Chapter 1

New York City, 1899

Acadia Gardens, Brooklyn

CALIX

The man standing guard outside the townhouse’s bright blue door had the crooked nose and sunken eyes of a bare-knuckle brawler who had taken one too many hits to the face. And the broken teeth revealed when he pulled back his lips to snarl, “Fuck off, twats,” only reasserted Calix’s supposition.

Those tangible bits of evidence gave him the confidence to repeat his earlier words to Lawton. “I told you he was going to deny us entry.”

Lawton waved a hand in the air. “Well, pardon me if I pooh-poohed your hunch, my dear one, but you know I’m never one to take a backseat to my own fortunes.”

Every emerald and ruby in Lawton’s rings glittered under the soft pulses of light from the gold and silver enchanted lanterns that hung overhead. The gems were as beautiful, as lustrous, and as sharp as his friend’s pointed words. Lawton was a lot of things, but the man understood what airing Calix’s little proclivity toward prognostication could do to them both, even in New York City, a place more accepting of magic in general. Calix had always counted himself fortunate that the man’s sharp tongue was rarely aimed in his direction.

This guard, however, was not to be so lucky.

As Lawton puffed out his chest and pushed his orange-red curls off his forehead, Calix let his gaze travel down the corridor north, where more lanterns tracked the boundaries of Acadia Gardens. Brooklyn wasn’t Manhattan, but it had a sense of charm and style that the magicked, moneyed, and powerful of Times Square couldn’t locate if it had been…well, this guard’s horrifically crooked nose.

“Now sir…what is your name? Ah, charming, I do love a good classic like John.” Lawton leaned into the man, not touching, but definitely edging toward familiarity. John’s eyes narrowed into thin black lines, making him now look more cartoonish than frightening. “You see, we are here to see Madame Twilight and partake in her salon. I know we’re not late, as the drapes haven’t been pulled. So if you would just turn that little handle and open the door—“

“No.” The word was more grunt than anything else, but it got John’s point across. As did the shift and bunch of his rather impressive muscles.

Calix bit down on the lung-deep desire to say I told you so. It would make Lawton grouchy and he’d probably spend half the night sulking. Calix was usually quick to assuage his friend’s sour moods, but tonight the magic of Acadia Gardens was thick, almost choking.

Friday nights were for carousing in the city, and places like Acadia Gardens were practically overflowing with magical energies in an attempt to entice both locals and tourists. “Slumming”, as the moneyed of the city put it, drew overdressed people in throngs and tonight was no different. As Calix looked around, he saw the jewels and furs, the glittering embroidery that twisted and turned due to simple, but expensive, patterning work. This world should have been one he reveled in. Money afforded him all kinds of privileges, but so often it was Lawton who helped him to take advantage of them. Madam Twilight’s salon was just one of many frivolous things Lawton loved, and Calix knew he had a very hard time saying no to his only close friend. Usually. But tonight he found himself growing impatient.

Lawton was still arguing with the doorman, and it looked as though this John would hurl them both down the street by their coats. “Listen, any amount. Just name it,” Lawton was saying, his gaze firm on the doorman but his hand straying into Calix’s pocket.

“Why are you pushing this?” Calix hissed between his teeth, feeling a hot flash of indignation rise up. He swatted Lawton’s hand away, not caring about the doorman seeing. “We’ll find somewhere else to go.”

Lawton’s pout deepened, and with it, Calix’s irritation grew again. It was like a mold spore blooming and Calix wished to be anywhere but here right now. “Because the Madam is the best, and that’s what I want.” Lawton’s fine brow furrowed, his thin lips all but disappearing into his sharp-angled face. “And it’s what you should want, too, Calix. Look around at who is out and about, all these gallivanting lovelies dressed to the nines. We are them, they are us. You should –”

“I’ve looked around. I’m not impressed.” Calix pressed a twenty-dollar bill into the doorman’s hand as he brushed by. Righting the collar of his dark green wool coat gave Calix an excuse to square his shoulders as he walked away, and the miniscule motion made him feel a tad better. Lawton would notice the movement more than mourn his absence, but for once, Calix didn’t care.

The throbbing in his temples, coupled with the heaviness of magic from all the shop lights and enchanted clothing worn by almost all he passed, made Calix long for home. There, it was quiet, still, and he could close his eyes and not worry about what he might see in the hazy horizon of lucidity. His mother had warded her estate when he’d first presented signs of prediction, as she so often put it. The wards would hold for a few more years before he’d need to renew them, but finding someone to copy his mother’s strange, esoteric energy work would be a high bar. Her powers had been barely on the edge of acceptable in civilized society, and she’d wanted Calix safe more than anything, so the mistress of Earl Batherton stuck to high society and let go of all of the Earl’s more interesting friends. Even if they could have provided her with some assistance where Calix had been involved. The downside of that had been he’d never been fully warned about his own abilities, but that wasn’t a path of thought he wished to trod down right this moment. All he knew was that home was safe, and safe was a valuable commodity in a time and place like New York at the turn of the century.

Hurried footsteps sounded behind him, as quick as Lawton’s slipping against the wet cobblestones allowed. Calix braced himself for either anger or disappointment. What he got, instead, left him baffled. Lawton looped his arm through the bend in Calix’s elbow, created by how his left hand was stuffed into his pocket. “Well, I’d say I almost had the man convinced and then they pulled the drapes inside and just left me standing out there!” Lawton shivered dramatically, as if it were some great social faux paus he’d just survived. “But then I remembered we haven’t been to the cabaret in ages. And I do want to show off this new cloak.”

Lawton shifted closer as they turned the corner and dove straight into the packed main walkways of Acadia Gardens. Supposedly the builder wanted to model London’s infamous Covent Gardens, but the structures lacked all of the original’s seedy charm. Acadia was all clean lines and glistening cobblestones, and given the rigorous rules for both occupants and businesses (and the hefty “maintenance fee” every building owner had to pay), it was meant for society’s top echelons.

People like him and Lawton. Or, the roles they played out in public.

“I’ve no interest in the cabaret,” Calix said calmly, even as the press of Lawton’s hand to the inside of his elbow made him ache. Moments like this made him wonder if he’d be so attached to Lawton’s attention, as fleeting and fickle as it could be, if he had anyone else close to him. If anyone else had been there when Mother had died and Edna Monroe, her longtime companion, had taken over the estate. To be fair, Edna had been a fine manager of his inheritance and of Calix himself. But Lawton had been a presence in his life for nearly a decade and a half now, and such a thing was impossible to simply shake off. They were too enmeshed at this point, and he was far too needful of Lawton’s glinting amber eyes and the way his red lips parted when Calix was his target.

When Lawton looked at him with such desire, Calix found it echoed within his own chest. A cavity waiting to be filled. Even now, as frustrated as he was with his friend and as much as he longed for home, Calix needed Lawton’s windswept curls tangled around his fingers, the salt-sweet taste of skin on his tongue and flooding his sinuses.

“I should have asked you how you wished to spend the night, Calix. I’m sorry.” Lawton steered them around a group of slummers gawping at the fairies in dresses walking arm in arm with stout dockworkers. “Let’s find out what you wish to do, hmm? And while we do that, we can watch these pariahs and see if anyone interesting goes into The Delphine.”

Calix shook his head. Slummers would never step foot inside most places here, whether they’d heard the tales or not. Frequent visitors to this area knew places like The Delphine Hotel across the street were popular drinking spots for those firmly in the “middle class” — too full of polished crystal for the workers who gathered at saloons near the docks, and too bawdy for…

Calix looked down at his custom-made coat, then over at Lawton’s flowing navy cape and its enchanted embroidery. The flowers that blossomed, bloomed, then died, over and over again, seemed to wink at him as if to say, “You know we don’t belong in a place like The Delphine.” And he felt all manner of conflicted because he did want to go in.

“Let’s go,” he said, tugging on Lawton’s hand to drag him across the street. Lawton went along gamely, chuckling as if he didn’t believe Calix was serious. “We’re going to The Delphine. Now.”

They reached the other side of the street, narrowly avoiding the near-constant mud and ankle-deep puddles — heralds of spring in New York City — before coming to a stop just before the wide double doors. When he turned at Lawton’s insistent tug on his arm, Calix found himself staring at Lawton’s arched eyebrows. The damn things were plucked to within an inch of their lives, but they were the same fire red-orange as the man’s hair.

“Not going to ask me if I’m serious, then?” Calix asked, unable to keep the challenge out of his voice.

“You could stand to lean back and relax every now and then, so if you want to spend our evening at Cock Suckers Hall, dear one, I’m all for it.” Lawton’s voice echoed across the space and next to them, the group of slummers voiced shock and outrage in equal measure. They began to leave and Lawton sneered at them. “Go on, shoo. Take your modesty and your church-led morals elsewhere. No one here is catering to your ilk.”

“Lawton…” Calix warned softly, trying to pull him to the door. “I don’t want the attention.”

“Neither do they, apparently.” One man in the group was edging toward them, fists balled at his sides, but was quickly tugged out of reach by a woman clad in ill-advised petal pink. “Ah look, the bit of reason amongst the teeming masses. How wonderful.”

And with a last disdainful sniff in the group’s direction, Lawton flung open the door and gestured Calix forward with an elegant sweep of his arm. “My dear. After you.”

It was always like this with Lawton. Many years of experience had taught Calix temperance in all forms when it came to his fiery, brash, unquestionably charming and handsome friend. What else could he do but accept?

The Delphine Hotel had opened several years ago, one of the flagships for Acadia Gardens and a mainstay for anyone looking for good entertainment. Converted from tenements as this part of the city rose to a certain kind of prominence (and notoriety), The Delphine now housed several bars and small dance halls, along with more private accommodations in which dancers entertained groups for a fee. If anyone sought anything beyond a bit of flirtatious wiggling for bills stuck into boots and bustiers, one would have to seek it out. The “Cock Suckers Hall” part of the place’s notoriety was also well-earned, but it wasn’t on the official menu.

While Lawton checked their outerwear, Calix craned his head to stare up at the frescoes painted along the arching ceilings. The Delphine had undergone massive renovations a few years back, taking advantage of the lust for all things classically Italian that had swept through the city. Even now, the tiny cherubs and flowing togas didn’t seem out of place in such a building; they added a strange kind of gravitas amongst the swinging horns and rich vocals echoing down to them from the dance halls. When Calix blinked, he swore the cherub wings were moving — beating in tune to the music. He shouldn’t have been surprised.

As Calix looked around, he was able to take in the full breadth of The Delphine’s patronage. There were formal suits and tuxedos, sparkling gowns and elaborate hairstyles. But unlike the opera houses in Manhattan, clothing here didn’t conform to gender. Everyone stood out. Lawton looked right at home, almost underdressed, though Calix would never say that to his face. For Calix, standing out meant eschewing his everyday clothes and adopting pieces he’d picked up over his years of living in the Village — a bit more bohemian, with flowing fabrics and playful patterns.

Calix had adorned himself in scarves and silver jewelry, the blues and greens of his clothes nicely contrasted with his brown eyes and hair. He preferred to keep his own sense of modesty, especially when Lawton was his company for the evening, so he bared no skin below the neck. His friend was often eager to lose certain items of clothing over the course of long evenings, usually winding up in shirtsleeves or even shirtless and sprawled in the lap of someone enamored with his hair. Lawton’s elegantly cut shirt in carnelian silk, open at the throat even with the chill outside, and ocean blue waistcoat were likely not going to last until midnight.

Lawton gave Calix’s ensemble a once over before reaching out to flick a finger against the oil-slick hued scarf at Calix’s shoulder. “Pretty. Is it new?”

Calix nodded. “Little Evie at the haberdashery is learning a few new patterns. She might not be able to make hats, but her enchanting work is impeccable. Even if this peters out over the night, it’ll still have her embroidery.”

“Hmmm.” Lawton’s gaze traveled over Calix again. Sweeping in its assessment, Lawton apparently found his outfit at least passable. Calix was far too used to Lawton’s scrutiny at this point to squirm in its grasp, but he was also quite attuned to the flash of interest in those amber-brown eyes.

Our eyes are so similar, and yet, we’re not related in the slightest, dear one. All the better for us, since I’ve so wanted to stare into yours and see myself. Would you let me stare at you, Calix? Would you let me admire how I appear in your eyes, the ones so like my own?

“Sweet of you to let that girl dress you up. She has good taste.” Lawton dropped his hand and that gaze left him.

Calix let the compliment warm him, smiling over at Lawton and getting a twitch of painted red lips in response. After a moment, Calix sensed a presence at his right and found several feet behind them a tall, well-built man in a forest green tuxedo and swept back blonde hair giving them a look of interest. He had intense green eyes a few shades lighter than his clothing, and Calix found himself staring.

“We should have come here to begin with,” Lawton purred.

The man in the tuxedo righted his lapels before saying, “Many things are on the menu, good sirs, but I am not one of them.”

While Calix snorted into his hand, Lawton replied, “Ah, a pity. But a menu? I thought this place was all dance halls and drunkards.”

This didn’t faze the man in the least. “The Delphine recently passed into new ownership. We’re more interested in patron comfort over drunken antics. We do have bar counters with live music, one on each floor, and many rooms for conversation and parlor games. But we also provide proper hotel services.”

Calix lifted an eyebrow at that but Lawton barreled forward. “Charged by the hour, I’m sure.”

“No, by the night. Like any good hotel.” The man plucked up a piece of paper from a nearby counter and handed it over. “The menu.”

The man wasn’t lying. There were different rooms, including suites and penthouses, along with room services including food and drink, barber services, masseuses, and tailors. “I haven’t had a proper massage in ages,” Lawton murmured while they stared down at the gold-foiled menu. The gold filigree around the paper’s edge shimmered, the line moving in a constant clockwise motion. Expensive patterning; perhaps a sign The Delphine was coming up in the world. “And that beautiful hair of yours needs a trim, Calix. You have such gorgeous copper streaks. You really should show it off.”

Calix flushed. Lawton meant well, even if his comments had drawn the cutting edge of this tuxedoed man’s attention. He felt like a bug under a microscope, so Calix brushed his hair off his collar and said, “I suppose a night couldn’t hurt.”

“Excellent.” Lawton was grinning ear to ear, the kind of grin that made fine lines form at the corners of his eyes and curve around his mouth. He was so much prettier like this, slightly unmasked from all the moorings of whatever company they were in. Calix liked Lawton the most when he smiled. “My good man, we’ll need your biggest room, the most ridiculous baths, and then a barber, and a masseuse. Food and drink too, naturally.”

“Of course.” The tuxedoed man bowed elegantly, then motioned them forward to the golden-door elevators down the right hall. The marble floors were shot through with veins of the same gold, and Calix idly wondered if the gold had all been enchanted to match exactly. Even the small tray the attendant pulled out from a cabinet nearby was that same shade.

“Open an account, please,” Calix said quietly as he and the attendant followed behind Lawton. “All on mine.”

“You are a generous friend,” the man observed. “But of course.”

They piled into the elevator and Lawton gave the attendant another grin. “My understanding is that fine hotels like The Delphine have gorgeously, grotesquely large beds.” In a move Calix had seen a thousand times, Lawton lowered his gaze, then flicked it back up so the attendant caught sight of his long, brown-red lashes and the dimples in his cheeks. “Are you certain you’re not on the menu?”

Their room attendant was a beautiful man with thick gray hair and a square jaw that could break concrete. His name was Jacob and he had been so kind and warm that Calix could almost fool himself into thinking he wasn’t paying for the best service. The man’s authenticity rattled something deep and needy in Calix’s belly. And those same square-fingered hands he’d been watching all night now sat down a tray on the small table between his and Lawton’s baths. On it were two crystal tumblers and a slim glass and pewter absinthe fountain. Jacob bowed his head at Lawton before looking at both of them. “As you requested, Mr. Adler. We only serve Louchambouque absinthe here, as it is unrivaled in both color and taste. May I serve you both?”

“Him first, Jacob,” Lawton drawled as he flicked a wet hand in Calix’s direction. His eyes were closed, his angular face lax but slightly pink from the water’s heat. “My friend is in a bathtub full of scalding water and flowers fit for a king, and he still has that little crease between his eyebrows. So pour, my good man, pour!”

Calix huffed but obliged Lawton by rubbing his thumb over…yes, there was a small furrow between his eyebrows. Why it was there, Calix wasn’t sure; he was quite relaxed, sunk neck-deep in water thickly blanketed with rosebuds and cornflowers and violets. And this was in the echoes of a wonderful meal buoyed by the promise of soft linens on the — as Lawton had properly put it — gorgeously, grotesquely large bed. He hadn’t felt quite so light in a long time. It wasn’t as though his life was difficult, not by halves. But being allowed to unclutter his mind was a certain kind of relief, one that melted into Calix’s very marrow.

“Thank you,” Calix said as he took the proffered glass from Jacob. Those thick fingers taunted him, beckoning him to come closer and cozy up to a man at least two decades, if not more, older than Calix’s near-thirty.

Would that be so bad, their age difference? He’d tried finding someone — a partner — but gay men his age were typically bargained off into loveless marriages in order to appear “decent”. Youth was for being pushed onto one’s knees in a dirty alley, taking pleasures where they were offered. Go to the right part of the city and you’d find someone willing. But anyone with social clout was expected to, at some point, extend the family line. And once one got to a certain age, well…it was all but demanded. Even in a place like New York.

“Enjoy, gentlemen,” Jacob said before backing out of the lavish dark wood and white marble bathroom. The thing was big enough to host a small salon in, but was easily dwarfed by the size of the attached bedroom and sitting room. From his tub, Calix could barely see the remains of their food cart; the green bottles of wine empty, the water by half, and the gold serving trays winking just beyond.

“You haven’t touched your absinthe.”

Lawton wasn’t pouting but the effect was similar inside Calix’s gut. A twisting of guilt, molasses-thick and churning, made him hold up his tumbler to the golden sconces enchanted to glow warmly. “It’s a darker green than I’m used to. I’m letting it breathe,” Calix replied.

“It’s not a cabernet, dear one. But I understand.” Lawton held up his own glass to the light, then extended that pale arm so it stretched across the space between them and pushed into Calix’s. If Lawton extended a little more, his knuckles would brush the bone-white porcelain tub. “We should toast.”

“To?”

“How about….to new opportunities?” Lawton now leaned over the edge of his tub and Calix watched as water droplets played tag with the petals stuck to Lawton’s supple muscles.

He couldn’t take his eyes away from Lawton’s chest, even as the other man smirked. Calix held up his glass, then leaned over to clink it against Lawton’s. “To new opportunities.”

Silence between them often sat with a heavy air, but tonight Calix could tell Lawton was more relaxed than normal. Perhaps “relaxed” wasn’t the right word; “content” was more like it. And for a man who was always strolling from one moment to the next, hoping for the grass to be greener elsewhere, it left Calix feeling a tad odd. As if he were missing something.

“So besides spending my money,” Calix said as he gingerly took a sip of absinthe, “why were we out tonight? I get the feeling you didn’t think you’d actually get into the salon.”

Lawton’s smile was hazy and he didn’t bother to open his eyes as he turned his head to Calix. “Of course I thought we’d get into the salon. Granted, I figured you’d pay that brute of a doorman to let us slip by, but it all worked out.” He cracked one eye open now, a smirk growing on his feline features. “Oh, you’re not…surely you’re not bitter, are you?”

A trio of answers rose up in him: yes, no, and it’s complicated, but none of them could convey the sense Calix so often had when in Lawton’s company. He’d known from the beginning that they had an uneven relationship; Calix had the money and influence Lawton, as the son of an asset-poor shipping merchant, craved so badly, and Lawton had the charm and guile that could open any door money couldn’t. Calix had often ruminated on how easy his life would be if he had an ounce of Lawton’s personality, just as he was sure Lawton coveted what had been passed down to him through his mother. But Lawton fed some needy, grasping thing in him, and he had been a good friend when he’d needed one. But there were also times, between the easy moments where a hug and a few whispered words healed a wound, that Calix knew he was being used.

He simply couldn’t let Lawton go. And he was quite sure Lawton was stuck similarly.

Calix flicked water at Lawton’s face, making the other man smile wide. “I’m not bitter,” he finally said, his words ringing with truth, “but in the future, maybe we can plan together? You know I’m not one for spontaneity.”

“Oh, I know, darling,” Lawton drawled, now pinning Calix with a heated look. “Lucky you, I have a very well thought-out plan for once we’re out of the bath.”

Calix awoke to a cold, empty spot beside him in bed. His fingers met cool linens, then paper crinkled at his touch. He fumbled for the tiny set of buttons on the bedside table until one lamp over his head flickered to life. Magical lights were much better than gas, but sometimes the enchantments didn’t hold up after sustained use. Or, so magical theorists said.

The paper was creamy and thick, a single sheet folded in half. Calix read over Lawton’s note quickly once, then again more slowly as his brain shook itself awake.

You were out cold and I was restless, so I wandered down to the bar. If I’m not back by dawn, assume I found company for the night. And don’t forget, I’m going out of town for a bit of business over the next few days. Got a lead on a large estate sale going up soon, and if I’m lucky, I can get the auctioneer to let me take an early peek. They’re supposed to have an original John Milton and that kind of jewel would help get my antiques business on the map.

Ta, dear one

—Lawton