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. Mermaids 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 remained 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.

The Prince stood now as a skeleton. Immortal.

Screams filled the air. And then there, hundreds of layers below the city, the Siren lunged with her mermaids, the guards sprang into the air, lycanthropes charged fully formed—and chaos was unleashed.