Rory’s lips quirked up. “I was thinking I’d just sleep on top of you.”

“We’ll break the bed,” Arthur warned, but he was already reaching for Rory.

The bunks were too close together for Arthur to sit upright on the bottom one without knocking his head, so he sat on the settee instead, pulling Rory down onto his lap.

Rory settled facing him, with his knees outside Arthur’s legs. His arms came around Arthur’s neck, a little tighter than usual. “I keep thinking about my mom crossing the sea,” he admitted. “But this is way better than what I was picturing. This is nice.”

The cabin was, objectively speaking, the worst quarters Arthur had ever had on a civilian ship. But he had never needed the opulence of first class to enjoy himself, and the company more than made up for the smaller space and lack of marble. They’d have seven days together to mind their own business on the ship, to enjoy meals with Jade and Zhang, to talk and read and just be a normal couple—

“And I keep reminding myself that I don’t really have to be afraid of the ocean.” Rory patted his pocket where, at Arthur’s insistence, he’d taken to always carrying the Tempest Ring in its box. “After all, I can control the wind.”

Oh. Well. Perhaps not a normal couple.

The ship left the pier and began its way down the Hudson. Rory stood between Arthur and Jade on the second-class deck and watched Manhattan pass by on the—what did Arthur call it?—the port side. The sun was bright and warm, and the sky cloudless and blue over the skyscrapers.

“This is nice too,” Rory admitted. “And the niceness is a big lie, right? My mom said she threw up the whole trip. When does the ship’s rolling, I’m puking part start?”

Jade laughed softly. “When we’re out in the open ocean,” she said apologetically, patting his arm. “Get lots of fresh air, don’t try to read too much, and I do have some pills, if it comes to it.”

Rory pursed his lips. There were some kids up on the deck, maybe seven or eight years old, fearlessly laughing and pointing to the waves. He watched them play for a minute as the ship rounded Lower Manhattan, the sun catching the top of the Woolworth Building.

He wrapped his fingers around the railing. “No one let me throw myself off the side of this boat, yeah?”

“I’d handcuff us together first,” Arthur said, with feeling.

“Come on,” said Zhang. “There are some open chairs one level down, by the saloon.”

“And you found them despite standing right next to me,” Arthur mused. “Probably a safe bet to assume you’ve seen the entire ship from the astral plane already.”

“And the bay floor underneath us.”