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 sight 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.

“Did you mean what you said—me being brave?” Rebel asked.

The corners of Anjeline’s lips curled. “You are clever, and you have a gift for disasters.” The melody changed, but she didn’t break away to another partner. Her arresting eyes lingered from Rebel’s gaze to her mouth. “It’s been several days,” she added. “I’m waiting.”

Rebel tensed, hopeful. “For?”

“For you to explain your heart to me.” Anjeline rested a hand over Rebel’s chest, over the space where the gentle organ pulsed out of beat to the music.

Rebel knew what she meant, though it sounded, if possible, she sought another answer entirely. And by Anjeline’s expression, she appeared to love the result her words had. How the things Rebel kept guarded seemed uncontrollable, at best, around her, and at worst, she acted like an eager pup. So she went with her only response. “My heart doesn’t understand rhythm any more than my feet do.”

As they twirled, to give example to her words, her feet fumbled.

Anjeline didn’t laugh. “It’s more than that. It’s sick.”

“I’ve had it forever.” Rebel didn’t want to see the worry on her face if she spoke it, knowing it could alter their search.

“But you chose not to tell me from the beginning?”

“I assumed it might…change your pact with me.”

“Assuming’s unfair.” Anjeline looked hurt. “Those pills help you?”

Rebel nodded, then chastised herself for becoming so consumed with this place, with Anjeline, that she’d forgotten. Her pill supply had run dry. In the last few days, she’d taken too many, and now they were spent. Anjeline’s expression shifted on the cusp of voicing something, but the music altered. They kept one another from being jostled by other dancers, nowhere to go but with the tide.

At last, they reached the main chamber and the pool.

Others were already partaking of the sacred wine, one after the other, citing the ritual. Piran was there and bowed to them, offering two cups. “Repeat after me,” he said. “It is not flesh and blood, but heart that makes us true…”

After repeating the words, Rebel intertwined her arm with Anjeline’s and raised the cup, offering her the first sip. Then she sipped from Anjeline’s. The sweet liquid warmed her throat, tasting of hope, and life. Her insides relaxed as the wine relieved the broken pieces from grating together. She met Anjeline’s eyes, taking in the feeling, and saw an expression of longing cross Anjeline’s face. She opened her mouth to speak just as a hand grasped her elbow.

Lady Danu smiled before them, swathed in a crimson gown that left little to the imagination. “Honor me a dance?” she asked Rebel. “To twirl with a Jinn charmer.”

She felt her other arm being squeezed. But Anjeline removed her hand, her face resolute, and gave a nod, letting Lady Danu step in. As the music altered again, they were swept up into the mass of dancers. A slow buzz was working in Rebel now, the sacred wine coursing through her stomach, slowly seeping into her blood. Lady Danu’s hand touched her arm where a warmer one had been, but Rebel’s focus kept darting about, trying to catch glimpses of gold.

“Worried?” Lady Danu voiced, drawing Rebel’s gaze to her. “Soon we will consult the Fates in your quest.”

“Will they have answers for Anjeline?”

“The Fates are puissant. They see things beyond us. Beyond time itself. But you must be honest with them.”

Rebel squinted. “You think I won’t be?”

“Honest when it comes to your heart.”

Ah, she understood, or at least she thought she did, based on the things Anjeline had spoken of. The consequences of a selfish one. Her gaze darted throughout the ballroom hall, seeking out gold. Anjeline was dancing with Piran, his wings beating in time to the melody, surely engulfed in her heat.

Lady Danu saw whom she could not bear to look away from. “It must be very lonely being bound to a vessel.” Her voice caught Rebel’s attention again and knowledge lingered in her eyes. “No one looks at someone like that unless they desire more than a wish.”

Rebel grinned sheepishly, the wine catching up to her. True. She was smitten. Nursing feelings so hard they could stop and rewind her heart on command. Even with the knowledge of magical mobsters hunting her down, she felt outlandishly happy. Because of a Wishmaker. Not a human, she reminded herself. Anjeline was a fantasy, so far out of her realm she should stop thinking about her as anything other than that, and yet, the sensation when her magic had flowed along Rebel’s body wouldn’t let her.

She shook her buzzing head. “It doesn’t matter. Anjeline wasn’t born of this world.”

Lady Danu nodded. “And?”

“She’s a jinni. I am a human.”

“And?”

“You don’t see the problem?”

“Love isn’t a problem. It’s a cure.” Lady Danu’s gaze seemed to look through her, seeing secrets. “Love creates a magic of its own, more powerful than any wish. It devours you. Like fire. To be devoured is true power.”

Love?

For such a small word, the feeling it produced in Rebel could have powered a small city. She was skillful at many things, a silver tongue, a master of locks few could hope to pick as fast as she. But there was one skill she’d never been able to master: the art of love.

How could she, when she’d never been loved, never been taught how? Love was a foreign concept, because she’d spent seventeen years of her life listening to her own cries for it where it didn’t exist. After all, Rebel was a lost girl—alone and unwanted—but she wished to be wanted. And she had felt it the moment Anjeline emerged, the bond springing up between them so powerfully she’d never stopped to question if it was possible.

Maybe, her heart whispered, because it is possible.

The crowd picked up as those words seeped deep into Rebel’s chest, along with the wine. Her thoughts churned against the procession around her, so consumed by them she didn’t hear the melody alter, didn’t see what partner Lady Danu handed her off to until a comforting humming filled her.

“This time I caught you,” a voice nudged her ear.

Rebel felt dissolved at the touch. Warmth trickled up her spine. She didn’t have to look to know it was her preferred dance partner. She turned and her sight collided into those wonderful shining eyes. “Back for my dancing feet?”

“For something.” Anjeline reached up, dragging a thumb over Rebel’s cheek. She didn’t seem to be teasing her this time, just simply wanting to touch, to feel skin, the shape of bones. Like she needed the comforting feeling to know Rebel was right there, under her fingertips. Then just as quickly, she drew her hand away as if it pained her.

The wild music picked up and again they were pulled into the tide. Swirling and swirling. The full force of the sacred wine now began buzzing in Rebel’s veins. As it reached her heart and fled into each chamber, something happened. Things around her became more magnified. Colors turned electric.

Others twirled and drank, a few consumed in locking lips, but Rebel’s world shrank to the feeling of hot feathers. Her fingers brushed over the ones on Anjeline’s spine, and it sent a shiver up her own. Mindless to stop herself, she put her nose in the silken hair cascading over Anjeline’s shoulder and inhaled. “You smell candied,” she whispered.

Anjeline’s head tipped back and she laughed, her expression pure bliss. Rebel’s heart nearly stopped as she gazed at the neck thrown back, the curve of chin and lips parted as if begging her to feel how heavenly they were. Her heat radiated in Rebel’s chest, igniting an ember within. She felt every inch between them, and wondered if Anjeline felt it, too. Being in this hidden place, full of the impossible, with her, it felt almost like…home.

Faster and faster they twirled.

As their breathing quickened, Anjeline hugged closer. A buzz pushed up through Rebel’s neck, making her sway, shrouded in warmth as the wine played with her ticker. She felt fevered. The thundering of her blood. Her rising heat. Her longing. None of which was on account of dancing, but because of the fiery girl in front of her. The Wishmaker.

Love creates a magic of its own.

Oh, how Rebel wished it did. She became aware of the rushing in her ears. It was as if her blood couldn’t handle this new heat, the cadence within her. A pain lanced through her chest. Her heartbeat thrummed so loudly the spinning world around her seemed to go deaf.

She saw a shooting star, just as her head hit the floor.