by J. C. Welker
“Where are we?”
Anjeline held out a hand and a cow lumbered toward her, nuzzling its horned head in her palm. It mewed something and waved its tail. She gave it a nod and voiced, “They say we’re in the Highlands.”
“You can talk to them?” Rebel blinked again.
“The bonds may suppress my power but I can still understand the earth’s creatures.”
“Of course you can.” The wind ruffled hair into Rebel’s eyes, and she noticed a looming castle in the distance. A sign up ahead read: Castle of Mey. They had jumped to the northern Highlands. She turned wide eyes onto Anjeline. “You brought us to Scotland? We’re two days’ travel from London.”
Anjeline stroked the cow’s head. “Well, you didn’t offer a specific location.”
“Well, I was too busy peeing myself.”
A wry expression worked over her face. “And pray tell, what’s your plan now that we’re wanted by half of London’s magic-kind? Do thieves have sanctums?”
Rebel’s chest twitched. Now it wouldn’t be just lycanthropes hot on her tail, but also every magical mobster in the city. A name came to mind. Jaxon. “They do when they’re the fox,” she replied. “We just need a little feline finesse to sneak us onto a train.”
Anjeline understood perfectly. “Rebel, no.”
She smiled. “Rebel, yes.”
Chapter Twelve
For one to steal their way onto the Caledonian Sleeper train, running from Scotland to London, required a certain amount of skill. It also helped when the stewardess behind the counter flushed each time Rebel’s crestfallen eyes met hers. With a mere pout of lips, she had the girl eating out of her palm. “You see, my grandmother’s on her death bed…”
The stewardess’s face turned grave. Rebel’s bag wiggled, and she slipped a hand within, touching fur in a silent gesture for Anjeline to stay still. Till she gave the cue.
After several minutes of Rebel’s tall tales, weaving her silver tongue as if picking a lock, the stewardess looked entranced. Now for the signal.
“Life,” she said. “It’s all a bit…fuzzy.”
A large cat leaped onto the counter.
The stewardess shrieked and flung papers at it. Another steward tried shooing the strange cat away as it hissed and spat, giving Rebel the chance she needed. She glided past the ticketers focused on the commotion and smuggled her way onto the Sleeper train.
The moment her feet hit the allotted distance, she sensed the vase in her satchel snap back like a rubber band, and the vase weighed it down again. She smiled. Weighs more than smoke. As she crept down the train’s hallway, laughter exploded from a group of traveling college students. She inched by well-dressed women with well-dressed lap dogs and slipped into an empty compartment reading: Out of Order. Once the door locked, she rubbed the vase and smoke leaked from her bag.
Within a blink, the vapors had turned into Anjeline, all flowing hair and now looking irritated. But she squinted at Rebel in strange wonder, like a puzzle she couldn’t solve. “Did you really steal a first edition of Shakespeare just to impress a girl?”
Rebel sprawled on the seat-bed. “Is that jealousy I hear?”
A glare came in reply.
“We make a good team,” she added. “And you make a cute cat.” Anjeline ignored her but the vase radiated heat against the satchel. “Did you really help build Solomon’s Temple?” she asked, remembering stories of him.
“Centuries ago.” A wistful look entered Anjeline’s eyes. And then it was gone. “Is that your special wish—a thief’s dream—to be a king?” She blew a ball of light in her palm into the shape of Rebel’s face wearing a crown.
Rebel snorted. If only. But she was wise enough to know the mere act of Anjeline’s banter meant they were growing comfortable with each other.
Bending toward whatever agreement they’d made.
…
For the first day, they stowed away in the train compartment. It seemed they couldn’t communicate without taunting each other, and it felt somehow comfortable and familiar all at once. Whenever her stomach grumbled, Anjeline would wave a hand, swelling her bag with tasty delights. In the evening, the train turned into a hubbub of winers and diners in lounge cars, unwitting to a jinni traveling with them.
When officers came sniffing around, Rebel hid on the train’s outside deck. And by the second day, for the rest of their ride, they took cover in the unheated baggage car, unsure which officers may be human, or wolf.
Now, tucked behind a row of luggage, Rebel shook from the cold. Her backside was numb from the floor, while Anjeline shifted from girl to cat every hour like a pent-up animal. So, Rebel resorted to asking her more about ancient times, what wishes were the worst…but with each question, Anjeline became more silent. Rebel hadn’t slept a wink. Her stomach was upset, her shoulder bit back whenever she moved, and she kept checking if all her appendages were still present, wondering when the consequence of her wish would surface, or if it would be a slow growth. Maybe a hump on her back.
With that looming over, one thing was sure—Rebel wouldn’t be wishing again, not until she released Anjeline. Which brought up another question. “If all wishes have consequences, how will you cast mine without one once you’re free?” she asked as the train’s motion rocked her unpleasantly.
Threads of heat danced between Anjeline’s fingers, casting light for them. “They come with consequence because humans cast them with greed in their hearts,” she said. “Wishes are created with pure magic. They demand pureness in return. Selflessness. Freeing me would be a selfless act, which would allow me to grant one wish in return without a price.”
“What would the usual price be?”
“Depends on the wish and the person. When they’re cast by a greedy soul…well, some consequences are more severe than others, reflecting the shadows of their heart.”
Rebel frowned and rubbed the bruise on her temple, above the scar from when she’d fallen down those stairs. When her life goals had changed. Wishing for a family, for love, for a renewed heart, those things weren’t greedy, were they? “But not all hearts are selfish. Some wishes are for greater things.”
“Forcing me to cast them means keeping me imprisoned. What kind of selfless soul would do that?” Anjeline’s voice thickened with years of grief, and she inched away.
The heat deserted Rebel and cold air rushed between them.
Whatever natural tendency toward hope Anjeline once possessed had manifested itself into something harder on her face. Her eyes were far away, like she had thoughts on bigger things than just freedom. “This isn’t like your books,” she said as though Rebel were naive. “They’re stories that know nothing about life. People are thornier than what those things tell you. Good doesn’t always win. Light doesn’t always burn away the darkness.”
Rebel pressed her lips into a hard line. “Maybe it’s you who knows nothing about people. Darkness exists because light casts a shadow. That’s life…painful and beautiful all at the same time.” Books might have not told her everything about magic, but they taught her how to see it in all things.
Anjeline’s lips twitched. “Painful but beautiful. Sounds more like human love.”
“Now that, I wouldn’t know,” she said sarcastically, but she meant it. She took a cold breath, feeling for her pendant resting on her chest. There was a black void in her heart, where the love of a parent, the love of anyone, had never occupied.
Golden eyes met hers, Anjeline contemplating her with that look. “You’ve always been without kin?” Rebel nodded, turning aside from the fascinated gaze roaming over her. “So, you’ve never been loved?”
The question wasn’t just about family. Rebel shrank from those words, unable to stop from gravitating toward the ones living in the back of her mind. Believing herself, maybe, to not be worthy of it, or anything good. That black void had yawned so wide she used to think gathering stolen treasures could fill it. She used to put rocks under her pillow, wishing for them to tu
rn into diamonds. But she was a book no one wanted to open. A riddle no one dared to answer. A lost girl no one desired to find.
Her heart was tired of not being useful to anyone—especially herself.
She was tired of being a captive to her own flesh. With a shake of her head, she didn’t reply. But as Anjeline gazed at her with that look, as though something tied them together, her chest hummed with…what, exactly? She tried willing it away but it spread deeper. She rubbed at her bruises, as if calming the ones within. Her numb hands shook, and she rummaged in the satchel for her pills. Anjeline persisted to stare, unbothered by the cold. Lucky her. “Stop staring at me,” she said.
Anjeline clicked her tongue. “You could just ask me.”
“For what?”
“For warmth.”
Rebel glanced up in both sheepishness and stubbornness. Taking that for an invitation, Anjeline moved closer. “I’m fine…”
“I can hear your teeth rattling.”
“I’m…”
Anjeline put a finger against Rebel’s lips. “Shh. If you’re frozen, neither of us will get our wish.” The light in her palm danced, and she placed a hand atop Rebel’s.
The air throbbed between them.
It crackled and purred, and Rebel startled as her blood hummed at the touch. Wisps of sultry light danced across her arms, snaking around her legs and torso in a shroud of warmth. The swirling runes upon Anjeline’s forearms gleamed through the sweater, her skin seeming to turn incandescent from within. “Is this how you manage to never freeze?” Rebel asked.
“My heart’s a flame. It repulses the cold.” Heat streamed from Anjeline’s lips.
Rebel snorted and tapped her own chest. “Cold through and through.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” Anjeline’s eyes lingered over her.
Since Rebel had been touched by magic, she felt everything differently now. Colors and sounds were more vivid, as if something had been unlocked inside her. But nothing felt more stirring than Anjeline’s power. Unthinking, Rebel reached out to touch the shimmering runes. She half expected Anjeline to pull away and felt a rush when she didn’t. A thumb ran over her knuckles, so gentle her shivering faded, and her heart gave a sigh. Anjeline’s fingers were warm and delicate, and thrumming with something ancient.
“You’re magic,” she said. “It’s…”
“Pure?” The brightness of Anjeline’s eyes turned bewitching.
“Beautiful. Even if I still don’t understand it.”
“Magic doesn’t need to be explained or understood. It just needs to be believed.” Beneath Anjeline’s words was a lulling power and her runes gleamed brighter, casting her in a smoky halo. She was like gazing at a fiery star—you could never quite look at its center.
And Anjeline became, for a brief moment, the purest thing Rebel had ever seen. She felt it when she’d cast that impossible wish. A power she was just discovering, an out-of-this-world marvel, taking her breath away. Rebel wished she could bottle up the magic to get intoxicated on it whenever she pleased. But then, that’s exactly what someone had done to Anjeline. Bottled her up.
This was the peril of wishes, she understood—the freedom from darkness they presented, the beauty in changing outcomes, turning wrongs into right, and with it came the hunger for more.
A noise startled them apart.
Footsteps echoed in the baggage car accompanied by deep voices. Anjeline flicked out her light and grabbed Rebel’s collar, pulling them into the shadows. As they waited for the railway police to leave, they kept quiet, inches apart, breathing in the same air.
And Rebel wondered what wishes Anjeline had been forced to cast, to have made her look so broken before. Wondered why others hadn’t wished her free and she remembered Anjeline’s words. Not even a wish of freedom could save her. A part of Rebel felt the need to try, but a sneaky part of her wasn’t sure she could. Not until she had her wish. Then a wrinkle worked across her thoughts, confusion about why Anjeline hadn’t chosen to leave her to perish in the basement. Though, she supposed, she was the closest thing Anjeline had to obtaining freedom, just as she was to Rebel.
Once the officers left, Rebel whispered, “I never thanked you…for saving me.”
That half smile almost emerged as Anjeline gazed at their still locked hands, and a luster of heat played between their fingers again. “Although, you’re rather…”
“Vexing?”
A brightness softened Anjeline’s face, taking away some of the darkness that seemed to plague her. “Tenacious. Infuriating. One of the most baffling humans I’ve ever met.”
Rebel warmed at that. “Being human is just one of my defining personality traits.”
“Well, you are less of an ass than some.”
“Quite the line of flattery. Plus, I did liberate you from a safe and a pack of beasts. I should really get some sort of thanks for that.”
A soft laugh slipped from Anjeline, filling the train car in an enchanting sound. She leaned close, blowing a kiss of sizzling magic against Rebel’s cheek, enveloping her in more heat. The memory of those lips on her skin wouldn’t fade. Even when she rubbed the spot, the tingle didn’t lessen. A magical contract. One thing was certain, the sooner they reached Jaxon’s, and she could free Anjeline, the sooner her healing wish would be cast without repercussions.
Rebel just needed to keep them both alive to see it come to pass.
Chapter Thirteen
Alive and tired.
Winter grazed wolf-gray fingers across the morning sky like a bad omen. In a matter of days, Rebel’s world had changed and she hardly recognized London as the one she grew up in. The only thing she did recognize was the half-decayed door to an abandoned carriage house she stood before, so covered with graffiti, posters from handbills and long-forgotten bands, one would never notice it was an entrance to a club. A thieves’ club.
The Freebooters.
The club itself was hidden among the less appetizing mews, converted into dwellings by vagabonds. There were other alleyways similar to this, hidden places, which had been abandoned and eventually forgotten, but Rebel knew this one like a second home.
It had been this very spot where she first encountered the fox, Jaxon. She had been a mere fourteen years old at the time, hungry, depressed, and pickpocketing for her medicine. Unfortunately, that night, she’d picked the wrong pocket. The man had caught Rebel. She remembered his bruising grip, his drunken breath, his insinuations, and how he said he would sell her to the highest bidder. Again and again. The way he slurred, “Smile for me” with his lips curled like some demon. When she’d struggled to get away, he’d attacked her.
She’d been one of the lucky ones.
With all the skills she’d absorbed through books and years of fending for herself, she fought back, her quick fingers grabbing the man’s gun from his holster, and she shot. The bullet had grazed his thigh, lower than her intention, but at least the coward had fled. Then she’d glanced up to see a young man crouched in the alley, laughing. Her hand quivered around the revolver and she had demanded, “Were you going to help me or watch?”
“Love, the coppers are on him.” The young man had tapped his phone and grinned, foxlike. “You were magical. Didn’t want to get between a girl putting a hole in a pimp.”
After that, she’d learn to keep a blade on her person at all times, and Jaxon had offered her a better way of thievery. Instead of picking pockets, she was picking locks. She’d found her calling: unlocking things that yearned to be opened. And with Jaxon’s astute teaching, she began stealing bigger items and came to wish upon a bigger goal. Though the rules of thievery meant never trusting anyone, she depended on Jaxon as one might a brother. A trust which had her now seeking his support with the most precious of things.
Rebel’s satchel grew heavy. “Keep your hair on,” she whispered to it. “We’re here.” She touched the vase inside and it warmed against her freezing fingers. “Jaxon’s never going to believe me about you. He needs to see it,�
� she’d told Anjeline, and they agreed she should withdraw into the vessel for now. London might have been a liberal place where about anything could be glimpsed on its streets, but Anjeline’s jinni-ness would’ve caused enough of a stir to tempt the attention of every magical eye in the city.
Behind a piece of the carriage house door, Rebel unhooked the latch showing the Freebooter’s symbol burned into the door: a circle with two arrows piercing through it. Signaling there was nothing worth stealing. They used the symbol to mislead other criminals. Thieves would scrawl secret signs on buildings to help fellow thieves know which homes or shops to target. The easy targets. The ones full of goodies.
Rebel liked tinkering with the symbols to drive others away. She might have been the Fingersmith, her morals might be slacked, but she disliked the thought of people’s homes being targets. A home she might have had in another life. Even if she’d stolen from those homes on occasion. She knew how much of a hypocrite it made her. But morals were a complicated thing, and it became the one way she kept her own darkness at bay.
The door creaked open and Rebel stepped into the vacant stable. It still stank of fowl and horses it had once housed. Its windows were boarded up, but a few pigeons perched themselves on the rafters. She passed the stalls and a rundown carriage, which had become a nest for rats, and made her way to the stairwell. To anyone else, it appeared to be an empty property, gray and unwanted. But this one housed life.