“Where else is there to go?” Corinne asked. “The Red Cat? Down Street? All we have is the Cast Iron. It’s ours.”
Ada had the urge to hug her, to comfort her, because she knew that Corinne’s ferocity was the only way she knew how to be brave. But Ada was thinking about Haversham. It was always waiting in her thoughts. In the snow it would be deceptively beautiful, the window ledges lined with white, the iron gates bold against the pale sky. Maybe all they were doing was delaying the inevitable.
“You’re right,” Ada said. “There’s nowhere else that’s safe for us.”
Corinne was either relieved or triumphant. She turned before Ada could tell. They walked the rest of the way back to the Cast Iron without speaking.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Gabriel arrived at the Cast Iron at five o’clock on the nose, lugging a garment bag with a rented tuxedo. Ada was the only one in the common room to greet him, as Saint still had not returned from the Mythic and Corinne had just decided only a few minutes earlier that maybe she should start getting dressed. He went to Johnny’s office to change. When he reemerged, Ada was surprised at how well the rental fit him. With the clean black lines and starched tails, Ada could almost believe that Gabriel was the sort of person who would be invited to a Wells party. The rental had even included a pair of shoes, polished so that the toes each reflected a pinpoint of light.
Gabriel was pulling at the sleeves, his eyes downcast, and Ada realized with some amusement that he was self-conscious.
“You look perfect,” she told him, though she wasn’t sure if that would make it better or worse. “Well, almost.”
He had knotted the necktie with a four-in-hand, which Ada knew Corinne wouldn’t stand for, even though Corinne had never once managed to tie any kind of proper knot. Ada climbed off the couch and gestured wordlessly for permission. Gabriel shrugged, closer to helpless than Ada had seen him before. She loosened the tie nimbly.
She had learned the skill from her mother when she was a little girl. Every morning Nyah had tied her husband’s tie, teasing him with the names of the knots, stealing kisses. Eventually Ada took over, standing on the edge of the bed, trying to sing along with her father in Portuguese. Sometimes her mother would sit beside her. She would hum and watch them both with her soft brown eyes, and Ada would wonder if she was studying them in the way she studied recipes, parceling out all the individual ingredients and trying to see how they made the whole.
Ada tied a Windsor and straightened it with a touch of pride. She was feeling a strange sense of camaraderie with Gabriel tonight, maybe because of his assistance with Charlie earlier, or maybe because he was so blessedly stoic in the face of Corinne’s peculiar brand of temerity. Corinne didn’t tend to keep friends long, which meant that Ada didn’t either. She didn’t mind usually, but it was nice to know there were other people in the world who were, if not a match, then at least a challenge for her best friend.
“I’ll bet your mother would have liked to see you in this,” Ada said, brushing off his shoulders.
Gabriel’s lips wrinkled in a rueful smile. “I doubt it. She would say that my father and my father’s father were workingmen, and that was always good enough for them, so why isn’t it good enough for me?” He hooked two fingers under the collar and tugged absently. “She’d probably also ask why I felt the need to dress like a penguin.”
Gabriel handed her two cuff links, and she palmed them, admiring the flourishes etched into the silver.
“My mother thinks tuxedos are dashing,” she said while she pinned the cuff links in place. “She won’t admit it, though.”
Gabriel smiled in return, a small, unfamiliar action. Corinne was making a racket in the bedroom, but there were no cries for help or breaking glass, so Ada assumed she was all right. She moved to perch on the arm of the sofa and cast an appraising eye over Gabriel.
“Can I ask you something?”
Gabriel said nothing, which as far as Ada could tell was as close to assent as he ever gave.
“Why are you helping us? Why do you care?”