by J. C. Welker
When the blazing sun is gone. When there’s nothing he shines upon,
Then you show your little light. Twinkle, twinkle, through the night…
Without warning, her mother’s form went soft at the edges, giving way to a blinding light and blurring into a new image. The sky lowered above Rebel as she ran down a tunnel, then the image melted again, and she was up in the air. The dream clouds in the fake sky began to drip into darkness, and her surroundings changed once more. Rebel stood on the edge of a roof, clenching her blackened heart within her hands. A figure floated above her, silhouetted in a cloud of fire. As the figure reached out, arms extending to her heart, a voice whispered in Rebel’s ear. Wake up, it said.
Wake…
Up…
“Stop moving, Faddi.” The voice held a richness to it like a purr.
Warmth pressed against Rebel’s face, and she felt delicate fingers probe her brow. Felt a bed beneath her. Wetness on her shoulder. Once she pried her sore eyes open, they landed on a wonderful vision.
Outside the window, the sky had blushed to pink as if kissed by the sun, casting fragments of light across Anjeline’s face. It trickled over the dark locks spilling over her shoulders, framing her face. As Anjeline turned her head this way and that, gazing down at Rebel, those fire-like eyes seemed to play tricks on everything around her.
Bells tolled outside, awakening her senses.
When Rebel gazed down at herself, she flinched. Her bloody shirt had been ripped half off her chest. She glanced up in horror. “What are you…”
Anjeline snorted. “Oh, please. I didn’t ravish you in your sleep,” she said, but didn’t miss the way Rebel’s gaze traveled to her lips. “Your wound will get infected if not cleaned.” She lifted a cloth stained a disturbing shade of crimson. A strange-looking bowl sat beside her, full of strong-smelling medicinal fluid.
“How did we… How did you…” She expected Anjeline to tell her none of it was real, that her heart condition was playing with her mind. However, she’d also be imagining the fiery being sitting beside her.
“You left the top off.” Anjeline gestured to the vase still clenched in Rebel’s hands. “And you’ve been rubbing it in your sleep.”
When Rebel had slunk back into the Institute last night, the last of her heart strength from escaping the lycanthrope’s den had ebbed away, and she’d passed out onto her rickety bed, the vase clenched in her arms.
“Though, your residence is tinier than the vessel. Never seen anyone hoard stories like a camel stores water.” Anjeline wrinkled her nose at the bedroom, the trinkets which occupied it, and the galore of books.
Despite Rebel’s gloom of a room, it was the closest thing she had to a home. Tiny jade elephants set upon her bookshelf alongside binoculars, throwing stars, and switchblades mixed within a sea of stolen Cadbury Fruit & Nut candies. All of which was nothing compared to the books living on every available surface as if they had sprouted from the wood floor.
Now with the benefit of hindsight, Rebel realized these weren’t mere fictional stories. They just might be literal. She shifted upright and stared at her shoulder. The long gashes. The wound tingled, reminding her it wasn’t a dream, and a horrible vision flashed through her mind. Her body contorting. Sprouting fur. Armored bone unfolding along her spine. Claws ripping through her fingernails.
As if reading her thoughts, Anjeline said, “Your Steelworld likes its tales. A lycanthrope scratch won’t transform you into a beast.”
Good to know. Rebel released a breath.
Fingers reached toward her shoulder again, but she jolted back. Anjeline lifted her hands as though she were trying to calm an uncontrollable bull. “Do you prefer having your lifeblood leak out?”
Finally, Rebel took stock of herself and every inch of her complained. Her slashed shoulder hung limp. Her lips were dry and swollen. Even her teeth throbbed. Her jacket, with three gashes torn on the left sleeve, now hung on the bed. Thanks to the garment, her wound wasn’t as severe as it could’ve been. All because of her heart. For that recklessness, she’d been captured and almost killed. She clutched her arms around herself, for all the good it did. Her body shook with shock, unable to believe what had happened. She gripped the vase, stroking it with a thumb as if it were the arm of some great beast warming her.
“Stop it,” Anjeline snapped.
Rebel paused. “What?”
“Stop rubbing it. You’ve been doing it all night. I can feel it.”
“You…feel it? So, if I do this…” She ran her fingers over the symbols of the vase, as though caressing the spine of an animal.
Anjeline shivered, irritation clouding her eyes. “I swear to the Creator, I’ll scorch you if you don’t quit. And stay still if you want your shoulder bandaged.” In a swirl of smoke, a translucent fabric materialized in her hand. She leaned closer, wrapping gauze over Rebel’s shoulder.
The touch felt thermal.
Rebel must have had quite the bump on the head to let someone this close. Maybe the jinni exuded special pheromones to make anyone around her docile enough to manipulate, aware of every minute detail of her warming skin, from her nose to the soft bow of her lips…
She flushed, suddenly conscious of Anjeline atop her bed. Never had a girl slept in her room, or on her bed, much less. Gramone’s rules. Not a girl, she reminded herself, wondering how old the jinni was and if she were above such mundane things as needing a bath. “At least now I can look at you without wanting to check my vision,” she mumbled.
Anjeline caught her gaze. “Euyunek latifa.”
“Do you have a translation book?”
Her lips twitched into almost a grin. “Is it so difficult for you to believe your life-form isn’t the most intelligent? Those lycanthropes, and many other beings, walk about just as you.”
“In the real world?”
She huffed. “Real world? Are you naive enough to think this is the only one? There are hidden cities pressing into a long line of secret realities. London’s the magic capital, where both Sidhe Courts reside. But you humans are too consumed with your mundane lives to notice magical beings, and they like it that way.”
Rebel remembered stories about such beings, creatures assaulting travelers at night and carrying them through the air. “And those wolves?”
“They are the leaders of the Night Guard. They roam your world carrying out deeds for the Moon Court Prince.”
“So that’s who they were talking about.” Rebel tried wrapping her head around all the things her books vaguely implied. “Moon Court equals murderous, then?”
“They are made up of the unblessed Sidhe. They are to dark what the Sun Court is to light. They abhor humans simply because they’re human.”
“You mean, like you, Jinn?”
A mighty scowl came Rebel’s way.
“Jinn are not Sidhe. We are more influential than you could imagine.” A fearless gleam entered Anjeline’s eyes. In the soft light of the room, she looked even more dangerous at bay. Her beauty seemed unfair to Rebel. Stunning to the point of being…well, unearthly. Like a light you couldn’t contain.
More influential indeed.
“Secondly, if I hated humans, would I have made a contract with one?”
“When you keep calling me human like it’s a bad thing, I have to wonder,” Rebel said. Still, there was something in the way Anjeline looked at her, a glance of curiousness maybe, hidden underneath the hard veil of suspicion.
Anjeline persisted with the bandage, moving close enough that tendrils of her hair spilled into Rebel’s lap. Good lord. She smelled exquisite. Like fire and wind, and lilies of the valley, and something else, something Rebel’s guttersnipe nose had never had the pleasure of smelling. Her chest went hot, and her heart gave a little quiver. “Couldn’t you”—Rebel gestured to her shoulder—“magic the wound away?”
A sigh escaped Anjeline’s lips. “The bindings restrain my full power, only unleashing it when I’m forced to grant wishmongers their de
sire.”
“You just conjured a bandage,” she pointed out.
“Certain mundane things, I can still manage.” Anjeline waved her cuffed wrist. “An apple. Light. Warmth. Things that use little of my magic and are no help to me. No weapons. Nothing that can alter my imprisonment. Besides casting wishes, I can’t do much else, other than producing gauze for an annoying—”
A tremor ripped through Rebel’s chest. She doubled over in pain, startling Anjeline, and scrambled for her satchel on the floor. Her hands shook as she fished through it, popped open her medicine bottle, and swallowed a pill. Little by little, her muscles relaxed, but the dizziness appeared as it always did after a jolt. That one was bad. Probably left over from the wolf threat, when her heart had felt like it would pound itself into a million pieces.
Anjeline kept her eyes, gleaming, and as lovely as a bonfire, on Rebel. They traveled from shaky hands to the bottle and back again. “You’re a thief and a hophead?”
There were countless things Rebel would’ve liked to say in response. “If it’s your intention to get to know me, you’re doing it wrong. I thieve because it’s what I’m good at, because I need to. It doesn’t make me who I…” She stopped and rubbed her temple where pain crept in like the dawn outside. Bright and sharp.
A few seconds passed before Anjeline asked, “Are you all right?”
The question surprised Rebel. She couldn’t remember being asked such a simple thing. Anjeline’s voice was gentle, and even a bit sweet. A voice that could calm a thunderstorm. “I’m…fine,” she replied.
“‘Fine’ in your language must be much different from mine.”
Rebel shrugged her good shoulder. “It means I’m human. If you have a heartbeat, you have a problem.”
For a moment, Anjeline’s gaze roamed over her. She knew she looked damaged, and in the window’s reflection, she caught a glimpse of how damaged. Tangled hair shaded her eyes where raccoon circles lay underneath. Her face, smeared with grime and dried blood, resembled a creature of the night. Feeling exposed, Rebel met her gaze and scowled.
An amused snorting sound came from Anjeline. “Oh, just stop. You’re the least terrifying human I’ve ever had the misfortune of knowing,” she said, and her features softened. “There are other mundane things I can conjure. And for you to survive our search, you’re going to need nourishment.”
On cue, Rebel’s stomach replied in a grumble.
Of all the reactions Anjeline could have had, her quiet, little laugh came as a surprise. The sound was gold. It filled Rebel’s room and bit into her lungs, making her insides do wonderful and terrible things. “Hungry?” Anjeline asked.
Rebel nodded, cheeks flushed. “Like a wolf.”
Chapter Eight
Anjeline stared in horror.
Never had she seen anyone savage a fruit like that. Rebel’s eyes drooped in pleasure as she swallowed. Around them, monumental piles of food filled the bed. Magically conjured victuals. Scones overflowing with creaminess. Deep-fried scotched eggs. Pixie pears so juicy they melted on the tongue. Anjeline had conjured as many as Rebel desired, realizing she had been running on pure adrenaline since yesterday. She’d forgotten humans needed food. And she wasn’t about to let anything get in the way of her search.
Let alone a human’s hunger.
Anjeline turned her attention to the stacks of books. Fiction, fiction. There had to be something here. From the moment she’d entered this Institute, she felt the residue of magic, though unsure of its location. For all her bindings allowed, she could be feeling a magic miles away from here. She shook her head. “We need to find tomes on dark magic.”
Rebel paused midbite. “Sorry, have we met? Hi, I’m a magicless Homo sapien,” she mumbled through a mouth full of food.
It earned her one of Anjeline’s looks. “How can one person be so tiresome?”
Rebel shrugged. “Poor socialization as a child.”
“There are humans born with magic in their blood, who converse with the Sidhe and secure your world. They’re called magicians.”
“Why haven’t I ever seen one?”
“You see them all the time. Like your dragon fiend at the Black Market.” Rebel looked surprised but she went on. “A dark magician captured me, remember? Humans. Never underestimate the cruelest of beasts.”
Rebel glanced at her with a hypocritical eye and wiped her mouth. “Doesn’t your kind often trick my kind to devour their souls?”
“That is a demon,” Anjeline stated. People all read the same lore, speaking of Jinn as malicious, haughty beings, none like her. “There are benevolent Jinn just as there are malevolent ones.”
At Anjeline’s command, a thread of light appeared in her palm. Rebel watched as the tendril drew itself into a glowing shape, half humanlike and half smoke. “The Creator formed us from the breath of fire, designed us to aid mankind.” The light twirled, forming a being of each kind. “Jinn and man were peaceful once. Ifrits weren’t all judgmental. They used to safeguard kings’ armies in the desert. The giant marids were sought out for their power, along with others. But over time, many came to detest humans…”
“And?” Rebel prodded, dropping crumbs.
“More and more, magicians took to summoning us. Jinn would agree to do the magician’s favor and, in return, they would offer something back. But like everything else man touches, many began capturing us, controlling our magic for themselves, invoking Jinn to do their dirty bidding. So the Jinn fought back, tricking them, possessing them. But they even attempted to bind the most hostile of Jinn, the shaitan.”
The light reshaped into a crimson form.
Rebel leaned closer, eyeing her. “What kind are you?”
“I am Jinn of the Noor. One of a few wishmakers. We whisper to the heavens. Kiss the stars.” The glowing figure in Anjeline’s hand molded into a roc bird feather.
Reaching out, Rebel touched the shape and smiled as it danced. It felt like Rebel had run fingers over Anjeline’s arm and she shivered. She watched as light refracted off long lashes and silver eyes glistened in wonder. Rebel’s expression reminded her of another human. Wise Solomon had marveled at her stories, too, wanting nothing more than knowledge, friendship, not a wish.
Anjeline closed her hand and the light winked out.
Lashes swept up as Rebel blinked. A few hairs fell over her brow, framing her face like a picture. “Exactly how did this dark magician trap you?”
“Dark magic is like poison to our essence. He trapped me with it.” Anjeline rubbed her wristlets and the symbols on it shimmered. “The magician’s mark binds me to the vessel, controlling my full power for wishes. Suppressing me from shape-shifting into anything threatening. Not even my roc bird form, just a useless cat.”
Rebel grinned. “I fancy cats.”
“You would. When not bound, I can take many forms. But now I can’t even…return to my own world.” The longing in Anjeline’s voice seemed to confuse Rebel, and she explained not even another jinni could break her bonds. “Each magician’s mark is unique like their fingerprint. When they forge a binding, it must be undone by their power. Every possible solution, I’ve tried. Refusing to grant wishes. But if I do, the bonds slowly rip apart my essence until I concede to grant it…or perish. Not even a wish can free me.”
For a heartbeat, understanding eyes met hers.
“Every lock has a key,” Rebel said, nearly as a prayer.
At that, Anjeline’s insides warmed a little. The vase heated against Rebel’s side, drawing her attention to the glyphs and runes, the gems shining as bright as new, and the gold that hadn’t darkened with age. She watched Rebel as though seeing the gears of her brain churning, trying to figure it out. Her eyes narrowed and her nose scrunched up in concentration. It was almost cute. For a human.
When Rebel’s fingers raked over the vase, the symbols gleamed: water, air, fire, earth, and one unique emblem. The mark mirroring the ones on Anjeline’s cuffs. A moon surrounded by a circle. “This mark is
the magician’s who imprisoned you?” she asked.
The question turned Anjeline rigid, as if speaking of the past seemed to draw her back within it. “The mark belongs to the dark magician known as Victor Nero.”
“The alpha mentioned that name. That’s the magician I stole you from?”
“If it were him, you would be dead.” Anjeline’s voice wavered at the thought. “You broke into a noble magician’s sanctum. She rescued me out of Nero’s hands and required my help in searching out a—person.”
“So?” Rebel ate another biscuit. “Even noble magicians want their wishes?”
Anjeline clicked her tongue. “There are things more important than wishes.”
“Like?”
“Things of substance. Life. Love. Kin.”
“Jinn have kin?”
“We have tribes. What you call family.”
Rebel stiffened at the word, then hissed. Her hand went to her shoulder wound, pushing away the pain, but it didn’t mask the ache in her features. When she spoke again, her voice was hushed. “Well, I haven’t a family, or barely life.” A change passed over Rebel’s aura like a storm cloud blocking out the light.
Something ticked inside Anjeline, the few inches between them radiating with her heat. Fire she was born of, and it seemed her smoky insides burned brighter around this human’s aura. Solomon, hers glows just as bright as yours used to. His voice came to her, and she remembered the words he used to say. “Some have souls of clay clinging to material things, but others have souls of fire and wish to fly,” she voiced, almost able to see Rebel’s every thought. Every wish.
The cloud vanished from Rebel’s face, looking as if her mind had just been read, and she rubbed her cheek, at the spot where Anjeline had met her with a promise. A contract.
“The pact is binding.” The lie burned her tongue. “You can’t rub it off.”