The Conjurer (The Vine Witch #3)(27)
Wine was much the same, Elena reflected. The aroma was as important as the taste, adding layers of experience to the flavor. The smells detected in the glass shaped perceptions before a single sip was taken.
“Do you run your own shop?” Elena asked, curious to know how the woman plied her craft.
“I’m the eldest daughter at Le Maison des Amoureux.” The woman reached in her overnight bag and removed a brown paper package. “I’m on my way there now after briefly visiting the cousins. Here, try a bite, if you like.”
Camille unwrapped the paper to reveal a white nougat treat filled with nuts. Elena paused. It was always a tricky proposition to accept food or drink from a witch you didn’t know, but there was something very open about this one’s intent, as if she would have shared food with anyone she met as a matter of politeness. Elena accepted the offering, passing it under her nose first. The nutty, sweet smell of almonds, honey, and pistachios made her mouth water, accentuating her hunger after she’d turned away her food with the jinni the night before.
“It’s not bewitched. Merely an old recipe the locals are becoming deliciously famous for. Not bad for mortals,” Camille added and popped a bite of nougat in her mouth.
Elena thanked her, then stared out the window as she ate her treat. The dog reappeared, hurdling over hedgerows and dodging around fence posts to keep up with the train.
Camille followed her gaze. “Is he with you?”
“Possibly. It’s complicated.”
“Always is when jinn are involved.”
Jinn?
“You think he’s a jinni? But how could you know that?”
“Oh, several hover hereabouts. I’d developed quite a good working relationship with a young jinni in my perfume factory a time ago. Poor man was tragically killed last year. But as I understand it, a fair number of jinn gravitated to the area after being drawn by the wishes of the people who emigrated from across the sea. Been here for centuries.” She raised the nougat up as an example. “The recipe traveled with the immigrants as well. Lucky thing,” she said and licked a finger after putting the last of her treat in her mouth.
Elena found the woman’s remark about the jinn astonishing. Until she’d been incarcerated with Sidra and later abducted by Jamra, she’d been quite ignorant about the prevalence of jinn around her. Grand-Mère had always made them out to be more myth than truth, and Elena had accepted that without further proof to contradict the idea. But she knew now that being isolated in the Chanceaux Valley, only venturing out occasionally to the city to procure essentials for spells, had left a hole in her knowledge. A great gap of understanding that others possessed from living and traveling in far-off regions of the country. Even Yvette had known more about the jinn than most simply by traveling the country while in the carnival.
“So, I have another jinn after me?”
“Another? Oh dear, you are in trouble.”
Camille sprayed a second layer of lemon verbena mist in the compartment to be safe, then stated what she knew from personal observation and general gossip. From what she’d gathered, dogs were a very common form of animation for the jinn. It wasn’t necessarily a bad sign that one was stalking her. Not all jinn relished mischief, though she couldn’t be certain about that. She’d heard most were rather aloof about mortals and witches, not interested enough in their mundane behavior to interfere on most occasions. The jinn were fiery, unpredictable, yet mostly concerned with their own affairs, to which Elena concurred.
Perhaps the dog was merely a local returning home, same as this perfume witch. But no. He had been at Chateau Renard. At the depot. And now running alongside the train she was told to get on after she’d been snatched away from Jamra. And just when the jinni had been about to strike her. She looked again at the animal loping with ease along the fields. An ally of Jamra’s? Or something else? Her intuition prickled as if brushing up against a stinging nettle, and yet the train rolled on, taking her to her destination and Sidra and Yvette. Perhaps she wasn’t the only passenger on this fated journey.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The sorcerer’s talisman was gone. Sidra stared at the three others they’d stolen from her devotees and felt ashamed. Without the fourth, they were useless to her. She would have to return them and take the chance of being called upon for a favor. Curse that Yanis for breaking into her apartment. She would flay his brain open and sear the rotten insides with flame, though she half expected to find the space hollow.
And how had a half-rate sorcerer discovered where she lived anyway? Only one of her own could have seen through the illusions. So, who was helping that camel’s ass of a sorcerer?
The girl stood outside on the steps smoking a cigarette. Sidra wondered if she should order her inside. The omen in the sky had been bad. A dog was coming, death reeking on its breath. She was convinced it marked the impending arrival of her enemy. But who was the starling and who was the hawk?
Sidra ought to call the girl in from her haze of smoke. The apartment was no longer safe, not if the likes of Yanis could be led inside to rummage through her things. The scent spell should still cloak their whereabouts, but that only worked if the person looking didn’t already know where to find you under the haze. And someone had led that thief Yanis straight to her door.
“Collect your things,” she called. “We have to go.”