Chapter Five

Anjeline tugged at the brass cuff encircling her wrists, the pain of this torture surging inside of her. With a flick of the tongue, her magic spread out, threading through her fingertips and stirring along her lips. Heated light twirled around the wristlet, and sparks fell like heavenly flames. Yet as always, with every try, her magic faded away.

And the cuffs remained.

Her essence turned to smoke rage, filling the vessel, curling and uncurling, pushing and stretching, but her form snapped back, unable to escape. Bound like an animal. She heaved a defeated sigh, yearning to feel her magic in its whole again. But what little she could conjure held nothing against her bindings. Her magic would belong to whoever possessed her. Making her less of a jinni and more of a treasure. And thus, she’d remained imprisoned. Her latest mistress magician had promised to unearth a way to liberate her. Till now.

Thanks to a thieving girl.

Anjeline gazed through the vase’s transparent windows at the bound girl. It felt strange. She could sense the human’s aura as if she were still outside the vessel. Now, the red wolf was laughing. The human had mumbled something about the lycan choking on twigs and berries. She wasn’t sure what fruit had to do with anything, but she had the impression that it was more offensive than Anjeline understood in her Jinn language.

All at once, the girl hunched over in pain.

She recognized the actions for what it was. A ruse. And she warmed a little to see it. A charming thief. The worst kind. “Crafty charlatan, aren’t you?” She studied her closer.

Those eyes, as silvery as the center of a star, shone through a smattering of dirt and blood. Though the girl was gangly like an overgrown pup, she had a sort of feline quality, lithe but floppy, as if her arms and her legs had a mind of their own but with purpose and charm. The wolf could learn a thing or two from this human, and Anjeline wondered what was scheming behind those eyes. She sighed to herself. If she was allowing her musings to turn to a thief, she must’ve been more desperate than she’d realized.

Humans were, after all, the enemy.

For which, Madrath the Jinn, potentate of all wishmakers, had utter contempt for—as he did when speaking of all humans and magicians alike. Drafts of heat would billow around his tuffs of sapphire hair like an unseen fire, his irises would swirl to crimson, and the runes upon his forearms would blaze. “Man is shamelessly predictable,” he’d said ages ago, when first versing her in breathing desires into reality. “I wish. So easy, they say. So much comes at a price.”

“Indeed, since I just paid it with my magic,” she’d quipped, feeling the drain of energy as her runes dimmed. The color of their runes could tell Jinn ranking: sapphire for wise potentates, emerald equaled peaceful, crimson for warriors, and gold among wishmakers. “And what for those who deserve their wishes?”

“Deserve?” Madrath had huffed, his voice so deep-seated it crackled like embers rubbing together. “We are tools to them. Compelled, controlled, dominated. We’re made to share our magic, so they believe it’s their right to take, when they share only their greed and attempt to bind us. You know Jinn rules.”

“‘Don’t trust their words, believe their sorrows, or feel pity,’” she’d quoted.

He had given a nod. “Jinn must come first, above your desires, your magic, your feelings. We are kindred. Together to the end.” That was Madrath: rules and decrees.

Still she’d pushed. “The sun and the stars are mine. What could a human rival do?” She hadn’t understood evil then. Before her wrists were bound and her vengeance sparked.

“They will tear down the very stars of the sky,” he’d promised. “There’s always a price to their wishes. Unless it’s cast by an unselfish heart.” Therein lay the irony. Wishes by human nature were desires of the self. And Anjeline had watched cities destroyed in a single word, with fire, with water, with the trembling of the earth. Countless prophets and magicians who believed they were faultless had still fallen to the ramifications of their greed.

In centuries, she’d only witnessed one soul who hadn’t reaped the consequence.

Now as Anjeline watched the bound human, she saw a glimpse, a phantom of a boy king she’d once served. She remembered the girl’s impression left on the vase, could feel her aura—bright and wild—as leaden as magic. Upon the she-wolf’s face curved a smile—she scented it, too. Anjeline could’ve allowed the lycanthropes to do as they pleased with the girl, but her insides twisted at the thought. She shouldn’t care. Feel pity after what humans did to her kind. To her. But even in the underground tunnels, she’d willed the girl to heed to her voice, to run. Why hadn’t she just left the vase and saved herself?

A glint suddenly entered the girl’s eyes.

A spark like lightning, and Anjeline watched as the girl looked up, down, and all around. “What are you scheming, Faddi?” The girl had fight in her, for sure, and she wondered what a lockpick with those gifts could accomplish under different circumstances. Wondered what Madrath would think.

By his definition, the girl was anything but trustworthy.

But fire was Anjeline’s mother tongue. She didn’t need to entrust a human. Just manipulate one. And this Rebel was a paradox. She’d witnessed the human open locks faster than a skilled magus. Watched her battle wolves. The girl had been beautiful, in the way something wild was beautiful. Jinn were some of the most powerful creatures in existence, to such an extent that power itself became meaningless to her. Yet there was something in this girl… She seemed far too familiar with the darkness, and had somehow managed to tame it, kicking and screaming into the light. Making her shine like a star in a black hole.

As she took in the girl with the hungry eyes, she glimpsed an opportunity. For this thief yearned for freedom as much as her. This human wasn’t at all what it seemed. Which was only fair, because neither was Anjeline. And she would have freedom, at whatever cost.

So, she made a plan of her own.