Jakub gulped. He didn’t know why, but he sensed something different beneath Cheshire’s usual eagerness. “Is it going to explode?”

Cheshire’s smile turned devilish, and he sat up, taking off his jacket. Jakub struggled between anticipation and apprehension as he watched him hop to his feet. “I know I’m not the first person you’ve met who could use magic,” Cheshire said as he dragged the room’s only chair over. “But I’ll bet you haven’t seen anything like this.” He sat down in front of Jakub, excited and anxious as he tugged his gloves off.

Jakub moved to the edge of the mattress, trying to hide the extent of his curiosity. It was only then that it occurred to him that despite the time they’d spent together, he might have not ever seen Cheshire without some pair of gloves. Why, was immediately apparent: Cheshire’s palms each bore a strange pattern tattooed on them in red, made up of crossing lines and circles, contained in a ring. Jakub had to admit, he hadn’t seen anything like it on a living person.

“This is where the magic comes from,” Cheshire explained, flexing his fingers. Watching the shapes bend with his skin gave Jakub unexpected goose bumps. “It’s a trip, isn’t it? Here, I’ll show you.”

Cheshire reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a cigarette—one from the loot packages Hannah was supposed to have been keeping him from. Holding it in one hand, he displayed his other palm to Jakub. “Watch this,” he said.

The end of the cigarette poofed with fire, and at the same time the pair of sigils lit up as well. The tattoos glowed a bright crimson, unearthly, which quickly dulled back to normal a moment later. When Cheshire offered the cigarette, Jakub accepted, breathing in the familiar aftertaste.

That’s not human, Jakub’s instincts warned him. Not natural, either. But when he looked into Cheshire’s face, all he found there was the same boyish hope as always. He easily understood that he was the benefactor of a great risk on Cheshire’s part, to have been entrusted with what he was seeing, and it had his chest swelling.

“How did you get it?” he asked, still watching the tattoos as if they might light up again.

“It’s a very long story,” Cheshire replied, his lip quirking.

A story he didn’t immediately launch into. Jakub had no idea where Cheshire’s limit actually was when it came to prying, as he’d never had the courage to push those few times Cheshire kept something to himself. Taking a chance, he said, “It almost looks demonic.”

Cheshire hesitated, even though the pinch in his smile gave away his answer. “It pretty much is,” he admitted, searching Jakub’s face for his reaction. “Does that scare you?”

Jakub frowned thoughtfully, and answered, “No, not really.” Barney, it would—the Kozlows were, despite appearances, devout Catholics, their tolerance for Cheshire’s magic stretched only so far as it profited them. Even Hannah would likely have second thoughts being anywhere near him if she laid eyes on the source. Jakub, on the other hand, had grown up unburdened by fears of a Christian Hell, and though the red gleam was eerie, he preferred to reserve his concerns for human adversaries.

“We all have our tools,” he said, and seeing Cheshire’s relief made the tobacco taste sweeter. “But why are you telling me this now?”

“Well...it seemed like as good a time as any.” Cheshire smiled bashfully as he undid his necktie, giving Jakub a glimpse of shy vulnerability he was sure to be hating later. “I’ve wanted to tell you all along, I just wasn’t sure you’d….” He sat up straighter, refreshing his confidence. “I trust you,” he declared, and suddenly Jakub felt as if he was curled up under his arm again, his brain helpless jam. “I’d like it if we were...you know.” He tossed his tie onto his jacket on the bed as he tried to find the words to explain further, and Jakub found himself leaning forward, eager and terrified to hear them. “If we were—”

There was a knock on the door. Both startled, and Jakub couldn’t help but scowl as he stalked to the door to investigate through the peephole.

A head full of blonde hair waited on the other side. Jakub’s heart sank.

Cheshire hurried to replace his gloves. “Jakub? Who is it?”

Jakub opened the door, and in peered Grace. She was still dressed in the long skirt and high-necked blouse of her school uniform, only a shawl to protect her from the night air. She looked chilled, but that quickly changed when she spotted Cheshire; her face lit up as if each of her freckles was glowing.

Cheshire vaulted to his feet, light as air. “Grace! What are you doing here?”

“One of the boys at the club said you lived in this building,” said Grace, smiling with an exaggerated effort at confidence. “From there I just had to follow your laugh.”

Cheshire may as well have circled the moon. It was almost infuriating. “You shouldn’t be in this part of town this late,” Jakub scolded her, even though it was clear nothing would rein either of them in. “Not by yourself.”

“Yes, he’s right!” Cheshire crowed, even though he was grinning ear to ear. He hurried over to gently take her elbows. “But I’m glad you did. I was so sorry to miss you sing tonight.”

Grace hesitated only for a beat; Jakub could see the courage she was rallying as if it were marching like tiny soldiers up her spine. “I could give you an encore,” she said. “In private.”

“Yes,” Cheshire replied, almost before she was finished speaking. “Yes, I’d...I’d love that.” He flashed Jakub an excited grin and then guided Grace back into the hall, toward his own room next door. “My place is right here! I don’t have much, but there’s some booze….”

“Yes, please!”

They slipped into Cheshire’s apartment, giggling like idiots, and Jakub closed his door. If they were...what? “Friends” most likely, but that wouldn’t stop Jakub from speculating for ages to come. Exhausted and sick to his stomach, he wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed and sleep until he remembered what sanity was. He snuffed his cigarette out in an ashtray and dropped to the mattress, only to immediately remember that Cheshire had left his jacket behind.

Jakub stared at it for a long time while listening to Cheshire and Grace’s ridiculous chatter filter through the too-thin apartment walls. They sounded so damn pleased with themselves, even if he couldn’t make out the words. They were probably going to have so much fun together. Maybe he would even show her his secret magic, and Jakub hated himself for thinking even for a moment that he was special.

Jakub grabbed the jacket, determined to throw it on the floor. He even considered returning it, just for the excuse of interrupting Cheshire and his “date.” But once the fabric was between his fingers, he paused, and ended up drawing it closer. He ran his fingertips along the lining and was surprised by how soft it felt. He didn’t own clothes this fine. He could have, if he’d wanted to—he could spend his hard-earned take on frivolities, not a care in the world for future concerns. Maybe it would have dulled his appreciation for the thing, but then again, maybe not. Cheshire never seemed to love his indulgences any less.

Jakub buried his nose in the jacket. It was still warm, and it smelled like sweat and magic. He breathed it in, reminded of a few wonderful minutes crammed together on a bar sofa, leaning into Cheshire’s side with laughter in his ears. Of Cheshire’s strong arm snaking protectively around his waist. Maybe if he had done something more, he thought. If he had wriggled a little closer, smiled and blushed like Grace did….

Gradually, the apartment on the other side of the wall went quiet. Jakub well understood why but he tried to put it out of his head, instead grabbing up Cheshire’s discarded necktie. It was even softer than the suit, probably not real silk but close enough to Jakub’s rough hands. He wove it between his fingers and wondered if that was how the inside of the leather gloves felt. He wondered if Cheshire’s hands, always carefully hidden away, were soft and pale from so rarely being worked. He didn’t have knobby knuckles, sun spots, cracked nails—just seams of ancient, glowing magic. They were probably as smooth as an imitation silk necktie and hot like summer.

I’m an idiot, Jakub thought, but he touched the glove he’d made from twisting the tie between his fingers to his face, enjoying its slick texture against his skin. This is pathetic. He rubbed the tie back and forth across his freckles anyway, reminding himself of the many times Cheshire had complimented them.

A quiet squeal of bedsprings from the other room made Jakub’s heart skip, and despite telling himself ferociously that he ought to just leave altogether, instead he held his breath. With his nose still blanketed by Cheshire’s lapel, he strained his ears for clues as to the other room’s going-ons. They were giggling again, their voices cutting in and out as their mattress offered increasing complaints. It wasn’t a difficult scene to picture, and Jakub’s usually tempered imagination supplied him with a vivid image of Cheshire and Grace squirming together atop the bed, inexperienced but passionate, their heated breaths filling in the spaces of their laughter.

Just leave, just leave, Jakub told himself again, but he still had no drive to obey. He was too busy listening to each shift and creak, and finally, finally, a quiet rumble of Cheshire’s voice, rising in startled pleasure, ebbing away into sigh of awe. As far as Jakub was concerned, it was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard, and he tingled from head to toe.

“Are you sure?” Cheshire asked, and Jakub flinched, not expecting to be able to hear him so clearly. He didn’t hear Grace’s answer, but the creak of the mattress said enough.

They were going through with it. Jakub squeezed his eyes shut and burrowed deeper into Cheshire’s jacket, as if its familiarity could block out everything else. He tried to think only about a year’s worth of fleeting touches and boyish teasing, not the telltale clink of a belt being unfastened. But his shame was still no match for his imagination, and when he heard Grace moan, he slipped his hand beneath his shirt, fantasizing that he was in her place with Cheshire’s broad palm gliding across his stomach. He focused intently on the bed frame beneath him, hoping to catch every vibration of their bodies moving. But it was Cheshire’s voice that best fueled his arousal, each soft murmur and gasp tickling his nerve endings. It didn’t take much before he was fully hard, any remaining denial out the window.

He wished it was him. He listened to Grace whimper with delight and wanted nothing more than for it to be him, Cheshire’s broader body crushing him into the old mattresses, reeking of magic. He wanted hot leather skating up and down his naked body and feather-soft hair tangled in his fingers. He wanted Cheshire to want it, too. And when the tempo changed, when Jakub knew for sure Cheshire was inside her, making love to her, he couldn’t hold back any longer; he struggled his pants open and shoved his hand down inside, wrapping up his eager cock with sweaty fingers laced with the best approximation of Cheshire he could manage.

It felt so much better than Jakub had anticipated; he had to smother his face even deeper in Cheshire’s jacket to keep his groans from being heard. He stroked in time to the beat of the bed frame against his wall, ashamed and enraptured by the searing fantasy that it really was Cheshire with him, covering and pleasuring him with lily-smooth skin and hot breath on his face. For those perfect moments he could even imagine that Cheshire’s magic was flowing through him, drawing its impossible heat into his belly, then rushing it to every other part of his body with each pump of his fist in threads of glowing red. It was such a electrifying, painful dream, and he prayed it would never end.

Too soon, the pair beyond the wall drew to a blissful climax. Jakub shuddered beneath the ripples of Cheshire’s charming voice, trying to hurry himself as well, but it just wasn’t enough. Already they were winding down and the room was going quiet again. Jakub clenched curses in his throat as he rolled awkwardly onto his stomach, trying to staunch his own sounds of friction as he stroked frantically to release. It wasn’t anything like the ending he would have hoped for, fantasy shattered with cold air on the back of his neck, but he squirmed and whimpered until he was spent. And then he held his breath.

There was a chance they’d heard that. For several minutes Jakub held absolutely still in a state of near horror, listening for any indication. He didn’t really expect Cheshire let alone Grace to march over and make a fool of him, but the threat kept him motionless until, thankfully, he could hear the pair softly conversing with each other. They were only interested in sharing pillow talk after all.

Jakub rolled onto his back. A few deep breaths helped to clear his head, and then he felt worse than ever. Why him? he thought as he unwound the necktie from his fingers. Why did it have to be him?

He was still in bed, pillowed by Cheshire’s jacket and feeling sorry for himself, when there was a knock on the door some time later.

Jakub gulped. He scrambled to cram the necktie under his blankets and fasten his pants. There was only one person who it could have been, and he steeled himself as best he could as he opened the door partway.

Cheshire was on the other side, his hair down and mussed, eyes alight. “Hey,” he said through a grin. “Did I take my jacket off in here? I’m going to walk Grace home.”

Jakub’s heart thudded, but somehow his face remained calm. “Yeah, wait there,” he heard himself say. He strode quickly to the bed to snatch up the jacket, taking only a brief moment to look it over. It was rumpled, a small stain of drool near the armpit that could easily be mistaken for sweat. Jakub had goosebumps as he returned to Cheshire in the doorway to hand it over. “Here.”

“Thanks.” Cheshire folded it over his arm, but then paused. “What about my tie?”

“No,” Jakub said almost too quickly. “It’s not here.”

“Oh.” Cheshire frowned thoughtfully, but it wasn’t possible that he suspected. Jakub began to sweat anyway, even as Cheshire turned to leave. “Thanks. We can go over the take tomorrow, huh?” He flashed Jakub a wink. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

“You don’t need to,” Jakub replied before he could stop himself. “I could hear everything.”

Cheshire’s smile turned shy, which was just too much. “Goodnight,” said Jakub, and he shut the door.