by J. C. Welker
Rebel exhaled irritably. “Still not following.”
“For seven moons, we celebrate before the solstice, giving thanks to the Creator. We bathe in the healing waters and drink of the sacred wine. It purifies our spirit. Ergo…to enter the Fate’s domain, one must first be pure of heart and sterilized.” Piran poured a chalice of water over Rebel’s head.
She sputtered, blowing soap out of her mouth. “Pretty sure my spirit has been thoroughly sterilized,” she snapped as Piran slipped out of the door, laughing all the way.
Anjeline couldn’t help but grin. More creatures fluttered about Rebel’s head, ones with hummingbird wings and jewel-colored eyes, followed shortly by more sprites—lavender ones, midnight blue ones—until several of them covered her. Rebel stiffened, certainly feeling the tiny hands washing her hair, lifting her arms and scrubbing underneath. She growled, hugging one arm around her body, not used to the way she was being cared for. The satchel remained beside her, sitting on the ledge of the pool with her arm draped atop it, as if at any moment, it might be ripped away.
Whatever her special wish was, it must be something worth more than Anjeline knew. She shooed a few sprites and put a hand on Rebel’s, sensing her aura calm. “No one here can make off with the vessel.”
“Says the jinni who was stolen by a common human,” Rebel said. There was a certain amount of vulnerability hidden behind her gaze, more than her usual gentleness, and it made Anjeline’s insides smolder with all sorts of things.
“Rebel, relax.” She put a finger underneath Rebel’s chin, lifting her head so their eyes met. “It’s safe, Faddi.”
After a second of silence, Rebel released her satchel, letting the sprites set it on a nearby table to remain dry. But those bright eyes kept shifting from her bag to Anjeline, noting the distance. She could feel Rebel’s dislike of the water space separating them. Being here, within the center of magic, had allowed Anjeline to stroll about without fear of the vessel’s perimeter wrenching her back within, which meant she could leave Rebel’s side. For the last several days, they had been practically glued to each other, so much it now felt as though something was missing.
“How can,” Rebel began, confusion wrinkling her brow. “you be far from the vase now? From me?”
Was that an invitation?
Anjeline waded in the pool, coming mere inches from Rebel’s face, and watched her take a breath. She brushed soap fizz aside and said, “Because of the magic this place holds, the vessel’s markings don’t have such an enthrall on my bonds.”
“What about your power?”
“Still restrained for wishes. Though in this place, I can walk a little freer.” The burden of the bonds usually making Anjeline bow underneath it was dull, faint now, letting little sparks of herself dance through, as it had when they’d first crossed the threshold into the Court. But it mattered not. She was still imprisoned. She sighed, letting a heat halo surround her, and her runes shimmered. Wonder filled Rebel’s gaze and she warmed a little to see it.
“You can touch them,” she said.
“I…” Rebel blushed with the intensity of a thousand suns.
Charming. Anjeline felt an overwhelming desire to see how many shades of pink her cheeks could become. She didn’t stop herself this time, but instead slid her hand over Rebel’s, taking in every detail. Slender fingers created for lockpicking, for hiding things from the eye, marked by a few tiny scars. Rebel stared at her hand, not used to the sensation.
But Anjeline understood, knew the feeling well. She never realized how starved for affection one could be until someone touched her, held her hand a bit tighter, and she found that she didn’t want to let go. They had both grown an impenetrable skin around themselves to avoid being hurt. But it had come at a lonely cost. She half expected Rebel to pull away and felt a rush when those fingers trailed up her own arm, making her runes brighten.
“Do the runes mean something?” Rebel’s fingers traced one.
She shivered. “They are unique to each Jinn, like your fingerprint. They tell our ranking. Our magic.”
“And your feathers?”
“They’re a part of my true form. But now, because of the bonds, they rarely surface unless I’m trying to shape-shift or feeling overwhelmed. If I centralize my magic enough, I might make them appear despite Nero’s mark…” Anjeline swallowed. She clenched her eyes, but the flashes of memories came. They clung to her insides like a film. For this brief moment—here, with Rebel—she’d almost forgotten about her pain. About her vengeance, not just for the souls lost, but for every Jinn captured. For every torn heart she could lay at the magician’s feet. When she glanced up, gentle eyes were fixed on her.
“He can’t control you anymore,” Rebel said.
It amazed Anjeline how she was able to read her thoughts so easily. “How do you…”
“We may be different, but we’ve both been tormented.” Rebel’s features acquired a solemn hue. “People who try to control you always overestimate their power and underestimate the little guy. Or girl.” She punctuated her words with a dismissive chuckle.
But there was magic in them.
Anjeline felt it stir in her core, and now looked at Rebel without the thickness of clothing. Beyond her svelte frame, she had the build of someone deprived of a lifetime of proper meals. Anjeline chastised herself for not conjuring Rebel more biscuits, feeling outrage at how such a wonderful soul could’ve been abandoned.
“How could someone just leave you on a doorstep?” she uttered.
“I…” Rebel tensed. “I’m not sure my parents had a choice.”
Her insides flared as she watched grief bleed into Rebel’s aura, felt it reaching across the distance between them like some sort of spell, weighing her down. She couldn’t help but want to diminish it. She touched Rebel’s cheek. “You deserved better.”
The grief dissolved as a gleam entered those eyes. “But then I never would have met you,” Rebel said. “I used to think no one cared about what happened to me. Then I found out the magic I grew up wishing for…was right in front of me.”
There it was again.
A spark surfaced in the corner of Anjeline’s heart. Rebel had somehow mastered the ability to unlock anything, including something she thought she’d lost. Hope. That was the thing about Rebel… She actually believed in magic. Believed it could make things better.
“Solomon believed like you,” Anjeline voiced. “Eventually, he found wishing was useless. Miracles happened without the need of magic.” She slid fingers over the bruises on Rebel’s arms. It would be so easy to offer healing, if she weren’t bound. “I want you to know, I was—I am—more powerful than this.” She twisted her cuffed wrist. “Than conjuring mundane things. When I was free—”
“I bet you could set the world aflame.” Rebel touched her hand. “You’ve been forced into a cage, but you still have your claws. And we will find a way to free you. Then we’ll find him.”
Rebel gazed at her as if there were other worlds in her eyes. No one had ever looked at Anjeline in that way, not even her own kin. In Rebel’s presence, she didn’t feel like a prize to be taken. She felt like something treasured. The connection that had grown between them seemed to swell two sizes, and she thought she saw something more in Rebel’s gaze, making her spirit flame with an unreasonable heat.
Suddenly, Rebel’s eyes widened.
A yelp followed, either from laughter or despair. “Hey! Make them stop!” She splashed at the waters below. “They’re around parts they shouldn’t be around!”
Several giggling sprites retreated from the pool.
Laughter erupted from Anjeline. “What parts are those?”
“Funny, fire girl.” Rebel splattered water, dowsing her.
With a cupped hand, Anjeline splashed back and giggled…actually giggled.
Solomon, I’m acting like a flummoxed girl. Here was the opportunity to be herself for one moment, and to simply be enough. She’d learned to never let anyone get cl
ose for this reason, afraid they might see her vulnerable parts, see what was inside and use it to control her. But Rebel hadn’t wanted that. She had found not some human monster as Madrath had taught her to see, but rather a reflection of herself. Their alliance became more than an agreement, something that kindled the sleeping flame inside of her. She swallowed over it, wondering if this was how it felt to let someone in. To care. A dangerous feeling.
Rebel noticed her staring. “What?”
“No one’s ever made me laugh like that.” Anjeline caught her breath. Her blood scorched her veins with a feeling so sweet her insides dissolved. Rebel had touched her in so many ways, all without ever using a hand. “Guess you just bring out my fiery side.”
An understanding smirk worked over Rebel’s face, and she leaned in, nudging a shoulder with Anjeline’s. “Are you telling me the mighty Dalil of Prophets, Daughter of the Scorching Winds…has a soft spot for a human?”
Anjeline let her smile speak for her. “Is this you trying to be charming?”
Rebel’s brow inched up. “You’re pretending you’re not charmed?”
Another bubble of joy slipped from Anjeline, and she pressed her lips to Rebel’s cheek, letting them linger there with her heat. With her promise.
“What was that for?” Rebel inhaled, looking dazed in the best way.
“Everything. And your virtue.” She raised a finger and tapped Rebel’s nose. A hunger emerged in those gentle eyes, and for a moment, she wanted nothing more than to feed it.
The sound of the door drew them apart.
“We have other things to cover your virtue.” Piran grinned, carrying garments.
Anjeline barely listened as he described the various threads he had in mind for the solstice. She was unable to concentrate on anything but Rebel, feeling a sudden surge of heat swell within, taking a hold of every part of her. But something else was forming, far louder in her mind and deeper than Madrath would ever want her to admit. Just then Rebel’s expression changed, her lips twisted, and she rubbed at her upper chest.
“Is it your heart?” Anjeline asked.
Rebel shook her head, but the hollows under her eyes had become darker than before. The armor of stoicism she wore was breaking, cracks appearing. Whatever reason her heart beat so erratically, she wasn’t willing to speak of it. Yet. And Anjeline couldn’t help but feel a weary dread. Something was terribly wrong with her thief.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Several days passed in a blur.
With each heartbeat, Rebel was reminded of their search. And the cost of failure. As the days dissolved into celebration and rituals, pulling her impossibly closer to Anjeline, she’d been passed around the palace Court like a pet, indulging in odd things. And at nightfall, Anjeline told her stories of the Jinn realm, where wishes were fashioned in the void between worlds, a parallel dimension different from the world of humans or any other.
She loved watching Anjeline draw light figures in her palm, even drawing on Rebel’s skin, so she didn’t think her heart could take feeling more. The funny little prickle at her neck, the sensation whenever Anjeline drew near. The humming. The magic. She’d come no closer to freeing that magic. Their only solution now remained with the Fates. Until, at last, the night of the winter Solstitium had arrived.
“My, my.” Piran crooned. “You look charming.”
“I look like an ass,” Rebel grumbled.
“No. You feel like an ass. Can’t do much for that.”
Rebel did indeed feel like an ass. She glanced down at the clothes she’d never worn in her life. Inlayed in the collar of her sapphire top were winking crystals resembling a starry sky, while the garment’s front dipped low, yet the material was thinner—so much that she imagined a slight breeze might rip it from her body. Whereas her silk slacks fit like a second skin, feeling as if she were being permanently hugged below the waist. She’d always been better suited to her own armor of jeans and leather jacket.
“You look woo-able,” Piran said. “Don’t you want to charm your Anjeline?”
Did Anjeline want to be charmed by her? To her displeasure, Piran had separated them to be adorned for the solstice. And if Rebel’s outfit wasn’t enough of a sign screaming she was trying to impress, its revealing front might as well have been stitched with the message: Anjeline’s Human. Then there was the second ritual bath, again with Anjeline all bare and…bare. She shook the image away, though saving it for later. Her lips might have begged for ruthless kisses, but the only thing she knew how to handle was her switchblade.
She stuttered at the thought. “Stop scheming. She’s not my Anjeline.”
“Denial.” Piran’s wings wrinkled through the back of his velvet garb. “Check your eyes. They’re like moons when you see her.” She ignored him. But as they entered the grand crossroads hall of the Court, where they had first fallen through the clock tower into Westminster, she searched about for Anjeline.
A sea of diamonds shined in the night sky, glittering through the hall’s ceiling-high windows. Her fingers itched to reach up and pluck them, stringing them into a necklace for a certain fire girl. Countless lanterns and fireflies lit the enormous hall in a rainbow of illumination resembling a ballroom. A dueling melody played as robed figures and pointed-eared Sidhe danced, some peering into each other’s eyes lovingly. Each one twirled around a ceremonial route, leading from the hall into The Council Chamber to a fountain of wine, where Lady Danu stood at its center, flanked by two wolves.
Rebel watched the winsome dance. “Tell me again, what must I do for the solstice?”
“Solstitium,” Piran said. “We dance as one, celebrating unity, and partake of the hallowed cup. The wine comes from the sacred tree, magical enough to sniff out the darkness of any heart and cleanse it before you see the Fates.”
Couples, both magician and Sidhe, danced in parallel lines facing each other, and performed a sequence of movements, changing partners down the line. When the melody changed, their partners changed, until they reached the center of the Court, where a goblet sat atop the wine reservoir.
Gold flashed in the corner of Rebel’s eyes.
Her heart skipped, but it turned out to be a magician in gold. A thought struck her. Was Anjeline dancing with someone else? Jealously sparked and she fingered her satchel at her side, feeling the vase’s weight. Being here might have allowed Anjeline to stroll about without fear of being wrenched within, but it worried Rebel. That feeling haunted her. That somehow Anjeline would be taken.
As she drew near the dancers, curious eyes turned and stared. The whispers were hushed, but she could imagine what they said. She may have been wearing their attire, but they recognized she wasn’t one of them, as one knows a fish wearing a suit is not a person. The melody passed couples along while she remained without a partner. Folk twirled and laughed, some trying to dance with their lips cemented together. And she wondered if this was what it would have been like if her life had played out differently. If she had not been abandoned.
“You walk on cat feet,” someone said.
Rebel turned to a girl in an emerald gown. “That’s me, the Fingersmith.”
“And I’m Eva.” She noticed Rebel’s eyes lingering on her pointed ears, and a smile turned up her crimson lips. “An elven.”
“Capricious by nature,” Piran whispered.
“What do you do?” Rebel asked, not quite sure what to say.
“Do?” Eva laughed. “We guide magicians, on occasion, in their tasks. I’d take you wherever you wanted to go, if you’d like?”
Before Rebel could reply, she sensed it. Tingles. The funny prickle at the back of her neck. She knew who stood behind her, and not simply due to the stares turning their way. A gentle hand grasped Rebel’s arm. The voice a perfect match of silk and wishes—and heat. “She’s not yours.”
“She could be.” Eva winked at Rebel and slipped away.
When she turned to the voice, she heard a gasp and realized it had come from herself. The sig
ht of Anjeline reminded her of a dream. Fiery and shimmering. Adorned in a gown so golden it gleamed, as soft as feathers, and it dipped low in the back, revealing just that. Black feathers. Swirling runes and tiny quills ruffled down Anjeline’s spine in a single line all the way to her tailbone. Sparkling dust was spread upon her chest and mixed with her hair that spilled over her bronzed shoulders, as though a hundred worker sprites had placed each strand just so.
Rebel stared, forgetting to blink.
Anjeline gazed right back with a similar look. “Oh.” She exhaled, followed by a pause, and when she spoke again, it was in her language, a breathless whisper. “Jamila.”
The word was foreign to Rebel. “‘Jamila’?”
“It means beautiful,” Anjeline said, eyes gleaming.
Rebel’s pulse roused. “You look…out of this world.” She didn’t trust her voice to elaborate. Someone nudged her arm.
Piran rasped in her ear. “Dance with her, you fool.”
Anjeline laughed, breaking the spell, and Rebel was being swept up into the living tide of people. A slipstream of elbows and legs, gowns and wings, and heat. With graceful movement, Anjeline made up for Rebel’s lack of dancing skills, pulling her closer with each turn and melody, guarding her from the other folk swirling.
It felt odd. Rebel’s feet could rush like the wind, edge along a terrace, slide down a fire escape… But dancing? Her limbs didn’t understand this foreign thing. Never had her legs moved in such a way. Never had there been a reason to dance. It felt wonderful, though she knew not how to, as her feet made contact with Anjeline’s toes every other step. “You’re courageous to dance with me,” she said.
“‘Courageous’?” Anjeline looked up. “Is your rhythm really that bad?”
“Ask your bruised feet.”
She leaned in and whispered, “You can’t bruise me.”
Her heat nuzzled Rebel’s cheek. The smell of her was a lovely kind of torture, lilies swaying in the breeze with the aroma of something fiery. Rebel wanted to lean into her neck and inhale. To feel the soft feathers, to caress ancient runes. She heard her heart knocking against her ribs, certain the sound was loud enough for Anjeline to hear. And with every beat, she remembered her words. Clever…brave…my protector.