by Judi Fennell
“I’m saying that maybe their Threads are supposed to be tangled with each other’s. Something keeps drawing them back together.”
“But we’re the architects of Fate and Destiny. Us. No one else.”
“Really.” Atropos didn’t even bother going for the eye. She just blinked. “We know the masses believe that propaganda, but you want to try running that train of thought by the High Master, Zeus, and the rest of the Ruling Board?”
Clotho shoved the needles into her cloak and chomped down on her dentures. Atropos was sure she heard them crack. Nothing new there; Clotho went through a set about every third day. Mortals seriously ticked her sister off.
“So what are you saying?” Clotho spit out a tooth.
“I’m saying that maybe there’s more here than meets our eye.” She stuck it in her socket. “I’m saying that Vana has dismissed our power and our wishes twice now, and that maybe we need someone else in on this situation. Someone who can really get through to her.”
“You mean…?”
Atropos nodded. “Her sister. If there’s one person in this world—and any other—who can get through to her, it’s Aphrodite.”
***
Vana came to in the stone chair Lachesis had blasted her into before, with Clotho poking her with the end of the knitting needle. The flat end, thank the stars.
“About time you woke up.”
“Now, now, Clotho, let’s focus on what’s important here.” Lachesis appeared in a flash of lightning between her two sisters. “I’m surprised at you, Nirvana. Most beings wouldn’t dare tempt us twice.”
Vana wisely kept her mouth shut.
“And I get the feeling that, were we to send you back, you’d do it again.”
This time Vana nodded.
Lachesis exhaled and shook her head. “That’s it, then. We wanted to keep this matter between us, but you leave us no choice. Once we summon her, that’s it. This incident will be on your permanent record.”
Vana had heard that threat all through school. She had yet to see any adverse effects. Probably something teachers used to threaten kids into obedience. Well, Zane was too important for Vana to cower at their manipulative tricks.
“We’re hoping Aphrodite will be able talk some sense into you, Nirvana.”
Vana winced. Lachesis didn’t mean the goddess.
“She’s not going to change my mind.” Vana had to marvel at herself. She’d challenged The Fates three times and was still alive.
Though Atropos had taken her scissors out again.
No, Atropos wouldn’t cut her Life Thread. If she were going to, she would have done it at the first sign of insolence.
“Aphrodite will talk you out of this nonsense if she wants that vizier position,” said Lachesis, clapping her hands, which sent more thunder and lightning crashing across the sky. “This will be her final challenge to see if she is worthy of monitoring genie compliance.”
With another blinding flash of light, DeeDee appeared on the platform in front of Vana.
“What—?” Her sister looked down at the chiton she probably hadn’t been wearing three seconds ago, then looked at her. “Vana? Are you okay? Why are you here? Why am I?”
“You’re here to undo the damage she caused,” said Clotho, spitting out a… tooth?
“Damage? What did you do now?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Clotho sneered. “I would think a declaration of love for a mortal wouldn’t be considered ‘nothing,’ otherwise why bother to say it?”
“Love?” DeeDee gasped. “You told a mortal you love him?”
In years past, Vana would have tucked her chin to her chest and let her hair fall over her face as she would have grumblingly apologized and then done what everyone wanted her to. But not now. What she felt for Zane was too important.
She sat up straighter in the chair and tossed her hair back. “I do, Dee. And I don’t care if it destroys my magic. I’m sorry for letting you down, but it’s my life. I love him. It’s as simple as that, and if you condemn me for it, well, that’s your choice. But my choice is Zane.”
“You don’t get a choice!” screamed Clotho as she stole the eye from Atropos and threw it at Vana like a baseball.
DeeDee caught it. “I’ll handle this, Clotho.” She rubbed the eye on her skirt, then tossed it to Atropos before she knelt in front of Vana. “Explain this to me, Vee. A mortal? Really?”
“I love him.” Vana shrugged. Three words summed it up, explained it, and couldn’t be argued with.
“But you can love him and still not tell him. After all, his lifespan will be but a blink of an eye to you in the grand scheme of things.”
Of course DeeDee would argue; her reputation was on the line if she couldn’t make a shining example of her own twin. And while Vana respected that, she wasn’t going to live her life to anyone else’s expectations. Not anymore. Zane was right; this wasn’t a dress rehearsal. It was the only life she had and she needed to be true to herself.
“I don’t care, Dee. Being with him is magical. My own magic is just icing on the cake. When it works right, that is—which is every time he kisses me.”
“So find some other guy to kiss you.”
“I have and it’s not the same. It’s not his actual physical kiss. It’s the feelings it creates inside me. The way he makes me feel. As if he sees me. Me. The woman. Not the genie who can grant his wishes. He asks my opinion, listens to what I say, values what I think.”
“Everyone does, Vee.”
“Really? Mother? Father?” She thought a moment before she said it, but needed to say it for herself. “You?”
“Of course I do. You’re my sister. I love you.”
“Then show it. Let me live my life as I want. I’m not hurting anyone by loving him. Mother and Father wrote me off years ago. I’m not their superstar, you are.” Vana grabbed DeeDee’s hands when DeeDee started to argue with her. “No, Dee, it’s true. And I’m okay with it. I’ve never begrudged you your successes. You are the magical superstar in the family, and I love you for it and in spite of it.”
She brushed some hair off DeeDee’s face and tucked it behind her ear. “But I love him, too. I need him. And he needs me. He’s lonely, Dee. So lonely. I understand that loneliness. I know what he’s feeling, and I just want to make it go away for him. He doesn’t even realize what he’s feeling, what he needs, but I do. And I can give it to him. Tonight, before all of this, before we made love, his eyes had finally started to open. He’s making progress. If I leave him, he’ll never finish. He’ll never become what he can become.”
“What about you, Vee? What about who you’re supposed to become?”
“I finally know who that is, Dee. Don’t you see? I’m good at loving him. I’m good for him. Me. Who I am now. That’s who I’m supposed to be. Just me.”
“Your speech is pretty,” sneered Clotho again, pulling another pair of knitting needles from her cloak. “But it’s not going to work for two reasons. Number one, your sister’s promotion is on the line, and number two, you took his destiny into your hands when you took his memory, and destiny is our business.”
She held up the needles, gossamer Threads dangling from them, spinning slowly. “Undo what you’ve done or we’ll play with his Threads so much and so often his brain will become scrambled. We don’t know how much of that a mortal can take, but I’m willing to bet it isn’t as much as you think. How much are you willing to risk?”
“Vee, please, do as they ask.” DeeDee kneeled by the chair and grasped Vana’s hands in hers. “And not for my sake. I’m not asking as a genie, but as your sister. Love him but don’t tell him. I can’t lose you. You’re my other half.”
And Zane was hers.
Vana was torn. Could she be so selfish with all that DeeDee had strived for? Zane had turned from her in disgust; there was no guarantee he’d ever come around. She could be giving up everything and end up with nothing. Could cause DeeDee to end up with nothing.
She
looked at her sister, so earnest and worried. She looked at The Fates, angry and determined. Maybe even spiteful, if Clotho’s look was anything to go by. She was holding Zane’s Life Threads so tightly, Vana was worried the Fate was choking the life from him.
“Please, don’t, Clotho.” She nodded at the Threads. “Let him breathe. He’s not at fault.”
Clotho loosened her hold and held them up, a sly look on her face. “Maybe Aphrodite wasn’t the incentive we needed. Maybe it’s him.”
She rattled the Threads, the pink and the blue jumbling together, reminding Vana of how she’d been wrapped around and by Zane—physically, emotionally, that shared bond of loneliness… It had been so perfect, as if it’d been predestined.
But it hadn’t. Not if The Fates hadn’t placed him in her bottle, so she really could end up with nothing if she gave up her magic.
But she’d have nothing even with her magic if she didn’t have him.
Clotho shook the needles again. “Maybe you’ll come to heel if Atropos takes out her scissors—”
“No!” Vana stood up. “You can’t.”
“Can’t?” Lachesis raised an eyebrow. “I believe you’re forgetting who we are, Nirvana.”
“I’m not. I’m just remembering Chapter Forty from DeeDee’s Djinnoire.”
The Fates looked at her sister with their collective eye.
DeeDee stood and smiled hesitantly at the three sisters. “Vee, what are you doing?” she whispered.
“Trust me, Dee. They might control my life, but they don’t control my heart. I read your book. And I can’t thank you enough for writing it.” She lowered her voice. “Just promise me that you’ll take care of the children when you get the job.”
“Vee, are you sure—?”
“Promise me, DeeDee.”
Her sister nodded.
“Thank you.” She gripped her sister’s hand, squared her shoulders, and faced The Fates. “According to my sister’s research, you can cut the Threads of mortals’ lives with impunity, but you cannot do so with the djinn. You need permission from the High Master.”
“We aren’t talking about your Threads, dearie.” Clotho rattled them again. “See?”
“Whose Thread is the pink one? You can’t cut his without cutting that one. Mine.”
There was silence on Mount Damavand for one millisecond of a second, but it was perfect.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” Clotho shook the needles as if they were poisonous. “You don’t get to do this!”
Lachesis grabbed the needles from her. “Calm yourself, sister!” Thunder echoed her words.
“She can’t get away with this!” whined Clotho.
Atropos dropped her scissors into her pocket with a half-smile on her lips.
DeeDee had a huge one on hers. “Vee, that’s brilliant!”
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” Clotho wailed again.
Lachesis clapped her hands, and thunder roared across the sky. The mortals on the planet below probably thought the world was coming to an end.
“Very well, Nirvana. You have seen through our threat. But there is still one consequence of your actions that must be considered if you insist upon this foolish plan. Your sister will fail her test.”
Vana had to hide her smile as she squeezed DeeDee’s hand when her sister started to answer. DeeDee had really done her homework with the Djinnoire.
“Would you like to tell them, Dee, or shall I?”
“Go ahead, Vee. It’s your moment.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Hello?” Clotho rattled the Threads again. “Any day now, ladies.”
Vana intertwined her fingers in front of her and took a deep breath. “There’s an entire chapter in the Djinnoire as to the process of selecting a vizier, and it specifically says that the High Master is the only one who can devise tests for the applicants. No one else. Otherwise different factions with different agendas could hold up the process for eons. DeeDee was quite thorough in her research.”
Clotho threw the needles with Zane’s Life Threads attached in disgust. Vana watched them fly off the mountain peak in slow motion, out into the thunderous sky.
She sucked in a breath, ready to leap after them because when they hit bottom, so would Zane, and she had to do something to prevent that.
DeeDee held out her hand and blinked. The needles ended up on her palm.
She gave them to Vana with a wistful smile on her face. “Here, Vee. I wish you’d reconsider, but I can see that you won’t. You now hold his fate and yours in your hand. But just because they’re entwined now doesn’t mean they always will be. There are no guarantees, Vee.”
“I know. But I love him, and as you can see,” she lifted the needles, “my destiny lies with him. I have to try, Dee. I’ll always regret it if I don’t try.”
Her sister smiled a tight smile. Her eyes were a little more sparkly silver than usual. But DeeDee never cried. She was always stoic and completely in charge of her emotions and any situation. It was who DeeDee was.
Well, this was who Vana was. And she hoped her sister could accept her for that person.
“I love you, Vee. I hope you find what you’re looking for.” DeeDee hugged her. “Now, let me send you back to whatever time you want so you can fix this.”
Vana brushed the short hair from her sister’s face. “Send me back to whatever day it is for him now, Dee. I don’t want to turn his world upside down again. He deserves better.”
“And he’s getting it,” DeeDee whispered. “Because he’s getting you. I just hope he knows the gift you’re giving him.”
And with that, Vana left the mountain in a cloud of pink smoke.
Chapter 39
Half an hour later, Mount Damavand time
Three weeks later, mortal time
Zane had been counting
“Get moving, Henry.”
Zane should never have come back a second time.
He’d been crazy to think he could come back here and it wouldn’t matter—not after that last night when Vana had welcomed him home and everything had fallen into place only to turn into a nightmare a few hours later.
He’d spent most of that night cursing her, Peter, Gary, himself, Merlin. He would have left if he hadn’t already driven too many hours that day. He’d cooled down enough the next morning to make arrangements for a donation to the benefit. Then he’d left the mess in Peter’s house behind locked doors.
But today was the picnic he’d donated and he had to go a few rounds of head-butting with Henry and Eirik, pack the children up for the trip to his condo, and round up the gargoyles before anyone else saw them.
“I saw you walk down the stairs, Henry. I know you can go back up them, so move.”
Henry slammed his doors shut.
“I’m not above getting a lit match, you know.” Or a flame thrower if that’s what it took to get the big hunk of wood out of here.
But the armoire still didn’t move.
Zane cursed. The past three weeks in Philly had been so normal, and now this.
Normal but lonely.
He ignored the voice in his head that had only made an appearance once he’d pulled into the driveway. He’d barely thought about her during the past twenty-one days.
Barely was right—she’d looked good naked.
He rubbed his eyes to get rid of the image.
That only etched it into his brain all the more. Not that his brain needed any help. Vana hadn’t been far from it. Through the surprise contract talks with a team he’d never thought would be interested in him to start and the equally interesting call from the school superintendent here, to the possibility of a commentating job and dealing with the press about the upcoming picnic, Zane would have thought he wouldn’t have time to remember every single detail about her: how tall she wasn’t, how tiny she was, how her hair fell to caress perfect breasts, how her lips had trembled beneath his, the look in her eyes whe
n she was happy, the nervous way she fiddled with her fingers. The compassion she had for this lug of an armoire and the children and Fatima…
He’d tried not to think about her. Or he’d tried to focus on what she’d done, and usually he’d succeeded—until it was just him and his thoughts: driving in the car, waiting for a meeting, standing in line at the grocery-store checkout, or coming home to his empty condo.
That had been the worst. That and those minutes before he’d fallen asleep when he’d lain there staring into the darkness. Then he couldn’t not think about her. About why she’d done it--and it wasn’t because of love. If she’d loved him, really loved him, she would never have taken something so precious from him—his say over his own life and the memory of their first time.
Zane put his shoulder into Henry and shoved. The armoire moved about two inches. Which Henry promptly backpedaled over, erasing six inches of progress.
“Come on, Henry. I can’t risk anyone seeing you. I’m not going to be here to cover it up.”
Damned armoire took another step back.
“Fine. Be that way. I’ll just take Eirik up to the attic and hang him from the rafters unless you follow me.” The two of them had done nothing but huddle in the corner of the living room since he’d gotten here, concocting something or cursing him; Zane didn’t give a damn.
But he had no guarantees they wouldn’t pull this shit with witnesses and the press around. That he did give a damn about, so they were going to do what he said. This was, after all, still his house and they were still pieces of furniture.
“So…” Gold sparks sprinkled down from the chandelier in the foyer. “The prodigal has returned.”
And Merlin was still a pain in the ass.
“Don’t you have anything better to do, Merlin?”
“Obviously I can’t ask you that.” The bird floated onto the sofa and lay on his back, crossing his—oh, for chrissakes—purple sequined feet over each other and pulling matching sunglasses down over his eyes. “Because apparently you have had better things to do in the past twenty-one days.”
Zane pulled the pillow out from under the phoenix’s head. “Leave it alone, bird.”
