Jack

Seattle, WA—Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition

Saturday, July 24, 1909

THE RAIN BEGAN almost as soon as we left the Bohemia. It was a hard, cold rain that soaked straight through to my bones and set my teeth chattering even though it was the middle of summer. Only a few stragglers remained at the exposition, and we dodged those easily.

“Did you do that to the alcohol?” I said, gesturing in the air with a flourish.

The proud but wan smile painted across Wil’s face was my reply.

“You saved our skins back there. I have no idea how I’m going to explain it to Ruth, Jessamy, Dorothy, and the others, but you’re amazing, do you know that?”

We waited under the eaves of a comfort station just outside of Cairo for the rain to stop. It was hard to keep from shivering, and I pulled my jacket tighter around me.

“Where’d you send all the booze anyway?”

“Your secret nook at the Beacon,” he said. Words began to spill out of Wil like an unstoppable deluge. “I was barely able to move them, but this morning I carried a hat through the iron bars—and you have no idea how momentous a thing that is, Jack!—so I thought that if I could do that, I could handle the liquor. And I did! Can you believe it? If I can bring the hat through the iron bars, maybe I really can pass through them myself!”

I wondered if Wil’s loosened tongue was a side effect of the alcohol, the danger, the dancing, or a combination of all three. It was the most animated I’d seen him, and I liked it. I liked the less-animated side of him too. Hell, there wasn’t a side of Wilhelm Gessler I’d seen that I didn’t like.

“One way or another,” I said, “I’m going to free you.”

Without warning, Wil threw his arms around me and hugged me tightly, resting his head on my shoulder. “Thank you, Jack. I don’t know what I did to deserve your kindness, but thank you.”

“Kindness isn’t something you should have to earn,” I muttered.

“You may be right, but I think we both know that that’s not always the way the world works.”

His voice was soft in my ear and sent a shiver through me.

“You’re cold!”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Once the rain lets up.”

“I have an idea. Hold on tightly.”

Before I could ask Wil what he meant, the ground shifted under my feet. The world around me became a swirled palette of sounds and smells and color unlike any found in nature. It didn’t feel like we were moving, it felt like the whole of existence was moving around us.

And then we were standing in the dark on the stage at the Beacon.

“Are you okay?” Wil asked. “Sometimes the first time is unnerving, and—”

“That was outstanding!” My voice echoed back at me. “Now I know what it feels like to be electricity!”

Wilhelm’s laugh was nearly bright enough to light up the darkness. “I’ve never heard it described that way, but it’s quite apt.”

“Hold on.” I made my way to the wings where I knew I’d find a lamp and matches, stored there in case the electric lights, which could be fussy, went out. When I returned, Wilhelm was gone.

“Wil?”

“I’m right here.” Wil came in from the other side of the stage holding a blanket. “You were cold, and I remembered seeing this.”

“How’d you find it in the dark?”

“I don’t need light in the between,” Wil said.

We stripped down to our shirtsleeves and sat on the stage, sharing the blanket. The lamp cast a weak pool of light, but it was more than we needed.

Between the blanket and the feel of Wilhelm beside me, I warmed up quickly and the shivers subsided. Wil still looked pale and weak, and I let him lean his head on my shoulder.

“Do you remember the first time you disappeared?” I asked.

“It’s like talking. I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t talk.”

“Do you think you used to be able to Travel farther than you can now?”

I half expected Wil to say no right away, but he paused before replying. “I have dreams of places I could never have gone. Dreams of people I don’t recall meeting. In my dreams I can Travel anywhere I can imagine.”

“I think you used to be able to do that for real,” I said. “Just hear me out.”

“I’m listening.”

I didn’t have the mind for puzzles Lucia did, so I felt like I was fumbling around in the dark. “What if you had this ability when Laszlo found you? He’d need some way to keep you from going home.”

“The manacle.”

“Yeah, but he couldn’t keep you chained up all the time. In order to take advantage of what you could do, he’d need to limit you in some way. And I think he did.” I knuckled my eyes. “I’m just not sure how.”

My only real proof was the memories Doctor Otto had pulled from Wil’s own mind, but those were hardly more trustworthy than dreams.

“Teddy used to bleed me periodically,” Wil said. “To keep me weak.”

I leaned back to look him in the eye. “He did what?”

Wilhelm touched the crook of his arm absently. “He would cut me and let the blood run down my arm into a bowl. I was too young to understand what death was, but I think he took me to the brink of it before sealing the wound. I remember being so weak after that I could barely stand.”

“Would that have affected your ability to Travel?”

Wil spread his hands. “I don’t know. Maybe? But not permanently.”

I felt like there was something I was missing, but I’d be damned if I knew what it was. Lucia always told me that the best way to solve a problem was to stop thinking about it—to let it sit in the back of your mind while you did something else. So I decided it was time to tell Wilhelm about my other theory.

“I think I know what Laszlo’s planning to steal.”

“You do?”

“Over a million dollars in gold bars.” I explained to Wil about the gold exhibit in the Alaska Building. He nodded along as I spoke, listening intently.

“That would explain why he needs me to Travel through iron,” Wilhelm said. “To move that much gold, I would need to touch it.”

“Does weight matter to you when you’re doing that?”

“It does and it doesn’t.”

I laughed before I could stop myself.

“What I mean is that there are limits, but they’re not the same as in the physical world.”

“That gold’s got to weigh a ton in either world,” I said.

“Which is why I would need to touch it,” Wil said. “And I wouldn’t be able to Travel farther than I normally could. Fifty to a hundred feet, depending on how I felt at the time.”

If that was the case, then I still didn’t have a clue exactly how Laszlo planned to steal the gold. A hundred feet would barely get the gold out of the building.

Wilhelm sighed. “I truly was hoping Teddy might quit his criminal life.”

“Did you really think he’d be satisfied just being Laszlo?”

“No,” Wilhelm said, sounding resigned. “But he’s met a woman, and I had hoped she might change him.”

“What woman?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“Her name is Rachel Rose, and he is thoroughly besotted in a way I have never before observed. When he returns from seeing her, it’s as if he’s lit from within by a thousand light bulbs. He’s kinder and more patient. I didn’t think he could ever care for someone the way he seems to care for her.”

I cleared my throat when Wil finished speaking. “Uh, I have a confession.” I wasn’t sure how he was going to take this, so I said it as plainly as possible. “Rachel Rose is Evangeline.”

I went on to explain how Evangeline, in disguise, charmed men and used their gullibility to con them out of their money. It was a grift she had relied on for as long as I had known her. Wil listened patiently as I told him about breaking into Fyodor Bashirov’s hotel room and discovering he was Laszlo.

While I’d spoken, Wil had turned so that we were facing one another. He had a little more color in his cheeks.

“Evangeline doesn’t know that Fyodor Bashirov doesn’t exist and isn’t a wealthy Russian?” Wilhelm asked. “And Teddy doesn’t realize that the woman he’s infatuated with is actually his rival?”

“It would appear so.”

Wilhelm began to laugh. The warm, rich sound filled the theatre. “Oh, it’s too wonderful. Not even Miss Austen could conceive of a plot so devilishly convoluted.”

“Evangeline is going to be furious with me for not telling her when she learns the truth.”

“Why didn’t you?”

I shrugged. “Because if they’re together, it means I get to spend time with you.”

Wil’s mouth formed a silent O, and he quickly glanced down and away. “I’m not certain how Teddy is going to react to discovering he’s been deceived. Evangeline isn’t simply attempting to steal his money; she’s stolen his heart.”

I grunted. “I wasn’t aware Laszlo had one.”

“You must tell her the truth, Jack,” Wil said. “He’s murdered people for causing less offense.”

Worry wrung Wil out like a rag, and it hurt my heart. He feared for Jessamy Valentine’s life, he feared for mine. He was even concerned about Evangeline, and he had never even met her. If I could’ve stolen Wilhelm’s problems as easily as I picked pockets, I would have and not felt a single ounce of guilt. “We’ll work everything out, free you, and keep everyone safe.”

“For the last time, Jack, please leave. Leave and run as far from me as you can.” I tried to tell Wil exactly what I thought of his suggestion, but he caught me within the inescapable pull of his eyes and his lips, and I was unable to speak.

“I swear to you that I’m not trying to play martyr,” Wil said. “I’m asking you to leave as much for my sake as for your own. My guilt would be endless if Teddy hurt you.”

“I’m sorry, Wil, but no.”

“Jack—”

“What kind of person would I be if I left you to suffer at Laszlo’s hands?” I shook my head. “I’m a lot of things, most of them a little dodgy, but I’m not someone who abandons his friends when they need him.”

“I wouldn’t blame you for leaving,” Wilhelm said.

I swallowed hard because, for all the words I’d used to explain why I couldn’t leave, I still hadn’t given Wil the only reason that mattered. I didn’t fear anything—not Laszlo or Evangeline or winding up in a jail cell—so much as I feared what I was about to say.

“Running from you would be like running from the air in my lungs.” I took his hand and held it to my chest. “Don’t you get it yet? I can’t breathe without you, Wil. You told me once that home doesn’t have to be a place. Well, what if home is a person? Because you feel like home to me.”

I leaned forward, slowly, waiting for Wilhelm to pull away. When he didn’t, I closed my eyes. Our lips met, and I realized that I had never kissed anyone before because nothing I’d experienced with Thierry or Sergio or Alfie compared to what I felt the moment I kissed Wil. His hand touched the back of my neck and pulled me closer. I was kissing the sound of applause, the smell of a new fire on a frigid winter morning, the warmth of the summer sun. We became vines entwined about one another for a season, we were the sun and moon dancing in the same blue sky.

It was everything I had never imagined, and nothing less than I had ever dared dream.

Kissing Wilhelm was magic and more.