The Conjurer (The Vine Witch #3)(69)
Hurt, disappointment, astonishment—a whirlwind of uncomfortable emotions swirled inside Sidra at the sight of another she had trusted with her heart materializing before her. “You also conspired against me?”
“Deception,” said the old one, “is sometimes a long, winding thing like a monkey’s tail.” He took a puff from his pipe, letting the smoke encircle his head as he spoke. “Without it to grasp the limb, one would fall from the tree. This I wish you to remember.”
Elena and her husband exchanged doubting looks, but it was how Rajul Hakim spoke sometimes when he knew he had an audience. The witch bade Sidra to sit again and listen, despite the quirks of the old man’s theatrics. Her ears burned at the thought of listening to more of their lies. Still, she sat and allowed herself to fume.
“We could not tell you our intentions. How would it have looked to one as shrewd as Jamra to have even one shred of falseness in your reaction?” The old one puffed on his pipe and squinted at her. “Our actions were cruel, but they were done to save your life and Hariq’s, so that you would not always be wondering when chaos would fall into the hands of one ready to cut open a seam in the world’s underbelly.”
“We were prepared to intervene in the execution,” Hariq said. “But then you escaped your cell before we could carry out the last part of our plan.”
“That would be my fault,” Titania said, rising to her feet to explain herself at Hariq’s side.
Sidra got an uncomfortable knot in her stomach from seeing Yvette’s grandmother stand so close to her husband. How could they even be familiar?
“My granddaughter was to be reunited with her family on her sixteenth birthday. But her fate took a different turn.”
Yvette hugged her arms around her waist, glowing softly as she nodded.
Titania described how she’d kept track of Yvette after she’d run away, peering in on her periodically at the carnival she traveled with, in the hope a reunion could still be arranged. Then one day Yvette wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere. The fairy queen couldn’t find her even with the aid of Oberon’s vision. She’d simply disappeared.
“It was only after a chance encounter with a bird, while I reclined beside a country stream, that I found you again. He perched on the branch above and sang the most interesting tale. He said he’d just spoken to a jinni inside a prison cell who’d fed him a daddy longlegs and a silverfish from her fingers. With her was a witch and a foul-mouthed, yellow-haired waif. Well, I suspected right away it was our Yvette.”
“I do not have a foul mouth,” the girl said in her defense, to which everyone disagreed, nodding their heads in the affirmative.
The fairy queen smiled, and radiant light shimmered around her. “The powerful rune magic employed by the jail had shielded her from my sight, but there was no mistaking her golden hair and, shall we say, colorful vocabulary.”
“Mon Dieu.” Yvette covered the sides of her head with her arms as if she didn’t wish to hear any more.
“So, a witch, a fairy, and a jinni together in a cell.” Titania pressed her hands palm to palm and touched her fingers to her lips, as if reliving the moment she’d contemplated what she could do with that information. “There had to be a way to work that combination to the best advantage.” Her eyes landed on Jean-Paul. “And then I found you, a self-assured mortal fellow,” she said. “You have no magic, and yet here you are, perfectly at ease with those around you.”
“One of the side effects of falling in love with a witch,” he said.
“I knew right away I could depend on you.” She leaned forward with one brow raised. “Shall I confess it was I who supplied the matches you found in your kitchen on the morning of your visit to the jail?”
“The matches I gave to Elena?”
The fairy queen tilted her chin in confirmation.
“And I gave them to Yvette,” Elena said.
“Merde, and I passed the lit cigarette to Sidra.”
Titania nodded from one to the other as if following a chain, one linked to the other. “And our jinni lit herself on fire and escaped and yet remained indebted to those still inside.”
The old one blew out a string of smoke rings. “We were not expecting that,” he admitted.
Hariq crossed his arms. “Now we had a new dilemma. After returning to free her cellmates, Sidra disappeared again. I searched everywhere in the ether but couldn’t find you.” The warmth in his eyes as he spoke directly to her was magnetic, drawing her in when she did not want to be. Not yet. Not when forgiveness was still a fruit she wouldn’t bite. “So, I followed the witch instead in the hope she might lead me to you. That was how I learned she possesses the rare ability to see into the shadow world.”
“And you have a remarkable ability to remain undetected,” Elena said. “My instinct never once noticed your presence, presumably until you wanted me to.”
“Remaining hidden is our greatest talent, Madame Martel.” Hariq smiled humbly, his hand on his chest as he bowed his head.
Sidra was pleased to hear Hariq call her friend by her married name, but all this shadow talk began to unsettle her. She’d thought she understood how to read the fire as well as any, but there was so much she hadn’t seen. It made her dizzy to think of the spinning world and the multitude of destinies swirling together, fueling the future forward for everyone—individually and collectively. And with so much providence bedded under a blanket of deception.