The Conjurer (The Vine Witch #3)(22)
“The people, they ask for help. They inscribe names of the jinn into the metal in the hope we’ll answer.” She pointed to the mark of the star. “This is me.”
“But I thought he was already a sorcerer. What kind of help would he ask from a jinni?”
“Yanis? He knows a few spells. But even sorcerers have their moments of doubt. Like anyone else they look for signs. Omens. Maybe a nudge in the right direction when they cannot make up their minds about which way in life they’re meant to go.”
Yvette surveyed her with a sharp look of admiration. “And do you answer them?”
“Sometimes.” Sidra didn’t mean to be coy, but the answer was complicated. A nudge in the wrong direction could send a life careening down a perilous path. Some jinn, like Jamra and his ilk, were all too eager to engage in the sort of harmful interference that turned a man’s prospects in life to dust on the whim of a false thought or implanted self-doubt. “There’s a woman in an apartment two streets over. I’ve not seen her often, but she is one who asks for help. She wants to know if she should stay with the husband who beats her when he’s had too much to drink.”
“How do you know that? Can you hear her thoughts?” Yvette blanched. “Wait, can you hear my thoughts?”
“Thank the All Seeing I cannot,” Sidra said and let her lip curl in disgust. “But this one, it’s all she can think about.” She tucked the talisman away in her robe with the reminder she must find a hiding place for it in the morning. “There are thoughts and then there are desires. It is desire that coalesces in the body, causing heat and scent to rise from the skin. This I can detect. And this one hopes to leave one day and stay the next. But what sign do I give her? Do I place a long-forgotten photo of her and her husband in happier days where she will see it and plant the suggestion in her mind that if she waits out the storm, he will change? Or perhaps I catch her eye with a suffragette pamphlet pushing for women’s emancipation that nudges her out of her indecision and onto the path of independence? These are things people sometimes ask us for. To be favored. And sometimes we answer. Sometimes we don’t.”
“Like my wish?”
Sidra sucked in her cheeks in quick contemplation. “Wishes are different. Once they are granted, they fly like comets on their path. They cannot be stopped. I’m still not sure how yours came to be, but I still believe your heart stole that wish while my magic was in flux.”
Yvette scrunched her brows together. The light had come alive inside her again, though it glowed soft as moonbeams. “That wish saved my life.”
For once the girl wasn’t being overdramatic. Sidra affirmed the girl’s implied gratitude with a rare display of humility as she bowed her head and nodded once in return. Hopefully the result of Yvette’s wish wasn’t in vain. If their efforts to protect themselves from Jamra failed, they would likely both be dead in the near future.
CHAPTER TEN
Elena had curled up on her oversize pillow for the duration of the night. The thought of escape had remained a whirring fever of temptation, but in the end she concluded her cooperation was needed to help Jean-Paul. Still, she could not, would not, lead this foul-hearted man to their intended destination—where her friends, for reasons unknown, now found themselves. She would lead him south, claim ignorance as to the exact location, and then plead for her release and Jean-Paul’s recovery.
Look at him, she thought, snoring slack mouthed and still reeking of wine while sprawled on his back among the bedding, asleep in a cloud of silk. Ah, a final snort. So, her captor was waking at last. Jamra reached an arm toward the ceiling of the tent, stretching as he opened his eyes. He yawned, blinked, and shot up when he didn’t see Elena immediately beside him. When he spotted her lying in the corner, his shoulders relaxed noticeably, though he narrowed his eyes at her. “You put something in my drink.”
“I did no such thing,” she said, sitting up. “You’re simply not accustomed to the potency of fine wine. And you drank the entire bottle.”
He grunted, then stared down at his disheveled appearance. He straightened his hat and magicked his attire so his shirt, tie, and suit jacket replaced his wrinkled caftan. “Enough of these mortal comforts. We must go.”
Elena collected her satchel and rose from the cushion. The tent vanished as if the vision had been blown away on the breeze until they stood once more in a damp and moldy alley that reeked of wet dog.
“Take hold of my sleeve,” he said.
Feeling she had little choice, Elena grabbed a handful of pinstripes. Immediately she felt a tug as though she’d been yanked forward through time and space at incredible speed. The alley shrank behind her in a kaleidoscope tunnel. The closest comparison she had for the motion was when she’d ridden in an automobile for the first time as Yvette raced down the Chanceaux Valley road. As the car had hit top speed, Elena’s hair flew out behind her, a terrifying yet freeing sensation. Only now the feeling was ten times faster so that light and shape blurred in her vision and her lungs ached for air. Then, just as suddenly as they’d accelerated, the motion stopped. Her feet touched the ground again, and the grassy slope where they’d landed the evening before came into focus. Elena was sorely tempted to ask how he’d transported them so quickly at a mere touch of his sleeve, but the inquiry would only lead to another boast.