“Well?” Roger pressed his flask into my palm. “What do you think?”
I leaned over the railing for my first glimpse of Charmant. The guy hawking ferry tickets had called it “Coney Island, but with enchanted booze that’ll kick ya and magical girls that’ll trick ya.” Growing up, the friars called it “the devil’s toilet.” Roger simply called it “home.”
“It’s incredible,” I breathed. The mist parted like curtains, revealing golden beaches glittering like jewels in the final breaths of daylight. Sharp, looming cliffs dripping with lush emerald greenery cut into the darkening sky. In the center of it all, the setting sun silhouetted a vast triangular peak. The Big Tent.
A strange sense of déjà vu trickled through my veins. Foolish, I knew. Roger would tease me until eternity if I admitted it.
“Don’t be deceived.” Roger hoisted himself onto the slick railing. “If we’re not careful, we’ll leave here years from now, wallets emptied and sins too plentiful for penance.”
“Lucky for me, my wallet is always empty,” I quipped. “And the friars’ rods taught me how to repent.”
His smile darkened. “One day we’re going to burn that damn orphanage to the ground.” Roger whistled. “Well, hello. Look who’s dressed all spiffy.”
Trysta wove through the mob of tourists, three lowball glasses balanced in one hand. Because of a childhood foot fracture that had never healed properly, she strutted with a limp, but her cane only helped her to bulldoze a path through the drunkards. She handed us our drinks and smoothed the black beaded gown hanging from her pale shoulders. “Glad you managed to put on suits. No ties?”
I shuddered. “Ugh, ties. They’re so . . . restrictive.”
“Like dog collars,” Roger agreed. “You don’t want to collar us, do you, Trys?”
“And pull you around on leashes? No, thank you.”
Roger and I grinned over her head. After three years of traveling together, Trys still couldn’t admit how much she loved us.
I took a curious sniff of my drink. “You found Scotch? Should we hide it?”
“See that man with the whiskey?” She nodded at a portly gentleman in an expensive fedora. “Artie Woods, former New York City police commissioner. The one with the mustache is Senator Calder. He voted for Prohibition.”
“Yet they’re all getting tanked. Bunch of hypocrites. Hello!” Roger threw them a dazzling smile as they looked our way. “See? They might pretend Charmant is governed by New York laws, but these rich bastards would lose millions if they actually enforced them.”
“The Eighteenth Amendment doesn’t get enforced on Charmant,” Trys said firmly. “My family makes sure of it.”
Trysta had been born and raised in Charmant, too, the excommunicated daughter of Mayor Chronos himself. When I’d asked if she was allowed to return, she’d just smiled that lethal smile of hers and purred, “Let them try to stop me.”
“Let’s toast.” To the dismay of our fellow passengers, Roger leaped onto the top rail, wobbling precariously for a moment before finding his balance.
Trys rolled her eyes. “Here we go again.”
“To Jamison’s first trip to Charmant.” Roger’s rich voice drew everyone’s attention. I used to think people stared because of the scars etched in his golden-brown skin, stretching the length of his left cheek and stopping just before his chin. And people did stare at the scars, of course, but that wasn’t why they watched Roger. It was part of his magic, he’d told me. Revelles drew people to them like moths to a flame. “As a Night District native, it’s my holy duty to be the patron saint of your debauchery. Do I sound like a real priest, Jame-o?”
I dipped my head reverently. “It’s like I’m back at St. Douglas’s.”
“Excellent. My first commandment: don’t drink anything made by someone with horns.”
As if he and Trys hadn’t already warned me about Effigen cocktails. The Effigen family possessed the power of potency: they could create the world’s most delicious blueberry by concentrating the flavor of a dozen into one. Or they could concoct a shot of gin as strong as six shots. Magic always has a cost, however, so the other five gins turned to dust. A bit wasteful under Prohibition, but Charmant was about pleasure, not practicality.
“No horned bartenders,” I repeated. “Got it.”
“Rule number two,” Roger continued. “Don’t give a jewel to anyone.”
“Easy. I don’t have any jewels.”
“See?” Trys patted me on the back. “Destitution works in our favor yet again.”
Roger nodded at my jacket. “My family will sense your mother’s brooch a mile away.”
I laid a protective hand over my pocket. My parents had only left me two possessions: a bejeweled crescent moon pin and a photograph of the three of us standing in front of an old beachside dock, its planks carved into a strange rectangular pattern. My mother wore the pin in the photo, just above her heart. “You know I wouldn’t part with it.”
“Good. My family’s magic doesn’t work on stolen jewels, but be careful. Magic is more potent on Charmant. I can’t wait to be at full strength again.” He patted his pocket, jingling the minuscule gems, Charmant’s official currency.
Trys steadied herself on the railing. “This is the longest toast ever. Let’s drink already.”
“Fine.” Roger’s eyes glittered. “To not wasting a drop of our beautiful lives together.”
“Amen to that.” Trys drained her cup, and Roger and I followed suit.
My pulse quickened as the ferry was sucked into the vortex tides circling the island. Charmant was made of myths, stories whispered by the older boys at St. Douglas’s. The friars had crossed out the fleck in the Atlantic with a thick X on every map. Yet here it was.
I turned to my friends, but their gazes remained fixed on the island. They hadn’t wanted to return, but Prohibition was drying up all our favorite haunts. The thrill of opening weekend on Charmant was worth the risk of seeing their disapproving parents, they claimed. But maybe that was just an excuse to come home.
Home.
A familiar pang of longing struck deep in my chest. Once I turned sixteen and left, I never missed St. Douglas’s, especially after I met my friends and realized just how vast and vibrant life could be. For three years, we’d been hopping from one adventure to the next. Would that end once they tasted home again?
And if it did, where would that leave me?
Roger stared at Charmant like a starving man gazed at poisoned fruit. “Before we disembark, make sure I’m seeing double.”
Trys’s long exhale blew her bangs from her face. “Me too.”
By the time we stepped onto the gangplank, my vision was spinning.
“Welcome to the Island of Sin!” an enormous man hooted. The crowd cheered, propelling us forward as the savory scent of fried dough overcame the briny ocean breeze.
A raucous band played at the end of the dock, the cymbals clashing violently. I threw one arm around Roger and the other around Trys. Together, we stumbled down the pier.
“What do you think?” Trys shouted in my ear as she ducked underneath a stilt walker.
“Amazing,” I breathed. “I’ve never seen so many people!”
“They’re here for opening night.” Roger pointed to a dozen posters of a stunning girl with milky white skin and dark curls cascading down her skintight plum dress. LUXE REVELLE PERFORMS TONIGHT, they read. Her gaze followed us down the pier.
Unable to take my eyes off those cherry lips, I tripped on a loose board. “Are we going?”
Roger laughed darkly. “Another rule for you, Jame-o: no falling for Revelles.”
“I am perfectly capable of enjoying the company of a beautiful girl without getting attached, thank you very much.”
Trys quirked a brow. “What about Betty?”
The name nearly ruined my buzz. After twelve years in an all-boys’ orphanage, Betty had been the first girl I’d kissed. Naturally, I’d assumed we were getting married. “Betty was . . .”
“A mistake?” Trys steadied herself on Roger’s arm. “Your biggest regret?”
“A learning experience?” Roger suggested. “A lesson in what not to do?”
A harsh lesson at that. I’d made a fool out of myself following her around. “Well, I’m fully committed to the bachelor life now.”
“Sure you are,” Trys teased.
Night fell as we stumbled along the waterfront promenade, the music drowning out the faint splash of waves. Lanky boys with shiny cheeks and newsboy caps carried crates of apples, sacks of flour, and other goods from New York down the docked ships’ ramps.
Roger paused to haggle with several women wearing nothing but stacks of colorful top hats, and I busied myself studying the fireworks reflecting off the water. It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen breasts before; I’d just never seen so many.
With our newly acquired tourist hats, we continued along the promenade. Roger pointed to a man in a ritzy black suit standing with two police officers. “Is that a Chronos?”
Trys froze. “It’s my brother.”
Roger and I exchanged a look. Trys rarely spoke about her brothers, but I remembered the basics: at twenty-one, Dewey was the oldest, while George was younger and a bit of a jerk. Which, of course, meant he was their father’s pick to follow in his footsteps as Charmant’s next mayor. As a family of time travelers, dynasties were easy to establish: they had plenty of do-overs to win elections.
“George!” she called, waving her hands.
Whirling at the sound of her voice, he regarded Trysta coolly, as if she were merely another constituent, not the exiled sister he hadn’t seen in three years.
He turned his back to us, and Trys’s smile shattered.
Roger pounded his fist into his palm. “Never too early in the evening for a fight.”
“Happy to oblige.” I rolled my neck. “You okay, Trys?”
“I’m fine. Perfectly fine. And we’re here to get jazzed, not fight my miserable family.”
She pulled our hands, but Roger didn’t budge. “Why is he with those bulls?”
I craned my neck. In front of George, an elderly man knelt on the promenade, protesting as the police sifted through his things. George barked something I couldn’t hear over the music.
The officers raised their batons and slammed them on the old man’s head.
Someone shrieked, and the crowd surged backward, abandoning the man as he collapsed onto the dock. For a selfish moment, it was me on the ground as the friars searched my belongings, confiscating the banned books I’d rescued from the church basement, their pages my only escape to the outside world. The other boys didn’t stand up to the friars. And who could blame them? They were powerless. We all were.
But I wasn’t a scared little boy anymore.
“Hey!” I marched up to the officers fumbling with the camera. “What’s going on, fellas?”
“This man was taking pictures of our VIP guests drinking,” an officer growled.
The old man gripped his bleeding head. “I didn’t take a damn photo here! These are from my granddaughter’s wedding. They’re the only photos she has, and I promised her—”
“Silence,” George said calmly, “or these good men will silence you.”
The officers banged on the camera, flipping it upside down.
“No need to break the thing.” Stepping forward, I motioned for them to hand it to me. “I used the same one to take Easter portraits at my church. Here, let me remove the film spool.”
The officers hesitated, but I gave them my best choirboy smile. Before they could change their minds, I took the camera from them and twisted it around, patting a few random spots. “Aha! Here it is—oh no, I dropped it.”
“No!” The old man lunged for the film as it rolled off the dock and into the Atlantic.
“I am so sorry, sir.” Doing my best to look contrite, I handed him back his camera.
George Chronos grabbed me by the shirt collar. “Who do you think you are?”
I smiled with all my teeth. “A friend of your sister’s. Remember her?”
He tightened his grip on my one good dress shirt. This close, he looked a decade older than Trys, though he was born only two years before her.
With a shove, he released me. “Get the hell out of here. Now.”
“Pleasure to meet you, too!” I shouted over my shoulder as Trys pulled my arm.
Roger lifted his middle finger as we sauntered away. “Did you really ruin the pictures?”
“Of course not.” I patted their backs. “But I hope you weren’t too attached to those ridiculous portraits we took in Philadelphia.”
Trys grinned. “You left the film in the old man’s camera.”
“Attaboy, Jame-o.” Roger tousled my hair as he jumped ahead. “C’mon.”
We continued down the promenade, weaving through scores of dancing tourists.
Beautiful, beautiful Charmant. Tilting my head to the obsidian sky, I breathed in this magical place. The stars seemed to spin around me, faster and faster. Maybe Charmant was spinning. Maybe I was spinning.
I took another step forward and—
Trysta barreled into me, flattening us both on the ground.
Something smashed behind us, the sound deafening. I turned to stare at a mess of wooden splinters, painted porcelain, and amber liquid. An enormous crate had fallen off the ship and landed where I had just been standing. The exact spot.
It would have killed me.
The crowd screamed, hands raised to protect themselves. George Chronos slipped between them, smirking over his shoulder as he sauntered away.
“Are you okay?”
Bits of debris floated in the water. Porcelain angel wings. Broken ones. The friars would’ve been absolutely thrilled to tell the other boys how God had punished me for my sins. Death by cherubs. In Charmant, of all places.
“Jamison? Are you all right?”
Roger hovered above me. Numbly, I nodded.
“He’s alive!” Ever the entertainer, Roger lifted his arms, and the crowd cheered.
Beside me, Trys grew paler. “It—It crushed you. You were dead.”
Dead?
She retched over the water’s edge, and Roger and I grabbed her shoulders. Even vomit was colorful in Charmant.
Roger gaped at her. “You traveled?”
A small nod. “It’s a lot harder when I’m positively zozzled.” She backed away from us, panting against a mooring pole.
You were dead.
I’d always known Trysta could time travel, but I’d never seen her do it. She hated it. She hated the dizzying, disorienting feeling of landing in the past. She hated that she couldn’t jump forward again. Most of all, she hated the cost of her magic: however far back a Chronos traveled, they aged a hundred times that, shortening their lives and adding premature wrinkles. One day relived meant one hundred days aged. One year meant aging one hundred years: instant death.
Trys held her trembling hands in front of her. “Do I look older?”
“More like you’ve been up all night.” Roger helped her to her feet. “How far back did you go?”
“Only a minute, I think.” She let out a shaky breath, her skin still as white as a sheet. “Jesus. One wrong move, and I could’ve shaved years off my life.”
If Trysta had just relived one minute in order to save me, that was one hundred minutes she wouldn’t breathe, wouldn’t laugh, wouldn’t love—because of me.
“Thank you.” I pulled her in for a hug, and for once, she didn’t roll her eyes.
“Your jacket’s all torn up now.” Her voice was muffled against my shoulder.
“A small price to pay for not being flattened like a pancake.”
Roger flipped a broken cherub statue, holding it up so we could see. “Recognize this?”
Ducking out of my embrace, Trys took it. A black diamond was painted on the bottom. Inside, elegant clock hands pointed to nine and twelve. “That’s Dewey’s company. It’s his logo.”
“Are we picking fights with both of your brothers tonight?”
“I saw George.” I rubbed my head. “Not sure if he did this, but he looked pretty pleased.”
“He knew I’d have to travel. Fucking George.” Trys traced the diamond-shaped clock. “Dewey’s a lot nicer. He’s one of the good ones. The only good one, maybe.”
Roger dipped his finger in the dark pool seeping from the broken crate. “He must be hiding booze in these statues to get it past the mainland authorities.”
Trys picked up her cane and nodded at the police making their way toward us. “Let’s scram.”
“What happens to the old you, when you travel?” I asked as we slipped through the crowd, leaving the mess behind.
She frowned. “There is no ‘old’ me. It’s the same me. I just replace myself.”
“And what about the old timeline?” I continued. “Is there some alternate universe out there where I’m now dead, courtesy of a crate of cherub statues full of booze?”
Roger groaned. “I really hate time travel.”
“How should I know?” Trys nudged me. “If I’d realized you were going to overthink this, I would have let the crate have you.”
“Shoot,” Roger muttered under his breath. “George’s cronies are flagging an Edwardian.”
“A mind reader?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder.
“Exactly.” Roger grabbed three bright yellow drinks from the cart of a man with silvery antlers, dropping three jewels on his tray. “Chug this.”
“But you just said—”
He handed me the drink. “They can’t hear our thoughts if we’re absolutely ossified.”
“Bottoms up, boys.” Trys raised her glass and we downed the saccharine drinks.
The lemony flavor ignited my veins with honey-colored fire, and the world swayed, taking on a strange, sunny hue.
Whoa. Bees buzzed in my head, singing a sweet song. Why hadn’t I noticed them before?
“Bees.” I giggled.
Trysta shot me a strange look. “Bees?”
I opened my mouth to explain, and a swarm of bumblebees flew out. “Beeeees.”
Roger snickered. Trys rolled her eyes, but her shoulders trembled.
Tears of laughter rolled down my cheeks. I tried to ask if they heard the bees, too, but words were heavy things. I couldn’t lift them.
“Beeeeees,” I whispered. My whole life, I’d seen bees, but I’d never really seen them, you know?
Roger collapsed, dragging me to the ground with him. My best friend, my magical, worldly buddy, laughing so hard he couldn’t stand.
The music swept me above my friends. I flew with the bees, spinning among the stars—
And then I saw it. The diamond-shaped clock, sewn to the lapel of a young man’s suit jacket, glowing as if the bees had enchanted it. They wanted me to see it, my bees. They wanted me to follow the symbol that had almost ended me. I tried to tell Trys and Roger, but words were still uncooperative. So I pointed—and followed.
My vision whirled around the young man as I trailed him to the grandest tent I’d ever seen: at least ten stories high, covered in swirling purple and black stripes with an oval ceiling left open to the night sky. Music poured from the entrance, a siren’s call luring me closer.
Beside me, Roger laughed darkly about a family reunion, but I could hardly hear him over the buzzing in my mind, my bones. You’ve seen this tent before, the bees whispered to me.
Had my parents taken me to Charmant, of all places?
The diamond-shaped clock disappeared into the crowded tent, entering beneath a life-sized poster of that enchanting girl. I stumbled after it, but deft hands yanked me backward and reached into the pockets of my ruined jacket. My mother’s brooch. I covered it, and an elderly woman in a fire-red sequined dress screamed at me, the music and bees drowning out her words.
Roger threw his arm over my shoulder and she released me, gripping his face. He melted underneath her touch, morphing into a giddy little boy, his tawny skin smooth and scar-free. I blinked, and he was Roger again. The bees sang, urging me deeper into the tent. You’ve been here before, they whispered. Follow us.
Otherworldly music pulsed through the theater. My heart raced with the drums, with the dizzying pace of the riotous piano. Glitter whirled through the humid air, mimicking the stars above. Bodies raked against one another, eyes unfocused in a feverish trance.
So much skin—soft, supple skin.
Beautiful girls slid long nails down my neck before pirouetting away. Bare-chested boys winked as I passed, their heated gazes trailing the length of me. Smiles became infectious things, and soon my cheeks ached from the joy of it all.
On the stage, a human pyramid climbed toward the sky. Women in jeweled bikinis spun in unison, hypnotizing me. With my feet glued to the sticky ground, I absorbed it for seconds, minutes, hours. I’d never felt so alive.
“Dance with me!” A girl pulled me close, spinning me onto the dance floor.
A blink later, Trys pinned me against a wall, yelling something about finding seats, about Roger, but the bees flew up toward the aristocratic boxes, circling the man with the diamond-shaped clock. Good little bees.
Another blink, and Roger was shaking my shoulders. “You all right?”
That stupendous honey still heated my veins, but I managed to point toward the clock.
Crushed velvet stairs, a quick exchange between Roger and the guard posted atop them. Joyful recognition. An embrace. We ducked under a curtain, entering an ornate box suspended over the action. The bees quieted, their buzzing fading. I was exactly where they wanted.
The man with the diamond-shaped clock stared at my muddied clothes. He was white, with jet-black hair and curious brown eyes. About our age, but with impeccable posture and a smile that oozed confidence. His ritzy black suit—a double-breasted jacket with faint silver pinstripes—hadn’t a single crease.
I blinked, and his face morphed. Blood dripped from his monstrous jaws. I yelled, backing away.
He frowned. “Are you okay?” No blood now. No fangs.
I pressed my hands against my racing heart, still unable to speak.
“Hey, Dewey.” Trys waved casually, but her grin betrayed her.
Dewey—Trys’s other brother.
“Trysta?” He gaped at her. “You’re back?”
“For the weekend.” They stared at each other before he strode toward her, scooping her into a hug. Her eyes squeezed shut, thinly veiled emotions playing over her face. For all her “damn the Chronoses” and “better on my own” talk, she’d clearly missed him.
He pulled away to examine her. “You haven’t aged a bit.”
“Neither have you.” She pinched his cheek. “I was expecting an old man. When I heard you were bootlegging, I figured you were using your magic.”
“I travel here and there, but only when I want to, not Father.”
Trysta did a double take. “You left home, too?”
“It wasn’t any fun without you,” he teased, though his smile betrayed his sadness.
The Chronoses pooled their magic, taking turns traveling back in time to advance the family’s wealth—and ensure other magical families didn’t become too influential. When Trys refused to help, she was disowned. “And Father lets you stay in Charmant?”
“He has no choice.” Dewey straightened. “My booze fills every cup on this island.”
“So you’re the hooch guy.” Nudging Trys out of his way, Roger offered a hand. “Roger Revelle.”
Trysta’s brother shook it eagerly. “Dewey Chronos. I hadn’t realized you’d returned.”
“And I hadn’t realized we were acquainted.”
“I’ve done my research on your family’s show. Your reputation precedes you.”
Roger’s smile faltered. He missed performing terribly. Whenever he had too much to drink, he tried to goad us into betting him to swing from some absurdly tall branch. He was proud of his acrobatics, but after the ordeal that had given him those scars, he’d left it all behind.
Roger waved me closer. “Our esteemed friend, Jamison Port. He seems to have lost the ability to speak, thanks to an Effigen Bee Sting.”
“I’m impressed you found enchanted booze. Very expensive these days.” Dewey squeezed my hand as if my pain threshold was a measure of my worthiness as Trys’s friend. “Next time you need a stiff drink, come and find me.”
“Thank you,” I managed to say, pulling my hand away. Finally, words were cooperating.
With a smile, Dewey lifted his glass. “Look at us: the Revelles and the Chronoses, getting along. Our ancestors must be rolling in their graves.”
Roger perched on the edge of the railing, daring gravity as always. “One of your crates nearly sent Jamison to his grave earlier. It fell off your ship and would have crushed him to death, had Trys not worked her magic. Literally.”
As he pointed to the diamond-shaped clock sewn to Dewey’s suit jacket, Dewey’s face fell. “My apologies, Jamison.”
“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Not a scratch on me, thanks to your sister.”
“But your jacket’s ruined.” He shrugged his off, revealing a dark vest and pearl-white shirt. “Here. Take mine.”
I took a step back before he could hand his to me. “That’s not necessary.”
“I insist. It’s the least I can do.” Before I could refuse again, the lights flashed and cheers erupted below. Dewey draped it over my arms. “I’ll get it back tomorrow.”
“I really don’t want—”
Ignoring me, he strode toward the curtains. “It’s time for Luxe Revelle’s act. I want to watch from the pit, for the customers’ perspective. Trys, meet me afterward?”
Trys waved, and he was gone.
“Is Luxe the girl from the posters?” I asked Roger, removing my mother’s brooch from the breast pocket of my ruined jacket.
“The one and only.” He helped me slip on Dewey’s coat. “Black is definitely your color.”
“My coat was black, too.”
“Okay, fine. Expensive is your color.”
It was, by far, the richest thing I’d ever worn. “I feel like I’m going to burst out of it.”
A spotlight illuminated center stage. Roger slunk into his seat. “Here comes my father. Just wear it, Jame-o. If he realizes his guest of honor left, he’ll blame me.”
An enormous man sauntered across the stage. His pin-striped suit hugged the barrel of his chest, the sleeves belling into the mouths of hungry wolves, poised to devour his thick hands. White powder caked his pale face, and his lips and cheeks were scarlet. Half clown, half monster.
“Welcome, you insufferable creatures!” Wolffe Revelle’s rich voice boomed.
“Or should I say,” Roger murmured in unison with his father, “welcome back.”
