his face to find his companion was a beautiful Black woman with a pretty smile and a cloche hat in the same gray as her suit. Her suit—aw geez, she was wearing a man’s suit, with trousers. Rory had gone for women in trousers since his early crushes on suffragettes with brass balls bigger than any man’s.

  His fuzzy tongue and fuzzier head immediately tripped over themselves. “Why, um—where?”

  She leaned against the doorway of the—bedroom? Was he in a bedroom?—and tilted her head. “You’re on the Upper West Side, in Arthur Kenzie’s flat.”

  Kenzie’s pad? But of course it was. The bedroom had fancy molding and gilded details over the huge window. The furniture was heavy mahogany with intricate carvings, including the huge four-poster bed he’d been tucked into.

  He pushed the comforter down and managed to sit partway up, making a face as his stomach turned over. “And—I don’t think I’ve met you?”

  “Jade Robbins. I’m Ace’s associate.”

  Rory massaged at the headache in his temple. “You’re Mr. Kenzie’s associate and you call him Ace?”

  She smiled slyly. “You spent the night in his bed and you call him Mr. Kenzie?”

  Rory went scarlet. “I didn’t—we didn’t—”

  “I’m teasing. You didn’t.” Jade was firm. “You were unconscious and he watched over you.”

  Unconscious. Rory shivered. “Did he say if I, uh, did anything weird? Sleepwalking, talking nuts?”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered,” she said, her voice softer. “Whatever you might have done, you were perfectly safe here.”

  Rory crumpled the edge of the comforter in his hands. It was silky soft, thick and warm. It’d be nice to believe a heaven like this could be safe, but he must’ve miraculously kept his trap shut or Kenzie would never have let him stay.

  “There’s some aspirin on the nightstand, if you think it would help your head,” she went on. “And I hope you’ll accept my apology.”

  “Apology?” he repeated, already reaching for the medicine.

  “The Magnolia is my family’s speakeasy. My brother manages, my sister sings, and I assist in—other ways.” She offered him an apologetic smile. “I feel responsible for the brandy you had.”

  “Not your fault I’m a lightweight.” He didn’t remember much from the night before. The singer, the brandy, a tailor, maybe? But he could picture Kenzie across the table perfectly, blue eyes bright against his black hair and that charming smile on his lips.

  Are your lips soft as they look?

  Rory froze, hearing his own voice echo in his memory.

  Surely—surely he hadn’t tried to flirt with Kenzie?

  He shot to his feet. “I should go. I have work and—”

  “Ace went round to your shop this morning. Mrs. Brodigan won’t be expecting you any time soon.”

  Rory’s heart plummeted. “Mr. Kenzie got me fired?”

  “What? No,” Jade said in shock. “He took the blame for your late arrival.”

  Rory blinked.

  “You can stay if you like,” she said. “Ace got called on business, but he’ll be back and he’d like to talk to you—”

  “I don’t think I should be here when Mr. Kenzie returns.” Most fellas didn’t want another fella to tell them their lips look soft. Rory needed to be on a different island when Kenzie got back.

  “If you like,” she said. “He did say you’d probably want to leave. He left money with the doorman for your cab.”

  She moved gracefully out of his way as he scrambled for the front door. His ragged coat was hanging on a hook with his hat, looking particularly forlorn against Kenzie’s collection of fine outerwear but still hung up like it deserved that kind of treatment. He fought to get it on as fast as he could. He had to get gone before Kenzie showed and clocked him for flirting. Rory wasn’t stupid enough to think he could win that fight, and he liked his teeth where they were.

  “Rory.”

  He paused, hat on, hand on the door.

  Jade smiled, genuine and hopeful. “I’ll see you again?”

  She was the nicest person Rory had met in ages and he desperately wished he could say yes. Instead, he gave a half-hearted nod he didn’t mean and dashed out the door.

  * * *

  “You’ll be Mr. Kenzie’s guest, won’t you?” The doorman didn’t wait for an affirmation, just stepped toward the street. “I’ll get a cab, sir.”

  Rory followed out from the lobby onto the sidewalk, wincing as the mercilessly bright sun pierced his head. Maybe Prohibition wasn’t such a bad deal after all.

  “How did you know who I was?” he said, rubbing his headache as he
squinted up at the doorman.

  “Mr. Kenzie has a lot of eccentric guests.”

  Eccentric. Mrs. Brodigan liked that word too because it was a nice way to say weird. Rory slouched into his old coat. He really didn’t want to take anything more from Kenzie, but that was weighed against his desire to be a safe distance away as fast as possible. Self-preservation was winning, so he let the doorman wave at the traffic for a cab.

  But as the taxi pulled up to the curb, Rory’s gaze stole across Central Park West to the park beyond. The bright sun made the morning brilliant after yesterday’s storm, Central Park’s lawn a blanket of fresh powder under a cloudless blue sky. The trees’ barren branches were softened by snow, rising above kids throwing snowballs and couples holding hands as they strolled.

  “Wait,” he said without thinking. “Wait, I—”

  The doorman paused, holding open the back door of the taxi. “Sir?”

  Rory bit his lip, eyes on the park. Then he sighed. He needed to go; he couldn’t be here when Kenzie got back and he had no business wasting time in the park anyway. “Thanks,” he muttered, and climbed in the cab.

  “Hell’s Kitchen,” he said as he pressed a hand to the glass, and he watched out the window until the park was out of his reach.

  * * *

  Arthur stepped out of his cab on Hester Street on the Lower East Side. The ground-floor shops in the endless red brick buildings were just opening for business, people calling to each other as they peeled back curtains and pushed wares onto the streets despite the winter chill. Curious eyes followed Arthur as he dodged the piles of dirty snow lining the sidewalk on his way to a blue-and-white striped awning in the middle of the block, sandwiched between a tailor and a lawyer.

  Taussig’s Chemists read the letters on the window. Pharmacy, Prescriptions, Powders.

  Was Rory awake yet? Arthur hadn’t wanted to leave him, especially considering it was his own fault Rory had gotten in the mess he had. But Mrs. Taussig had called and said Sasha was frantic over Pavel, and that was Arthur’s fault too. He never should have let the ring out of his sight, and now he’d done half of New York’s paranormals wrong. But Jade had promised to look after Rory, and Jade’s hands were the most capable Arthur knew, so he’d come to check on the Ivanovs in person.

  Mr. Taussig was both a pharmacist and a doctor and generally out on house calls during the day, leaving Mrs. Taussig and their two teenagers to run the shop. Dinah and Levi were setting up the soda fountain as Arthur stepped through the shop’s door.

  “Mr. Ace!” Dinah broke into a grin. “Mum said you were coming.”

  “It’s the least I can do.” Arthur gestured at the door at the back of the shop. “Are they upstairs?”

  Levi nodded and pointed at the pot behind his counter. “I’m brewing the coffee. You want a cup?”

  Did he? Arthur had slept maybe three hours in the chair in his room, watching over Rory, one ear constantly cocked for any suspicious babbling. Was it karma’s payback for making Rory spend a night in a chair scrying letters?

  Arthur sighed and shook his head no. “Coffee is for men, not scoundrels.”

  He slipped through the back door and into a claustrophobic hall that smelled like stale cigarettes. The hall led to the brownstone’s central stairs, and he followed them up to another hall, this one lined with doors. He knocked on Apartment 2B and Mrs. Taussig opened the door. She had the same pale skin and hazel eyes as her kids, although her dark curls were shot through with gray.

  “Arthur.” She smiled in relief and held the door open, and he stepped into the cramped, over-heated space. “They’re in their room.”

  But the bedroom door was already opening, revealing Aleksandra Ivanova—Sasha, she preferred—a lovely woman Arthur’s age with serious brown eyes and honey-brown hair held back by a blue-patterned kerchief. “Is it Ace?”

  “Is your brother awake?” Arthur asked, shedding his coat as he approached.

  Sasha nodded. “But Pavel had visions last night,” she said, her thick Russian accent melodic as ever. “A boy with broken glasses. A ring.”

  Well, there went any doubts that Rory had opened up the briefcase or that Arthur had made a mess of everything.

  Pavel was sitting on the edge of the bed. He had golden-brown hair like his sister, but his brown eyes were closed and his olive skin overly flushed. He held an unpeeled orange in his hands, his fingers moving over it deliberately.

  Arthur crouched in front of him and very carefully put his hand over Pavel’s on the orange. The young man stilled. “Pavel,” Arthur said gently. “I’m so sorry about last night. Are you all right?”

  Pavel opened his eyes. He blinked at Arthur for a moment, then smiled softly. He patted Arthur’s hand then closed his eyes again and went back to tracing the orange. Arthur glanced at Sasha. To his relief, the worry lines around her eyes had eased.

  “He recognizes you.” She leaned on the wall. “That is good. The alchemy did not trap him. He is here.”

  Arthur’s hand tightened on Pavel’s for an instant, then he let go with an ache in his chest. He’d never pressed Sasha for details on their escape from the Russian Civil War; had refused to ask a refugee to relive whatever horrors they’d fled. But whatever had happened before they made it to America, Pavel had yet to speak in his presence.

  Arthur straightened and motioned to Sasha, who followed him into the hall. “The magic that hit Pavel last night is my fault,” he said, without preamble, “and I apologize.”

  Sasha shook her head. “You take too much blame on yourself, always.”

  “You’re very sweet, to try and let me off the hook.” He sighed. “Zhang says there’s more magic on its way to New York.”

  Sasha sucked in a breath, her gaze going past Arthur to Pavel.

  “I can help,” he hastened to say, before she could worry. The Taussigs’ generosity kept the Ivanovs off the streets and he wasn’t sure they had anywhere else to go. “I’m trying to make arrangements for other work for the two of you. Upstate, away from the magic, if you’re willing to go.”

  Her eyes darted up to him. “You would do that, for us?”

  He smiled. “You haven’t heard what the work would be yet. I hope you like children. Lots of children.”

  She broke into one of her rare smiles. “Yes, yes.” She clasped her hands. “Sometimes children make Pavel talk.”

  That put a lump in Arthur’s throat. “I’ll be in touch,” he promised.

  As he left through the pharmacy, he paused at the counter. “Is that coffee still on offer?” he said to Levi.

  Levi grabbed a paper cup with a grin. “You want ice cream in it?”

  Arthur raised an eyebrow, but then, Levi’s willingness to experiment was the reason Taussig’s had the best ice cream sodas Arthur had ever had. Some things were good about being back in New York. The food. The culture.

  Rory, in the soft dark of the bedroom, curls loose around his face and covers up to his chin, sleeping peacefully after the drink and the magic had finally left his blood.

  Maybe Rory liked ice cream sodas too.

  Arthur shook his head, annoyed at himself. Yes, there were countless hidden treasures in his city he might like to share with a spitfire paranormal with heart-stopping eyes. And yes, once Rory was out of danger, it was impossible not to notice how good he looked in Arthur’s bed.

  But nothing could happen, not in New York, not anywhere. Rory would likely despise Arthur when he woke, and rightly so. Meanwhile, Arthur’s father and his brother John had won their elections, but the public was fickle, and neither of them needed to be ruined by the scandal of the youngest Kenzie’s predilection for men becoming public knowledge.

  And even in a different world, one where Rory had meant every word of his flirty, drunken nonsense and Arthur didn’t have his family’s political reputations to protect, he was not going to pur
sue an inexperienced twenty-year-old hiding secrets—and who might be hiding a need for help.

  “I’ll stick to milk,” he said, and pushed the maudlin thoughts away. He had enough to dwell on already with an unknown, unbound relic on its way to Manhattan. New York could be in a lot of trouble. Pavel could be in a lot of trouble. And there was another subordinate paranormal out there, Arthur now knew, who was nothing but trouble in a cap and specs.

  It was time to do some digging on Rory Brodigan.

  Chapter Nine

  When Rory trudged back into the antiques shop, he found Mrs. Brodigan with a customer, a young Italian woman and her toddler. The boy had a head of black curls and was bundled in so many layers of coats that his little arms stuck out to the side like penguin wings. Rory hesitated, but the mother’s English was fluent, Mrs. Brodigan’s wave cheerful and not needy, so he left them to it and disappeared into the office. He hung his coat over the back of his armchair before curling up in a ball on the cushy seat.

  He felt—good. And it made him suspicious. He never felt good. He generally felt about as stable as a kite, ready for the big gust of wind that took him into the past and left him there. He’d thought that ring might have been it, but now, as he sat in his familiar chair in the familiar shop, he bizarrely felt more grounded than he had for years.

  He closed his eyes and reached for the blurry memories of the night before. Kenzie, in the cab to Harlem, handsome face illuminated by streetlights. Kenzie, sipping whiskey across the cramped table, putting up with Rory’s attitude. Kenzie, moving like lightning, catching Rory before he hit the ground.

  Rory flushed. Nothing like finding out you can’t hold your liquor because you fell into another man’s arms. There were fellas who might’ve knocked him on his ass just for that, never mind his big mouth. But he didn’t remember Kenzie being angry, and Kenzie hadn’t left him and his drunken flirting to the mercy of strangers. He thought he could almost still feel Kenzie towering over him, strong as a bear, manhandling him into a car, clutching his hand tight.