Arthur winced. “Maybe breathe through your nose?” he offered weakly. “Jade’s gone to get pills.”

The ship crested and then dropped down another wave. Rory swallowed back a fresh urge to vomit. “What’s in these pills?”

“The adverts promise no morphine, cocaine, or opium, and Jade says they’re safe enough for paranormals,” said Arthur. “I think they’re made from belladonna.”

“Isn’t that poison?” The ship hit another swell. Rory groaned. “Never mind, don’t care, poison sounds grand.”

Jade arrived shortly like a pill-bearing saint, and Rory would have professed his love if she weren’t already one of his very favorite people in the world.

He turned the box over in his hands as he swallowed two down. “These are seventy-five cents for one day’s worth. That’s gonna be five bucks just in pills if I need these all week.”

Arthur blinked, looking politely confused. “But surely you’re going to let me buy medicine that stops you from vomiting?”

Rory sighed. Didn’t seem fair that the rich got to have better medicine than the poor, regardless of whether Rory had gotten lucky enough to have someone willing and able to buy the pills for him.

But the pills did help, not fully banishing the seasickness but getting it to something tolerable. It meant he was able to wander the ship with Arthur and even try learning some poker.

Arthur seemed lighter, somehow, like he’d left a weight back in New York. Jade too, both of them less guarded and laughing more easily. Rory still had his own nerves, but it was worth it, seeing the two of them happy to be going somewhere without Arthur’s family pressures and American laws.

On the third night of the trip, there was a jazz band performance for second class. Rory pulled on his suit again and tried his best to tidy his curls before following Arthur out of their cabin. The music was already audible from the stairs as they made their way down to D level, with its wide deck and public spaces like the gym and the lounge. The social hall was on the backside of the lounge, just above the big dining saloon on E.

Inside the hall, the chairs and tables had been pushed against the wall to make a dance floor in the center. Rory found a couple chairs in the corner as Arthur went to get them drinks in the lounge.

“You can dance, you know,” he said, when Arthur came back with a ginger ale for him and something a lot stronger for himself.

“What?”

Rory raised his voice to be heard over the music. “You can dance. I bet you had about a million lessons.”

“I did,” Arthur acknowledged. “And my parents should have saved their money, because it stuck as poorly as Latin.” He gestured to the dance floor. “You go ahead.”