“Because of Rory,” Gwen said, voicing his own thought. “Any health you feel is because Rory’s magic is protecting you. I can see it, holding your aura together, like gauze wrapped around wounds.”
Arthur could feel his own heartbeat under his palm. Rory’s magic. He’d felt it more frequently lately, the lightning bolts sizzling against his skin as it moved in his aura—or did far more than move.
He swallowed. “What happens if Rory takes his magic away?”
The bleakness that crossed her face confirmed his terrible suspicion. “Your aura will disintegrate,” she said, biting her lip. “And you’ll die.”
He sucked in a breath. “Don’t tell Rory.”
“You want me to keep this from him?” Gwen looked aghast. “No, Arthur, no, I will not. Rory has a right to know that you’ll die without his magic. And despite what you may believe because of our history, I don’t want you to die.”
“It is too big a burden to ask him to bear,” Arthur said tightly. “It is too much to ask of anyone that they be wholly responsible for your life.”
“Sometimes we don’t get to choose our responsibilities,” Gwen said, just as tightly. “But they are our responsibilities nonetheless, and like it or not, you have become his.”
He gritted his teeth. “What kind of ball and chain do you want me to be? To tell a lover they can never leave you without literally killing you, it’s—it’s unconscionable to trap another person like that.”
“It is not as if you set this trap on purpose.” She leaned forward again. “Rory adores you. You cannot let that innocent risk taking a human life without warning, much less yours. He would drown in guilt for the rest of his life.” She added, quiet and fierce, “Perhaps you don’t know what it’s like to believe you’re the reason the love of your life is dead, but I do. And I will not be party to condemning anyone to that misery.”
Arthur ran both hands over his face. She was right, but Christ—to put that guilt against the burden of his entire life on Rory’s shoulders. To make Rory hear he was the only thing keeping Arthur alive, because Arthur wasdying—
“Then let me tell him,” he said. “On my terms, when I’m ready, when I—when I can wrap my mind around this. You owe me that much.”
She huffed, and a tense silence fell between them.
“... Fine,” she finally said. “I will honor that. I suppose I do have rather a debt.”
Arthur looked up in surprise. “Did you actually just acknowledge that you were wrong to chain me up and torture me?”
She rolled her eyes, and deadpanned, “I suppose I usually reserve that sort of play for Ellis.”
And despite the roiling in his stomach, Arthur snorted. “And now you’re actually jesting with me.”
“Who’s jesting? You’re not in our bedroom.”
Arthur snorted again, shaking his head. For a moment, they could have been back in Paris, before Baron Zeppler had torn them apart, when Ellis would talk sports with him and Gwen would read his aura like a fortune-teller, just to make him laugh.
Arthur did miss them.
But he wasn’t stupid enough to trust them.
He rubbed at his eyes just as the pocket door slid open.
“The seller sent a new telegram,” Jade said, looking grim. “He’s willing to meet Arthur, but only tomorrow evening and in a very short window. We don’t have much time to get to Paris and form a plan; we need to leave tonight.”
“It does help to cross the English Channel when you have an amulet that controls the tide—” Gwen suddenly cut her own words off as she and Jade stared very hard just to the right of Arthur, listening intently to silence.
Arthur side-eyed the empty space, quite certain he was standing in Zhang again.
The next moment, Jade met his eyes, and Arthur’s stomach plummeted, because hers had widened with alarm. “Jianwei just saw a man fitting Rory’s description of the firestarter paranormal from Boston,” she said. “He’s searching the streets, and he’s not alone.”
Chapter Eighteen
One moment, Rory was sitting on the chaise, eating cookies—biscuits, Gwen called them. Next moment, the red curtain was shoved aside, and Sebastian and Ellis were in the room.
“Go,” Sebastian was saying to Ellis. “I’ll buy you time to get to the dock.”
Rory stood. “What the hell is going on?”
