Philadelphia, 1926

The clack of ivory rang sharply in my ears as Paul Barrington leaned across the billiard table and took the winning shot. Balls ricocheted and sank into corners one by one.

He straightened and grinned at me cheekily, a cigar clamped between his teeth."There. Now you owe me one."

I sighed. Paul would be the death of me one day.

Whenever one of us beat the other at a game, the loser owed the winner a favor; a boyhood system we honored as men.

"If you wanted something, you ought simply to ask," I grumbled. "You know I never win at pool."

He reset the table for the next players, as was the custom at the club, and cast me a sly glance. "You used to beat Thomas."

I turned aside, making a pretense of studying the books lining the walls so Paul wouldn't see my expression. "Thomas let me win."

My gaze slid carefully over the names on the spines, snagging briefly on Wilde's and Whitman's. I wondered if they'd been selected carelessly, or placed there as a test, and how many eyebrows would raise were I witnessed reading them.

Naturally, I wouldn't dare. This wasn't my club; I was Paul's guest, and as such my conduct reflected upon him. He could lose his membership if anyone suspected he'd brought an 'invert' into their midst. I'd overheard enough whispered allusions to "Ganymede," accompanied by furtive glances, to know what others thought.

Paul's hand on my elbow startled me from my musings.

"Sorry, old boy. Didn't mean to pick at old wounds. I'm awfully careless with words sometimes — Rachel tells me so often."

He smiled ruefully. Rachel Durham, socialite and daughter of a British sugar baron, was Paul's fiancée. People spoke as if theirs was a great romance, but the truth was more pragmatic: she had pedigree, and Paul had cash. It helped that they were both good-looking.

"Speaking of Rachel," he said, carrying on in a jovial tone, "We're having a party this Saturday. You must come."

"Oh." I tried to muster something like enthusiasm, and failed, coughing into my handkerchief instead as the Rittenhouse Club's smoke-laden air made my lungs itch.

Paul laughed. "Don't die of excitement on me, Alec."

I raised a brow at him as I fought to catch my breath. "You know I could."

"Pish Posh." He waved a hand airily and looped his arm around my shoulder, dropping cigar ash on my suit. "That delicate youth routine might have fooled the draft doctors, but not me. You'll outlive us all, undoubtedly."

I said nothing. I'd already outlived too many relatives and friends to find this remotely amusing.

"At any rate, that's the reason for our game," Paul continued, as blithely oblivious to my sentiments as ever. "The favor I'm after is for Rachel's sake."

"Again, why not simply ask? You know I'm agreeable." I kept my eyes on my shoes — sturdy and still stylish, though mended more than once — and contrasted them with Paul's perfectly polished black oxfords as he steered me from the billiards room.

Paul winked impishly. "Because I knew you'd say no."

"When has that ever stopped you?" I muttered.

He led me towards the bar and signaled for another drink. "Two whiskeys, neat."

I held up a hand and shook my head. "I shouldn't."

"Oh, live a little, Monroe." Paul shoved me playfully. "One drink won't kill you."

I didn't argue and took what the bartender handed me. Paul wandered back to the reading room, and I followed him, faithful as his own shadow. He flopped into a leather chair, and I settled into the one across from him.

His ice-blue eyes locked with mine as he raised his tumbler to his lips and took a long swig, his throat constricting as he swallowed. Self-consciously, I sipped from my sweating glass.

"I want you to perform, Alec, as you used to do." Setting his glass aside, he exhaled slowly. "A séance, for Rachel. She's enamored of that sort of thing. I've told her yours are the most convincing I've seen, even when you explain the trickery."

A spider-legged shiver crawled up my spine, and I shook my head. "No. I gave it up for that very reason. People are far too credulous, and playing on their hopes is cruel. Even when I reveal the illusion, they still choose to believe. I am not a deceiver."

"Aren't you?" Paul's right eyebrow lifted a fraction, making a single line appear on his smooth, pale forehead. "I thought all art is deception."

I shifted uncomfortably. Paul was not one with whom to argue philosophy. "Some might say so. I like to think it shows the deeper truth."

He settled back in his chair, glass in hand. "Rachel isn't stupid," he said. "She knows what's real and what's not. If anything, you'll sway her toward the skeptical side of things. But..." He pointed a finger and fixed me with a stare. "... you must be convincing. No shortchanging me. Understand? I want a proper show."

My brother's voice echoed in my mind. A show, Alec. That's all people want. A bit of entertainment. Something to take their minds off their sorrows for a time. There's no harm in it, really.

No harm in what Eddie and I did, certainly, but every successful trick paved the road of false belief.

"I said I won't do it." I lowered my voice to a whisper. "You know how it hurts me, Paul."

The line of his mouth tightened slightly, a well-known sign of annoyance, and I flinched a little. Paul could be very cruel when he didn't get his way. Instead of lashing out, he knocked the side of his shoe against mine and smiled. "Come back to my place tonight," he said with deceptive warmth. "We can have a bit of fun, as we used to do."

Dry-mouthed, I glanced around us, but we might as well have been alone. The other gentlemen in attendance that evening sat gathered in groups, talking loudly amongst themselves and doing a fine job of minding their own business.

I looked back at Paul and found him watching me with deadly cunning. I should have cut him out of my life years ago, I thought; I should have nothing to do with him.

Against my will, a memory unfolded in my mind.

Paul and I, our last year at preparatory school, the shadow of war already long upon Europe and the United States poised to enter the fray. He'd been reading Greek philosophy; I'd been lost in Endymion. He'd dared me to kiss him, and I had. What followed were several years of intermittent experiments, which revealed that Paul had no moral center whatsoever, and that I'd been cursed with a nature that went against the laws of man, if not of God.

I was in love with him; he knew it.

Resigned, I sank into the warm leather at my back. "No, I won't go home with you. But I'll give you a séance. This is the last time, though. I swear it."

He grinned, his whole visage relaxing with pleasure at my submission. "Excellent. Be at my place by six. The party starts at seven. There's someone I'm dying for you to meet. I think you'll get along splendidly. He's French."

I raised my brows at him. "What does that mean?"

"Well, generally speaking, it means he's from France. He's a mulatto, actually. Quite exotic."

Paul's language struck me. He chose his words to wound, and I wondered which he used for me, in different company.

"Wealthy?" I asked.

"Incredibly."

"He'll be at the séance?"

Paul nodded at me over his drink. "Naturally."

"I see." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "So that's the play, is it?"

"I don't know what you mean." Paul settled back in his chair and stubbed his cigar out in a tray.

I gave him a pointed stare. Paul had discovered two things about me that spring of 1917, one of which had inspired him to keep the other a secret, and to bind me with invisible chains to his side ever since.

I couldn't speak with the dead, but I could see into the minds of the living.

Just glimpses — little pieces here and there: random thoughts not addressed to me, but bearing information in words and images that, in some cases, could make or break a man.

Like the one I'd picked up from Paul's future father-in-law, at another of Paul's parties, that had set his engagement in motion.

With his money and her stock, we'd have a proper dynasty.

Paul hadn't cast two glances at Rachel before I passed this tidbit along. Afterwards, he'd become the spirit of charm and attentiveness, and they were engaged within two months.

Not that Paul was ungrateful; he'd returned the favor in his own way, recommending me to anyone after a portrait artist and including me in his social sphere.

The problem was that this 'gift' taxed me dearly. It felt as if I paid for every use with years of my life. On the outside, I might look as fresh-faced as I had at eighteen, but inside I often felt dry and brittle as burnt paper, ready to blow away in the wind.

Paul's theory was rheumatic fever. It had nearly killed me as a child, and damaged my heart enough to keep me from the draft. He thought that because I'd seen across the veil, I still had one foot on the other side.

It certainly felt like that, at times.

"What do you want from him?" I asked, no longer willing to play at pretenses. "What is it you want me to see?"

Paul leaned towards me conspiratorially. "Come over tomorrow. I'll tell you everything you want to know."

Another memory surfaced like a tar bubble, slow and greasy, and popped with a dirty splash. The last time Paul had called in a favor, nearly a year ago now, I'd been knocked low for a month, battling a fever and mysterious anemia. I'd missed the show in the only gallery in town that had offered to display my work, and woke to a house as cold and empty as a mausoleum. Illness being the strongest test of friendship, I had found myself utterly alone.

Finding sudden strength in weariness, I shook my head. "I'm sorry, Paul. I can't. I'll be there for the party, and I'll put on a show, if that's what you want, but I'll do nothing more."

I rose, intending to go, but Paul stood as well and grasped my hand impulsively. He pulled me close to him and ran his thumb along the ridges of my knuckles, lowering his gaze so the light played off his long golden lashes.

"Alec... please. You know I don't ask lightly."

A lump formed at the back of my throat. Even now he teased me with a kind of intimacy he knew I craved, and could never have. And yet I still found it hard to refuse his request.

I pulled my hand from his and stepped back, schooling my features into a properly emotionless mask.

"I'll see you Saturday," I said. "No promises. Good night, Paul."

A slow grin cracked his repentant facade, and for just a moment, I glimpsed the devilish truth that lay beneath.

"Good night, Alec," he said, raising his glass to me. "I look forward to the performance. You've never disappointed me yet."

As chilled as though death himself had breathed upon the back of my neck, I fled at a measured pace, conscious as ever of every imagined gaze in the room. On the street outside, I gasped deep lungfuls of coal-scented air, thick with fog rising from the Delaware, and hailed a cab home to Mantua Avenue.