Chapter Eight
Eight
Rose beckoned him to keep walking, and he fell into step with her. He surprised her by asking, “Do you truly think you’re a witch?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Do you truly think you’re a duke?” she teased.
“I am less convinced of it by the moment,” he grumbled. “But if you were truly a witch, why would you live in such reduced circumstances?”
She whirled on him. “What do you mean, reduced circumstances?”
He gave her a look that said, Come on. “Miss Novak. You live in a few rooms, in an undistinguished neighborhood, you are a spinster, and you have holes in your clothing.” He gestured at the knee of her jeans. “Is this the life of someone with great magical power? I mean no offense, of course.”
“Mean no offense?” she echoed. “It is mean, and I am offended. Most people don’t live in a freaking castle!”
“No, of course not, but—”
“I’ve worked really hard to get all I have!” She crossed her arms under her breasts—and caught him glancing at them, but only for a fleeting moment. When he’d first arrived, she didn’t mind him checking her out. Now, it irritated her. “And now I have a decent job, and—”
“What do you mean, a job?”
“An occupation? Place of employment?”
“You have a place of employment?”
“Of course! How do you think I pay for things?”
“I assumed your brother…” He trailed off, and she shook her head. “What is your profession?”
“I work for the museum. You wouldn’t understand. And I like my life. I’ve never done spells asking for extravagant things. Until I asked for an old-fashioned gentleman, which was obviously—” She cut herself off before she said, A huge mistake.
She gestured at the front of the restaurant, with its black painted bricks and its bright red door. “Anyway, we’re here.”
Henry looked as though he was trying to think of something to say, but couldn’t find the words. Fine. He’d said enough.
Rose led Henry into the restaurant buzzing with customers sitting at tables.
The air-conditioner chill and the smell of grilled burgers greeted her.
Local artwork hung on the walls. Henry would probably hate that, too.
She told the hostess they wanted to sit on the patio, and they went through the restaurant and the back door.
Her brother, wearing a Rage Against the Machine T-shirt and jeans, was sitting alone at a table.
“Ryan!” she called with a wave as she and Henry walked over to him. The wooden pergola that covered the patio turned the sunshine into stripes. “This is Henry.”
Ryan shoved his hair back from his forehead and stared up at Henry with raised eyebrows. His eyes, always swimming-pool blue, looked even bluer because they were slightly bloodshot. That worried her a little. She’d seen that before.
“Shit,” he said.
It wasn’t the most polite greeting, and Henry glowered at him.
Rose sat down and motioned for Henry to do the same. “Your eyes look red,” she couldn’t help but say to Ryan.
He gave a huff of irritation. “Have you seen the pollen count?”
Right. Seasonal allergies had always hit him hard. He took after their mom that way.
“I thought that was it,” she said, not expecting him to believe the lie, but hoping he’d appreciate the effort. She knew it didn’t help him when she feared the worst. At the same time, he had no idea how exhausting it had been to love him while worrying about his addictions.
“There’s Jason,” Rose said, spotting him walking in their direction. He wore a button-down white shirt and navy suit pants and had a suit jacket draped over his arm. She raised a hand in greeting, but he was staring down at his phone.
Turning back to Henry, she said, “Ryan saw your portrait, too.”
“Yeah, before it got fucked up,” Ryan said.
Judging from Henry’s appalled expression, he was familiar with the f-word. “Watch your language around him,” Rose told Ryan. As Jason reached their table, Ryan’s words sunk in. “What do you mean, it got fucked up?”
“Take a look,” Jason said. He turned his phone around to show them a photo.
It was the same painting Rose had stared at the night before, in its gilded frame, depicting a library, a golden astrolabe on the desk, and an open window to the countryside beyond. But instead of Henry, there was a gray shape delineated with a few sketchy brushstrokes.
“Oh my Goddess,” she blurted out. “Who did that?”
Jason, who’d been staring at Henry, gave her a wry look. “Best guess is you.”
“That’s how it looked right before I was unexpectedly dragged here,” Henry said.
“I figured.” Jason held out a hand to Henry. “It’s good to meet in person, Your Grace.”
“I suppose,” Henry said, looking cross, but shaking his hand. Jason pulled out a chair and sat down with them.
Still trying to puzzle things out, Rose said, “But we remember the finished painting.”
“Everyone does,” Ryan said. “It’s already in the news. That it’s been vandalized.”
“Ohh, that’s bad,” Rose breathed.
As Jason set the phone face down, he glanced around them. The nearby tables were empty. “Could be worse, but yeah,” he said in a low tone. “I spent the morning with the police and Aaron Coleman.”
“Ugh,” Rose said. “Is he going to be hanging around Chicago, then?”
“I’m even less happy about it than you are,” Jason said.
Rose shook her head. “I don’t understand why it’s ruined. You were saying with that rule of consistency or whatever, everything else would stay the same.”
Ryan shrugged. “Or maybe, like in Deutsch’s theory, when you zapped this guy to the present”—he jerked his thumb at Henry—“you opened up a parallel universe. We could be in a dimension now where the painting was completed, but then uncompleted.”
“A parallel universe?” Henry repeated, staring at Ryan. “Explain.”
Ryan leaned forward. “Oh, dude, you’ve got to hear about this.” He paused and squinted thoughtfully. “But first, you’re going to need to know a few things about subatomic particles.”
Jason raised a palm. “Hold off on that, okay?”
A smiling server came up to the table. “Hi, guys!” She passed out menus. “Can I get you started with some drinks?”
They all ordered. When she had retreated, Jason said, “Let me tell you what we know about the astrolabe. There’s a letter from someone in the early 1700s in Zugarramurdi, Spain. He claims he used the astrolabe to travel about one hundred years forward in time to escape the Spanish Inquisition.”
“Zugarramurdi,” Ryan repeated. “Basque Country, right?”
“Yeah,” Jason said, sounding mildly surprised. Rose wasn’t. Ryan knew all kinds of things. “The letter writer refers to notes from his father, who said he’d also used it to time travel.”
“Did it still have the moonstone in it then?” Rose asked.
“Yeah. But when the astrolabe got sold in 1840, the moonstone had already been removed, and there aren’t any accounts of actual time travel with it after that.”
“So my spell with the moonstone brought Henry here, just as he was touching the astrolabe,” Rose said. “Moonstones are called the Traveler’s Stone. Are you thinking the astrolabe might be a time travel device, if we put the moonstone back in it? And then maybe I could do a reversal spell?”
Jason said, “I think it’s worth a try. This isn’t the first time you’ve shown a lot of talent with stones.”
He meant the malachite she’d blessed and given to Emily that had helped free Griffin from stone. All this time, and Rose still had trouble believing it. But now that this moonstone had made its way to her, and she’d used it for time travel…
“Maybe you’re right,” she said.
Frowning, Henry turned to Jason. “Do you have the notes from the father who used the astrolabe?”
“I wish. An art collector in the 1950s heard that your painting contained a secret message about it. I don’t even know where he got that from. So I acquired the painting to get a better look at the astrolabe and to look for the message.”
Rose perked up. “Did you find anything?”
“I thought there might be something in the details, or the back side of the canvas, or under infrared light, but no.” He sighed, tapping something on his phone. “Nothing on the frame, either.”
“Of course there is no secret message,” Henry declared. “I met the painter. He is a common man.”
“He’s a famous artist,” Rose said, with a note of reproach.
Henry waved this off. “Where is my astrolabe?”
Jason looked up from his phone with a grin. “Glad you asked.” He turned the screen around to them again. “This guy’s got it. Victor Reuter.”
Rose looked at the photo of a handsome, mustached, gray-haired man in a tuxedo. Jason asked her, “Name ring a bell?”
It did sound familiar. Ryan was about to say something when it came to her. “Yes! He’s donated a bunch of money to the museum.”
“Right in one,” Jason said.
“We moved him last year,” Ryan said. Rose turned to him in surprise. Ryan added, “Into that mansion in Lincoln Park.”
Jason gave a low whistle. “That could be good.”
“That one you sent me a picture of?” Rose asked Ryan.
Her brother nodded, looked around them, and said in a lower voice, “I heard a rumor that he bribed two aldermen to get a billion-dollar parking garage contract.”
“Corruption, here in Chicago? I’m shocked,” Rose quipped. She loved her city, but bribes were a time-honored tradition.
Jason looked over at the server approaching with the drinks. “Figure out what you’re going to order,” he said.
Ryan and Rose chose quickly, but Henry gave a hassled sigh over what he called a confounding bill of fare, and Rose cringed as he demanded to know what black beans were. When the server informed him they were beans that were black, he gave a second hassled sigh and ordered the pork and black beans.
Once the server retreated, Jason informed Rose, “She’ll get a big tip.”
Rose told Henry, “If you don’t like the beans, I’ll trade you my French fries.”
“Thank you, but I do not care for French cuisine.”
Ryan was peering at Jason. “Does Reuter know this thing is magical?”
“He must know it’s rumored to be. It’s not the first time he’s bought something we wanted.”
Rose raised her eyebrows. “Why is that?”