Footsteps approached. A moment later, a white-faced Mrs. Brodigan appeared on the platform, her hands in the air. A man with a gun was behind her, the gun between her shoulder blades.
Outraged, Rory opened his mouth, but across the platform, Jade beat him to it. “How dare you?” She was angrier than Rory had ever seen her. “She has no paranormal powers, no knowledge you want, no quarrel with you—”
“She runs an antiques shop that’s a front for a paranormal,” said Gwen.
“And she drove y’all here,” said Ellis. “You should have left her somewhere safe.”
Rory yanked against the mobsters holding him, trying to take a swing. “If you hurt her—”
“It’s your call, sugar. You get to decide the fate of everyone on this platform.” Ellis jerked his head at the henchman with the gun on Mrs. Brodigan. “Chain the old bird next to Ace. He should be coming ’round any moment.”
Mrs. Brodigan was still sheet-white, but she kept her chin high and didn’t speak as the man jabbed her with the gun and got her walking again.
Rory clamped down on his anger enough to get out words. “What do you mean, my call?” he said to Ellis.
“Simple.” Ellis slowly drew the Venom Dagger from his belt and held it up, the blade flashing in the light. “You have a nice dream about me and my dagger couple weeks back? Did you see it work on a sailor?”
The sailor Ellis had stabbed, who’d frozen like a statue before Ellis had kicked him into the ocean. Rory’s blood went cold. “Don’t use that,” he said, breath coming too quick.
“Don’t make me.” He pointed at the thin, narrow box Gwen was pulling from her pocket. “We have the Argonaut Amulet. You’re gonna use that psychometry of yours to figure out how to unlock its magic. If you don’t, I take my time killing everyone up here, starting with your handsome beau.”
Rory began to tremble. “But I never scried that deep into a relic. I dunno how.”
“Then you figure it out,” Gwen said. “OrI’llbe the one to kill Ace, and I’ll make his previous pain feel like a tickle.”
Rory’s chest clenched. “If I go into a relic on purpose—I might not come back.”
“We’ll take that chance,” said Ellis.
Rory screwed his eyes shut. But they had Jade, and Mrs. Brodigan, and Arthur.
He didn’t have a choice.
“If I go into a relic on purpose—I might not come back.”
“We’ll take that chance.”
Arthur heard the voices first, from a distance, as he slowly came back to aching consciousness. He squinted at the platform as he tried to force his eyes open, feeling bruised to his bones, his lungs, his heart. Christ, Gwen didn’t pull punches. “Ellis—”
“I’m not sure you ought to be trying to speak, dear,” said a familiar brogue to Arthur’s left. “You sound dreadful.”
Arthur screwed up his face in confusion. “Mrs. Brodigan?”
“I’m afraid they got me too.”
Outrage bloomed over the lingering pain, and he forced his eyes open to take stock of the situation: Mrs. Brodigan, chained to the same beam as Arthur, trembling despite her brave words; Jade, cuffed and guarded several feet away, her face perfectly neutral as it only was when she was truly furious.
And Rory, still in the borrowed waiter’s uniform, jaw clenched and hands balled into fists as he stared at the box in Gwen’s hands.
“Rory!” Arthur yanked at his chains as Rory’s head snapped in his direction. The vulnerability in those eyes went straight to Arthur’s heart. “Don’t touch that relic. Whatever they’ve threatened, it doesn’t matter, don’t do what they want—”
“Ace would throw himself on a sword to protect a kitten. He doesn’t care what happens to him,” Gwen said to Rory. “But you, with your magic chains in his heart,youcare. Scry the relic or I will kill him.”
Rory bit his lip, then tore his gaze away from Arthur.
“Rory, no!”
But Rory was opening the box.
