“They don’t even know I exist!” Rory started for the door. “They’re not gonna come looking for me. You got a whole restaurant full of people above the ring, I need to go until I calm down—wait, Zhang, what’re you doing?”
Zhang was climbing up on the table. “Maybe Jade and I together are enough. If I can just get it down, get it in something lead—” He reached for the sphere.
Rory’s stomach turned over. What if the ring unleashed the wind right on his friend? “No, don’t touch it—”
As panic seized Rory, the brass sphere whipped across the room, away from Zhang’s outstretched fingers. The gust was enough to send Jade’s hat flying and make Rory’s clothes flap.
It zipped across the room—and smashed straight into the bookshelf closest to Jade, right through the shelf holding the vials of Pavel’s potions.
The shelf collapsed, the glass vials falling to the polished wood floor and shattering. Blue smoke rushed out of the vials like a searching fog, heading for both Jade and Zhang like snakes made of clouds.
“Oh no,” said Rory, covering his mouth as Zhang crumpled to the ground. “Jade—”
But Jade’s eyelashes were fluttering too, as the blue fog curled around her. She was going to faint, and then there would be nothing to hold back the ring.
“I’m so sorry.” Rory stumbled for the door, through the fog, which hovered close but never touched him. “I’m putting everyone in danger. I can’t be close to the ring.”
Jade held out her hand, but he could see her eyes closing. “Wait, Rory—”
Rory couldn’t.
Arthur was nowhere to be seen as Rory sprinted up the stairs. He skipped the restaurant, cutting through the building’s small lobby and out to the curb. “Taxi!”
He jumped in the cab that pulled up. “Hell’s Kitchen,” he said, curling up in a ball on the seat, unable to stop himself from reaching for his link to ground himself—only to find it still too faint, and growing fainter as the taxi sped off and Arthur got farther away.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Arthur’s tailor, Mr. Dannenburg, had his haberdashery not far from Chinatown. Arthur dressed at his shop, where the assistants could fuss over the lines of the white vest and shirt, could pick out their preferred pair of white gloves.
Gwen’s relic amulet was missing. Hyde was somewhere in New York, with more blood on his hands, and with allies and a pomander relic full of violation magic. He’d left Jade, Zhang, and Rory to deal with the mess so he could be fitted in a tuxedo so he could perform like a well-socialized monkey, because John’s Senate dreams could be shattered if Arthur stood up a titled Englishman at the governor’s son’s wedding.
He thought he might go mad.
As Arthur stood on the platform as an assistant tied his white bow tie, he watched Mr. Dannenburg over at the small display of hats. Mr. Dannenburg was selecting a top hat for Arthur, but Arthur’s gaze was drawn to the lone casual cap. It was a beautiful brown houndstooth that would match Rory’s eyes, in the newsboy style that was absurdly cute on top of Rory’s curls.
It looked like something Rory would like.
Mr. Dannenburg, a kind-faced older gentleman whose English was softened by his German accent, noticed Arthur’s hesitation. “Something else, Mr. Kenzie?”
Was he really hat shopping?Now?But in his mess of emotions was guilt. He shouldn’t have left Rory like he had. Rory would never have thrown the barb he had if he’d had any idea how sharp it really was. He wouldn’t have known why his words had cut so deep, and he’d only lashed out because Arthur had hurt him first, because Arthur had said Rory couldn’t understand war when Rory understood Arthur better than anyone else ever had.
He glanced at the cap again.
Oh, hell. It wasn’t like Rory had to keep it if he didn’t want it.
Rory bit his nails the entire ride to Hell’s Kitchen, his stomach churning. He hadn’t known where else to go but home. He’d come too close to hurting a restaurant full of people and then gone and knocked out two of the people who might actually be able to find Hyde and Shelley. Could he find them on his own? They didn’t know about him; maybe they wouldn’t see him coming. But how was he gonna find them when he couldn’t see them with magic? And what was he gonna do if he did?
His fears were mixed up with anger too, because what did Arthur, Jade, and Zhang know about getting trapped in magic? Maybe they’d seen war, but so had Pavel, and he deserved better than to be stuck finding alchemy in everything he touched.
But Arthur’s expression haunted Rory, the unnatural rigidity, like Rory had struck a terrible blow with his words.
He was taken during war and stuck in a prison cell and tortured until he was forced to do magic to escape. Maybe you were just some fancy officer, Ace, but can’t you find some sympathy for that?
Rory gritted his teeth and looked out the window. Arthur had that medal hidden in a trunk; maybe the war had been worse for him than he let on. That would be about right, Arthur thinking he had to shelter Rory from all the hard truths the world had.
But he wasn’t sure how long he could really stay mad when Arthur had done it because he wanted to protect Rory from the bad stuff he’d been through.
The taxi let Rory out on the gray, snow-spotted sidewalk in front of his building, a five-story, soot-stained row house with clotheslines strung between the neighboring house’s fire escape. A shifty-eyed white man was smoking on the front steps of the house next door, his gaze following Rory for an uncomfortably long moment before he snorted and looked away, likely because Rory rightly didn’t look like a fella with a nickel in his pocket to steal.
