Chapter 13

ETHANIEL

Uncle Jeremiah was awake when Ethaniel rushed through the back door of the shop.

He was awake. And fully dressed. And pacing.

“God, boy, where have you been?” Jeremiah rushed toward Ethaniel with an energy he hadn’t seen since before tuberculosis had sapped it all away. “I’ve been worried sick. Even walked the block a few times hoping you’d turn up.”

Ethaniel stared in amazement at his uncle. “How are you…what happened?”

Jeremiah shook his graying head, bushy eyebrows drawn down to give him a professorial look. The rumpled but clean suit helped as well. “I don’t rightly know, to be honest. I had the strangest dream about tea and when I woke up, I felt better than I have in years. Years!”

Ethaniel reeled. Jeremiah was ill. He knew that much. It was as sure as the sun rising in the east every morning. But this Jeremiah was the one of his youth, of Ethaniel at eighteen and terrified of living in the city but so, so eager to learn from an expert like his uncle. This was the Jeremiah he remembered from that time before, and even now, in an old suit a decade out of style and his hair wispy and stuck to his skull like a cheap wig, Ethaniel saw life in him once more.

It was a miracle. Or a trick. Time near Aubrey and mixed up in strange magical questions had left Ethaniel a tad suspicious.

“No one’s been here since I left?” Ethaniel asked, craning his neck to look around the store. “I made sure to lock up, but I know sometimes Dr. Heddington likes to stop by to check on you.”

“Not a soul,” Jeremiah replied. “I woke up and you were gone and I figured while I had the energy, I’d wander out into the world once again.”

The slight smile dropped off his uncle’s face. Miracle or trick or not, his uncle was clearly elated to again experience the city he loved. Who was he to take that away from the man who’d taken him in, been nothing but kind to him since Ethaniel had been a gangly teenager with a rebellious streak a mile wide and bearing the worry of his father on his back?

“Well, I’m beyond thrilled you’re up and about,” Ethaniel said, trying to match his uncle’s enthusiasm. “Are you hungry? I can reheat yesterday’s soup—”

But Jeremiah was already moving toward the coat rack near the back door. “I thought I’d go out for a bite,” he said sheepishly. “It’s not that I don’t want to be here with you, Ethaniel, but I’ve missed this damn city so much.” Jeremiah paused, gaze tracking down to the floor. “If this is my last gasp before the eternal night takes me, I want to see the city lights one more time.”

Ethaniel swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. With everything moving so quickly, so suddenly, and his life upended by a copper-haired noble and a strange book and the return of the only man he’d ever cared for, he’d lost the plot a little. Remembering who his uncle had been and still was hadn’t been a priority in any way, and now that same man stood before him, vibrant and bright.

“Please be careful,” Ethaniel said as he clasped his hands in front of him. “The city’s only gotten more dangerous and I…please promise to be careful.”

“I will. I swear it.” Jeremiah took down the only coat of his Ethaniel had left on the rack (a gesture of frail hope, he supposed). Ethaniel silently held out a few bills, more than enough to buy his uncle a nice steak dinner and a bottle of wine at some place around the corner. Jeremiah grinned this time, and then drew Ethaniel into the kind of hug he remembered from that first night he’d spent in the city. Whatever this was, Ethaniel knew they were both grateful for Jeremiah to have a chance to see the world once again.

“I’m just going over to Scully’s for some food,” Jeremiah said. “And then I might swing by one of the clubs, listen to whoever’s on stage. I’ll stay close to home, I promise.”

“I know,” Ethaniel said. “Enjoy it, Uncle Jeremiah.”

Jeremiah winked, threw Ethaniel a salute, and stepped out the back door, disappearing into the gathering shadows in the alley.

Ethaniel waited for a few long moments, his gaze fixed on the back door as if Jeremiah would come back through it, pale and weak and needing help once again. He didn’t wish it at all, but how could he not expect it to happen? After so many doctors and treatments, tinctures and teas, they’d both known the battle was long lost months ago. With every bit of blood on a handkerchief and every coughing fit that left his uncle winded and fatigued, they both knew.

And now here he was, upright and walking and aching for life once more.

It was a cruel joke of Fate to put hope within reach like this.

“He can have it all back, if you want.”

The voice came from behind him, startling Ethaniel back into reality from the dark place his mind had wandered. But the voice was known to him, even if it was the last one he’d expected to hear any time soon.

Ethaniel let his eyes close for a moment before he took a deep breath and turned around. “Brother.”

Vincent smiled at him with perfectly white and even teeth. “Brother. It’s good to see you. You look well.”

Ethaniel wasn’t about to ask how Vincent had gotten past the shop’s security patterns. Vincent was highly skilled and, as far as Ethaniel knew, still associated with the more shady elements of the city. It could have been his magic, or something he bought from an arcane dealer, the kind that sold stolen patterns on the black market.

Suspicion prickled in him once again, but now it crawled up the back of his neck to rest at the base of his skull. “We’re doing well,” Ethaniel said. “The spring season always brings in new business.”

Ethaniel wasn’t about to address Vincent’s first words to him — the first words they’d exchanged in two years, in fact. Vincent showing up meant he wanted something, and the last time they’d seen each other, it had been a simple goodbye and farewell as Vincent was leaving for shores unknown. Somewhere in the Mediterranean, perhaps, Vincent had said.

Two years had passed, and now his half-brother stood tall and proud just inside the back room to Ethaniel’s shop. Vincent looked well, more than in fact. He practically glowed, his skin golden, his dark brown hair slicked back with precision, and his black suit worthy of the finest funeral parlor.

And then Ethaniel spotted the glint of gold peeking out from under Vincent’s lapel.

“You didn’t,” Ethaniel said, voice choked with a rush of realization, followed by fear. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

His head was swimming. After the reveal of Lawton’s allegiances and the way Calix described the pin his friend wore, now Ethaniel knew. He knew and it made him want to thrust Vincent out of the shop and into the burgeoning night, never to be seen again.

His half-brother standing here, in a shop he’d never so much as helped with even a single time, and slyly flaunting his new allegiances and the money tied to it was too much to bear.

The hammer of Vincent’s smug response crashed down upon Ethaniel’s head. “If you’re referring to The Golden Order, that’s why I’m here. And it’s why Uncle Jeremiah is up and about, living his golden years out in this beautiful city instead of bound to that rickety bed.”

The words were fire up his throat, his anger curdling in his stomach. Ethaniel couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing and yet…he’d known. Somewhere in the very back of his mind, that quiet, secretive corner where his worst fears and suspicions grew like mushrooms in the dark…he’d known.

Ethaniel had known, deep down, that this all tied to something powerful that his brother was involved in. Vincent had always strived for the greatest, the highest, the brightest. Half-brothers and yet they looked so much alike; like their father, with a strong jaw and wide hazel eyes that gave them all an innocent appearance. Ethaniel had his mother’s nose, except his was slightly crooked from a few fist fights in his days as a rowdy teenager in a city full of possibility. Vincent took after his own mother in a similar way, his features written like hers — at least from the photographs Ethaniel had seen.

Half-brothers and yet so similar they were often mistaken for full-blooded, sometimes even twins. But they couldn’t be more different in personality, in desires and ambitions. Vincent wanted power and he chased after it with rabid intent. Ethaniel had never wanted anything more than the quiet and his work and a life gently fulfilled by using his skills to benefit others.

So different. So alike. He was Vincent’s shadow, and Vincent was his.

“You gave our uncle something,” Ethaniel managed to spit out between gritted teeth. “Some concoction your new friends sold you?”

Vincent acknowledged the truth with a bow of his head. “He can have that new lease on life permanently, Ethaniel. Or, at least until old age takes him. Our father’s brother — our uncle — doesn’t have to suffer so. Let me help him.”

Ethaniel shook his head. “In exchange for what?”

Please don’t say the book or Calix. Please let this be the worst stack of coincidences ever known to a single mortal soul. Please.

All pretense slipped from Vincent’s face, and when Ethaniel glimpsed the monster under the mask, everything in him went cold. “You’ve touched the book. I can see its magic dancing across your palms, in the very air around us.” Vincent stepped closer, and one step forward felt like miles to Ethaniel. “Brother, that book was rightfully purchased by a representative of the Order. It is my property. It belongs with me. If you know who has it, I would ask for their name so I can reclaim it.”

Ethaniel’s heart couldn’t beat harder in his chest, and yet it kicked up another notch at the coldness threaded through Vincent’s voice. He’d known the gentle brotherly talk, the favor that was his uncle’s health, had all been a ruse. But for a moment, one shining moment, Ethaniel had pictured Jeremiah in full, robust health once more, never needing to suffer another tonic or tincture again.

Vincent had offered him hope, and Ethaniel wanted desperately to take it.

And he couldn’t.

“I can’t tell you what you want, Vincent.” Ethaniel met his brother’s gaze with his own, hardening his heart as much as he could. Ripping his uncle’s hope away was the cruelest thing to do, but even worse was the contingency on which that hope had been placed. Like a child’s seesaw slowly being weighted to one end, and eventually everything would come crashing to the ground in spectacular, awful fashion.

Vincent stayed perfectly still, but his gaze hardened, his voice now dripping with sarcasm. “Can’t you? You won’t think of our uncle? In exchange for a single book?”

“You know it’s not merely a book, brother.”

Vincent smiled, and all Ethaniel saw was a shark. “I do. And I know you do as well. How fortuitous for me.”

Vincent’s hand flashed at his side and Ethaniel braced himself for the unknown, but instead Vincent pulled out a small brown bottle and set it on the nearby counter. “A few more days of hope, I think. Because we’re family. So you can really think it over.”

Vincent left Ethaniel standing in the back of his store as the shadows of twilight gathered. The single light above his head swung gently in the spring breeze welcomed in by his brother’s exit.

With no other recourse and no one near with whom to share his thoughts, Ethaniel quickly left a note for his uncle, placed the bottle on top, and packed a bag. With the wards secured and the CLOSED sign facing the street, Ethaniel knew customers would be held at bay for a bit. And his uncle might have a newfound lease on life, but he wouldn’t go gallivanting off to new accommodations. The store would be safe and, hopefully, so would his uncle. Plus it was getting more difficult to rent in the city, and certain areas didn’t like the “look” of two men many mistook for Italian-Americans, even though they were part Spanish and had been in the country for nearly a century.

He had to leave. He needed to resolve whatever the matter was with this damn book, and he needed to be there for Aubrey. For Calix. And for whatever Fate seemed to have in store for them all.