The Wishing Heart

by J. C. Welker

  The Prince’s gaze zeroed in on her. “Whatever plan you’re hatching in that head of yours, you’ll have claw marks in your chest before you can say please, little Fingersmith.”

  She tried to stand, but the alpha gripped her shoulder harder, his claws digging into her skin. “My name is Rebel. As in Renata Eve Bell-erose LaFay—my mother.” As she said it aloud, it sounded foreign to her own ears.

  “Don’t threaten me with a human’s name. Magician LaFay’s as slippery as you. For decades, magicians and Sidhe alike have passed through these caverns, and none leave, except at my pleasure.” The Prince etched a swirl in the air with his finger.

  Before Rebel could stop herself, she was crawling toward him, his magic compelling her. Her chest tightened, and she felt the threads of darkness in her heart swell. She gritted her teeth, trying to push it down. He ran fingers through her hair, ruffling it and then smoothing it as if she were a pet, his enthrall pulling her in with a sickening feeling. His magic was everywhere. It caressed Rebel like a stranger’s hand, a cloying heaviness over her skin, and she wavered at its force.

  Sizzling air streamed off Anjeline, thick enough to walk on.

  The heat engulfed Rebel, and she waited for the sensation of spinning to fade. Her heart twitched, showing no sign of subsiding. She thought of her knives sitting useless in her room. And as she met Anjeline’s eyes, something clicked within her. Rebel didn’t need her switchblade. She had something better. A weapon inside her sharper than any blade.

  “I am my own magician.” To Rebel’s surprise, her voice came out forceful and strong. She reached up for her pendant as best she could with bound hands and focused on Anjeline, calling out to her magic, wishing to summon it. The moment she touched the pendant, her breath caught, and an electric current coursed through her fingers. A spark of energy flared and surged within her.

  Then it winked out of sight.

  The Prince’s mouth crinkled in amusement. “You’re imperfect even with magic. A great magician would know better than to insult me.” He bent toward her. “You’ll always be a stray girl.”

  The words stung like a thousand needles in her skin. But Rebel held up her chin against the looming shadows of him, unafraid. “Don’t mistake my humanness for weakness. Challenge me, and you’ll see how important I am.”

  He licked his lips. “Then I shall look you in the eyes as I tear you open and see how much you bleed…”

  “Like hell you will.” Anjeline’s eyes blazed in warning. “The term. The wish binds it, Sithchean. Harm her and your wish is no more.” Smoke flashed off her in violent ripples. None questioned her words or knew how false her term actually was.

  Sithchean scowled, like a child deprived of his toy, though not wanting to challenge her. “Perhaps not. But let’s see how hard it is to kill the human spirit. Bring me the other one.”

  Piran caught Rebel’s eyes, his expression turning to horror. Trembles rocked her body with what was to come. She struggled against Wulfram’s claws keeping her down and could only watch as the twins dragged Piran to the dais. He tried digging his feet into the floor, his wings beating frantically.

  “It’s against the truce.” Anjeline’s expression remained steady, but Rebel could see her wince just slightly.

  “So is invading my Court.” The Prince yanked metallic hair in his grasp, and Piran gasped as his throat was exposed. “What penalty shall I set for your redemption?”

  Voices piped up in the ballroom, one after the other.

  “Let him find us a ring of invisibility…”

  “Weave a cloak of many wings…”

  “Have him dance in iron boots…”

  “Not enough,” the Prince said. As brave as he could, Piran beat his wings against the hands that held him. “This is what happens when you violate my Court.”

  The feyrie guards turned their faces to the scene, preferring to watch the horror about to occur. Prince Sithchean smiled, cold and dead, his eyes full of reaping as Piran struggled. To him, they were just something to play their games with, a moth to be crushed. Sithchean caught a leathery wing in his hand, and as he stroked it with a finger, a ripping sound came—and the wing tore away with it.

  Piran screamed as blood pooled down his back.

  “Stop it!” Rebel yelled.

  A burst of smoke filled the air, furious and red, but Anjeline’s magic wouldn’t move against her bonds. With a chuckle, Sithchean let him go. Dark threads of magic flicked at Piran as he leaped into the air, beating his one wing, before he tumbled to the floor. More laughter rippled through the cavernous walls, causing bile to rise in Rebel’s throat. She looked at Anjeline in desperation and saw, reflected in those eyes, her own rage. Years of watching darkness prevail, and she could do nothing to change it. Change the game.

  Her plan shaped like spilled blood.

  “I’ll make a trade!”

  Her words caused a reaction. Spines tensed and heads tilted.

  Rebel wished she had the good sense to keep quiet, but the only thing she had now was her silver tongue. She looked at Piran, sprawled on the floor with one wing, a puddle of crimson caked around him and now a hole in his back. Then she met Sithchean’s gaze and imagined propositioning a devil might be easier than him. But try, she must.

  “I’ll make a trade.” Her words made him grin.

  Good. She needed them to underestimate her.

  “Rebel,” Anjeline said whisper-soft. “Don’t.” She spoke with urgency, her face gleaming in dismay, unable to release the wrath that was threatening to spark.

  But Rebel gave her a wink. Barely noticeable, except to Anjeline. She glanced between her and the pale Prince, planning two possible outcomes. The lost girl she’d once been had crumbled days ago, taken over by the Fingersmith. She felt the metal of her pendant warming.

  “A trade,” she told Sithchean. “How would the Sun Court feel if Nero’s daughter bowed down to you? Just release him.” With bound hands, she reached toward Piran’s arm. His hair was scraped back, severe streaks of red tainting it.

  The Prince lowered his gaze, and the shadows caressed her cheek, sending a shiver up her spine. “There will be many ways you will bow.” With a sweep of Sithchean’s hand, whips of darkness rose around Piran—and within seconds, he was gone, leaving only smears of blood. “He’s been released. Leash her over.”

  At his command, two guards came forward to do so. Rebel didn’t wrestle against them wrapping a collar around her neck. Sithchean yanked the rope tethered to her now, and she stumbled toward him, her bound hands grasping for stability. As though she’d planned it exactly right—he strapped the leash to the cage. Mere inches from Anjeline.

  And the key.

  A hand slipped through the cage, through Rebel’s hair to the nape of her neck, sending frissons through her skin. When she glanced up, meeting golden irises, she saw her own face reflected in them, right where she wanted to be. “What are you doing?” Anjeline’s voice was an angry whisper. But the gaze sweeping her face was tender.

  Rebel smiled. “I’m changing the game.” She glanced at her palm, where the key now lay. The Prince really knew nothing about the magic of the human spirit, or the Fingersmith. Always underestimating the little guy.

  All she needed now was a distraction.

  As if her prayer had produced magic, from the Court’s doors came a commotion, a stomping rhythm of feet and a splashing of sounds—the Siren had arrived.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Anjeline wasn’t certain what on earth Rebel was scheming when she managed to get herself traded to the Prince, but it hadn’t been this. One minute, they were leashing her to the cage, the next, she held the key in her palm. The action had not merely been a sleight of hand, but something of magic, something Rebel never even knew she had. It would’ve been impressive if Anjeline were not so stunned at the arrival of the Siren.

  As Melusine prowled forward, a seaweed cape swept at her heels, her legs adorned in leather as virescent as her hair. Mer
maids slithered before her, sloshing water upon the ground from crystal containers, while mermen cradling tridents flanked her sides.

  “Siren.” Sithchean’s face twisted, looking like a baleful god.

  Cursing under her breath, Anjeline lapsed into silence at the exchange. She was painfully aware of every heartbeat in the room, and the one she focused on still beat out of rhythm. The arrival of the merfolk was small compared to the threats that had been twisting up her plans. As if that weren’t enough, a familiar figure glided out from behind the merfolk. The fox. Jaxon’s gaze swept to Rebel’s, and Anjeline sensed her aura shake—the betrayal still fresh.

  Rebel ignored him and whispered to her. “I thought the Siren hated the Prince?”

  “Hate is too kind. She was banished from the Court.”

  “Then bad for them. Good for us.”

  “Not if they start a war,” Anjeline breathed.

  The Night Guard moved forward as one unit, stalking the mermaid’s movement, some crouching in their sleek wolf shapes. The twins morphed, pointed ears flattening to their heads, ready for a command from the alpha to spring forward and rip them to scales.

  “How dare you enter my sanctum,” Sithchean hissed. Under his translucent skin, dark threads of energy moved through the veins on his neck.

  “Oh, I think you know why.” The Siren’s seductive voice weaved a threat. Even with her human legs, there was something coolly serpentine about her beauty.

  Sithchean’s eyes shined like ice. “You’ve already stolen your wish.”

  “Stolen?” Melusine’s hand tightened around her razor-edged trident. “I think all things considered, you absconded the Wishmaker from me.”

  “’Tis your own folly. Letting a girl fool you.”

  Melusine’s ashen face suffused with blood. “Return the Wishmaker. She must reverse this,” she demanded and gestured down at herself.

  The Prince leaned forward, his face practically glowing in the shadows around him. “I see nothing to reverse. Now you’re capable of trekking the globe.”

  “Walking the human world will matter not if I can’t swim within my own. My tail…” Melusine peered at her legs in longing. “It’s gone. I dip in my rivers, but it won’t appear. On account of the jinni.” She bared her teeth.

  Anjeline sneered right back, her insides blazing. “Are you surprised the heavens take revenge? You wished to walk the earth. Looks like you’re walking it.”

  The mermaids spat in hisses, their tail ends beating against the floor. The Siren whistled, singing an order, and a merman rushed forward. Just as a lycanthrope leaped before him, claws lengthening, spine rippling, an invisible force hurled the merman back like a flicked tadpole.

  Dark shapes formed in the air, leaping from Sithchean’s fingertips. “Attack again if you wish to perish,” he said, unleashing a devilish grin.

  Anjeline glanced down at Rebel and gave a wink. If it weren’t for their predicament, she would have laughed. Another way of manipulation. Grandstanding, Madrath had taught her. Provoking them on purpose, like stroking the lever of a bomb. Buying them time. With a grin in understanding, Rebel’s thieving fingers went to work. She shifted her wrist, then her thumb, slipping it through her rope bindings.

  Wulfram neared the Prince and leered at the mermaids. “My Grace, as much as I hate it, the Siren is speaking truth.” His features had progressed, softening boyishly, his clothes now drooped off his physique, and he was no taller than a petite stripling.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Sithchean asked, as if seeing him for the first time.

  “The wishes are twisted.” The alpha’s voice cracked with puberty. He tried to growl, but it came out as a mewl. “They’re not as the jinni says they are. I’m regenerating. Turning younger by the minute, I’ll be a child by morrow if you don’t stop it. You must let me wish again.”

  “Must?” Sithchean sneered. “You used the Wishmaker without my sanction. I warned you only one possessing dominant magic could wield such a treasure.”

  “Give me the jinni!” The Siren lunged with her trident.

  Sithchean held up his staff and Melusine couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. “Try it, if you want a war.” He did not say no. He didn’t need to. His voice conveyed it as he rose from his chair, making even the stone bow. The air crackled like some sort of thunderstorm, and small cobs of crystals shook loose from the ceiling, scattering to the floor. The mermaids coiled their tails around themselves, their heads bowed against the misery his power pulsed around them.

  Melusine’s lips curled over her sharp incisors. “Apart from the damage we will do, I’ll alert the Sun Court, and they will enact war on you like hounds from hell.”

  Tensions thickened, the kind that builds before an explosion.

  Menacing sounds fizzed from the merfolk like a rushing of waters, and the guards drew their daggers. Good. Anjeline grinned. Keep their attention on ripping each other’s throats out and away from them. Rebel’s fingers now fumbled with the key, inching up the cage. But there was one more thing Anjeline needed to set in motion before their escape. She whispered near Rebel’s ear. “It’s happening faster.” Eyes followed her gaze to the alpha, and before them, his face grew a fraction younger.

  “You must coax Sithchean into wishing again,” Anjeline said.

  “You want him to wish? Why?”

  “Because, I know that demon’s desire.”

  From the way Anjeline’s voice held grim meaning, Rebel seemed to grasp what wish it must be if the consequence could exceed whatever damage they could foist. The Prince would never be convinced by a jinni. Someone of Rebel’s talents…well, she was as good a silver tongue as any. They blinked at each another, turning possibilities over. Anjeline was a thinker, Rebel was a feeler—together, they made the perfect combo of destruction.

  And Rebel did exactly what she knew to do.

  “They’re lying, Your Majesty.”

  At Rebel’s words, shadows swept toward her and the Prince glanced her way. She persisted. “When each cast their wish, I was present and witnessed no consequence come to the alpha or the Siren. They’re deceiving you, hoping you’ll be so terrified you’ll hand over the Wishmaker.”

  Melusine sneered. “The human’s words are fiction.”

  A chuckle came from behind.

  “The Fingersmith can’t lie worth her weight,” Jaxon voiced. “It’s the reason I disposed of her.” His features appeared even more foxlike than before. Whatever glamour he’d used in the upper world, within this place, Anjeline could now see him for what he was. Rebel saw it, too—unsure what he was planning, why he had come here to begin with.

  “Fox. You’re here to service us.” Melusine nudged him with her spear.

  His gaze caught Anjeline’s with a look she knew well, the same scheming face Rebel often had. But whatever new con game he’d hatched didn’t matter. She knew her thief wouldn’t miss an opportunity.

  Rebel focused on the Siren. “You would kill for a wish, wouldn’t you?” Her eyes swirled like a storm, and her voice wrapped around each word with utmost care. “You might possess legs, but you’ll never be immortal.”

  Solomon, she is a gifted silver tongue. Anjeline grinned, nearly missing the skip in the Prince’s heartbeat. Whether it was this threat or the impression of Rebel’s words that had gotten to Sithchean, he looked perplexed, and more than that—he believed her. His face screwed up into such an expression of resolve that she almost wished Sinvad were here to see it.

  “Well, let my Court reap the consequence of my second wish.” Sithchean cupped one hand around his staff and turned to the alpha. “When it’s complete, perhaps I’ll fix you then. Let none leave.”

  Wulfram’s lips drew back, showing his fangs, though ever smaller. The mob of lycanthropes began circling the Siren and her maids. Some dropped to all fours, some half-human half-wolf shapes turned vertical, their limbs lengthening into wooly and taloned extremities. The merfolk pointed their tridents. The guard’s daggers remai
ned extended, aiming at their enemy. A battle line was drawn.

  “Alas, jinni, my desire.” Sithchean inclined his head at her. He straightened, and when he spoke again, his voice burned with his will. “I wish…for immortality.”

  There was something about his expression that made Anjeline forget being snared within a cage. Forget all the Jinn rules and shalt nots. She wasn’t an animal to be owned, used, and controlled. She was Jinn. One of the most powerful wishmakers. And she would show them. She heard Madrath’s voice, simple and resolute.

  This is what you are. Miracles and destruction with one flip of the switch.

  Rebel’s voice rose to meet his.

  You’ve been forced into a cage, but you still have your claws.

  A tiny smile played on Anjeline’s face as she felt her essence opened to the wish. The Prince’s will was dark and numb, flowing over her like ice. She let it pull at her insides, tugging her magic forward. Other wishes were mere tricks, calling for little blips of magic. This wish unlocked her full power. And its full reaping. She held out her palms, where the magic curled in gold patterns up her arms, flaring to life. It flourished in her spirit with the breath of the Jinn. At her command, she parted her lips, and the wish flowed like a melody into the air.

  It shaped into meaning.

  Glowing tentacles streamed from Anjeline’s mouth like sunshine, coming to wrap around Sithchean’s pale body, drawing away the dark veil that cloaked him, revealing her rare magic. One so pure that eyes had to squint to stare at its wonder. Glimmering swirls snaked underneath his chest, through his limbs, curling around his deadly beauty and reshaped with his will. A grin appeared as he shuddered and moaned, the wish pervading his pores.

  Thanks to Nero, she had watched this happen a thousand times before. But this time? This time was the last time. Flesh could not live forever.

  The light faded, and for a moment, nothing happened.

  Then she felt the reaping.

  Sithchean’s smile slowly faded. He looked down at himself and back to her. She lifted a brow. What’s wrong? Something not quite right? As he touched his face, his skin sagged, crinkled, and darkened. His eyes went wide as the flesh on his cheekbones and nose crumbled, falling bit by bit onto the dais. Skin slivered like snow from his arms and legs to the floor. The half-moon necklace dropped over his now fleshless chest, dangling around his neck like a collar.