“Wait, you know the skin is sensitive there?”
“Like I haven’t memorized every touch that gets a response from you.” Wesley fully encircled his wrist, his thumb still over the pulse point and tattoo, his hand warm against Sebastian’s skin. “Do you know what’s happening to you? Why the lion is doing this?”
“Not exactly,” Sebastian admitted. “But Alasdair said the poison was activated by magic, that it turns the magic on the magic user and makes it attack our blood. Perhaps the poison is still active in me.”
“So the pulses could be a sign that your magic isn’t recovered—that using it might trigger the symptoms again?”
Sebastian nodded.
“Well, welcome to the mortal plane for an unknown amount of time, then,” Wesley said. “How do you feel otherwise?”
“Like I was run over by a stampede,” Sebastian said ruefully. He hesitated. “But I also feel...better, somehow? Like I’ve taken off chains now that I’ve lost the brooch.”
Wesley raised an eyebrow. “So is Alasdair going to regret stealing it?”
“I don’t know,” Sebastian admitted. “I don’t know what it’s going to do to him, because I don’t know what Alasdair’s magic is. The brooch makes magic work on other magic. Maybe it’s only too much for a paranormal whose magic already works on other magic.”
Wesley’s thumb skimmed over his wrist again in a distracting way. He was looking at the tattoo thoughtfully. “Which magic was it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said in Central Park that you had four kinds of magic. If you’ve lost the brooch, I assume you’re back down to three, but which one was interacting with the brooch before?”
Wesley was tracing the tattoo now and Sebastian was having a hard time concentrating. “The enervation magic. Well. I think.”
“Youthink.”
“I assumed it would be interacting with the most innate magic. I suppose I could be wrong, but it doesn’t really matter now.” Sebastian tried to find something else to look at besides the hypnotizing motions of Wesley’s thumb on his skin. His eyes fell on some rust-colored spots on Wesley’s white cuffs. “You have blood on your sleeve. Did you get hurt?”
Wesley shook his head. “It’s yours.” He tapped his own temple. “From the cut on your head. It’s not as if I have another shirt to change into, and at any rate I’m hardly concerned about a stain right now.” He let go of Sebastian’s wrist. “What’s our plan, then? I think we assume that telegram wasn’t actually from Miss Robbins.”
“Alasdair, or perhaps Sir Ellery, or maybe both,” Sebastian said.
“But then where are the others?” Wesley said. “This is the same damn problem we’ve had since we set foot in this country and they’re farther away than ever.”
“How did Alasdair know about the brooch?” Sebastian said slowly. “Jade and the others would never have told him.”
“Never have told him willingly,” Wesley said grimly. “What if he knows where they are? What if he’s the fucking reason we can’t find them?”
“Alasdair said he also runs a gambling den,” Sebastian said. “He said it’s not far from the speakeasy, in a fabric store called Ace Up Your Sleeve.”
“I bet he thinks that’s clever,” Wesley muttered.
“He could be lying,” Sebastian said. “Obviously he was lying about Sir Ellery being at the tables, but it’s still a lead. Maybe we should try to find it.”
“Maybe.” Wesley’s expression was pensive. “But last night, in the alley, as we were leaving, you said there was lead somewhere.”
Sebastian frowned. He tried to think back to the night before, which was a fuzzy, blurry mess.
“We’ll walk through it,” Wesley said, like he understood. “From my perspective, it appeared that Sir Ellery showed up alone. You started to use your magic, then fell. Sir Ellery aimed at you then, I disarmed him, and then a shot rang out and he dropped dead in front of my eyes. Alasdair, I presume?”
Sebastian nodded.
“But I don’t understand,” said Wesley. “I was defenseless. Why shoot his friend instead of me?”
Sebastian winced. “He wanted to let you two fight it out. Winner take all.”
“Christ.” Wesley’s jaw tightened. “So Langford was right, Alasdair is mad as a hatter, and he can turn invisible?”
