The Conjurer (The Vine Witch #3)(14)
Jamra hit the end of his patience. Before Elena understood what was happening, her feet violently lifted off the ground. Her body sailed backward onto something soft yet sturdy that seemed to be moving. Her legs dangled over the edge of—she looked down—the Aubusson tapestry from her salon wall?
Horrified, she gripped the edge of the tapestry as they accelerated over the top of Chateau Renard’s chimney. The jinni sat straight-backed beside her with his legs crossed, obviously pleased at the terror he’d provoked in her by taking to the sky.
“Put us down!”
He tugged his derby snug against his head. “Too late. Enough with your games, witch.” The tapestry veered sharply right, and Elena screamed as her fingernails nearly gouged holes through the wool threads. “Tell me which way to the lying jinniyah this instant or I will only go faster.”
She felt the wind speed increase. Her stomach lurched. With no time to think, she shouted, “South! I swear to the All Knowing she is in the south.”
“You see, telling the truth is not such a hard thing to do.”
Defeated and angry at herself for giving in to her fear, Elena curled on her side as the wind whipped her hair and her knuckles grew white from the effort of holding on. She cursed the hour that announced this madman into her life. Queasy and afraid, she found what solace she could in knowing Jean-Paul at least was in no further danger. So long as she cooperated. Little comfort, but it was all she could find on that tiny patch of wool, aloft on unseen currents of air.
The jinni removed the cork from the stolen bottle of wine with his teeth, then laughed as he pointed the tapestry toward the southland. “Now we will see whose magic is superior.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The market hummed from the fusion of so much color and scent mingling in the dry air. The heat from the paving stones penetrated through the soles of Sidra’s sandals as palm trees swayed overhead. If not for the local women in their white linen dresses and broad straw hats, she could almost imagine she was in her homeland again.
Yvette poked her nose in the bouquet rising off a dish of red saffron. “I thought you said it wasn’t safe to go out.”
The jinni produced three coins and dropped them in the shopkeeper’s hand in exchange for a packet of the threaded spice. The smell alone, like the tall grass by the river after the sickle has swept through it, worked its magic on her foul mood. She brightened a fraction, remembering how much she adored wandering the winding walkways of the village on a sunny morning. She was too much like the saffron flower, she mused, thriving in the light instead of the shadow like so many of her kind. Hariq had been the same, so eager to walk among the people, enjoying earthly delights as if there were no greater pleasures to be had. Sidra knew of jinn who spent their entire existence hidden in dim corners, never becoming more than a fingerling of touch on the back of the neck of a passerby. For some it was enough to live in shadow. But not her.
“I said it was unsafe for you to walk out,” she said. “At least by yourself.” Sidra tucked her purchase in the folds of her caftan. “With me, you can be assured that yellow head of yours will stay atop your skinny neck. For now.”
The girl skipped beside her to catch up. “How did you end up living here? I thought all you jinn lived in the desert.”
“My heart remains in the oasis of my homeland, but I cannot live there anymore.”
Sidra turned down a side alley. Her gold bracelets rattled on her wrists as she adjusted her headscarf. The girl went silent as she traipsed behind, but her thoughts stirred like a hive of bees. The buzzy energy that radiated off the girl was not unpleasant, but it never ceased. And the mortals—men and women—turned their heads, gawking in wonder every time she strode past, as if she were some delicate, beautiful goddess from another time. Fairies were nothing but narcissists glowing for all the world to see, Sidra thought with an eye roll. Yet the mantle fit the girl, cloaking her in new skin that seemed to shine brighter the longer she wore it. Burnished. Polished. Shed of the scar and grimy patina she’d once brandished with pride. And her newfound perception—it, too, sparkled with the sheen of the freshly formed.
“But why here?” Yvette asked.
They passed a palm tree whose bushy top swayed above the terra-cotta roofs. Beside them, a clay urn held an olive tree, the branches already laden with hints of the fruit to come. Ahead, two-and three-story apartments rose up on either side of the lane they walked, ancient and sagging on their beams, their plaster walls the color of sandstone and ocher. Every third door they passed was painted blue as an omen against bad luck. In the narrowest sections of the village, walking between the buildings was like traveling through a desert canyon shaped by rare torrents of wind and water, and yet the fair one had to ask such a question.
“Look around, girl. My people have left their mark on every street in this village.” Sidra stopped before an arched wooden door with black iron hinges. “I blend in. It’s a place where I can remain hidden in plain sight.”
The fairy looked at Sidra with her usual quizzical expression. “So Grand-Père did you a favor by returning you here?”
“He did me no such thing. He’s only rushed me toward the problem I was trying to avoid.”
“So that’s why you don’t want me out alone, because you’re still wanted by les flics?” The girl twisted around to look behind her as if checking for a tail. If she only knew what could actually be out there waiting in the shadows between buildings, she would run back to the apartment and hide her head under a pillow. “But then why am I here?”