The Conjurer (The Vine Witch #3)(29)

Yvette stepped forward and held her palm open in front of Yanis as she smiled. He placed the thrown object in her hand without question, as if mesmerized by her wordless command.

“It’s an orphan’s medal,” she said, rubbing her thumb over the imprint of a flower girl. “The kind mothers used to leave with their babies when they had to give them up. So, where’s the talisman from the rice jar?” Yvette stared at Yanis, glowing brighter with each inhale.

“I don’t know. It was here. In my pocket. But I’m a simple potions witch. I can’t do magic like what’s happening here.”

Someone was playing a game with them. Drawing Sidra out, knowing she would go to Yanis to retrieve the talisman, only to find it gone for good. Unable to silence the pleas in her name. One less protection against Jamra.

Sidra pulled up a chair and sat in front of Yanis, who knelt on his one knee. “Yes, since your muddled brain can’t seem to tell us anything about the jinni who stole the talisman, let’s talk about your potions,” she said.

The sorcerer shook his head helplessly. “I made them exactly the same. I swear on my mother. Both potions from one bottle.” He shrugged with more helplessness. “I don’t know what went wrong. You must believe me.”

“And yet I don’t, because I woke from the supposed same potion that killed my husband.” She leaned forward and grimaced to show her teeth. “Do you know all that your mistake has cost me?”

“I still can’t believe you drank something from a man who sells potions from a market stall,” Yvette said with a chin nudge toward Yanis.

“Bah, it was a drop in each eye. But I was given assurance from a trusted friend he knew what he was doing,” Sidra said, her voice full of regret. “That friend was obviously wrong. But now we’ll learn the truth.” The jinni blew hot air on her fingertips, and a flame came to life. The fire danced in her palm, winding and cooling until the smoke formed into a snake, a pit viper hungry to taste the air with its tongue. She moved the snake’s curious tongue closer to the man’s face. “Did someone put you up to trickery? Murder?”

“What? No! You, Hariq, and the old one. It was always just the four of us who knew,” he said and leaned back as far as he dared to get away from the snake. “I never said a word to anyone. I never did anything I wasn’t asked to do. Ever.”

Yanis’s eyes had shifted from the snake to Yvette. The fact he was wary of speaking openly in front of a stranger was a good sign. The pact had been kept secret since the plan’s inception, bound by a spellword each was required to speak to seal the deal. And this weasel had, as far as she could tell, abided by the terms of their agreement—aside from the potion’s failure. The three of them had never told him the full truth and the real reason for the deception. Only the same story she’d told the girl.

The half-truth.

Yanis shifted his weight to abide the odd angle of his false leg, hesitant to change position too fast. Good. She preferred him scared.

Sidra bent forward with the snake sliding over her hand as she stared at the pitiful sorcerer. “So how does a single potion from the same bottle kill one and not the other? What does your experience as a sorcerer say about that?”

The man swallowed uneasily as his eyes roamed the room in search of an answer. Beads of sweat began collecting along his brow. Soon they would trickle down his face. “I’m not sure. Unless Hariq ate something that interfered with his blood? Said the wrong words for the spell?” Yanis grew more animated, as if he’d stumbled on an answer that would save him. “Or maybe he used . . . something other than what I gave him? Maybe someone else switched the potions.”

Sidra stared back at the human weasel as anger built a chimney fire inside her. “Who? Who could have done such a thing if only the four of us knew?”

The fallacy of his suggestion struck home. If what he said was true, then either someone had shared the secret—impossible because of the words binding them to the pact—or the potion had been switched or altered, which was very bad news for Yanis since he was the one who created it.

Sidra stood and kicked the chair out of the way. She cooed at the snake in her hand, kissed the top of its head, then let the serpent loose on the floor, where it coiled in front of the sorcerer. Yvette touched the jinni’s sleeve and the pair dissipated from the room, leaving the man to wrestle for his life against the slithering smoke and fire.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN


The train pulled into the station in a cloud of steam. When the air cleared, Elena peered out the window to see if the dog had materialized, but all she saw was the usual bustle of people, mortals all, coming and going with luggage in tow. Though if the dog was truly one of the jinn, she imagined he could take any shape he wanted. Not a comforting thought when arriving in an unfamiliar town for the first time after having been abducted on a flying carpet by an angry jinni with a vendetta.

The passengers scattered across the platform. Elena watched for a furry face and a bearded one with a scowl, just in case Jamra had followed after all. When nothing obvious presented itself, she sat on a bench to collect her thoughts. Surely whoever put her on that train had a plan for when she arrived. She could sense expectation in the air.

“Have you no luggage?” Camille glanced from the baggage attendant and his empty trolley to Elena sitting on her bench.