The Conjurer (The Vine Witch #3)(7)
Sidra and Yvette glided over the rooftops of the southern village, appearing as nothing but a wisp of cloud. In this state it was difficult to know the risk they’d meet on the ground. If not for the girl, Sidra would stay hidden, watching, waiting from the shadowy corners, as all jinn prefer, but she couldn’t carry the Fée one in their present state for too long. If Yvette were still the filthy street witch Sidra once believed her to be, it would be nothing to leave her body to wither in the ether like a dried fish, but that wouldn’t do for one who belonged to Oberon. And one’s balance in this life and the next was something to consider always.
Curling like a trickle of smoke from a doused candle, Sidra guided them through a narrow street lined with two-story buildings, their plaster walls painted the soft ocher color of sand and shells. She slipped under an arch that connected the buildings, emerging on the other side where the corner apartment loomed above. The shutters were closed against the bright light. No scent of bread and oranges escaped beneath the door from the kitchen. No residual whiff of oud lifted from the caftan still hung on the peg. Still, she had to enter, if only to keep them safe for the night.
Spilling through the keyhole in the heavy oak door, she entered the stale space and circled the room, feeling out the darkness. The energy was cool to the touch—in the corners, under the eaves, above the bed. The apartment was as it should be, but she was saddened to know the room had been empty long enough for the heat to have dissipated. She sighed and reanimated, bringing the girl into the room with her.
“—peck your eyes out.” Yvette finished her sentence, wobbling on her feet momentarily until she realized she’d already been transported. “Oh, we’re there.” She steadied herself against the semicircle majlis sofa, blinking as she took in the new surroundings. “Where are we exactly?”
Sidra wiped a finger through the dust on the mosaic tray where the brass dallah and glass finjan were displayed. “It is my home,” she said. “Or at least it was for a time.”
Yvette let out a breath of surprise. “You live here? In an apartment?” She gestured broadly at the lush silk and wool fabrics lining the walls, the sofa set low on the floor, and the round hassocks trimmed in leather. “But this is fabulous.”
A bowl of figs and oranges appeared on the small octagon table beside the sofa. She offered them to the girl as a matter of hospitality, though it was only a shadow gesture done out of obligation to the custom. Was the apartment still her home? Could it be such a place with only one occupant? She stepped deeper into the room until the spicy scent embedded in the textiles reached her nose.
“We can stay here for the night. Perhaps longer, should the need arise.” She produced a steaming dallah full of aromatic coffee. “Help yourself to the food. It won’t poison you. I promise.”
Yvette picked up an orange and peeled back the skin. She didn’t sit as she ate, which made the jinni nervous. Instead the girl wandered around the room, taking in the personal details of the apartment—the hanging brass lamps with colored glass panels, the woven tapestries on the walls in hues of red and blue and gold, the incense burner carved out of a stone still filled with bakhoor, and the man’s robes hanging on a peg on the wall above a pair of worn black leather balgha.
The girl spun around, the thrill of discovery bright on her pale pixie face. “And who do these belong to?” she asked, eyeing the slippers.
Sidra looked up, heavy with grief. “The man I killed,” she said and sank onto the sofa with the weight of a log collapsing in a fire.
CHAPTER FOUR
Elena knelt in the courtyard beside Jean-Paul’s limp body, adrenaline looping through her circulatory system. “He’s burning up.” She glared at the jinni, hoping to sear him with her anger. “What did you do to him?”
“His mind is wandering in the desert of my people.” Jamra gave a flick of his hand, as if it were of little difference. “It is up to you if he finds his way out or not.”
With her heart galloping, Elena reached in her pocket for a sprig of rosemary and chamomile. She ground them between her shaking fingers and sprinkled the crushed leaves on Jean-Paul’s forehead.
When he didn’t rouse from her magic, she dabbed at the beads of sweat rising on his skin with the corner of her apron as Brother Anselm felt for a pulse, his fingers pressed against Jean-Paul’s neck.
“Your witch’s words will do no good against my magic.”
Brother Anselm stood and crossed himself. “I’ll fetch a pail of cool water and a cloth.”
“Neither will your mortal gestures of faith,” Jamra said over his shoulder as the monk ran to the pump beside the cellar.
Elena rose to her feet. She had renounced her mother’s magic, but she wasn’t immune to temptation, not when anger flared and the desire for revenge raged. She called a thread of dark energy into her palms, harnessing the sting of the nettle, the scratch of the bramble, the prick of the rose. “Bite and scratch, strike the match. Stab the skin of this wicked jinn.” The magic tore her fingers as she hurled her rage at Jamra’s face. But the jinni merely opened his mouth and sucked the energy inside him. He chewed and swallowed, then grinned at her, greedy and vindictive, revealing a row of teeth engraved with copper scrollwork gone verdigris. The green tinge only enhanced the foulness of his smile against his sallow skin.