Chapter Twelve #4
Rose turned around to see her best friend jogging up to her. Emily was wearing her glasses, like usual, though she’d worn her contacts on her wedding day. She was dressed simply in jeans and a black top, but her gold medieval-replica wedding band gleamed on her finger.
“Hey!” Rose said, giving her a hug. “You still have that bridal glow! How was your weekend?”
“I want to hear about you.” Emily grabbed Rose’s arm and urged her into a fast pace toward the doors. In an undertone, she demanded frantically, “How did you get a Regency duke out of a painting?”
“I didn’t mean to!” she scream-whispered back.
“I saw the painting after your ceremony, but…” She looked around them to make sure no one was listening to their conversation, but other than a cubist woman painted by Picasso, who looked too miserable to be curious, they were in the clear.
“Your wedding was so beautiful, and I did this spell to meet an old-fashioned gentleman, and he showed up in my apartment!”
Emily’s mouth dropped open. “So he…wanted to come into the future?”
“Actually, he wanted to go into the past. He hates it here.”
After a moment of silence, Emily said, “He must think it’s kind of cool.”
“I really don’t think he does,” Rose said lightly as they reached the glass doors.
They stepped outside into a gorgeous late spring day. The sound of a street musician playing the guitar and singing a Bob Marley song mingled with the traffic, and across the street, beyond the trees of the park, skyscrapers rose into the blue sky.
As briefly as Rose could, while she and Emily waited in line to buy tacos, she explained the situation. “Henry and I met with Jason, and Jason says this astrolabe Henry had might have time travel powers.”
“Astrolabe…that’s like, something astronomers used to use?” Emily asked.
“Exactly. And the moonstone I was wearing at your wedding was originally part of Henry’s astrolabe, which this rich guy in town owns now, and Henry and I are going to go to a gala at his mansion to try to find it and do a spell to get Henry back to his own time.” Rose took a deep breath.
Emily blinked. “Okay, I think I followed all that.” They reached the front of the line. Emily ordered taco baskets and drinks for both of them, then turned back to Rose. “This is crazy.”
“I know.” Rose shook her head.
“Who’s this rich guy?”
Rose leaned even closer. “Victor Reuter. He’s really bad news.”
They took their food and drinks from the vendor. Emily paid and stuffed a five-dollar bill in the tip jar. As they went over to the short wall where they usually sat to eat, Rose listed off some of the allegations about Reuter.
Emily asked, “Are you sure you want to be sneaking around this guy’s house?”
Rose got herself situated on the wall’s edge. “Henry really wants to get back to his gigantic palace, and he wants to give a bunch of money to his butler’s daughter so she can find a good husband…”
“That’s nice,” Emily said, hopping up to sit next to her.
“Yeah. So I have to help him.”
Emily took a sip of her Diet Coke. “I just can’t help thinking, since it was a love spell that got Henry here…maybe he’s going to fall for you, but he’s just freaked out right now. Which anyone would be.”
“He told me straight-out he doesn’t want to get involved, because he wants to get back.” It was good for her to remind herself of this.
“When did he say that?”
Inwardly, Rose cringed. “After he kissed me at the planetarium.”
Emily slammed her Diet Coke down. “What?”
Rose sighed. “We went to one of the shows there, and I don’t know how it happened…We wound up kissing.”
Her friend stared at her. “So was he a good kisser?”
Rose’s heart sank. “It was the best kiss of my life.”
“Rose.” Emily grabbed her hand. “If the kiss was that good, and he was the answer to a love spell, you guys are meant to be together.”
Rose felt a rush of wistful affection for her friend. “You’re blissfully in love and you just had a fairy-tale wedding, so you want everyone else to be happy, too. I still want to hear about your mini-moon weekend.”
“You will, but don’t change the subject. If Henry doesn’t want to get involved, why did he kiss you?”
“I think he just got swept up in the moment.”
“If he wasn’t into you, there wouldn’t be moments to get swept up in,” Emily insisted. Rose had to admit she could appreciate the logic. “You can’t just give up on him!”
“What am I supposed to do? Try to seduce him? Usually, I just say yes when guys ask me out, and regret it later.”
“Guess there’s no need to change, then,” Emily teased.
“But I’m never going to learn how to seduce anyone,” Rose said despondently. “It’s not like I’m a Leo. Or a Gemini.”
“But you’re a Scorpio rising.”
“How did you know that?”
“You told me like three times,” Emily said around a bite of chicken taco. “Didn’t you say Scorpios are spicy?”
“Yeah, it’s supposed to mean that I have a danger-loving, sexy side.” Rose shook her head. “My inner Scorpio has yet to rise.”
Emily asked her a few more questions about Henry, and Rose tried to convince her that she and Henry really were too different for romance to even be a possibility. When she was finished with her tacos, she checked the time and asked Emily, “Want to walk down to the lake and back?”
“Yeah,” Emily said, hopping down from the wall.
Now was Rose’s chance to change the subject. “Okay, I want details. I’m guessing you two were exhausted on Friday night, but—”
“I thought we’d be tired, too!” Emily said. “We didn’t get to our hotel room until after midnight. But then I didn’t even get my corset thing off.”
Rose laughed. “That’s spicy. And impressive.”
Emily said, “Well, we did sleep in late the next day. And then Griffin convinced room service to bring us pancakes, even though technically they weren’t serving them anymore, and…honestly, we didn’t leave the hotel room until dinner.”
“That sounds perfect,” Rose said, even though it was bringing up bad thoughts like That’ll never be me and No one will ever love me for myself.
But she’d never had a lot of patience for self-pity, especially when it was her own.
She knew she had a lot to be grateful for.
She couldn’t regret asking Emily about all this, because what kind of best friend would she be if she didn’t?
They came to a stop at the corner, waiting for the signal to cross Lake Shore Drive. “We had dinner at their rooftop restaurant on both nights,” Emily said, speaking a little louder to be heard over eight lanes of busy traffic. “It’s so pretty! It overlooks the Riverwalk.”
This reminded Rose of another rooftop dinner—with Aaron.
“Aaron talked to me at your wedding,” she told Emily. “He said he really likes me.”
“Is that right?”
As they crossed the busy street, Rose said, “You don’t sound surprised.”
Emily looked sheepish. “He told Griffin he was still thinking about you, and Griffin told him he should tell you.”
Rose’s mouth fell open. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“I didn’t know for sure he was going to say anything!” Emily protested.
They reached the opposite curb. Now green parks lay on either side of them. “And I saw him again this morning. He was questioning me about the painting.”
“Oh yeah. Well, I heard there wasn’t a camera facing the painting straight on.” Emily shook her head. “It makes no sense as a crime, anyway. If you were going to steal a painting and leave a really good forgery, why would you leave an unfinished one?”
They’d reached the sidewalk next to the lake, where people were jogging or out for walks with their dogs or their children.
Rose even liked walking the block to the lake on her lunch break in the winter, when she had to wrap her scarf around her nose and mouth and the bitter wind made it feel as though Chicago really was the Windy City, although many American cities were actually windier.
Sometimes in a cold winter, the lake would be covered in circular plates of ice, thicker on the edges, like big lily pads.
In extreme cold, the whole top of the lake froze solid—and then, when it started to thaw, the surface ice would shatter into shards, a field of broken blue glass.
Not everyone could appreciate the lake in the wintertime, but anyone could appreciate it on a sunny day like this, when the teal water reflected the skyscrapers and the waves lapped the shore. One father and daughter were flying a kite that darted and weaved against the blue sky.
“I told Aaron I was sorry for holding a grudge,” Rose said, “and he asked me if I’d go out with him once the case was over, and I said I’d think about it.”
Emily turned to her in surprise. “Really?”
“I mean, it’s not like he’s going to solve the case anytime soon,” Rose said, justifying herself. “Plus he isn’t mad about having to live in the twenty-first century.” It would be crazy not to give Aaron a chance.
“I wonder how many people he’s talking to?” Emily asked. “He hasn’t called me yet.”
“He was going to lunch with Jason.”
Emily gave a soft laugh. “I have a lot of questions for Jason.”
“Right? But you know more about him than I do. He’s your boss.”
“My boss’s boss, now,” Emily reminded her. When Emily had first started working at the museum, in a temporary position, the museum had been between directors of conservation, so she’d reported directly to Jason. “He came to the wedding, but I hardly ever see him at work.”
Emily checked her phone again. “We should head back. Laurie’s mad because I’m not done with the stereomicroscope yet.”
Rose was well aware of Emily’s colleague’s moods. As they turned and walked back the way they came, she said, “When I’m talking to Jason, I feel like he’s this normal, trustworthy guy. It’s only afterward that I think of all these questions I should’ve asked about his secret art brotherhood.”
“I think he’s like that with everyone,” Emily said. “I know he’s really good at schmoozing and getting people to donate money.”
“Do you think he practices magic, too?” Rose asked.
“No.” But Emily didn’t sound completely sure.
“I can imagine him carrying a charm bag that bends people to his will.”
“I can’t help but trust him,” Emily said. “He was always nice to me, and he did so much to help Griffin.” She leaned over and bumped Rose’s shoulder with hers. “Of course, he wasn’t the only one.”
“Maybe it’s better we don’t know. But I wonder. Why is this secret brotherhood tracking down magical things? And how did Jason get involved with them?”
Emily was nodding along. “And where do they get all their money?”
“I’d invite Jason over tomorrow night, too, but I just told Aaron I barely know him. I mean, he’s probably not staking out my apartment, but still.”
“Griffin will want plenty of time to talk to Henry, anyway,” Emily said. “He’s really excited. He’s never met anyone else who’s from a past century before! I mean, obviously.” She gave Rose a hopeful look. “Maybe he’ll even convince Henry it’s not so bad here.”
“That would be great,” Rose admitted. After all, there was a strong possibility that they wouldn’t be able to send Henry back, and she would’ve ruined his entire life.
But she needed to think positive thoughts. She’d try to figure it out.
In the meantime, maybe it would be easier for Henry if he and Griffin were friends. And there was a good chance they would be. Who didn’t like Griffin?