Chapter Thirty

Heat.

So sultry and consuming.

She wanted nothing more than to be swathed in the fire, in the tiny feathers, have them caress her arms, her skin, and her cheek. Wanted to stroke those fiery runes and the lips of the one they belonged to. But they were too pure—too blazing for the shadows inside of her. Like a light she couldn’t keep. Couldn’t have. Just touching them filled her with a longing so intense a dark pain erupted in her chest.

Her heart splintered as tongues of blackness consumed it.

Every breath she took turned into gloom and smoke. She was dying. The darkness choking her. Burning out her only light.

And her heart burned with it.

Rebel jolted, inhaling over the painful throb.

She tried sitting up, but the dream clung to her like cobwebs, plastering her sweat-soaked hair to her forehead. Fingers slipped to her shoulders, where they led her to lie back down on a bed, and she felt lips press to her temple. Above her, a face was lovingly lit by the moonlight trickling in from the window. “Anjeline…” she croaked.

“Dreaming about me again, are you?” Anjeline said softly. She looked tousled, her eyes moist, and her gown had been replaced with the Prussian blue sweater.

Rebel blinked up at her, coming to focus on the painted ceiling. A mural depicted something out of one of her books, a battle scene, shades of gold and emerald painted in streaks as figures fought against other gnarled beings. She glanced around the room, furnished in stone and marble, carved with ivy leaves and adoring rabbits, and realized they were still in the Sun Court. “How did I get here?” she asked.

Anjeline pressed a cool cloth to her head. “You passed out.”

“From dancing?” As she tried sitting up, the room began to spin. She focused on not passing out again, since it would certainly damage her pride.

“The wine was too much for your heart,” Anjeline said.

A pointed wing tip nudged her shoulder. “Nearly caused a ruckus, you did,” Piran said and tapped Rebel’s head, holding out a cup for her.

“Drink it. It will soothe.” Anjeline kneeled closer, supporting her head.

Not needing to be coaxed, Rebel grabbed the cup, suddenly feeling thirsty, and gulped down the sugary liquid it held. It slid down her throat, warming her from the inside out. A buzz worked over her, arising from her head and ending in her belly.

Anjeline cast a glance over her. “You need to rest for a while.”

“As if I have a while.” Rebel wiped her mouth.

Judging by the way Anjeline was staring, the blackout must have looked as horrible as it felt. “Your heart’s getting worse,” she said, now understanding. Concern poured from her eyes and spilled into her voice. “When were you going to tell me?”

“You mean, that blackout didn’t do it?” Rebel quipped, which was the wrong thing to say after a blackout. Anjeline’s face twisted, unamused. The few inches separating their bodies radiated with her heat, and Rebel’s heart began tapping against her breastbone like a worked-up puppy.

Colorful eyes traveled between them, and Piran shifted just enough for his leathery wing to flick out, smacking the cup from her hand, spilling it down her shirt.

“Well…” Rebel cringed. “That’s embarrassing.”

“Oh, my,” he said. “So sorry.”

Anjeline sent a sizzling scowl his way and dabbed the cloth on Rebel’s shirt, but it did little good. The drink soaked the silk, clinging to her as tightly as her trousers. Rebel sighed, and in one clean sweep, yanked the top off, leaving herself bare with just a silk thread of what could pass for an undergarment. Anjeline’s hand went still, and for a moment, her eyes went roaming. Rebel might have turned a deeper shade, but her heart gave up trying to push any blood to her cheeks.

Piran stood, looking pleased with himself. “I’ll alert Lady Danu you’re mindful now. She was concerned, what with the Wishmaker blazing over you, being down for the count.”

She peered up at Anjeline. “You what?”

“You should have seen her. She turned into a mad dog, accusing the Lady of drugging you.” Piran waved his hand, a mischievous smile on his lips, before he sliced out of the room, leaving his words hanging between them.

“I…may have gotten a little emotional.” Anjeline averted her gaze and poured a concoction of herbs and sparkling powder in the cup. “I didn’t know how to help you. Your pills have been spent. Even Lady Danu’s magic has its limits.” She shook her head and awareness passed over her face. “This’s the reason you braved a pack of lycanthropes? You’re relying on a wish to heal your heart?”

Rebel took a breath before answering, not wanting Anjeline to think any less of her. “I was starting to believe maybe there was no healing for my heart. Then I discovered a vase…worth enough for an operation. Except things took a turn for the magical and I met you.” She met her gaze. “You make me feel cured.”

Shining eyes had turned damp and stormy. “I can’t heal you.” Anjeline’s voice wavered. “Not with my bonds suppressing…”

“I know.” Rebel laid a hand over hers.

“You should have told me before. We could have been looking for a way to fix your heart first.”

“Doubtful. You were awfully grumpy.”

Anjeline’s lips slanted upward. “Bite your tongue.”

Rebel could barely pry her focus from those lips as she felt fingers trace over her pendant. Anjeline’s touch moved lower and lower. With every inch, it was like a leaping spark inside Rebel, wanting to grab those fingers and bring them to her lips.

As if reading her mind, Anjeline glanced at her hand pressed to Rebel’s chest. “We’re both caged birds, one of a heart, and one of a vessel,” she said. “I’d almost lost hope of getting free. Until a girl in the night came and stole more than a vase.” Her eyes said it all.

Rebel was startled at what she saw—a thousand emotions, all directed at her. She had long ago concluded her heart’s only function would be to keep her alive, but with one look from those odd eyes, her heart decided it had a different function entirely. Anjeline was warmth. Light. Zest. All the things she’d been wishing for in her life.

But in its wake, a spark of fear surfaced.

“Everything I’ve wanted is cursed with being taken from me,” she voiced. “My pendant is the one thing I’ve never lost. The one thing that’s survived.”

Anjeline understood. “And you think the wish is going to be taken from you?”

Her heart twitched, singing its secrets. “Maybe…I’m not worthy of a wish.”

Rebel, who had been wishing all her life, began desiring them less and less. All the wishes she’d once held on to with desperate fingers during lonesome nights—for a haven for herself among a cruel world, for a home, for a cured heart—weren’t enough. Not when they kept such a beautiful creature in a cage. She’d been hurtling toward her wish with such single-minded desperation, she never realized the reason she could obtain it was due to someone else’s pain.

The goddess with a broken smile.

Now, she wanted something no wish could grant, to free Anjeline. The desire to do so was greater than anything else, but with it, she wanted to keep Anjeline here, with her. Like a stolen treasure. So what, Rebel wondered, did that make her? Nothing more than a criminal. Any better than Nero? Over the years, she never let anyone get close for this reason, afraid they might see her dark spots, use them against her. She’d come on this journey to escape her life, to gain her wish, but what she found was a reflection of herself in Anjeline. Wounded and tainted by the darkness of others. Of herself.

“You were the light,” she confessed. “And I needed a little light, because without it, there’s an awful lot of darkness in my life, in me.”

Anjeline’s worried gaze trailed over her, like a stroke of a finger. “No one has ever told you the things you believe about yourself aren’t true? If anyone’s worthy, it’s you, Rebel.”

She shook her head. “I’m a criminal.”

For a beat, Anjeline’s face went still, as if she worked hard to guard against a surge of emotion. “I know what it means to be ashamed of what you’ve done, what you think you’ve become,” she nearly whispered. “But you’re not the Fingersmith with a heart. You’re a gentle soul who’s stolen so you could survive it. That first night…the way you held the vase, protecting it, talking to it like you were waiting for me to talk back.”

“I was, in a way.” Rebel smiled.

“You have a bird in your heart and a lion in your head.” Anjeline’s features softened and her hand came to nestle in the gape of Rebel’s chest. “I wish I could sink my hands into your flesh and fix it so you know there’s nothing but light inside. You’re the one thing in this world that makes sense to me.”

A steamy tear dripped down Anjeline’s cheek, and it was as if she were watching a flame fall from those eyes. She’d almost lost hope that anyone would, or could, ever see her for who she was. But Anjeline stared at her now, seeing beyond the fortress she’d built, and every inch of her body buzzed as those words rang true.

After a moment, Anjeline’s brows turned into twin quirks. “Your heart…” She moved her hand, like she could literally feel Rebel’s organ and was deciphering something. “It feels as if something’s being blocked. Needing to be released.”

Well, if that isn’t a euphemism. This time, Rebel didn’t stop it. She brought Anjeline’s fingers to her lips and kissed her knuckles. Then she pressed another kiss to the bronze cuff, just to see the heat flare up Anjeline’s neck, but she felt tingles flare up her own neck. Far more than a tingle. No. It came from something else entirely.

Anjeline appeared to feel it, too, but wasn’t as happy about it. Her quiet intake of air didn’t go unnoticed, like she was trying to keep her emotions from leaping out. “Jinn aren’t supposed to feel like this.”

“For a human?”

“It’s dangerous.”

Rebel understood—or, at least, she realized how dangerous such emotions could be. For both of them. “Even if it feels like magic?”

Heat blossomed as Anjeline released a little laugh, letting those emotions leak over her face, pulling at her lips. “Mine may be restrained, but I can still offer you a bit of my energy. Like what the pill does for you.”

She was so close Rebel inhaled her scent. It rested sweetly on Rebel’s lips, as though she could taste it, and her tongue suddenly felt too big for her mouth. “Does your magic taste like your scent?”

Anjeline bit her lip. “Come closer and you can have it.”

Her voice was an aphrodisiac. As satisfying as the nectar Rebel had consumed. Please, heart, don’t pass out now. She shivered, and as commanded, shifted close enough that Anjeline’s aura of warmth engulfed her. It pulled her in, and she felt herself being tugged toward those lips, as powerless as a ball of matter being drawn toward the sun.

The kiss reshaped her.

Liquid magic slipped through her lips, flooding her with light, with Anjeline’s energy. It caressed her like a lover, nuzzling lines of pleasure over her skin, gathering in the dips and curves of her limbs. And for a moment, what difference there was between jinni and human merged together. Gleaming sparkles appeared, and as the kiss deepened, Rebel felt something burn. A flame flavoring the stars.

It slid into her veins like wildfire.

Her world tinted brighter. It revived every cell, every vessel of blood, warming, softening, and pumping. Like Anjeline was drawing something out of her. The broken pieces of her heart fluttered, as if they were joining together in a perfect whole, as if she’d been born for this. Just this moment. And what remained was only them, and this, lips to lips, her pulse beating in a wonderful rhythm, pulling at the knot of longing, calming her heart.

Before she could take any more heat, Anjeline was pulling away. But Rebel could still feel her lips, the residue of magic she would be feeling for days afterward. As though Anjeline’s name had been branded into Rebel’s skin.

“Better?” Anjeline’s irises were fairly glowing.

All Rebel could manage was a nod, feeling faint, which had nothing to do with her ailment. “I’ve never kissed a shooting star, but I imagine it would feel a lot like kissing you.”

Anjeline gave a half smile like a rare gemstone, with lips parted, gaze unguarded. If she was stunning when irritated, when smiling, she could’ve stolen someone’s soul, and Rebel would’ve been grateful for it. It was starting to become the best half smile of her entire life.

“Fingersmith,” she whispered. “You stole my heart, you know?”

“Do you want me to give it back?”

“Keep it. You can owe me.”

Those words were stitches, keeping the pieces of Rebel’s heart together.

Even if it was for a moment, she believed it could be healed. That for so long the love that had abandoned her might at last be a friend to achieving her wish. If she could just hold on to Anjeline, burrow into her neck, she imagined every dark spot in her would melt away. And yet, she wanted to stop the warmth unfolding, crowding her with trembling longing. Because she knew once this journey came to an end, once she broke Anjeline’s binding, once her heart was healed, Anjeline would leave, returning to another realm, and she would again be alone.

Her heart might be made anew, but it would still be broken.