Page 5

Since the night in Tarrytown, Sebastian and Wesley had spent most of their evenings at the Magnolia, a welcoming space with drinks, dancing, and world-class music that had quickly become one of Sebastian’s favorite places in New York.

He followed Wesley now through the main club, weaving around tightly packed round tables and skirting the edge of the dance floor.

Stella wasn’t onstage yet—probably waiting to get into her dressing room—but the piano player was entertaining the early arrivals.

One brave couple was doing the Charleston, and judging from the tapping toes, they wouldn’t be the only dancers for long.

Jade was at the bar, looking very pretty perched on a stool in her man’s suit and fedora, long legs crossed and one high heel dangling from her foot. She was sipping what appeared to be ginger ale and talking to the bartender, but turned as they approached.

“There are you two, at least.” Jade tilted her head. “Where are Arthur and Rory?”

“They, um,” Sebastian started awkwardly, “they need a minute.”

Wesley, eying the top-shelf liquors, added, “Our mis-adventures on the Hudson triggered Arthur’s mother bear streak and now he’s reading Brodigan the riot act.”

Jade groaned. “In my sister’s dressing room ?” she said, in a tone that suggested she knew exactly what that implied. She sighed. “All right, well, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. Sebastian, did the tailcoat not fit? I’m usually quite decent at estimating size.”

“Yes, Sebastian, why are you half-dressed?” Wesley said dryly. “Do tell.”

“I thought I might dance.” Sebastian shrugged innocently. “It is Latin night, yes?”

“Well, in that case,” Jade said, with a glance at Wesley, “I suspect he’ll have no trouble filling his dance card.”

“I’m bloody certain of it,” Wesley said, even more dryly. “And as you might surmise, I could use a very stiff drink.”

Jade grinned. “We’ve got French cognac from Quebec. Mack does a very good sidecar, I’m told, and Arthur has an open tab.”

“Excellent,” Wesley said. “Except let’s move it all to my tab.”

“That’s nice of you,” Sebastian said.

“Hardly,” said Wesley. “Arthur always wants to be the one seeing to everyone. It will drive his overprotective little heart mad if I foot tonight’s bill instead.” He tilted his head, gaze on Sebastian. “And for you?”

Alcohol made paranormals lose control of their magic.

Only weeks ago, Sebastian had been a paranormal and would never have even considered drinking in a full speakeasy, on the chance his magic sent everyone to the floor.

Now, he didn’t have magic—and yet, the past weeks, he’d continued to stick to soda.

Maybe the new Sebastian still didn’t drink; plenty of people didn’t, with or without Prohibition, and that was a perfectly valid choice.

Or maybe he was clinging to an echo of old Sebastian because he didn’t know how to navigate the world as the new person he’d become.

“Just a soda,” Sebastian said, pushing his thoughts away. “Cola.”

If Wesley had noticed Sebastian’s complicated feelings—and it was Wesley, he noticed almost everything—he’d never commented or pressured. And now, Wesley simply nodded and turned to the bartender.

They got their drinks and made their way to a table at the perimeter of the speakeasy, where Zhang and finally Arthur and Rory joined them.

The club was rapidly filling up, forcing the six of them to squash together in a semicircle around one small table along the wall.

There were only four chairs, so Jade took a seat on Zhang’s knee, his arm slipping around her waist.

“Seb, here.” Rory shifted to the edge of his chair. “You’re probably lighter than the high hats, so you and me can share.”

“The perks of being pint-size, I suppose, not that I would know,” Wesley said, which made Rory’s eyes narrow. “Though I don’t see why Sebastian ought to share with you instead of me.”

“Because,” said Rory, “I wasn’t sure you could sit at all with that giant stick up your—”

“Thank you, Rory, I appreciate it,” Sebastian said hurriedly, and squeezed in next to him as Wesley took the last vacant chair with a huff.

Arthur leaned in, addressing Jade. “What is this about Alasdair at the hospital?” he said, and Sebastian had to awkwardly shift his legs to the side as Arthur’s hand came to rest protectively on Rory’s knee under the table. “Rory said he’s dead and you suspect murder ?”

Jade nodded grimly. “The official report says fatal reaction to medication. But Alasdair wasn’t lucid yet; he didn’t have access to medications other than what the doctors gave him, and they hadn’t given him anything new.”

“So you think—what?” Wesley said. “Poison?”

“It’s unfortunately possible,” Zhang said. “I went over the whole hospital from the astral plane. Plenty of security keeping patients in, very little keeping others out. Someone posing as a nurse or an orderly could have slipped into Alasdair’s room under the guise of delivering food or medicine.”

Sebastian’s stomach turned over. “That’s awful.”

“I know.” Jade rubbed her face. “We weren’t the only ones to have the thought, either. The police were there.”

Alasdair had helped to kidnap all of them; had murdered his own friend, the baronet Sir Ellery, in cold blood and been ready to murder many others in order to destroy magic. Sebastian hadn’t forgotten any of that, but his heart was heavy nonetheless.

Wesley steepled his fingers. “We do have to ask the next question, then,” he said. “If Mr. Findlay was, in fact, murdered, who killed him—and why?”

“But we have a good lead on the why, don’t we?

” Arthur said. “Someone wants to see magic destroyed—someone who knows enough about paranormal lore and history to know about the relics and think to try combining them. And I agree that Alasdair was unlikely to have been the true mastermind behind those plans, but perhaps he knew too much about the plot to be allowed to wake.”

Zhang had pulled a small notebook out of his jacket.

He set it now on the table. “Jade and I have been piecing together what we know.” He pointed to the names on the paper.

“Alasdair Findlay, a paranormal who could hear magic and was driven mad by it. Major Charles Langford, who was Lord Fine’s commanding officer in the British Army.

And Sir Ellery, a baronet whose cousin had stolen the pomander relic from the Earl of Blanshard.

We know Sir Ellery was the one to spring Alasdair from the Hyde Garden asylum in September, because Ellery wanted Alasdair’s help to claim the pomander relic for his own.

But he had to have learned about the pomander, and Alasdair’s existence, from someone else. ”

“Could it have been from the earl himself?” Arthur suggested.

“Possibly, but I don’t think so,” Jade said.

“The pomander relic came to New York with your valet, Lord Fine, and you mentioned Major Langford knew your valet was involved in collecting and selling rare artifacts. Langford claimed the War Office was investigating Sir Ellery, but we know now they were working together. It very well could have been Langford who told Ellery about the pomander, not realizing Ellery’s greed to claim the pomander would overtake any desire to stop magic. ”

“That does seem possible,” Wesley said. “Though Langford did work for the War Office, that part is true.”

“Which begs the question,” said Arthur, “of who could have convinced a man like Langford to turn his attention from War Office business to the business of destroying magic?”

Wesley frowned.

Sebastian nudged him. “What?”

“Possibly nothing,” Wesley said. “Only—I knew Ellery and Langford both, and there’s at least one other man in those circles whose life has been touched by all this, whether he knows it or not. A marquess by the name of Thornton.”

“Lord Thornton?” Now Sebastian was frowning. “I know that name—I knew his maid Olive. She lived in Kilburn—or she did, until the Earl of Blanshard drained her aura.”

“Thornton lives near me in Kensington,” Wesley said.

“Utter arse, but that doesn’t mean he knows about magic.

Still, ghastly business, what happened to his maid.

And if Langford had been shown what magic did to his friend Thornton’s maid, he would have been convinced that magic needed to be stopped by any means. ”

Rory had been listening without speaking, playing with the slim gold band on his right hand.

It was a non-magical ring, not the ring relic that controlled the wind, but it still reminded Sebastian of how much magic Rory controlled—that Rory himself had once been locked in the Hyde Garden asylum, lost to his overpowering ability to see history.

“Rory, what do you think?” Sebastian asked.

Rory pursed his lips. “I’m thinking about what Ace said—that whoever is behind this knows enough about paranormal lore and history to know about the relics and think to try combining them. I never met anyone who knows that much about relics besides you , Seb.”

“Oh come now,” Wesley said, a little more sharply. “We’re not looking for a de Leon.”

“It’s a fair point, Wes,” Sebastian said ruefully. “One of my ancestors was a literal witch-hunter for the Spanish Inquisition, the one who hunted down all seven relics in the first place. He probably would have loved to destroy magic.”

“But it was the Earl of Blanshard who stole the relics from your family,” Arthur added.

“And now Rory has the ring, Jade the brooch, and Gwen the amulet. Ellis transferred the dagger’s magic into a ring, which is in the Zhangs’ library, and Sebastian destroyed the pomander.

” He was counting them off on his fingers.

“That’s five of the seven. What are the final two? ”