“What did she say happened?”
“She said it was like a gust of wind. Everything went black and dark.”
“Like she couldn’t leave the house?” His throat sounds constricted as he asks.
“That’s what she said.”
“Aria, you told me before that she never leaves, right? That you haven’t seen her out of the house in years?”
“Right.”
“And now she said she was almost physically stopped by some sort of force before she left?” he asks carefully, taking his time with each word, as if each one is a clue being assembled into a proper order.
“Yes. Why? What is it?”
“Aria,” he whispers. “Is your father’s name Felix?”
Felix.
I never use his name. I try to never think of his name. It humanizes him. Hearing someone else speak it feels out of joint, a hinge being hung on the wrong-size door.
“Yes. Why?”
“I have to show you something.”
“What? What do you have to show me?” I’ve had far too many surprises today. I don’t want another one, especially one that has to do with my father.
“Trust me, please. Can you come with me? To my library?”
Underground we go.
26
Stupid Wishes
The tunnels are the kind of dark where you can’t see the outline of your fingers, where you can’t tell if the floor is beneath your feet.
We crunch along through the tunnel, its floor formed by hard-packed dirt and dankness, by naked walls under city streets. His hand holds mine so tightly they might as well be fused together, or maybe it’s because I’m gripping his fingers so hard, forging them into mine. We turn a sharp corner and I stumble, separating from Taj. I fall on one knee, shooting out a hand to brace myself. As I connect with the floor, I release a small plume. The fire lights up the tunnel, and Taj jumps back, pressing himself against the wall.
“Aria, it’s okay.” He’s trying to calm me, but I can tell he’s scared too. Of what I might do. Truth is, so am I. Because I didn’t mean to do that. It just happened. I yank the flames back into my hand, consuming them in my body, without any grace or art, just a sheer blunt tug.
I stand. “Sorry,” I mutter.
“We’re almost there,” he says, but I suspect what he means to say is Get a grip on your fire, girl.
But I can’t. Right now, the fire is becoming stronger than I am, eating me from the inside. I’ve never been away from Elise on nights like this when I start to lose my fire. I clench my fist and picture my heart in a vise, immovable metal holding its convulsing center in place. The heart can’t escape; the heart is held. The heart is calm. We reach the door, and Taj opens it, and I practically spill into his home, his library.
I grab him, pull him against me, wrap my arms around his strong frame. He senses what I need right now isn’t kissing, though I wouldn’t complain if his lips were on mine. What I need is the pressure of his body against mine. Somehow it settles the fire in me.
After a few minutes, my chest isn’t sputtering. I can manage for a bit.
“What did you want to show me?”
“It’s the book. The registry of wishes.”
My jaw drops. “But you said you can’t reveal wishes.”
“I know.” He scrubs a hand across his jaw as if this pains him. “This is completely forbidden. I shouldn’t be doing this at all. But you need to see this.”
He nods to his desk. The thriller he was reading is off to the side. He pulls open a heavy drawer and takes out a large red book. It’s fat and tall—the size of a giant dictionary.
“I’m told this used to be about the weight of a flimsy magazine. But over the years, over the centuries as more wishes get made, the book gets bigger.”
“They’re all in here?”
He nods, then opens the book, spreading its heavy pages apart at his desk. “With each wish, names are added,” he explains.
“But this is just one book. How they do get in every granter’s book?”
“Whenever a name is added in one book, it appears—like magic ink—moments later in another’s. That’s how the registry works. Almost like a shared document that we all have access to. Any update in one book is reflected in the others.”
“How many names do you think are in this?”
“A lot.”
The book looks like a ledger, with ruler-marked lines and names in dark script. Payment is listed in one column, then whether the account is due, past due, or paid in full, he tells me, and I suspect the Lady must be in here somewhere and listed as paid in full. As Taj flips the pages past the Hs, the Is, the Js, everything comes into focus.
I stiffen when he lands on the Ks and begins running his index finger down the names. “They don’t always get recorded properly by jackass granters,” Taj says, speaking matter-of-factly, as if he’s a doctor explaining a simple procedure. “Well, that’s not entirely true. They always get recorded, because we have no choice in that. You are compelled to record every wish precisely as it’s wished, and it’s too powerful a force to resist. But sometimes the jackass granters don’t always have the best handwriting.”
He turns several more pages, passing the names starting with Ka-, then Ke-, then the few Kh- names in the book. As we come closer to my last name, the pages start swimming, letters levitating and curving toward me. I press my fingers against the bridge of my nose to focus as Taj’s index finger lands on a name, scratched out in poor penmanship, like a kindergartner eking out words for the first time.
Felix Kilan——
That’s as far as the granter got. The last four letters that form our name—Kilandros—are just one long scratchy line. But it’s him. It has to be him. I follow the line, squeezed in between so many other wishes, straining to keep my eyes on the right wish, the right payment.
Then I see it.
I wish for my wife to never leave me as long as we both shall live.
“Oh my God,” I say, and I repeat it over and over as I press my hand to my eyes again, as if I can shoo the wish away and the record of it. But I can’t, so I force myself to look again, this time to the payment column.
Paid in Full Upon Transaction. Literally!
That’s how it’s written, with an exclamation point, and I can picture this jackass granter—I’m seeing a Rumpelstiltskin figure, clicking his heels with glee, a tiny little figure, cackling as he entered this wish in the registry. My father got what he wished for all right. A wife fallen ill, a wife saddled with a mystery illness, a wife who literally and figuratively can’t leave him because she can barely even leave her chair.
They say be careful what you wish for. They say wishes come with a price. I always knew that in my head. Now I feel it in my heart.
Wishes don’t come in bottles, granters don’t live in lamps, and you’re not given three wishes by benevolent genies who nod their heads, wiggle their noses, and say “Yes, Master.” I should be mad at the jackass granter—I glance over at his name. Shaw. One name, that’s it. But Shaw didn’t make the wish. Shaw simply granted it, wholly intact, upon request, before my father could even offer payment. Because that’s how jackass granters work, and the wish come true was both wish and payment.
I turn to Taj, anger flaring in my eyes, my body sharpened with a new form of hate for my father. How could he do this to her? “That’s why she’s confined to her stupid chair and stupid house, because of my stupid, selfish father?”
“It would seem that way.”
“So this is how a jackass granter works,” I say, taking deep, sharp breaths. “Just like you told me when we first met. They work literally, and the payment is often the wish itself.”
“Yes. Apparently the wish was carried out with a horrific sort of exactitude.”
I shake my head several times, as if I could wish this all away. “He made her this way. It’s all his fault.”
Taj says nothing. But an idea hits me in the silence. One more way
to spend my wish. On my mom. “Can I wish her free? Can I use my wish to wish her free?”
He nods. “You could. But unraveling another granter’s wish is complicated. If every wish came undone with another wish, then the fabric of wishing would be compromised. You have to be very precise in the wording if you’re unraveling a wish. And wishes can only be undone with another wish by going before the granter union to make your case.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, that pretty much screws me over. The Leagues won’t let me use a granter, and even if I’m not using one for my powers, they’d probably kick me out anyway.”
“They probably would.”
Then it hits me. The wording.
It’s all in the wording. I look back at my father’s wish in the book reading every awful word. I wish for my wife to never leave me as long as we both shall live.
Maybe that’s the loophole right there. Live. My mother will be free when my father is dead.
I could kill him. I have the means. I have the weapons. I could burn him to a crisp. I open and close my hands as if I’m practicing, getting ready to light him up.
Then I press my fingers into my palm. A reminder that I won’t go there.
I don’t set people on fire, so I can’t undo my father’s awful work, his terrible wish gone awry.
My heart clutches again, like it’s gasping for breath. I ball my hands into tighter fists, as if I can contain my fire with sheer will. But the stretching and pulling in my chest becomes too much. I inhale sharply and I let go of a messy jet of flames. Taj’s eyes widen, but I grab the fire, letting it retreat into me.
The relief is temporary. I’m a time bomb. The clock in me is ticking perilously close to some kind of destruction. Taj pulls me over to the couch and wraps his arms around me. I breathe in. I breathe out. I’ve been broiling in the sun, but it’s as if I just dipped into cool blue waters for a moment.
The calm before the storm. The quiet before the wish I have to make.
I know he can’t hold me forever, but I’m going to do my best to relish these last few moments, before I do something I hate, before I become more like my father and make a wish that will hurt a person I love. My father has molded me in his image, and I’ve detested it, and him.
But I am more like him than I thought.
I feel Taj’s hands on my face, brushing hair from my cheek. An amnesty for another moment.
“I like this,” I whisper in a ragged voice, like I’m barely holding on.
“So do I.”
“I like you,” I continue, more roughness in my throat. I have to get these words out. I have to say this, even as my body rages against me.
“I like you too, Aria.”
“There’s more though,” I say, and now I’m scared in a new way, in a way I’ve never been afraid before. I’m going to put it out there. He pulls back so he can look at me. His eyes are clear, and kind, and full of everything I never knew I wanted, but everything it turns out I really need.
I practice the words silently first—I’m in love with you. The strangest sensation fills me from head to toe. Lightness. I feel as if I could float, as if I weigh nothing. I’m not coiled or tense or looking behind my back. I’m happy, and I’m safe, and I’ve accomplished safety in the presence of another person, not a towering plume of flames that I made myself.
I say the words again in my head, and I don’t feel like I’m floating anymore. Because now I’m flying, now I’m soaring, and though we’re lying very still and quiet on the couch, I’m higher than I was on the rooftop.
Maybe this is how I’m different from my father. He wished out of fear. He has lived his life out of selfish fear. I’m not my father. I’m not my mother. I’m not my brother. I’m more than a thief, I’m more than an artist, I’m more than my lightning-struck heart. I’m myself. And maybe I can have the things I want and the things I need. I can save my sister, I can save myself, and I can save this marvelous boy too.
I sit upright. “I’m ready. I’m ready to wish.”
He winces, as if this pains him, then he straightens up too. He takes a small notebook from his pocket. He becomes businesslike, and I get it. We have to discuss the terms.
“Let’s go aboveground,” I say. Because I want air, I want space, I want room to revel in how much our lives are about to change for the better.
We leave, and this time we take the short route, emerging near the Flatiron Building moments later. He walks me over to Madison Square Park across the street. It’s after midnight, it’s dark, and we’re the only ones here. We stop near a park bench and stand next to it.
“What are you going to wish for, Aria?” he asks in a mechanical voice, because he is all business now, and he has no choice. But this will be one of the last times he has to feel what it’s like to be mastered.
“I’m going to wish for you to grant me natural-born fire, fire that doesn’t fade every few months, fire that doesn’t need lightning to replenish it, fire that I can call on wherever and whenever I need it for the elemental arts. Fire as if I’d been born with it.”
“And how do you propose to pay?”
I’ve thought long and hard about it. I don’t have much to offer, but the fact is, it won’t matter. I won’t have to pay up because he’ll be free when my debt comes due. There will be no one to collect, so it’ll be as if my loan has been wiped clean.
But even so, to make this work for both of us, I’ll have to wish first because I need natural-born fire to stay afloat in my world. I need to bargain for it properly. If he knows my payment offer is as good as crocodile tears, I fear some granter magic may prevent him from agreeing, may clamp down on him and keep him bound to granter rules and regulations. So we’ll have to determine terms first, as if we’re really going through the whole wish-and-payment officially, even though I know the payment will be erased when I tell him how I feel.
Love, it erases any payment due from the wisher, and it frees the granter.
“Myself,” I say, my voice bright and certain. “I offer myself. I offer to trade places with you.”
He shakes his head. “That’s crazy. You don’t want to be me.”
I reach out to touch his arm. “Trust me. It’ll be fine. You said that’s how some people pay. With themselves. By taking the place of a granter. That’s all I have—myself. That’s all I can offer. It has to be good enough. You said it could be. So I offer myself. I offer to trade places with you.”
“And when do you propose I collect?”
“You can collect on the payment in one week. That’s it! Seven measly days is all. And you can collect and I’ll take your place as a granter.”
He scoffs. “Are you insane? If you turn into a granter in a week, why do you need—”
“You know they’re fair terms.” “I say, cutting him off. You know they’re more than fair. Taj, this will be fine. It’ll all be fine. You have to trust me. Please tell me you trust me. Please tell me you know that I know what I’m doing.”
I pick a week because it won’t matter. In a few minutes, I’ll have fire and he’ll be free and there will be no need to collect. The payment I’m making will be wiped clean.
He presses his lips together, keeping his mouth closed. His jaw is set hard. “The terms are satisfactory,” he says through gritted teeth, as he finishes recording them on his notepad, terms that will never be entered into the ledger for all granters to see. Terms that will be erased when I tell him the next thing. I’m practically bouncing, and I want to spill the secret. But I have to keep this wish on the up and up.
“And now, your wish, officially.” He gives me a perfunctory little bow, doffing an imaginary hat in deference to his wisher.
Who also happens to be in crazy love with him.
I’m not sure which to say first—that I love him or what I wish—so I speak quickly, getting all the thoughts out in one big breath.
“I wish, as I stand before you, fully and wholly in mad, crazy love with you, Taj,” I say, and his eyes wide
n when they register what I’ve said, and we’re in cahoots now, we’re teammates, we’ve beaten the system, and he knows it, and he’s smiling and so am I as I finish, “for natural-born fire. And just in case, it wasn’t clear, I’m in love with you, I’m in love with you, I’m in love with you with my whole entire heart. So there.”
He parts his lips, like he’s about to say something, and I hope he’s going to form the words I’m in love with you too, but then some force makes him say what any granter must say after any wish, whether he’s about to be freed or not.
“Your wish is my command.”
He spreads his arms wide and far, like he’s parting the seas. Mist rises from his hands. But the mist isn’t cold or wet—it’s more like a waft, like twin lines of sweet smoke that have the power to move the earth, to shake the mountains, to deliver the greediest or loneliest or hungriest of wishes. The park is humming, as if there’s a low buzz somewhere, a rumble in the smoke. As I watch them radiate from his hands, I can feel the heat in them, the natural-born fire I’ve wished for, the fire he’s giving me. The two lines of smoke wrap around each other and weave their way to me. They meet at my heart, passing like spirits through my skin, then my bones, seeping into my marrow, into my very DNA, leaving their imprint, as if my parents’ genes had marked me the right way back when I was formed.
Now I’m being formed anew, reborn, forged by magic more powerful than DNA, stronger than the lightning I stole from the sky.
The wish pours through me, reclaiming my stitched-up parts, restoring my ashen heart. I can feel the wish taking root, cleansing my dark and dangerous insides, transforming them into something good again. My body grows warmer because there is new fire inside me, a healthy fire, a whole fire. It’s removing the clutching, the tightening. It’s extracting the waxing and the waning and leaving in its place a steady and a strong natural-born fire.
Then Taj closes his hands, and I’m about to run to him, to kiss him and tell him it worked, it totally worked, and now we’re here and we’re free. Both of us.
The Fire Artist Page 16