Zhang’s black brows drew together. “I can handle myself. Save your worrying for this one.” He jerked his chin at Rory.
“I’m doing just fine,” Rory said irritably.
Arthur furrowed his brow. “What did he say?”
“He says he’ll check the library,” said Rory pointedly. Zhang touched the brim of his bowler hat, then shimmered out of view. “I still can’t believe you work with a man you can’t even see.”
“I have you to speak with him. How is it different from listening to you on the telephone?”
“’Cause it’s magic, isn’t it?” Rory’s skin was prickling, and not in a good way from being in a tight space with Arthur, but in a caged, not-enough-room-to-pace sort of way. Mansfield had opened the relic, and Rory’s magic had taken him into the room without choice. Had it been Mansfield closing the box that ended the vision, or had Arthur somehow pulled Rory out?
Could Rory pull himself out, if he had someone to come back to?
Arthur was resting against the wall, still as a statue. “You’re looking at me.”
“I’m about to crawl outta my skin,” Rory admitted. “How’re you so calm?”
“Practice.” Arthur didn’t say it as a brag; he sounded resigned.
Rory’s heart ached at the thought of Arthur on a battlefield, waiting under pressure so many times he got used to it. He took a step forward in the claustrophobic space and put his forehead on Arthur’s chest.
Arthur startled, but his arms went around Rory a heartbeat later. “It’s not too late to get you somewhere safe.”
Rory scoffed. “Neither of us is gonna let an amulet that rules the sea end up with people who shouldn’t have it.” He closed his eyes, savoring Arthur’s warmth, breathing in his cologne. Would he ever smell this scent again without remembering being stripped in the foyer and Arthur’s mouth on his skin? “Least I got you.”
Arthur’s arms went almost painfully tight around him. “You’re so sweet, and yet I’ve brought you nothing but danger,” he said, voice low with frustration. “You’re barely twenty; someone should be giving you a safer life—”
“Safe?” Rory took a step back. “Me? I’m gonna end up back in an asylum, stuck in someone else’s past, and that’s if my visions don’t make me walk straight off a cliff. My magic’s got me at its mercy, and a month ago I didn’t know if I’d make it to twenty-one.”
He reached up and took Arthur’s face in his hands. “Butyou.” He stared up into those wide blue eyes. “You make me think I got a chance. I don’t wantsafe, Ace, I wantyou.”
Arthur looked thunderstruck and vulnerable, like Rory had opened a lock he hadn’t known he was guarding. Then his lips were on Rory’s, his muscled body pressing him to the powder room door, and Rory was kissing back frantically and nothing mattered but Arthur—
“Ahem.”
Rory flailed against the door. “Zhang,” he hissed, pushing a confused Arthur away.
Arthur’s eyes widened and he uselessly tried to scramble away from Rory in the cramped space. “Zhang,” he sputtered, “it’s not what you’re thinking.”
“Pretty sure it is,” Zhang said dryly to Rory. “You can both relax. I walk on the astral plane. I’ve seen everything.”
“You don’t care if we neck?” Rory blinked. “What about Ace standing in you, do you care about that?”
Arthur covered his face with his palm. “Is the library empty or not?”
“Go now,” said Zhang. “Time is running out.”
Rory hung back as Arthur eased open the third-floor library door, and Zhang waited in the hall to keep watch as they slipped inside. It was a beautiful room, with large windows and leather club chairs like Arthur’s study, tall shelves of books and art on every wall. Despite its spaciousness, Rory fidgeted, stomach roiling, feeling more caged than in the powder room knowing the relic was close.
Arthur quietly shut the door behind Rory. “Did you see the painting hiding the safe in either of your visions?” he said in a low voice as he shoved a chair under the door handle.
“Maybe.” Rory closed his eyes. “Dancers? The ones in floaty skirts, not ones with the tassels.”
“Ballet, not burlesque.” Arthur pointed to an ornately framed painting between shelves. “Was it the Degas?”
Rory squinted at the painting of the women in pink, then shook his head. “Close, though.”
He scanned the room, his eyes lighting in recognition as he found the painting on the wall over the fireplace.
