The Conjurer (The Vine Witch #3)(21)

“Then what could make you crazy enough to, you know, kill him?”

Sidra had already begun to dissipate into mist, to hide away and not face the shadows in the apartment for the night, but the girl’s adamant nature drew her out. So curious about emotions, the Fée. As if that, too, were part of the sustenance their bodies craved.

Very well.

She animated again and sat on the other end of the sofa with her legs tucked under the hem of her caftan. The light from the brass lamp glowed softly above her head. “We’d made a death pact,” she said.

Yvette sat up in alarm. “You were going to kill yourselves? But why?”

Sidra dimmed the lamp’s flame with a wave of her hand. “Our families didn’t approve of our union. It’s why we fled here. Why we used the scent magic to hide ourselves. But Jamra . . . he cannot let things go. He kept looking for us. Hariq said we would never find peace if we didn’t confound that jackal brother of his. We wanted to start a family.”

“Couldn’t you have fought Jamra? Stood up to him? It would have been two against one.”

Such naivete. Such optimism. Fool of a girl.

“Jamra has aligned himself with those who would see the world and the people in it burned to an ash pile. And he will do exactly that if he gets the opportunity. For us, it was two against a thousand.”

“Jiminy. So, you thought it’d be better to be dead than be chased all over the desert by that creep?”

Sidra slipped off her headscarf and freed her hair of its braid, shaking it loose so long waves fell over her shoulders. She fanned out her tresses, letting the scent of the bakhoor infuse her hair. “We thought if Jamra believed we were dead he would give up and we could live in peace. At least that was the plan.”

The girl’s mouth fell open. “Believed? You mean you were going to fake your deaths?”

They’d wanted Jamra to believe more had been lost than just their lives, but that part of the story was not for the telling. Not yet.

“There is an elder of our kind who had come here with the people many generations ago, one whom we pay tribute to,” she explained. “One who has remained neutral in the fight between our families. We confided in him what we wished to do. For the sake of peace. He said there was a way to do such a thing but that the magic must be strong to convince one as consumed with hate as Jamra and his cohorts.”

Yvette’s radiance dimmed so that she faded to mere shadow in the low light. “What kind of magic?”

Sidra, whether lulled by the girl’s genuine curiosity or a need to confess the thing that had been eating her from the inside out, bowed her head and explained.

Since they were in the land of a thousand flowers, the old jinni had learned of a bloom with a unique property. The mimic flower they called it, because of the way the bloom could impersonate breathless, pale death in one under the spell of an infusion of its nectar. After a drop was placed in each eye, physical life was suspended for hours while the innate-self floated in the safe proximity of the liminal space. It sounded like the answer to their deepest desire.

“Did you actually go through with it? Weren’t you petrified?”

“It’s a state I am used to. We come and go between the ether and the physical body as we please. But to sever the connection between the two, even for a few hours while both forms exist, gave us pause. And yet we consented. To be free. For that we traveled to the stinking city of infidels where Jamra would easily hear of our fate.”

Yvette sat silent with her blanket pulled up to her chin, as if it might shield her from the terrible disease of bad news. She glanced again at the forgotten robe hanging on the peg by the door. “He didn’t make it back?”

Sidra shook her head. “Something went wrong. The dose. The spell. A symbol marked one way instead of another.”

“And they blamed you?”

“I was the only one to awake. That fool inspector arrested me for Hariq’s murder several days later, but not before I confronted Jamra.” Sidra ran her thumb over the engraving on the talisman, feeling the symbols tingle under her skin. “Him I would have killed, but he has always been stronger than me.” She smiled wickedly at the girl. “But I did manage to leave a scar on him he’ll never forget. It’s why he cast that binding spell on me last time I returned to the city.”

“All that time in jail together and you never once admitted any of this.”

“It’s strange that our fates were joined in that place,” Sidra said. “And then you and I being swept back to the city after the escape.”

“And Elena, too, showing up like she did. Wish she were here to hear this.”

Sidra drifted back from her curious thoughts. “Be careful with your wishes, girl.” She resumed studying the talisman, wondering if her precautions would be enough.

Two of the four jinn whose names were inscribed on the talisman were dead already. Only she and the old one remained, which meant the odds of the talisman’s energy being linked to her grew that much stronger should someone summon her for favor. But if she could collect all the talismans remaining in the village, the connection between her and the village would be severed. The trick was remembering who else had them.

Sidra flipped the medallion over in her hand, more determined than ever to fight back against Jamra.

“How’d you know the one-legged man would have that on him?” Yvette asked.