The Conjurer (The Vine Witch #3)(52)
“This is a disaster. All those people.” Elena’s stomach clenched from fear and desperation coiling into a knot. “Is there any chance you know his real name? Couldn’t we bind him the same way he did you? Perhaps even be rid of him for good?”
“Elena sees in the shadow world,” Yanis offered. “I could do the spell if we knew what to call him. She could make sure he didn’t escape in the ether.”
“My husband was the only one who might have known Jamra’s true name. Curse the heavens, he never told me what his brother’s name was or I would have shrunk that jackal down to the size of his charred heart and been free of him a century ago.”
Sidra removed a small perfume bottle, like the ones lining the shelves in Camille’s office, from a fold in her robe. She squeezed the crystal in her hand and held it to her lips, pacing the floor again until she stopped before the incense burner on the coffee table. “What is this?” she asked, seeing Yanis’s false leg propped nearby against the sofa.
“The worn-out padding was causing me pain while I worked, so I took it off. I’ll move it if you wish.”
Sidra glanced from his chalk drawing to the trouser leg that had been cut off to allow for the false leg, then back to the wooden shaft with the leather straps and steel peg for a foot. “No, no, it’s fine. Go back to your markings.”
The jinni sat, holding the perfume bottle to her forehead. Elena and Yanis let her be and double-checked that the drawing on the floor was still intact. When they looked again at Sidra, she was wafting handfuls of scented smoke up to her face. She took in several breaths, then gripped the perfume bottle with new conviction. “I will go get the girl,” she said humbly. “Their experiments are a fool’s endeavor, but perhaps there’s something we can do to warn the town before disaster falls upon us.”
Yanis pointed out the window. “I’d say it’s already descending.”
Sidra and Elena joined him at the front of the shop. A storm was building against the dawn. It loomed in the distance over the rooftops, an eerie cloud of pink and tan.
“Better start reciting your protection spells, sorcerer.” Sidra tapped a finger against the top of the crystal bird stopper in her hand. “I’ll return before the first grains pelt the town,” she said and disappeared.
Elena tried to calculate the arrival of the storm against the arrival of Jean-Paul’s train. She wondered briefly if there was anything she could do to stop the locomotive from pulling into the station, but there was nothing in her power, not with the measly supplies she had with her. As for the approaching storm, she could conjure a crosswind easy enough. A quick appeal to the elementals. And yet her instinct told her it would be useless against the charge of trampling hooves bearing down on them.
“Quickly,” Yanis said, standing over his seven-sided star. “We must continue adding to our protection magic.”
Elena joined him, isolating her doubt so the energy and intent of the spell would flow in the proper direction. There was no more time to dawdle on speculation. The time was upon them. Jean-Paul was on a collision course with the storm, as were they all. And so she raised her hands in the sacred pose and joined Yanis at his task.
Moments later the air grew still, the first rays of dawn shed their light through the window, and the sky darkened under a cloud of sand and fury.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sidra had to reserve her energy. The binding spell had not only trapped her but had also diminished her powers so that each act drained her just a little more. If she wasn’t careful, she would be helpless in the teeth of the storm. But the demons, too, would be weary. The magic Jamra had called was powerful, but the ifrit had been forced to travel from the deserts of their homeland over the open water to find her. Still, the storm would come with a ferocious appetite. One that could kill everyone in the village to fill its stomach.
The jinni reanimated at the perfume factory inside the witch’s office. No light burned, and no laughter or shrill cry of excitement echoed down the corridor, though the scent of lavender hung thick in the air. Down the hall, a man in a white lab coat near the brass distillery equipment sat hunched over on a stool, his head leaning against his worktable. Sidra sidled up to the mortal and reached a finger out to touch the skin on his neck. Her skin shivered at the contact, but he was still warm and breathing. He exhaled a chorus of snores, and she retracted her hand.
Curious, Sidra dropped down to the main floor and found a similar scene in the lobby. Lavender and absolute quiet, only this time it was the night janitor who’d slumped against the wall, asleep beside his mop and bucket. She stepped over his outstretched legs to peer through the glass doors where a lamplighter, too, snored with his cheek on the pavement. It was as if she’d stepped into a bewitched fairyland where all the mortals had been put under a spell. And yet where was the girl?
For a moment Sidra contemplated if this was Jamra’s doing, but the enchantment didn’t carry the stench of cruelty. No, this was magic done by the girl and the perfume witch. It had to be. Which meant the building was still safe. She had a moment. She wandered nearer to the gift shop, where dozens of bottles of Fleur de Sable lined the shelves like birds on a wire. Hariq’s gift. His passion. She passed through the door to be nearer to the bottles. Lying at his side before they each put a drop of mocking death in their eyes was the last time she’d felt safe. Staring at the bottles, she knew she would never again have those first moments after the sun rose in the morning when the heat and scent of his body reminded her she was alive and happy for one more day.