by J. C. Welker
Soon, the corridor sloped down through a maze of other halls, where it seemed they might hit the center of the earth. They snuck through an impressive hallway with richly carpeted floors, through a yellow hall carpeted with grass, through a blue hall with no carpet at all, and at last, they turned a corner and stopped. At the far end of the corridor were steel double doors—their destination. Only, there was a problem.
Four problems in fact.
Two creatures as large as lions flanked the entrance, blinking their amber eyes, while two others in human form guarded the front, arguing in hushed growls. One of them happened to be a familiar redhead. Vandal.
Panicking, Rebel pushed Piran back around the corner, out of sight. “Wasn’t counting on that twin to appear,” he whispered.
By his blank look, she realized, “You don’t have a plan B, do you?”
He shook his head. “I’m palpitating. This is bad.”
“Not that bad. I’ve dealt with worse heists.” Though, she noted, those didn’t involve lycanthropes. She tried controlling her breathing, not letting on just how unprepared for this they were. “Fourth rule of thieving: plan two ways in and three ways out,” she said. “There has to be another route to the Court. Think of your father’s maps.”
For a moment, Piran’s glamoured face scrunched up, then a sly grin emerged, revealing a fang. “The kitchen,” he said. “There’s an entry at the far end, leading into the Court’s ballroom.” He turned back around and headed to a different corridor. Through an archway, he led her to a blackened door, where clouds of steam puffed through the cracks.
“Stay close,” he said, and they entered to a clatter of noise and chaos.
The Court’s kitchen was a vast chamber crowded with fire stoves and sizzling caldrons. Vines twined up the walls, and the marble floor was covered in grease and crimson grime. Several gangly feyries carried buckets and bowls of dead things, blackened fruit, and gallons of wine. Others were gathered around a table, popping grasshoppers in their hands, pulling their wings off, and sucking on the insect legs.
Dewdrops of sweat dotted Rebel’s forehead. Bowing her head, she walked behind Piran, staying near the wall, grateful all eyes were focused elsewhere. More of those men wearing red caps wielded heavy cleavers, chopping piles of meat. Rebel turned nauseous, her feet picking up pace as Piran made a beeline toward a door at the far end of the kitchen.
She slipped by a taller feyrie stirring a caldron, and his head tipped up. “Lovely Styria?” he called.
Rebel paused and her gaze trailed to his.
The feyrie grinned at her. No, she reminded herself, he is grinning at Styria. “Have a taste. Plucked them just for you,” he purred and held out a plum, his hand covered in crimson—what she hoped was berry pulp. The corner of his mouth twitched, and she realized there wasn’t a way out of this.
Swallowing down her dread, she took the plum. Farther ahead, tucked behind a corner, Piran was shaking his head at her like mad. The plum was warm to her touch as if hot nectar ran beneath its skin. One bite couldn’t do that much damage.
She took a cautious nibble, and sighed. “Mmm.”
The taste gushed through her veins. A flavor of fiery liqueur. It tasted of yearning, of an ache that couldn’t be filled, needing to have more. She grabbed another plum, shoving it into her mouth. An infectious giddiness washed over her, and she laughed. Then an overwhelming sadness came. A fuzzy haze surfaced in her mind, so she couldn’t tell if she was up or down. Not for humans. Her heart spasmed, and she clutched at her chest.
“What’s wrong, Styria?” the feyrie said to her. “Don’t you like it?”
She shook away the fuzz of plum juice, ready to run. Her eyes caught Piran beginning to come to her, and then he stopped. He jerked back and slipped behind the corner again.
“Breaking more hearts, sis?”
Rebel froze in the act of pulling away. She swirled around, coming face-to-face with her male double. “Tease,” Vandal said. “Father wanted us guarding the door, not tempting the kitchen staff.”
“I…” She blinked a few times, imagining the kitchen doorway filling up with other fanged figures. But the twin was predictable. She could just about cope with him. “I’m not feeling so well—”
“Maybe because you’re not me.”
Rebel’s head snapped up at the voice. From the other end of the kitchen, in all her ginger-haired glory, Styria sauntered toward them, passing the corner where Piran crouched, unnoticed. Her gaze centered on Rebel while Vandal’s eyes glided from his sister to the other figure.
When the real Styria glanced his way, her eyes hardened. “So much for twins, if you can’t even tell when it isn’t me.” The she-wolf shoved her brother aside, grabbing a knife from the butcher’s table, and stepped toward Rebel. “Who are you?”
A figure bolted from the corner.
“Stop!” Piran held up a hand. “We’ve come to see the Prince.”
At the sight of his double, Vandal smiled. “Now this is something.”
Ignoring her rising pulse, Rebel advanced back a step, dipped her hand inside her satchel, and wrapped her fingers around a sphere, feeling it surge. “I’m positive the Prince will want to speak to us, unharmed,” she said calmly, but her voice held authority.
Styria squinted and swayed closer, extending one fingernail. “Oh, I’m sure he’ll want a word with both of you. But who in their right mind would dare enter our lair?”
“Someone who envies our ravishing looks,” Vandal supplied with a wink.
The twins studied them, clueless to Rebel’s true identity. Perhaps their talent for scenting her out had been obscured from the enchantment. Styria smiled devilishly at her doppelganger. “Never had a thing for myself before, but…”
“Get stuffed,” Rebel spat.
“Let’s not snap at the furry murder machines,” Piran whispered.
“Get…stuffed?” Like a switch, dawning emerged in Styria’s eyes. She bit her lip with one fanged tooth. “Be still my heart. If it isn’t the Fingersmith. Come back for your jinni after you made me look a fool?” A growl sprang from her throat.
“This time, I’ll have my taste.” Vandal altered, his shoulders lurching forward, red bristling fur erupting along his arms. Their faces morphed, popping bones into long muzzles.
A soft murmuring ran through the chamber, the sound of whispered laughter. The red-caps were watching now while others moved out of the way of whatever might happen.
Rebel glanced sideways at Piran. “Blue is for shocking?”
He nodded. “Extremely.”
In a flash, she pulled out a sphere, flinging it.
The Shockwave globe glinted as it spun, missing Styria by an inch and smashing into Vandal’s chest. As the sphere cracked—bolts of electric jetted out. For an instant, the room was lit as if by a sapphire sun. Vandal flailed, hitting the floor in convulsions with a thud, then a howl of pain. In a snarling cry, Styria darted toward him. It gave them the instant they needed. Rebel and Piran sprinted in the direction they’d come through.
A mayhem of noises followed after them.
Shouts and meat were hurled into the air. Rebel shouldered her way through a rack of pans, then spun off a feyrie, and Piran turned over the basket full of grasshoppers. Her pulse raged against her chest, her strides long and calculated. Halfway between the door and a caldron, a claw latched onto her leg, slicing her ankle. She gritted her teeth, stumbling and knocking over discarded cutlery. Ignoring her body’s protests, she withdrew another sphere. At her touch, the Inferno globe glowed. She tossed it to Piran. He flung it over his shoulder.
There was a crack.
All the air in the kitchen sucked into a tight core—then detonated. An eruption of red vapor filled the chamber, and a draft of heat flared at Rebel’s back. Fragments of metal, wood, and chow hurtled outward from the explosion. Screams echoed with whirls of movement and flashes of smoke and light.
It was only when they were two steps from the door that R
ebel’s vision blurred, altered from the plum juice. Her heart told her to stop. She lunged for the kitchen door just as a meat cleaver embedded into it, inches from her head. In a sudden fluid leap, Styria plunged over the butcher’s table and onto the floor, crouching on all fours, followed by another blood-red lycan. It was too late, of course, but she reached for the doorknob to escape this hell.
Instead, she opened the door to another.
A dozen shapes stood beyond the doorway, low and snarling, their irises glowing amber, and a gray beast took one massive lurch forward. Wulfram.
“This,” said Rebel, “is bad.”
Chapter Forty-One
Something hopeful and secret twisted inside Anjeline. She swayed in the birdcage, watching the scene before her act out like a badly written play. Within the underground ballroom, guards stood over the Prince’s treasure trees, and others satisfied their thirst on blackened wine, but eager gazes never left sight of the jewels dangling from branches.
A figure approached the dais.
As the magician Skinner bowed, the dragon eyes upon his coat blinked. She impassively watched as the magician reminded Prince Sithchean it was he who had first alerted the Court of the Wishmaker being in the human’s possession, and if anyone deserved compensation it was he. But another figure rose. The witch’s crow-like face narrowed in disdain, and Gramone reminded the Prince it had been her who first captured Anjeline.
Neither had a chance to finish their argument.
The mass of shadows encircling Sithchean pushed, flicking them back like flies. As if Anjeline could have pinpointed the exact moment, a daring guard with hungry eyes for the jeweled fruit lunged his dagger at the Prince.
Shadows surged forward.
With a sweep of Sithchean’s staff, the dark mass took the shape of a hand, swallowing the guard up like a wave of scorching oil—leaving only the dagger clattering to the ground. Anjeline shuddered. There were several more blood streaks and black burns on the stone floor. It had been the sixteenth time one had tried pilfering from the trees of now endless gems, coming at the Prince with blades, and he grew aggravated from devouring them.
She smiled. Endless riches weren’t so desirable when it came with those who would kill for it. “Nero knew this would happen,” she told the Prince. “He desires your throne.”
A hiss rose from Sithchean’s throat. “Don’t seduce me with your words, jinni. I’ll not be tricked. There’s more magic in my thumb than in your consequences.”
“Magic can’t protect you from what’s coming.”
“’Tis why I have you, Wishmaker.” His finger trailed over the bars of her cage. “Time for my second wish…”
Anjeline scowled, though pleased at his request. Above all else, she sensed the Prince’s ultimate desire, what he believed would make him more powerful than all others. Nero had planned his entire existence on obtaining it, but he’d witnessed the price of what came with a wish of such magnitude. Sithchean opened his mouth, on the verge of casting his wish.
The Court shook, stealing his words.
Lycanthropes barreled open the metal doors, and an uproar of several more followed. Voices snapped to silence as all eyes centered on the alpha. Wulfram transformed in one fluid step and stood as a man. Though, not quite a man. Anjeline grinned. He looked different now. Absent of a beard, his face was smoother, and he’d decreased in height. Younger still. Nearly as youthful as his offspring.
As the alpha proceeded to the Prince, whispers arose, noticing the two prisoners who trailed behind him. A pair of red-furred wolves were nudging along the ginger twins. Except these pair were captives, their hands bound with rope. In another stride, the red wolves altered their form. Standing there, were now double sets of twins.
The Prince’s face turned sharper. “What is this?”
“Your Majesty,” Wulfram spoke with difficulty as if his voice were altering from low to high. “There’s been an incident. We’ve seized these two attempting to invade the Court.” He flung out a stiff arm, pointing at the roped doppelgangers. “You’ll want to unglamour them, My Grace.”
Anjeline’s gaze swept beyond the lycans, and like a magnetic force, her eyes landed on the glamoured female. A feeling swelled inside her. The girl’s head was bent low, lines of strain around her eyes looked like bruises, and her breaths came out in short gasps. Her jeans were clawed to shreds at the ankle and drops of blood welled up from a wound.
Sithchean crooked his finger. “Bring them here.”
With a shove, the prisoners stumbled forward, landing on their knees. The bound girl lifted her head, her cheeks smeared with blood, but where there should have been fear, there was none. Then the girl’s eyes caught Anjeline’s. The prisoner smiled a roguish grin. A triumphant one that said she was exactly where she’d schemed to be. She looked like a wild shining thing in the Court. Anjeline bit her lip. Only one person smiled like that.
All eyes watched in expectancy.
“Let’s see what we have here. Why they have come.” Sithchean conjured his shadows, tipping his ivory staff toward the prisoners.
Darkness enfolded them, wrenching at their glamour. Their faces distorted, shifting in pain as the magic was rent from their bodies like an invisible blanket being pulled away. Anjeline shuddered, feeling his viscous shadows clawing at every part of them. When it broke contact with the prisoners, the glamour lifted—and they appeared in their true forms.
There knelt one winged boy and the girl with the hungry eyes. The girl who walked with feet like wings, as if she drifted in from another world.
“Rebel,” Anjeline whispered. A glimmer of hope breathed into her chest, and smoke flared into her core as the world around her shrank. She lunged forward, grabbing at the rods of the cage. The runes upon her arms set ablaze, and up through the weaves of her sweater, feathers sprang visible. Her essence surged, wanting to climb out. Waiting for her Rebel to speak.
Then she winked one twinkling eye at her.
“I’ve come,” said Rebel, “to get back my heart.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Astonished faces stared, but Rebel saw only one.
Hope had guided her here, and hope, it seemed, would trap her here. And as she peered up at Anjeline, she saw what her words did. Eyes as bright as the sun gazed at her with a dangerous glint of longing. She would’ve traded a wish to have them look at her like that forever. They radiated a pulse of light that reached her, sending an electric spark scorching a path in the air between them. It gave Rebel the jolt she needed, and she pushed to her feet.
Murmurs erupted with the weight of nefarious stares.
More noises arose from creatures hidden in the darkness. The earth-made grotto overflowed with terrifyingly gorgeous folk and treasures. It reminded Rebel of a painting she’d seen in one of her books. A garden of gems. Yet there, among the shadows, was the most magnificent of them all, Anjeline within a gold birdcage.
“Ah, the Fingersmith.”
The Prince leaned forward. He was like nothing Rebel had ever seen, paler than the whitest bones. Like a well-dressed devil before he ripped out your soul.
“Magician Nero’s offspring.” His tongue caressed the words as if he were drinking the sweetest wine. She wanted to close her eyes. Wanted to stop looking at him. “The escape artist who has fooled lycans, vanished from a witch, and hoodwinked the Siren. How will you writhe your way out of invading my Court?”
He stretched out a bloodless hand, and before Rebel could think, she was moving, taking a step toward him without her own control. The tang of her fear caught the lycans’ scent and growls called behind her. She dug her nails into her palms, her mind scrambling for a plan. Only three feet from the dais, from Anjeline and the vessel. Her heart spasmed, and she was sure it would leap from her chest and fling itself toward the cage. The quivers were beginning to intensify, but she fought for calm and focused on Anjeline, matching their breathing in rhythm.
Squaring her shoulders, Rebel looked from the vase t
o the pale Prince. “You have something that doesn’t belong to you,” she voiced.
The Prince’s lips twisted into a smile, his eyes like staring into the arctic. “Is that so? Allow us to offer you wine before you take to your task of stealing my treasure.” He reached between the bars of the cage to caress Anjeline’s leg.
Rebel lunged at him. “Touch her and I’ll burn you!”
A claw grabbed her shoulder, yanking her back.
“You will address the Prince as Your Highness.” Wulfram’s hand held her, narrow and hard with black talons. She struggled and whipped her head around, trying to catch his fingers with her teeth, but was shoved for her effort.
Piran crouched, readying to spring into the air, but another lycanthrope caught him, shoving him down with a paw. As Rebel looked up into the glacial gaze of the Prince, her rebellion blossomed, her fear obliterated by rage. That demon had laid hands on Anjeline, and she was ready to run a blade through him if he touched her again.
The Prince chuckled. “You should fear me, girl.”
“You should fear me much more,” she said. “Your Highness.”
The sound of his laughter snaked around her insides, squeezing. “You wish to go up against me?” He flicked a finger and a white blossom of pain stabbed her chest, waiting to rip it open. “Entirely too much bravery, you have. You should bow.” Shadows slammed into her from behind. Her knees hit the floor and she gasped in pain.
“Leave her!” Anjeline shouted.
Hissing laughter spread throughout the Court.
The wolf twins now held Rebel’s satchel, playing with her switchblade, rifling through the elemental spheres supposed to save them, and smashing the vials of elixir she needed on the ground. Her heart spasmed with each one. Piran nudged her. “The cage’s enchanted,” he whispered. “The key.” His eyes guided hers to the gold key dangling from the Prince’s belt, glinting in and out of the shadows. Just a few more inches. Plans whirled through her head, each one fizzling out uselessly. She’d thought she’d know what to do when they reached this point, but she hadn’t factored in being a prisoner.