by Hero Bowen
Nadia followed dutifully, only to gasp as she entered the next room. This was the room—the chamber a thousand wish hunters would give their left arm to snatch a glimpse of. And though Nadia had always wondered why it was called the “wishing cellar,” it all made sense as she took in the view.
The ceiling curved down to the flagstone floor like the one outside in the annex, and every wall was covered in sturdy wooden racks that hugged the contours of the vast, semicircular space. Shadowed passageways led off in all directions, presumably to more curving caverns like this one, where wishes were stored in place of vintage wines. At least, that was what Nadia assumed was contained within the gunmetal gray safe-deposit boxes that adorned every rack. Each one had a number engraved on the front.
“Wishmaster.”
The voice brought Nadia’s attention back to the center of the room. Thanks to the dimmed halogens buried in the stone walls, she hadn’t noticed they had company until that moment.
Kaleena twisted the nearby dimmer switch, bringing three figures into view. Nadia’s heart stuttered in her chest. Croak stood sentinel over a zip-cuffed Miles, who sat hunched in a chair and wore a tense, faraway expression. It took Nadia a moment to place the third figure—a man strung up by the neck with a rope attached to a ceiling hook, his feet dancing a frantic jig to keep his tiptoes on the wooden chair beneath him.
Dominic—Adrian’s henchman who’d attacked them at Bonaventure.
“Nadia . . .” Miles said, relief in his voice, though she couldn’t quite tell whether the relief was because she was okay or because he didn’t seem to be paddling up shit creek quite as fast as Dominic was.
Kaleena strode toward Dominic, her elegant boots clicking ominously across the flagstones.
“You’ve tried so hard to get in here, and yet now you can’t get out,” Kaleena mused, resting a hand on the chair that was between Dominic and a slow, strangled death. “I’d admire your perseverance if I was the sort of person who admired irony. But I’m not.”
She rocked the chair slightly, and Dominic’s eyes widened as he fought to keep his footing on the slippery, varnished wood.
“You’ve been like a pesky sand gnat to me for years now, always crawling into crevices where you don’t belong,” she continued, her voice chillingly calm. “You were small enough for me to ignore. But now, here you are, trying to take what doesn’t belong to you, and I can’t have that. Adrian’s not in charge now, Dominic. There’s no more begging for forgiveness when you never asked for permission.”
“No, we just have to lick your boots . . . every time we want a wish!” Dominic spat, his words tangled in the rope around his throat. “I’m sick of being treated like . . . a second-class citizen.”
Kaleena tipped the chair forward, forcing Dominic to kick out to try to gain purchase on its flimsy back.
Nadia observed the situation with a mixture of alarm and pitilessness. Dominic had held on to the misguided hope that Adrian would somehow return to power and grant wishes to whoever agreed to serve him. Kaleena was far more selective with whom she let work for her, handpicking only those she deemed worthiest to receive wishes. The way Kaleena had pincered the wishing world of Savannah with strict rules and held unspent wishes as collateral—something Adrian had never done—hadn’t earned her widespread devotion, but it certainly earned her fear, and plenty of hate to go along with it.
But what was Miles doing here? Nadia had assumed Val was talking about him when she’d said someone had tried to escape, but now Nadia wasn’t so sure. Maybe they’d been referring to Dominic. Either way, she guessed that her recent accomplice had been brought here for the same reason she had: the show. Kaleena wanted Nadia and Miles to understand the consequences of crossing her. Perhaps that meant Miles would be let off with a slap on the wrist if he assured the Wishmaster he’d behave.
Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.
Miles eyed Nadia curiously, as if trying to sense the wish inside her—the one that no longer existed. A guilty warmth tingled across Nadia’s face, and she hoped that he’d forgive her when he found out the circumstances.
“You and your friends wanted to make a wish to oust me, didn’t you?” Kaleena asked. “Why don’t you tell me all about it. If you were going to go to such lengths, you really should’ve aimed for a more potent wish.”
Dominic managed to steady himself in an awkward en pointe. His eyelids flickered with anger, but the rest of him had turned waxy with anxious sweat. “You . . . murdered Adrian!” he said in a garbled voice, the rope still tight around his neck. “I know it, even if . . . no one can prove it!”
Nadia stilled. She’d assumed Adrian was still alive and had been lying low, licking his wounds. But dead? Maybe she shouldn’t have been all that surprised, but to think that her own sister was capable of such violence filled her with a sinking sense of unease.
“That isn’t what I asked,” Kaleena replied. “Adrian was already on borrowed time during his spell as Wishmaster. If I hadn’t usurped him, someone else would’ve. But I wouldn’t stoop so low as to kill him.” She crossed her arms. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten what Adrian was really like. Murder was his MO. He made a lot of enemies that way. Maybe one of them caught up with him.”
Nadia didn’t believe it. Maybe Kaleena hadn’t murdered him herself, but she had clearly been more involved than she was admitting, judging by her cavalier attitude.
“You planned it. I know . . . you did,” Dominic hissed.
“Whatever makes you feel better,” Kaleena said with a shrug as she walked to the wall and typed a code into a keypad. Part of the wall slid to the side, revealing a series of narrow wooden drawers. She pulled the top one out and removed a slip of wishery paper, fashioned from a gossamer-thin strip of papyrus-like material. Like the wooden wish traps and wishing bark infusion, the unusual paper came from the Wishing Tree itself. The few times Nadia had seen wishery paper, it always had that same subtle, silvery sheen.
Dominic’s nostrils flared as he saw the paper.
Kaleena wafted the slip like a tiny flag. “I’m going to take your used wishes, Dominic. What, did you think I was really going to hang you? Not when there’s greater value in the living.”
Dominic struggled more insistently. “No, you’re just . . . a common . . . hope stealer!”
Nadia almost snorted at the hypocrisy. Adrian had his own squadron of hope stealers when he’d been Wishmaster. Although Nadia had never seen it done, she’d heard rumors of hope stealers ripping used wishes out of their enemies and reselling whatever they had wished for to someone else. It was the ultimate insult to take someone’s spent wishes and leave them powerless.
“You . . . can’t!” Dominic gasped around his noose. “You don’t . . . know the wording of . . . my wishes.”
Kaleena sauntered up to him and stepped onto the chair so she could whisper into his ear.
Dominic’s petrified face said everything: the Wishmaster knew.
As Kaleena stepped off the chair, Dominic thrashed against his bonds and noose—the last act of a desperate man. Nadia’s stomach churned at his panic and despair. He was no saint, true, but he didn’t deserve torture and humiliation on top of what was likely going to be his execution.
“No!” he cried. “No, you . . . can’t! Please! Don’t! I’ll do anything, just don’t . . . take them away!”
Kaleena walked to one of the ornamental side tables and took a pen from the embedded drawer. In her elegant cursive, she wrote something before folding the wishery paper in half. Without so much as a glance at Dominic, she dropped it into the flame of one of the purple candles that flickered around the wishing cellar.
The paper burned in an instant, and Dominic screamed. His veins lit up, silvery lines pulsing up and down his limbs, splintering up his neck and into his face. He flailed and twisted, a fish dangling from a hook. Two square wooden boxes were hinged open on one of the side tables—wish traps for capturing his wish-given abilities, Nadia was sure.
&
nbsp; “I suppose you’ll be more careful with guns, now that you’re no longer bulletproof,” Kaleena said above the din. She closed the wooden boxes simultaneously with a casual flick of her wrists. “And you won’t be weaseling out of any more scrapes with your second wish either, which is bad news for you, especially right now.”
Nadia shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut so she wouldn’t have to watch Dominic’s face.
“You know, I never understood why so many of Adrian’s followers chose to be bulletproof, since it’s so easy to guess the wording,” Kaleena mused. “There are a thousand other ways a person can meet their end, anyway: stabbing, drowning, strangulation, electrocution, et cetera. I suppose asking for invulnerability is riskier than keeping it simple; it could manifest differently. And you never did get a potent enough wish, did you, Dominic?”
“Make it . . . stop!” Dominic howled, the silvery spiderwebs of his veins turning an unsettling shade of black. His body bucked and spasmed, his face deepening to purple as the rope tightened around his neck.
Kaleena went to the cleat on the wall and unraveled the rope, lowering Dominic to the ground. He collapsed in a sweating, gasping, writhing heap, his eyes rolling back into his head as he unleashed one final, tortured scream. Then he passed out, though Nadia suspected there’d be more pain to come—physical and emotional—when he woke up again.
“This isn’t like you,” Nadia said quietly, unable to keep the words from escaping her mouth. “You never used to be this cold.”
Kaleena dusted off her hands. “If I seem icy, it’s only because I have to keep putting out other people’s fires.”
“You don’t have to be cruel.” Nadia knew she was treading on dangerous ground, but she couldn’t help it. It needed to be said. This was nothing but a demonstration of the Wishmaster’s power, and it proved how close she was to becoming Adrian, despite her proclaimed differences from him.
“When you’re in my position, then you can tell me what’s necessary,” Kaleena replied, unmoved, as her attention turned to Miles.
Nadia’s heart leaped into her throat. “Don’t! He only wanted his wish back!”
“Calm down before you embarrass us both.” Kaleena sighed. “Now, Mr. Miles Hunter, you don’t need to look at me like that either. I won’t steal your wishes—as long as you steal another wish to replace the one you took. And do me an added small errand for trying to attack my associates.”
Miles stared right back. “I shouldn’t have to do anything. Like Nadia said, I was just trying to get my wish back. My rightful wish that I made by saving a life.”
“Ah, but it’s what you did afterward that requires due penance,” Kaleena said, wagging a finger at him. “One wish, that’s all. That’s a bargain considering all the trouble you’ve put me through.”
Miles scoffed. “I had to do those things to get my wish back—which I’d already paid you for, remember? Plus, I didn’t see your people intervening to give me back what I’d earned.”
Kaleena dragged the spare chair over and sat down across from him, knee to knee. “I don’t want to hurt you, Miles. I only hurt people who want to hurt me, and you’re not one of them. But I’m afraid you still have to pay for what you’ve done. Besides, you have so much more to lose than merely being bulletproof like Dominic. What would it be like for you, I wonder, to go from being ‘an all-around guitar god’ like your idols, as you so helpfully put it, to being a mere mortal like the rest of us?”
Nadia’s jaw dropped; she remembered Miles saying those words in the cell, but she hadn’t realized they were the exact wording of his wish. Judging by the horrified expression on his face and the way he sat bolt upright, they were. But how could Kaleena have known with such certainty? He could’ve used any number of other phrasings, like wishing for fame, or wishing for musical talent, or wishing to win Grammys, or just wishing to be a guitar god without the “idols” part.
“How did you—?” Miles lurched to his feet, but Croak shoved him back down.
Kaleena shrugged. “I have associates with a variety of talents. But thank you for confirming that they were right.”
Miles stared dead ahead, and Nadia could almost feel the dread coming off him in waves.
“You don’t have a lot of options, Miles.” Kaleena’s voice softened as she continued, but there was no warmth in it. “You bought another wish from me a few years ago, and now that you’ve lost your third, you have no more to spend. I don’t care how you spent your other wish, but that first one certainly seems very important to you. I doubt you’d be able to keep your career without it.”
Miles opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t seem to form any words. Nadia’s heart went out to him. His whole life—his whole identity—had to be flashing before his eyes.
Nadia’s own wish crept into her head. She didn’t want to serve someone like her sister, making new deals and paying off another debt. She’d already spent the last three years of her life toiling for Basha and Grace under the pretense that she owed them something, though she no longer knew if that was anywhere close to the truth. She was tired of being wedged under other people’s thumbs. But what could she do? She was fresh out of options too—Kaleena had seen to that.
“One wish? And one errand?” Miles’s mouth set in a grim line.
Kaleena nodded.
“And your goons will stay off my incredibly pert ass for the rest of my born days?” It should’ve comforted Nadia that Miles hadn’t lost his sense of humor, but it didn’t. She knew a defense mechanism when she saw one.
Kaleena mustered the ghost of a professional, unamused smile. “That’s the deal.”
“I don’t really have a choice, anyway. Fine. Whatever it takes to get clear of you bunch of backstabbers,” Miles replied. Nadia wasn’t sure if his barb was aimed at her too. She hoped not.
“I need to hear a ‘Yes, I’ll do it.’ I don’t like vague responses,” Kaleena prompted.
Miles adopted a childish expression, and his reply matched. “Yes, O powerful and mighty Wishmaster, I’ll do it.”
“Excellent.” Kaleena turned her attention back to Nadia, beckoning her with a small flick of the hand. “Now, I need you to check on our unconscious friend over there. Get a good look into his eyes.”
Nadia didn’t fully understand the point of the request—she wasn’t that type of doctor, after all—but she obeyed, slowly approaching the slumped figure on the ground. His chest rose and fell with small, jagged breaths. She crouched at his side and peered down at his half-lidded eyes, only to shake her head in surprise as that strange fishbowl, shutter-lens sensation warped her vision once more.
“Take his hand and say a good, wholesome prayer for him,” Kaleena instructed, perching farther forward on the edge of her chair.
A surge of uncertainty shot through Nadia. What was going to happen, exactly? Regardless, she wasn’t really in a position to refuse.
Nadia reached for Dominic’s hand. The moment her warm skin touched his clammy palm, an electric shock jumped into her fingertips and shot up her arm in a startling spike. Her hand jerked back like she’d put her fingers in a live socket, though Dominic didn’t seem to be affected. He lay still, his breaths uneven.
“Did you feel it?” Kaleena asked with an undertone of excitement.
Nadia gulped. “I felt . . . something.”
“Val!” Kaleena shouted abruptly, making Nadia jolt for a second time.
Val lumbered into the room, eyes flitting as though expecting to find a fight. “Yes, Wishmaster?”
“Take Dominic to one of the vaults as planned, and make sure all the emergency exits are locked. Especially that one at the back,” Kaleena commanded.
As Val dragged Dominic out, Nadia and Miles locked eyes. Immediately, the world became a fishbowl again. Nadia’s vision narrowed and distorted, filling with kaleidoscope shards of refracted color, as though someone had placed strange lenses over her eyes.
Croak yanked Miles out of the chair and hauled him toward the
exit, following Val’s lead. As Miles passed her, Nadia reached for his zip-tied hands on impulse. As their skin touched, a fresh bolt of lightning forked up her arm. She couldn’t explain the feeling, but she sensed it was connected to the wish Kaleena had forced her to make. Miles glanced at Nadia with haunted eyes one last time before Croak pulled him away.
“I knew you’d keep yourself together,” Kaleena said, now that they were alone in the wishing cellar. “You are my sister, after all. Apple of my eye. Or rotten apple, as Basha would say.”
Nadia did her best not to shudder. “What does this wish do? I don’t understand.”
“All in good time.” Kaleena took out her phone and watched the black screen intently. “If I try to explain, it’ll just confuse you. Think of this as on-the-job training.”
Nadia wanted to grab her sister and rattle the answers out of her, but there was no point. Kaleena would call for backup, and Nadia would wind up back in a vault before she could even get out the words “What the hell is wrong with you?” She contemplated the wording of the wish, trying to figure out how it might have changed her.
Kaleena’s phone rang.
“What is it, Val?” Kaleena answered on speakerphone, implying that she wanted Nadia to hear the conversation.
“It’s Dominic,” Val replied flatly. “He escaped out the emergency exit at the back, and he’s headed down the street. I sent Tiger and Bones after him, but he’s pretty quick for his size.”
Nadia expected a volcanic eruption of fury from her sister, but instead, Kaleena chuckled in delight.
“Perfect,” Kaleena said. She hung up and turned to Nadia. “Now it’s time for your test run.”
Nadia frowned. “Test run? What are you talking about?”
“You never used to be this slow.” Kaleena tutted. “It should be obvious by now—if not, your wish intuition should kick in shortly. Think of Dominic. Put him in your mind’s eye.”
Nadia didn’t want to, but it was like someone saying not to think of pink elephants and being unable to stop the mind from conjuring up the image. As her thoughts focused on Dominic, her vision warped into that same fishbowl lens, fractured with rainbow shards. The vignette around her field of vision spiraled inward, the whole world twisting in a vortex, and she found herself being sucked right out of her body and into that spinning cyclone.