Chapter Forty-Eight

Time itself froze.

Moonlight flashed off the vessel swirling in the vortex. Hope flickered one last time in gentle eyes. The magician’s roar of rage canceled out as Anjeline exhaled a mounting scream. A scream that jostled the bones of the dead.

And Rebel’s wish answered her call.

Nothing could stop the sacrifice from being cast, and the cuffs that had imprisoned Anjeline for years unlatched from her wrists. Metal clattered against the roof alongside the sound of her freedom. With it, the vessel keeping her bound began to disintegrate until the swirling winds swept away its dust. The lure on her released. Her essence unshackled.

With a whomp, her magic returned to her all at once.

And Anjeline’s full form was revealed. Like liquid fire, her runes gleamed and quills splintered through the sweater, painting blurs of smokeless fire around her. Ablaze. Fanning heat into the ether. She was bound no more. Her magic back within her control. Rebel had fulfilled it. A simple wish with such resounding sacrifice.

Time stirred up again.

A final noise escaped Rebel’s throat. A last breath. Her body swayed as the vortex faded, toppling her over just as Anjeline outstretched her hands. She clutched Rebel’s limp body in her arms, now absent of a pulse. The perfect stillness of death.

Cries of rage roared from Nero’s throat at the unexpected turn of events. He raised the staff to retaliate at the same moment the roof’s door ripped off its hinges. Wulfram and his pack surged through like one massive beast, a harmonized sea of murderous movement that was chased by the Bright Guard. Somewhere above, the Siren flew, hissing and screeching, descending faster, filling the sky in a lethal song.

Anjeline merely held up her hand against them.

Now with power restored, she could see the magic threads on every surface of the world. Her magic flared. Shapes of fiery smoke materialized around her like a shield of beasts, driving back the enemy and encircling them in its protection. Nero pushed against her magical blockade, and lycanthropes clawed at it as if swimming, but none broke through.

In the distance, the shaded figure riding atop the falcons drew into sight. The magician who had tried shielding the vase. A mother coming to protect her daughter.

But Anjeline’s world shrank to the lifeless girl in her arms. All this time, she had wanted justice on Nero, to make him bow before her wrath, to reap the cost of what he’d done, but now with the opportunity, all she wanted was her back. “Faddi?” A trace of limp hair fell over Rebel’s face. Anjeline touched her chest and felt a stream of love for the broken and silent organ inside. For her hungry voice and bruised heart. To finally have freedom with such loss wasn’t freedom at all.

Under her protective smoke, Jaxon crawled closer. “Quick,” he rasped, clenching his side. “Wish us away, then you can fix her.”

Anjeline knew otherwise. “It isn’t finished.” The sounds of their enemy raged behind her, but everything was indistinct, hazy and slipping away at the loss before her. Her sorrow receded, and in its wake, her insides flamed in dissent. All the glorious Jinn power within her couldn’t revive a life gone. It can’t be, Solomon. The hope, the will of wishes on their side, had exceeded this. Had exceeded everything Madrath warned about.

Rebel had to wake.

Anjeline stared at her chest, willing it to rise with a breath. It didn’t matter that she was Jinn and her love too dangerous. All that mattered was the girl, limp in her arms. After she had touched her, after she had kissed her, she realized she’d been waiting for this since being birthed into fire. And she would take punishment to have her back. “Your heart isn’t broken. It’s overflowing,” she whispered to her. “You are light, Rebel. Release it, my love…and rise up.”

Rise up…

And come away…

In a hopeful touch, Anjeline brushed lips to hers, calling to Rebel’s blood. Casting a wish of her own. An invocation. Thick potency gathered there, into the core between them, through and within, removing the boundaries that separated. And she became conscious of a weight being lifted from the lifeless body. Aware of the humming in Rebel’s unmoving chest, a pent-up force pushing to be released. Magic.

Rebel’s magic.