The Conjurer (The Vine Witch #3)(68)
“I swiped this little beauty off the floor when he wasn’t looking. Knew the bottle was Sidra’s the minute I saw it.” She pointed out the dull finish on the filigree from where it had worn away from so much handling. “Not a chip anywhere.”
Yvette. Usually such a clever girl.
Hariq stroked the hair on his beard. “The dagger is in the bottle? But to think it could have been smashed on the floor and released. A very near miss.”
Hariq. He truly was alive. But then where had he been hidden all this time? Why had he left her? Lied to her?
“How are you here?” she asked as searing heat rose in her eyes. “Why do you call me habibti when you are the one who abandoned me alone to this fate?”
He reached out to her but Sidra pulled away, not wanting to feel the heat of him against her. Not yet. Not while her mind still buzzed with the confusion of a thousand angry wasps.
“I will tell you,” he said. “I will tell you everything. Please, just sit and listen.”
The fairy queen interceded. “We haven’t yet finished this business with the dagger.”
“It’s safe for the moment,” he told her, glancing at the intact bottle. “But first my bride must know the truth to put her mind at ease.”
Hariq spread his fingers and waved his hand in front of the shop. Amid the broken perfume bottles and the potted palm lying on its side, he produced soft poufs for all to sit on. “Please, come sit.”
Sidra took her perfume bottle from Yvette and sat with the crystal birds in her hands. It was true—the filigree decoration had tarnished from the months and years she’d treasured the gift. Holding it, admiring it, thinking herself the luckiest woman alive to have a man who made a scent just for her. The girl sat beside her and placed a hand on her back. She didn’t protest the touch or complain about the fair one’s soft glow that inexplicably rid her of the last of her soggy sluggishness. Nor did she mind when Elena sat on her other side and pressed a piece of amethyst into her palm.
Hariq sat on his pouf opposite with his hands loosely clasped together between his knees. He didn’t avoid her eyes as he began. His voice, absent of the shrillness that so often accompanies excuses, remained calm yet commanding.
“The plan was likely doomed from the beginning,” he said with a quick glance at Yanis. For the benefit of the others he added, “My wife and I have a complicated history with our families. There’s a feud between her people and mine. No one remembers how it started, yet neither side will relent. Those walls were built long before we came into the world and fell in love.” Hariq caught her in his sight again. “Our marriage was opposed. There was no place for us among our people. And the bickering from both sides, like ravens fighting over a dead mouse.” He made a gesture with his hands as if to throw it all away. “To be free of it we left, but perhaps you know all this?”
Yvette nodded, knowing the story, as did Elena.
“You are good friends for her to have told you,” he said with a light smile. “And you know, too, of the dagger and the responsibility we inherited to keep the sigil safe after it was discovered. And the new danger it introduced into our lives from my brother, Jamra.” He looked at his hands and wiped them on his thighs, as if he could rid himself of some unwanted feeling. “It’s why we decided to fool the world and pretend to be dead. To relinquish our association with the relic and free my brother’s mind, and anyone else, of the need to hunt for us any longer. But . . .” He stopped and braved a withering stare from Sidra. “To truly convince one as cunning as Jamra of the charade of death, we required the credibility only sincere loss and pain could bring. Which meant one of us must survive in ignorance of the truth. For that, we sacrificed honesty, with you, for deception.”
Sidra’s eyebrow twitched. Her nose flared. Who was this “we” he spoke of?
Hariq went on to describe how he’d diluted Sidra’s potion so that she would wake a day before him. He had to appear to the world to be dead. She had to take the blame in a lovers’ quarrel. That was the only outcome that would have convinced Jamra to accept the lie, because he was predisposed to already think her capable of such a thing, coming from the family she did.
“In that way, we hoped to use the long-standing feud between our people to our advantage.” His brow tightened. “But when you thought me dead, you escaped with the dagger.”
“To keep it safe.”
“You flew to Jamra.”
“To confront him. For foolishly thinking he’d somehow killed you, when all along it was a lie.”
“The deception was necessary.”
“I went to prison for your murder. They were going to take my head. I came this close to being executed for your game of lies!”
“Never,” Hariq said. “I wouldn’t have let that happen. We had a plan to save you before the blade dropped. An illusion that would have left everyone, including Jamra, believing that you were dead by execution and the dagger lost forever.”
She stood and shook her pleading hands in anger. “Who is this ‘we’ you keep speaking of?”
Hariq, to his credit, absorbed her rage as one who knows he is deserving of the ire. “I will let him explain.”
The warmth in the air shifted. The faint scent of turmeric and cumin wafted through the space as Rajul Hakim materialized beside Hariq. For the old one to animate outside his cave was exceptional, but Hariq showed no surprise at the jinni’s appearance. He got to his feet and welcomed their adopted clan leader with a quick bow before ceding his seat to him. The ancient jinni settled on his pouf, stroked his long beard out of habit, then produced his shisha. The old one never went anywhere without his pipe.