Theo stared out the big bay window to the fog-shrouded forest beyond. Not an actual forest—real plants could not grow here—but something close enough to mimic the trees of Earth, a shadowy configuration meant to disguise the bland nothingness of the space beyond. If he could not conjure the sun, then he would surround himself with shadow instead.
An eerie howl broke the silence of the ever-night, long and high, followed closely by two more. Vorgs, probably, out hunting. Sounds erupted all around him as the veils opened under the Solstice moon, allowing passage between worlds, inviting all sorts of creatures into his solitary confinement in the Other-Realm.
Theo kept a close watch, though not for danger. The menacing presence surrounding his manor was enough to keep most creatures at bay. If not, the iron gate surrounding it made a decent enough deterrent. No one—or thing—had crossed the gate in thirty years.
Theo couldn’t help but wonder why. Isandra had sent heroes after him for decades. Tall, strapping lads sent to slay the wicked jinn and bring back his heart. Every year, without fail, they came. Every year, without fail, they died.
And then they had stopped coming altogether.
This year would be different. He could feel it in his bones, in the shadows that wrapped around his torso and slithered around his arms and legs. He itched for excitement, even if it ended in a grizzly death.
Especially if it ended in a grizzly death.
“Help!”
His eyes snapped to the right, where a flicker of red danced through the shadow trees. Foolish humans, always choosing such vibrant colors. No wonder they were killed so easily. The figure screamed, high-pitched enough to make Theo wince, even from inside his manor. In the pervading silence of the Other-Realm, he had forgotten how piercing a human voice could be.
As the flicker of red moved closer, Theo recognized the flare of a long skirt. A sacrificed maiden, perhaps, though he had thought humans had moved past those archaic rituals by now. A distant howl let Theo know the vorgs had noticed the intruder as well. She would not be the first female to die in the Other-Realm, but he had never enjoyed seeing a woman in agony.
She fell against his gate, then yelped in pain, as if the iron bars had burned her skin. When she pushed her hood back to scan the forest behind her, a long braid fell out. Long, and completely white. Only one species he knew had hair like that.
Fae.
Theo stopped breathing. It couldn’t be. The Fae were all dead. He had watched them die. So why did one appear to be banging against his gate?
A vorg howled again, calling out to its companions, and Theo found himself moving, running down crimson-carpeted hallways, shadows trailing him like soot. By the time he reached the front gate three vorgs loomed in the distance, great hulking masses charging toward them, shadow trees swirling out of existence with every pounding footfall.
The woman screamed frantically, banging against the bars with the heel of her hand, and he knew he should not let her in. Knew he should have stayed inside his manor while the realms collided and let her perish like the rest.
Instead, he opened the gate with a brush of shadow against lock. The woman tumbled through, letting the gate slam closed behind her. The first vorg crashed into it, rattling the iron bars as the woman in red huddled against Theo, burying her face in his collarbone. Theo had time to catch a whiff of something sharp and biting before she shoved against him, dancing just out of his grasp. The worn, black handle of a dagger jutted out of his carefully pressed vest.
Theo stared at the woman in shock. She cocked one hand on her hip, watching him with an arrogant smirk, eyes twinkling in triumph. Then her gaze dropped down to the knife in his chest, the tendrils of shadow twining around it. The smugness faded when she realized he did not collapse in pain, that blood did not stain the very expensive shirt she had just ruined.
A second dagger appeared in her hand, lithe fingers spinning the blade as a frown of determination creased her forehead.
Intriguing, the thought that she would merely try again, but Theo did not need to fight. He caught her wrist easily, leaning forward to whisper a single shadow-laced word into her ear, and she collapsed into unconsciousness.
Theo sat in front of the fireplace, idly watching the shadows twist and twirl through his fingers, the warm amber flames doing little to chase away the confusion.
His fingers brushed across the spot where she’d stabbed him, shadows converging to swirl around the skin as if to assure him the wound no longer existed. He should have known it was a trap, should have sensed something off. Isandra had never sent a woman before. And her hair…
Theo sighed, recalling the harsh scent that had burned his nostrils as he’d carried her to a dungeon cell. Some kind of compound, a mixture of chemicals, used to change the color of her hair. What petty emotion had clouded his judgement enough to let that cheap trick work? Hope? Hope had no place here, and he did not deserve the fleeting warmth it provided.
Twisting his hand around, Theo drew the shadows into a sphere that hovered just above his palm. “Show me Isandra.”
She appeared in the orb almost immediately, her pale skin contrasted by the dark shadows framing her face. A wide smile cut across her face, lips still full and sensuous even after centuries on Earth.
“Theo! How lovely to see you alive.”
He did not rise to the bait. “A woman? Really? Why would you send a woman to a place like this?”
Isandra’s eyes hardened, crystal-blue shards that threatened to cut him. “I didn’t send a woman.”
“Interesting. Because one is here, and she seems to want me dead.”
The blood drained from Isandra’s face with uncharacteristic fear. “Mira…”
Theo cocked his head, gauging how much of her reaction was sincere. At least he had a name. “Mira. A friend of yours?”
Heat rushed into her face, staining her cheeks with roses. The anger, at least, was real. “If you harm a single hair on her head—”
“Silence.” He cut off her petty threat with a snarl. “I will not be spoken to like I am the villain.”
“Please.”
And that was where she went too far, gave up the ruse too soon. Isandra had never said please.
“I think of her as a daughter,” the ageless woman pleaded, and if Theo hadn’t already been convinced it was a lie, he would have been impressed at the quiver in her voice. “Give her back, Theo. This isn’t Mira’s fault.”
Something in his chest hardened at the sound of his name on her lips. “I did not take her,” he said coldly, then he crumpled his fingers into a fist. The orb dissipated, shadows sweeping out to curl around his hand.
Now he just had to decide what to do with her.
Theo woke with a weight on his hips and a blade in his ribs.
The cool metal sliced through skin, immediately met by a rush of shadows. Mira sat on top of him with a cruel smirk, white hair flaring out around her head in a halo of death. The skirt of her dress spilled around him like a pool of blood, tiny gemstones from her bodice glittering malevolently in the weak light.
“Good evening, my dear,” Theo said, voice still gravelly from sleep. “I take it you were displeased with your lodgings?”
“You left me in the dungeon,” she snarled. “For two days.” Anger seethed from her, an almost tangible entity that forced the blade deeper until it clicked against a rib.
Theo blinked—not at the blade but at her words. Had he really let two days pass? Time moved like a shadow in this forgotten realm, sometimes a jerk, other times a languid spiral, never something he could quite grasp.
“Yes, well…you seem to want me dead.” He raised an eyebrow and glanced down at the dagger’s hilt. Ribbons of shadow twined around the frayed leather, healing Theo’s wound even as the blade forced it to remain open.
Mira frowned, smacking his chest with her free hand. “I stabbed you before…didn’t I?” Her fingers slid over bare skin, desperately searching for a wound that no longer existed.
He gently took her hand and pushed it back. “They will not let me die.” No matter how many times he tried—and he had tried often. The inability to feel pain allowed for some creative methods.
Confusion flitted across Mira’s face. “They?”
He glanced down to the dagger, and she followed his gaze, finally noticing the shadows, almost imperceptible in the dark. They whispered around her fingers now, pushing, forcing the blade out of his body.
She released the weapon with a gasp and stumbled off the bed, shuffling across the room until her back thudded against the door.
“What—how—you’re a monster!”
“And you’re free to leave,” Theo said casually, propping himself up against the headboard. “Although you probably won’t get far. The veils won’t open again for a year.”
“You’re lying.” A breathless whisper, a desperate hope.
“I never lie.”
Mira gulped, her face so pale it almost glowed. “It doesn’t matter. I came here for your heart. I’m not leaving without it.”
Theo smirked. “Interesting. And how do you plan to do that?” He shifted his torso, revealing the smooth, unblemished skin where not one but two daggers had now failed to injure him.
Mira’s breath came too quickly—he could hear it across the room—but her chin tilted defiantly. “I’ll figure it out.”
“And if I kill you first?”
Her eyes hardened around a flash of fear. “Then the world will always remember you for what you are—a beast. A monster. A murderer.”
Theo’s smirk faded, shadows slithering across his chest and twining around his neck as if they could sense his changing emotions. “The world has already forgotten me. If I had a heart, I would gladly give it to you.”
“But you won’t?”
“I can’t.”
“You’re a jinn.” She spat the word like it tasted bad on her tongue. “You can do whatever you wish. Whatever anyone wishes.”
A heavy feeling settled in Theo’s chest as he thought of the last time he had been summoned, of Isandra’s wicked smile as she demanded her wishes, of the mirror he’d shattered to make sure no one ever summoned him again.
“Mother told me what you did,” Mira snarled. “How you destroyed an entire race of people for—”
Theo crossed the room in an instant, shadow-laced fingers pressing against her jaw, aborting the heinous words. “You do not speak of the Fae,” he hissed into her ear as shadowy tendrils curved a pattern against her pale throat. The words stung his tongue, a bitter reminder of the past he could not blot out, no matter what realm he lived in, no matter how many years had passed.
The acidity of Mira’s hair made him want to gag. How could he have ever mistaken this harsh falseness for the feathery, swan-white hair of the Fae? He let her go with a sneer of disgust and leaned over a low fireplace built into the wall, the dying embers providing the room’s only source of light. A swirl of his finger sent bright orange flames bursting into life.
“I did not want to kill them,” he said quietly.
“But you did.”
“Yes.”
He sensed her movement but did not turn, did not fight the knife that found its way into his back, a perfect throw with deadly aim. Theo closed his eyes, waiting for a flash of white. For the swell of blood on skin. For the warmth of pain, or the coldness of inevitability. Every blade inserted, every rope twisted, every bone broken brought with it a surge of hope, a breath of hesitation, but they always ended the same way.
With life instead of death.
Twisting his arm, Theo yanked the knife out and hurled it across the room. The blade buried itself in the headboard of his bed.
“When are you going to learn that doesn’t work?” he growled, stomping back toward her.
Mira’s eyes widened as he grabbed her arm, but she did not move, stiffening her spine as he searched for more weapons. The red dress had grown dirty from her stay in the dungeon, and Theo felt a flicker of guilt at having left her there so long. She had hacked away the train, shortening the skirt to something she could move in more easily, but he knew the alluring fabric hid more than one kind of danger. He pulled out two more daggers and a garrote, slinging them across the room.
The shadows that wrapped around his body writhed and stretched, reaching for her bare shoulders, her torn dress, her false-white hair. Mira’s breaths came out in short bursts, eyes wide and fearful. Good. At least she had the sense to be afraid.
“You’re a monster,” she whispered as he released her, finished with his search, though he had no faith he’d found them all.
“I did what I was bound to do,” he snapped. She had not come for the truth, but he would shove it down her throat anyway. “Isandra is the real beast.”
Mira backed away to stand near the door, as if preparing to flee. “Mother told me what you did. How you stole her magic, left her stranded in a realm that no longer believed in magic.”
“I stopped a wicked sorceress from taking over the world,” he snarled. “She’s a brute who doesn’t know when to stop. If you’re not careful, she’ll destroy you too.” He glanced down her body at the dress that had concealed so many weapons, poisoned honey luring in the fly. “If she hasn’t already.”
Anger surged across Mira’s face like the shadows cast by the fire, but a seed of doubt sparked in her eyes as well. She smothered it with a frustrated shake of her head. “I don’t believe you.”
“I told you, I never lie.” And though he hadn’t intended to convince her of his innocence—knew he couldn’t even if he tried—he found himself wanting to anyway. Wanting to warn her, at least, before she made the same mistakes he had.
“You know it’s true,” he said, his voice as quiet as the smoke that danced in the air between them. “Somewhere deep inside, you know what she’s capable of.”
“And what are you capable of?” Mira asked with fire in her eyes and a stubborn set to her chin.
A familiar feeling wormed its way into Theo’s chest—a flame that had burned out long ago. He pushed the thoughts away, letting familiar apathy replace the anger that had fueled him moments before, leaving a cold emptiness in its place. “I guess we’ll see.”
He fell onto the bed, not bothering to cover himself with the sheet. The fire had heated the room too quickly, combining with the passion of her fury and melting the shell of ice he’d protected himself in for so long.
“What am I supposed to do now?” Mira demanded, sounding less like a scared prisoner and more like an irritated house guest. The thought amused Theo.
“Make yourself at home,” he said, with only a trace of sarcasm. “You are free to sleep where you like. The dungeon obviously won’t hold you anyway.” He raised his head off the pillow, turning to glance at her over his shoulder. “How did you get out, by the way?”
“Well, it’s not exactly state-of-the-art, is it?” Theo could hear the sneer in her words. “I used the garrote to saw through some of the bars.”
He collapsed back on the bed, unable to keep a grin from creeping across his pillow. “Of course you did,” he murmured.
“So that’s it? You’re just going to leave me to wander around for a year? Tell me my mother is a monster and then go back to sleep like everything is fine?”
Theo wanted to tell her that the things he knew about Isandra would turn her stomach. That he lay on his bed not to sleep, but to hide the pain that lived in his eyes. That nothing would ever be fine again.
Instead, he said, “You may join me for dinner tomorrow evening.”
“And if I don’t?”
He shrugged, letting the apathy suck him back down, a comfortable cloud to numb the pain. “Starve, for all I care.”
Mira hmphed, and Theo tried to calculate the odds that Isandra really hadn’t sent her, that the next year living with a fiery assassin wouldn’t somehow end in his death. Tried to determine whether fear or hope sliced through his chest like her daggers could not.
But it was too late for calculations, and Theo had relived enough nightmares for one night. He closed his eyes, though sleep danced far out of reach, as elusive as one of his shadows.
“Trust me,” he said. “There are worse ways to die.”
Mira moved through the manor like a wraith. Or one of his—she shuddered—shadows. A chill passed down her spine as she remembered the way they had curled around her hand, twined through her hair, a cool menace brushing against her skin. Inhuman and terrifying.
Not that she had expected him to be human. Mother had told her jinn could be tricky. Could take on the form of a human and twist it to suit their needs.
She could have told Mira about the knives, though. Mother knew daggers were her favorite weapon, and yet she had failed to mention the jinn could not be killed by one. She wondered if he were telling the truth, that a heart did not beat beneath his surprisingly human chest. Was it an item, then? A keepsake hidden somewhere in this shadowy manor?
Apparently, she had a year to find out. Another tiny detail Mother had neglected to inform her.
A canvas on the wall distracted her: a portrait of the jinn and the likeness he wore. The same lean body; wavy black hair that curled around his ears and fell over his forehead; a sharp, angled jaw; eyelashes even longer than her own.
The eyes, though…the eyes were different. In the painting a flat, lifeless grey, but in person they had been hungry, almost alive, as if actual shadows swirled around his pupils. The expression didn’t fit either, too arrogant in the painting, too sure of himself, and no shadows twined around his arms or wrapped around his neck. The jinn she’d seen in the bedroom had seemed weighted, heavy, exuding a sadness that belied his eternal youth and power.
“How do I kill you?” she murmured to the portrait, and she could have sworn the eyes flickered in response.
Mira stared at the feast spread before her, the long dining table hidden beneath dozens of food-laden trays. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he would have dinner. This looked much more appetizing than the snacks she’d found in her raid of the kitchen last night.
She stiffened as the jinn entered, the steak knife she’d tucked into her—his—pants suddenly feeling like rubber as she noted the way those infernal shadows twisted and curled over his lean form, seeping out of his dark blue suit like smoke.
“Hello,” he greeted her, taking a seat at the opposite end of the table. “Glad you decided to join me.”
“Did I have a choice?”
He didn’t answer, his eyes dropping to the shirt she’d stolen from his room that morning. A plain white one, ridiculously soft, and rolled up at the sleeves to accommodate her shorter arms.
“What am I to call you?” she asked. “If I am to be here for a while.”
“Theo. Please.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Theo? Really?”
“My true name is Theodorizain. I assumed Theo would be more palatable for your…human tongue.”
She flinched at the reminder that he was not human, that something otherworldly lived in his veins. Then she shrugged. “Call me Mira.”
Theo smirked. “Does this mean you no longer wish to kill me, Mira?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” she responded, eyeing a platter of roasted duck.
“Shall we eat while you figure it out?”
Drool practically dripped down Mira’s chin, but she hesitated.
“It’s not poisoned,” he assured her, as if reading her fears. He cut a bite off a chunk of steaming venison, scraping his teeth across the fork as he exaggerated the bite.
The gesture did little to ease Mira’s fears, but she grabbed the plate closest to her anyway. If he wanted her dead, he’d had plenty of opportunity before now. She still wasn’t sure why he hadn’t killed her last night—in retribution for stabbing him, if nothing else.
She shuddered, disguising the tremor by picking up her fork. There was something inherently terrifying about trying to kill something that wouldn’t die.
“Tell me about my mother,” she said around a mouthful of duck. The juice burst in her mouth in an explosion of flavor and she nearly swooned, temporarily forgetting the nightmare she’d landed in.
“Enchantress. Sorceress. Slayer of babies and destroyer of an entire nation.”
Mira paused in her chewing to glare at him. “Some might say the same about you.”
To her surprise, he looked chagrined. “I have paid for my sins,” he said quietly. “Many times over.”
A haunted look passed through his eyes, and Mira hoped she never had to face the thing that could scar an immortal being. Well, almost immortal. There was still that business about his heart. “My mother doesn’t think so.”
“I do wish you would stop calling her that.”
“My parents were killed when I was a baby. Isandra raised me. What else should I call her?”
“Murderer, perhaps? If your parents were killed, she is sure to have done it.” He idly stabbed a piece of meat with a fork, rose-colored liquid oozing onto the plate.
“Why would she do that?”
“Isandra kills without shame or regret. Ending the lives of two humans in order to obtain a baby would mean nothing to her.”
Mira forced herself to swallow, the perfectly cooked meat suddenly tasting like ash on her tongue. As much as she wanted to brush his words off as slanderous, the lies of a beast, she had seen Mother’s darkness for herself, the callous way she could talk of ending someone’s life. The many ways she had taught Mira to do the same.
“And, what?” she demanded, thumping her fork against delicate china. “She asked you to destroy her family, her entire race? Earth doesn’t even believe in the Fae anymore. They’ve been debased as fantasy, a story to tell children!”
“Yes.” Theo’s eyes turned impossibly dark, laced with the same shadows tattooed across his neck. “It was her second wish.”
Mira shook her head, not wanting to believe. Theo did—that much she could see in a glance. Though he sat calmly in his chair on the other side of the table, silky black tendrils slipped over his fork, and his eyes glittered with an otherworldly malice.
“Why?” she breathed, her voice barely audible in the aching silence of the dining room.
Theo placed his fork on the plate and leaned back in his chair, a soft breath escaping in a sigh. “She wanted to be the only one.”
“The only what?”
“The only one with gifts. Being Fae was not enough for her. She used her first wish to demand magic. But pure magic is…unreliable, at best. Malevolent, at worst. I only gave her a shadow, but it…changed her. Evil loves a good host. It fed on her ambitions, her desires. Corrupted her.”
Mira thought of Isandra’s study in their mansion on Earth. Floor-to-ceiling shelves of ancient books and tomes. Scrolls with ink no longer legible. Dozens of jars and vials whose contents Mira did not want to think about. Her adopted mother had been obsessed with magic, trying every possible combination of spells and potions to get it back. Mira had entered the room once by accident. Isandra had made sure she would never do it again.
“She became convinced the Fae were a threat,” Theo continued. “For her second wish, she ordered them destroyed. I tried to talk her out of it, tried to resist, but—”
He broke off, jaw clenched so tightly a tic appeared in his temples. Mira’s heart jolted in response to his pain, and she tried to convince herself he was lying. How many times had she seen her mother fake tears, manipulating people with her emotions?
“And her third wish?”
At this Theo almost smiled, though his black eyes still reflected bitter regret. “That is where she made her mistake,” he said, voice hissing in triumph. “She wished to be as powerful as a jinn. But she did not say which one. I split my own power in half, then secluded myself here before it could reach her.”
Mira shook her head in confusion. “Before what could reach her?”
He held his hand up, showing off the black tendrils that whispered over his skin. “Magic.”
Mira watched the shadows in fascination rather than fear, seeing them in a new light. The other half of his magic. Sentient power looking for its host.
Looking for Isandra.
“And the wish overrode her previous magic,” Theo said almost proudly. “Even her natural Fae powers.”
“Leaving her with nothing,” Mira finished, the pieces snapping into place with a bone-jarring thud.
“As long as I stay here, in the Other-Realm, she cannot access magic there on Earth.”
“Why does she not just come here herself?” Mira asked, thinking of all the training, all the plans, all she had endured to come in her mother’s place. “If you’re in the same realm, couldn’t she get it that way?”
“Yes, but at a price. This is the Other-Realm. The space between. The place from which jinn are summoned. On Earth, the magic is merely a part of her wish. Here, she would become a true jinn, linked to a mirror, bound to the wishes of others. She will not come here, even for magic.”
Mira nodded, long and slow. “That’s why she wants your heart. She thinks if she can destroy you, she will become a full jinn.”
He nodded.
“Is she right?”
Their eyes locked across the table, and Mira forced herself not to blink.
“If I am destroyed, the curse will be broken,” Theo said quietly.
“And the only way to kill a jinn is to destroy its heart?”
He shrugged, mouth quirking up a little at the edges. “So they say. But it will not help Isandra. As I told you before, I have no heart. And if I knew how to kill myself, I would have already done it.”
Mira nodded idly, scraping her fork across her plate, drawing designs in the rich gravy that seeped off her uneaten duck. “I think,” she said slowly, “that I believe you.”
The air hung heavy with unspoken promises, untethered hope. Mira wasn’t sure which was hers and which was his.
“So what will you do?” Theo asked. Though he looked calm, she noticed the shadows had stopped moving, hovering above his skin in quiet anticipation.
Mira pushed her chair back, the stillness broken as he rose with her.
“That,” she announced, “is something I will need to think about.”
To Theo’s best guess, unreliable as that was, a week passed before Mira made her decision. He was sitting in his study, nothing moving but the fire in the hearth and the shadows against his skin, when she finally approached him.
“Theo.”
He turned at her voice, pretending he didn’t know she was there, that he hadn’t sensed her presence long before she’d reached his study. “Mira.”
She entered the room slowly, with a mixture of caution and respect. He tried to ignore the way his borrowed shirt flattered her slender frame, the collar hanging loosely over one shoulder, the black pants somehow a perfect fit. She must have ripped up a pair of his own, found something sharp to sew them back together with. She seemed never to lack a sharp object.
“I’ve decided what to do.”
She stopped in front of him, the fire turning her pale skin amber, and he tried to ignore the buzz in his ears, the way the shadows quickened around him. “It does not involve death, I hope.”
She took a breath, her eyes never leaving his, the shadows from the fireplace flickering dangerously across her face.
“It does,” she said, her voice brushing against his skin like a caress. “You’re going to help me kill my mother.”
Mira held her breath, the heat from the fire making her arms prickle with sweat.
“Interesting,” Theo said, his grey eyes reflecting nothing. “And how do you propose we do that?”
“I take it she cannot be killed with a knife to the chest?” Mira asked the question lightly, but all her hopes hung on his answer. If he could tell her how to kill Isandra, maybe she could do the same to him instead.
“The same restrictions apply to her as they do to me,” Theo answered vaguely.
Mira crossed her arms, irritated. “Which means she can only die if her heart is destroyed, but she doesn’t have a heart either?”
A soft grin played on Theo’s lips. “Something like that.”
“Well, she wants to kill you to get both halves of your magic. Does that mean if I kill her, you’ll get both?”
He shook his head, eyes tight. “We are bound irrevocably now. If one of us dies, so does the other.”
The words hung in the air, then crashed around Mira like broken glass, destroying days, months, years of planning. “Does Mother know about this?” she whispered.
“Would she have sent you to kill me if she did?”
Mira opened her mouth to deny it, then shook her head, trying to unscramble the pieces of what he’d said. The idea was so absurd she wanted to laugh. Three times—she had stabbed him three times. What if one of them had worked? Would Isandra have died as well?
And would that have been such a bad thing?
Mira dismissed the thought for now, tucking it in that dark place of her soul she tried not to think about, full of dangerous whispers and promises not yet broken.
“Can’t you just undo it?” she asked.
“Once a jinn grants a wish, it cannot be undone.”
Sorrow laced his words, and Mira thought of the Fae, an entire race of people destroyed, a wish he could not undo. As much as she tried to ignore the idea that Isandra had been the one to order it, Mira couldn’t deny that Theo’s confession at dinner last week had left a bad taste in her mouth. Still, she had a job to do.
“Is there a way?” she asked. “To separate the magic again? To kill one but not the other?”
Theo shrugged, the movement as casual as if she’d asked what he wanted for supper. “You’re welcome to look. The library here is quite extensive.”
“Now?”
He shrugged, waving an arm in invitation, and something sparked in Mira’s chest as she followed him down the hallway. Excitement? A silly emotion for an assassin to have, and yet when he opened the doors to reveal dozens of bookshelves, her chest swelled in delight. Lights appeared instantly, sconces bursting to life, a large fireplace spontaneously erupting in a glow of ember and flames. The shelves seemed to go on forever, row after row of gleaming mahogany, each one framed with ornate columns reaching for an impossibly high ceiling. Elegant spiral staircases bore entry to a second and even third story, where open mezzanines revealed even more bookcases.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“It’s incredible,” she breathed. She had already resigned herself to a bleak stay in a manor full of dark rooms and shadowy hallways, but this…this made a year in the Other-Realm almost worth it.
“I’m glad,” he said, and for a moment she forgot to hate him, forgot the reason she had come to this realm in the first place. Then she saw the shadows inking over his skin, remembered the two nights she’d spent in the dungeon, and snapped herself back to reality.
“Well,” she said, shoving her excitement into the black box with everything else. “I guess we should get started.”
Theo watched her.
For months Mira scoured his boundless library, poring through dozens of books a day. She drank the words, feasting on knowledge, her papercuts lined with ink.
Some days she curled up in a chair with a stack of dusty tomes beside her. Other days she scribbled frantically on the smooth wooden tables, papers collecting in messy heaps around her. Still other times she read right from the shelves, lost in a book for hours while she hung precariously on a tall ladder, or sat on the floor with her back to a shelf, oblivious to the harsh imprints it left on her skin.
He watched her hide weapons all over the manor like a squirrel burying nuts, not trusting that he wouldn’t take her daggers away again. Occasionally she still stabbed him with some of them, but usually only when she was bored. Then she would watch in morbid fascination as the shadows oozed out of his skin to heal the wounds every time.
He watched her cautiously try on the numerous dresses he conjured for her—green velvet, amber taffeta, shimmering azure silk—easing into them like a caterpillar trying on its wings for the first time. Eventually she stopped waiting for him to offer and met him in his bedroom first thing every morning, demanding his newest creation. Then she would watch wide-eyed as his shadows slithered over skirts and bodices, leaving delicate lace and twinkling jewels in their wake.
He watched her trace ancient pictures of Fae with a trembling finger while tears dripped down her face and collected in the scoop of her collarbone. Then she would stare into a mirror with the same look of desperate hatred that always seemed to linger under the surface of her skin.
He watched her dust the shelves when she thought he wasn’t looking, or casually straighten a three-hundred-year-old vase, humming a quiet little ditty from Earth while a dainty foot tapped the carpet.
He watched her hair lengthen, exposing roots of a rich auburn color, so different than the harshness of her false white. She twirled it through her fingers sometimes when she was deep in thought, leaving the ends gently curled.
He watched her hunt for answers, and he watched her run away from them, and he couldn’t say for certain which one scared him more.
Mira slammed the book closed. Nothing. Months of research, a million books, and not a single clue how to break the wish.
“Are you okay?”
She jumped as Theo appeared right beside her, silent as always. She’d never been able to figure out if he appeared at will, or if he was merely part shadow himself.
“Yes,” she answered, the word clipped. “Just frustrated.”
Frustrated that she couldn’t find anything. Frustrated that her time was almost up. Frustrated that she was no longer sure whom she wanted to kill, and whom she wanted to save. The choice was easy—kill the beast. But which one of them was the monster? Theo, or Isandra?
The longer she looked into Theo’s shadow-kissed eyes, the more she saw human emotions: pain, regret, concern, guilt…love. And the longer she resided in this haunted manor, the more something loosened inside her, allowing her to breathe freely for the first time in her life. Theo controlled the darkness, kept it away from her, rather than constantly shoving his own agenda in her face like Isandra had done, forcing her to become someone else. Here, she was only Mira, and that was enough.
“Come with me.” Theo extended a hand and Mira took it with a smile, used to the cool feel of the shadows brushing against her skin and the comforting warmth of his palm underneath.
“Where are we going?”
“I want to show you something.”
He led her to the middle of a random hallway and opened a wide glass door—a door she was positive had not been there a moment before. She stepped through the entrance, overcome with the same sense of awe at seeing his library for the first time, except that instead of books, now she found herself surrounded by paintings. Hundreds of them, filling up every inch of the room. Oil paintings rendered on sturdy canvas; delicate watercolors encased behind glass; half-finished pieces draped over easels. He had even painted the ceilings.
“Did you do all this?” She turned and found Theo watching her from the doorway with a soft smile.
“Yes.”
“This must have taken ages,” she breathed, spinning in a circle to take it all in.
He shrugged, a light smirk playing at his lips. “Couple of centuries.”
“What is it all?” She ran a hand lightly over a scene of a rose garden and half-expected to prick her finger on one of the thorns.
“These are my memories,” he said quietly.
Mira examined the paintings with a fresh perspective—the dark-haired woman selling colorful woven rugs; a sunset sinking over the ocean; a child eating a pastry, icing dripping down his chin; the tips of the pyramids gleaming in a moonlit desert. Peaceful moments frozen in time. Moments of joy and wonder and beauty that Mira hadn’t realized the human world could contain. Something twisted in her heart, an emotion Isandra had not taught her.
“You lost all this?” She turned and found Theo standing with his hands behind his back, somehow looking both younger and older at the same time.
“A just recompense for the horrors I have caused.”
“So these people…” She stopped in front of a scene of a little girl with wide brown eyes and a soft smile. Her hair hung in tangled curls down to her lap, where dirt-stained fingers curled around a half-wilted rose. “They all summoned you…didn’t they.”
Theo stepped forward to stand behind her. “That’s Grace.”
Fondness softened his words, and Mira felt a pang of jealousy at the affection in his words. He had loved these people, had helped them simply because they’d called him. She had grown up believing jinn were wicked, malicious spirits who existed to torture humans, to twist their words, to defile their wishes. But they were not that way at all.
At least, not this one.
Mira turned away so he could not read the emotion in her eyes. A flash of red drew her gaze to a corner, where a single red rose floated in a glass dome on a small table. She approached it with wonder, eyeing the dark ribbons of shadow that twined around the stem.
“What is this?” she breathed in fascination.
“A gift,” he answered with a reminiscent smile. “I keep it alive as a reminder.”
Mira took his hand and trailed her finger across his palm, watching the shadows respond to her touch. Watching Theo respond to her touch. The pain of hope collided with reluctant fear before settling into a sort of morbid finality.
“If there was a way to set things right,” she asked softly, “would you?”
“I would do anything to take back what I have done.”
“Even if it kills you?”
His eyes glittered with a fierceness she had never seen. “Especially if it kills me.”
Mira picked at her dinner—the last meal she would eat in this shadowy realm—and wondered why she did not want to leave. Tomorrow she could go back, return to Earth, to the sun, to her mother.
“Theo, I need to tell you something.”
“It can wait.” He pushed back from the table, crossing the room to fiddle with some half-ancient machine in the corner.
She watched the strong slant of his shoulders, the curls that gathered at the nape of his neck, and wished she could run her hands through the dark locks. Wished she could hold him close and tell him what he had grown to mean to her. Wished her first dagger had worked and ended it all a year ago, so she wouldn’t have to make this choice now.
“I think I found a way,” she said. “To kill Isandra, I mean.”
Theo turned and the haunting melody of a song she didn’t know floated across the room, as sad and peaceful as his eyes. He approached her slowly, his eyes smoky and soft, like the fur of a wolf—but she knew he was no beast.
“I’m going to try it,” Mira said, wondering why her pulse raced so quickly, why her hand longed to reach out and touch his. “But I think it will—”
“Dance with me.”
“What?” Somehow his simple request invoked more fear than any threat he could have made.
“Dance with me.” His voice was laced with midnight velvet, full of promise. He reached out a hand, a symbol of trust, an offer of peace.
“Okay.”
When her hand clasped his, the shadows rushed forward, twining around them. Mira took comfort in his arm, strong and firm around her as he led her to the center of the floor. She pressed herself closer, using his body as a guide, letting her feet get lost in the dance. Her yellow skirt spun around her in an aura of sunshine as music filled the room, pushing against years of pain, breaking down the walls she had forged so carefully.
Theo smiled, and Mira felt something melt inside. Tomorrow she could put back up the walls. Tomorrow, she could be what her mother had made her.
Tonight, she would dance.
Mira shivered in the surreal stillness of the Shadow Forest, where nothing moved except wisps of grey fog slinking between her feet. The stunning yellow dress she had worn last night was gone, replaced with black leggings and a dark grey sweater.
Theo appeared at her side, a faithful shadow, an ever-attentive host. “Here,” he said.
She looked down at the weapon in his palms, a dagger unlike anything she’d ever seen on Earth. Instead of a single, flat blade, two thin blades wrapped around each other in a dangerous spiral that ended in a wicked point. The handle was formed from bone, dark as ash, and tailored to fit her hand perfectly.
“A goodbye gift,” he said, folding her fingers over it. “Perhaps we will meet again. In another life.”
She drew in a sharp breath, unfamiliar emotion catching in her throat.
“Are you ready?” he asked gently, gesturing to the air that shimmered before them. The veil between the Other-Realm and Earth. All that separated them from Isandra.
“Yes.” A breath. A whisper. A lie.
Then she stepped through the veil to the other side.
Theo watched the air ripple around Mira, spreading as her body disrupted its natural flow. He had stayed up all night, listening to the vorgs and other creatures disturb the hushed darkness as the veils opened at midnight. He had waited as long as he dared, giving the sun ample time to rise, and he caught a glimpse of it now. Of white snow glistening in a pine forest with real trees. He imagined running his hands over the rough bark, imagined the pine needles brushing against his skin.
His face hardened as Mira stepped out of the way, revealing another figure. Isandra.
“Theo!” she chirped with delight as she spotted him. Her mouth split open like a crack in quartz as she gave him a wicked smirk, coming to stand just in front of the veil. The air still shifted and swirled, blurring her image slightly.
“Isandra,” he growled, keeping his feet firmly planted on the shadow ground.
“Well, child,” Isandra said, turning to Mira. “Did you get what I asked for?” She extended a hand, her nails painted the color of blood, long and sharp.
Mira looked back at Theo, pain etched across her face. “I’m sorry,” she said, pulling a rose out of her pocket. Not a rose—his rose. “This is the only way to kill her.”
Theo’s eyes widened as he realized what she was about to do. “Mira, NO!”
But it was too late. She threw the rose on the snow, grinding it under the heel of her boot.
Mira sucked in deep breaths, the cold burning her throat, tears stinging her eyes. She did not want to look, didn’t want to watch Theo fall, or dissipate into shadows, or scream in agony as she crushed his heart beneath her shoe. But it was the only way. He would have wanted her to do it. Would have wanted her to kill him if it meant killing Isandra too.
Except that neither one of them was dead.
Mira opened her eyes, her tears blurring the crumpled flower at her feet. The shadow that had twined around the stem, keeping the rose alive in the Other-Realm, slithered across the snow toward Isandra’s feet. Mira’s stomach lurched as she remembered what the shadows represented—jinn magic. Isandra’s magic.
And Mira had brought it right to her.
Isandra’s eyes lit up with centuries of greed and impatience as the shadow jumped to her hand, circling her fingers before crawling up her arm. The inky tendril brushed against her neck like a lover’s caress, and Isandra opened her mouth, sucking it inside. Mira watched in horror as her mother smiled, eyes glittering with malice.
“I’m sorry,” she said sweetly, her voice laced with a warning. “Did you say it was the only way to kill me?”
Mira froze, fear clutching her chest, chilling her bones. “No, I mean—it’s his heart. That’s—it has to be his heart. There’s nothing else.”
“Oh, but I think there is,” Isandra crooned, stepping closer to Mira. “What you both don’t realize is that I finally figured it out—how to steal a jinn’s heart. It’s you.”
A shiver raced across Theo’s skin, shadows buzzing around him in frantic desperation as they tried to leap across the veil, to join the sliver of magic that now lived in Isandra’s blood.
Isandra turned to face him, her ice-blue eyes taunting. “Isn’t that right, Theo?”
He shook his head, intentionally avoiding Mira’s face. If he looked at her, he would feel things, and he couldn’t afford to feel things right now.
“Jinn don’t have hearts,” he said gruffly, praying she believed him. Praying they both believed him. “I’ve told you that.”
“So if I kill Mira right now, nothing will happen?”
Mira’s hand flashed, Theo’s dagger in her palm, but Isandra was quicker, pinning Mira’s dagger arm and twisting the other behind her until she winced.
Don’t look.
“Well, your daughter would be dead,” he answered with as much apathy as he could muster. “But I don’t see how that would affect me.”
“Won’t it? Are you saying if I crush her right now, you won’t perish as well?” Isandra’s arm tightened around Mira’s chest, making her slender body squirm in pain.
Don’t look.
“Oh, I will perish,” he answered calmly, a twinge of triumph flaring in his chest. “But so will you.”
Isandra narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“We share a soul now, remember? If you kill me, you die too.”
One of Isandra’s eyes twitched, a flicker of doubt. “You’re lying.”
He smiled. “I never lie.”
Isandra’s face twisted in anger as she lashed out, shoving Mira forward, toward the veil. Mira stumbled, gasping, falling, and he instinctively lunged forward to catch her.
He didn’t realize he’d crossed the veil until the sun warmed his face, cold snow soaking into his pants. He looked up at Isandra, horror sinking into his bones as the shadows that had hovered around him for centuries rushed toward Isandra instead, finally completing the wish.
“Yesss,” she hissed, closing her eyes as half of his magic flowed into her, filling her veins with power that now equaled his.
“Theo…” Mira twisted in his arms, struggling to look up at him. “I forgot…I’m so sorry.”
He stroked her hair, admiring the way the auburn roots burned like fire in the sunlight. “It’s okay, my love. You were right to try.”
Tears dripped down Mira’s face. Tears of confusion, and frustration, and regret. “Your heart…the rose…I don’t understand.”
“The rose is nothing more than a flower, a reminder of a happier time.” He wrapped his arms around her, throat tight, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I gave my heart to you a long time ago.”
She buried her face in his chest, sobbing silently as grief replaced years of bitterness and apathy, an almost welcome pain.
“How sweet,” Isandra taunted. “True love, together at last. And now you both must lose it.”
Mira looked up at Theo and smiled, sad and triumphant, a small smile meant only for him. “Maybe we’ll meet again,” she whispered, her breath warm on his cheek. “In another life.”
Theo raised his hand, wet with snow, and gently cupped her face. “In another life, then.”
Mira leaned forward, pressing her lips to his, and Theo closed his eyes, letting the pain and bliss and rage and joy all blend into one chaotic breath. Isandra laughed behind them, but they ignored it, and when Mira broke the kiss to press her forehead against his cheek, Theo tasted the salt of her tears.
“I hope you are quite finished,” Isandra declared, striding toward them with evil delight, her long black skirt trailing behind her like ash.
Mira leaned back, her lips brushing Theo’s jawline. “Whatever it takes?”
He nodded and felt the world crack with the gesture, a tiny movement that would end it all. “Whatever it takes.”
Her fingers slid into his, the beat of her heart pulsing against his palm, and then she drove his dagger into her chest.
Isandra’s hand shot out in alarm, sinewy shadows streaking toward them, but too late. The shadows faded, Isandra’s body dropping to the ground as she faded with them.
Theo’s breath stilled in his chest, the sun warming his face for the first time in centuries. He gently stroked Mira’s cheek with transparent fingers and a peace he had been searching for his whole life.
She smiled faintly at his ghostlike touch then closed her eyes for the last time, while beside her, pushing through pine needles laden with snow, a ribbon of shadow twined around a single red rose.
THE END