by Emma Holly
“No, beloved Georgie. That isn’t what I mean. I am giving you a chance to choose. If you wish me to stay, I will divide my halves again.”
Georgie’s mouth worked. “That’s not my choice. That’s yours. I love you, Connor. I’ll always love you, no matter what you decide. You’ve given me so much you couldn’t possibly owe me more. Be what your intuition tells you is best. Follow your heart and happiness.”
“I will think,” he said and closed his eyes.
She swayed and had to take a step to catch her balance. Though she’d thought the energy of his gaze too much, it seemed to have been supporting her.
Half a minute later, Connor’s lashes rose.
“I will divide,” he said, “and remain with you. That is what both parts of my being want.”
She didn’t see him change, only a flash so brief she might have imagined it. In a literal blink, the shining angel became her Connor again.
“Well,” he said, grinning at her stupefaction. “That was exciting!”
She ran into his arms and hugged him. He rubbed her back soothingly.
“I’m glad you’re back,” she confessed. “I would have missed you so badly!”
He kissed her hair. “I’d have missed you too. And you,” he added to Iksander. “And Titus the cat definitely.”
Georgie laughed and pushed back from him. Connor dried her cheeks and smiled.
“Luna’s gone,” she said, wondering how much he’d mind.
“I’m aware of that,” he said, serious but calm. “She chose what suited her.”
Georgie turned to Taytoch and Pink, who’d gotten to their feet. “How long will my wish keep Luna away from here?”
The ifrits exchanged a glance. “Long enough,” Taytoch answered. “In the meantime, my crew and I would very much like to return to our dimension. We’ve been enslaved many times, not only by the empress. We weary of being every upstart dark sorcerer’s trophy.”
“Okay,” Georgie said carefully. Them going home sounded better than roaming around her world with no keeper, even if that keeper had been evil. “Does Luna’s magic still hold you here? Do you need permission or something?”
“The ifrits need your help,” Iksander said. He slid off the table and came to stand beside her. “They can’t get home without a portal to the djinn dimension. The easiest way to create one from this realm is with a human’s aid and a truckload of power.”
“If I’m not mistaken,” Taytoch said delicately to the sultan, “you have use for a portal too. With the empress . . . indisposed, the curse she laid upon your people should be easier to break.”
“Georgie doesn’t owe you,” the sultan countered. “You served your own interests.”
“But she likes you, sultan, and you’d be dead if I hadn’t acted to preserve your life.”
“Her friend resurrected your crewmember.”
“Her friend wouldn’t be here if another of my crew hadn’t supplied the picture from which the empress formed his body.”
This was a stumper for Iksander. He glowered at the ifrit captain. Georgie didn’t get why they were at odds. Their conversation seemed to hide as much as it gave away.
“What aren’t you two saying?” she demanded.
The sultan tore his gaze from the demon to address her. “There will be a catch. That’s how ifrits do business.”
“Maybe,” Georgie said. “But I’d rather he and his gang go home, if that’s possible.” She turned to Taytoch. “How much power does this portal need? Can you get it without hurting more people?”
Taytoch smiled faintly. “We already have it, thanks to your guardian’s more grandiose aspirations. If you follow me, I’ll show you.”
Though she wasn’t chomping at the bit for more revelations, Georgie joined the others in trailing after him.
In the real-world Ravenwings, the door he opened accessed storage for fancy chafing dishes and antique plates. That room was pine-shelved and narrow, no bigger than a walk-in closet in an ordinary home. The mirror version extended more broadly. The five of them didn’t simply fit inside it; they had space to roam separately. Smooth worn stone like an old cathedral tiled the floor, while multiple banks of shelves in beautiful brushed nickel towered to the ceiling. Tidy rows of brass vessels filled every one.
Amphorae, Luna had called them.
Curious, Georgie extended one hand to touch a foot-tall container. Its metal surface oozed chilliness to her fingertips. She drew her arm back with a shiver. “What are these things?”
Taytoch seemed happy to answer. “They are storage vessels for human life energy.”
“Christ,” Georgie said, rocked to her core with horror. There were hundreds of containers here. “Luna killed all these people?”
“No, no. Do not distress yourself, Miss McFadden. These people were about to die through accidents or illness. The empress had a knack for discovering them. As they expired, she harvested their energy. Not their souls. Those would have passed normally. She simply took the life force in their bodies.”
Georgie’s hand pressed her breast in shock. She fought to behave as calmly as everyone else was. “Why would Luna restrict herself to victims who were about to die? I thought she’d turned dark already.”
“My understanding,” Taytoch said, “is that she didn’t want to disturb the timeline much more than she had. Djinn and human dimensions vary, but they are intertwined. The empress traveled in this realm to a time preceding an event in hers that she didn’t want undone.”
“The curse she put on Iksander’s city,” Georgie guessed. “When Iksander showed up in Black Bear Mountain, she knew the tragedy had happened the way she wished.”
“Yes,” Taytoch said. “With that shackle removed, her main concern was that Sultan Iksander might interfere with her ambitions here.”
“Here,” Iksander repeated, looking at him sharply. “She didn’t intend to use these stores to wreak more havoc amongst the djinn?”
“Quite possibly she’d have worked her way back to tormenting you and yours. More than once, however, I heard our mistress lament that Miss McFadden’s world suffered from a dearth of tyrants with panache. I believe she hoped to address that lack.”
He phrased this so elegantly his meaning took a moment to register.
“You mean she intended to set up as empress here,” Georgie said.
Taytoch inclined his scaled sapphire head. “That is my interpretation of her actions.”
“Georgie,” Connor interrupted in an odd tone. He must have wandered off. He spoke from a few shelves away. “I believe I’ve discovered what happened to Roger the butler.”
When they went to see, Connor stood before a life-size, sugar-white statue. Here and there, bits had crumbled off and discolored, as if the stone were rotting. Despite this, Georgie couldn’t mistake the resemblance to her guardian’s most recent servant and bed partner.
“Oh my God,” the sultan breathed, going pale at the sight.
“That’s not him,” Georgie said, not wanting to believe it. “It’s just a good likeness.”
“No, Georgie,” Connor contradicted. “It was him, though it is no more. I cannot sense any spark of consciousness in the stone.”
“That was a failed experiment,” Taytoch said. “Evidently, humans are harder to petrify than djinn—at least they’re harder if you hope to revive them later.”
“The chef was the first she tried the process on,” Pink volunteered. “He crumbled so fast he was a pile after five minutes.”
“You mean Manuel?” Georgie asked, her voice breaking. “He didn’t move to Florida? But . . . I thought Alma liked him. She acted sorry he went away.”
“Your guardian might have been sorry,” Taytoch conceded. “If it makes you feel better, the chef had an unsuspected health condition. He wouldn’t have lived much longer regardless. To Luna’s mind, she was seeing he didn’t go to waste.”
This didn’t make her feel better. It made her feel horrible. All this time, Geor
gie thought Manuel was happily running his own restaurant. She’d been miffed with him for not staying in touch with her. Luna hadn’t just stolen his energy. She’d stolen days, weeks, maybe even months the kind young man could have spent in ways of his own choosing. Hell, if Luna hadn’t seduced him in the first place, he might have had a real relationship with someone who returned his affection as he deserved. Luna had robbed him of that.
God, why had Georgie been so blind to what was going on? She could have torn her hair out at her stupidity.
Following his own trail of logic, Iksander shifted uncomfortably beside her. “You’re saying Luna wanted to do the same thing to Georgie’s people that she did to mine.”
“Turning a populace to stone does make an impression,” Taytoch said. “Plus, as playgrounds go, the human realm has fewer entrenched defenses to djinn magic. By the time Georgie’s people figured out how to oppose her, the empress might have gained too much power to be stopped. I cannot deny feeling a certain respect for her vision. When she went dark, she didn’t employ half measures.”
His admiration caused Georgie’s temper to boil over.
“Fuck that,” she said. “I should have wished her dead!”
Taytoch seemed disconcerted by her outburst. He hesitated before he responded. “I’m not convinced that sort of death would represent true justice. Thanks to you, Iksander’s associates will be in a position to take the empress into custody. Put her on trial. Lock her up for centuries, if they choose.”
Having a demon lecture her on justice stung. Mindful they needed to tread carefully around him, Georgie swallowed her resentment.
A trial wouldn’t be a bad thing if Luna were locked up forever.
“You’ll call me if I need to testify?” she asked Iksander. “I’d be happy to help put that bitch behind bars.”
He blinked rapidly at her. “Certainly. I’d . . . I’d let you know if that was required.”
For the moment this satisfied her.
“Pardon me for asking,” Taytoch interjected, “but might I borrow the sultan to speak privately? We have djinni-to-djinni business to discuss.”
She glanced at Iksander. Though his face was closed, he appeared to know what the ifrit meant.
“We could leave the mirror space,” Connor said. “Perhaps bring your friend Ishmael up to date on what’s happened. I assume he’s still confined to the library.”
“Yes,” Taytoch said. “I suppose I’ll have to suspend his punishment.”
“A pardon might be appropriate,” Connor said. “Everything considered.”
Georgie concealed a smile. Though Connor made his suggestion gently, he didn’t seem at all intimidated by the demon.
“I’ll come with you,” Pink piped up, surprising her. “I can’t wait to tell Fariel he missed the excitement!”
IKSANDER DIDN’T MIND being left alone with Taytoch. He sensed no ill intent from him at the moment. Plus, ensuring he and the ifrit understood each other seemed prudent.
They waited unspeaking until everyone clambered out the portrait.
“So,” Iksander said.
“So,” the demon captain returned.
Iksander concluded this was going to be an indirect discussion. “Convenient that Luna happened to owe a human a wish.”
“Highly,” Taytoch agreed.
“And that she’d altered her stolen body enough to be vulnerable to human commands. I wonder what could have made her so insecure she surrendered that advantage?”
Taytoch considered his curving clear blue talons. “Even beautiful rulers sometimes have frail egos.” His gaze slid sideways to Iksander. “Not that you’d know anything about that.”
“Not that I would,” Iksander said, too aware the rebuke was fair.
His implied acceptance of the scold broke through the demon’s evasiveness. “Sultan, if I may be honest—”
“Honesty would be refreshing.”
Taytoch’s smile flicked across his reptilian mouth. “Very well. To be honest, I wish I could claim I arranged every turn of today’s events. The truth is, however, that one does the best one can with the circumstances that come to hand. I don’t think I need to remind you of the reasons you ought to approve the results.”
“Indeed you don’t.”
His tone must have been too dry. It seemed not to reassure Taytoch. The demon peered more intently into Iksander’s face. “May we rely on you not to enlighten Miss McFadden about what she’s done?”
“You may rely on me to think long and hard before deciding.”
“The thing is,” Taytoch said, unable to give up his desire for a guarantee, “the human, while spirited, has a noticeable tenderness of heart. She might regret her actions if she knew what they’d led to. She might decide to undo them with her remaining two wishes.”
“I am aware of that.”
“And you have more cause than most to want the empress exactly where she is.”
“Why don’t we pretend I can’t guess, and you spell out her location.”
Taytoch stroked the brass amphora nearest to his hand. Perhaps the gesture was absentminded, or perhaps he wished to keep Luna’s sins as fresh as possible in the sultan’s mind. “The empress is most certainly at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, weakened and weighted by the iron chains with which she bound you, having her skin continually boiled off by saltwater. I say ‘continually,’ because the power she amassed will increase her ability to heal. Coupled with her will to live, she should remain in this agony quite a while before her last flame goes out.”
“And you know this because?”
“She collected the energy of her victims in a place called Virginia Beach. Her subconscious will have directed her to its piers, for they are the ones she knows best. From there, the long walk Georgie ordered her to take will have forced her far into the ocean. She is suffering the very fate she subjected your wife to.”
“Times a thousand,” Iksander pointed out.
“Has she not taken a thousand victims in addition to your kadin?”
She had taken hundreds of thousands, an entire city’s worth. Iksander rubbed his face. Georgie had expressed a willingness to kill Luna, but torture was different. If she insisted on a trial . . .
In that moment, he understood too well the ifrits’ thirst for brute vengeance.
“What if some human discovers her?” he asked. “Some fisherman or ship. They might try to save her. They wouldn’t recognize her as dangerous.”
“In her current state, they wouldn’t recognize her as a person. Besides which, the chance anyone would encounter her in open waters, on the bottom of the ocean floor, is remote. She’d be likelier to escape if you tried to take her into custody. Even if you’d chosen this punishment yourself, it wouldn’t turn you dark. Luna is the enemy of your people. You are at war because of her wish to conquer them. Imagine what she’d do if she gained another opportunity to attack. Sultan, I know you aren’t completely different from we ifrit. You understand the fitness of an eye for an eye. Please promise you won’t allow misplaced pity to weaken your indisputable right to reprisal.”
Iksander sighed lengthily. “That I cannot promise, only that I will do nothing without deeply considering first.”
Taytoch frowned but didn’t argue more. He understood Iksander had given him the firmest assurance he was willing to offer.
SOONER THAN GEORGIE expected, Iksander and the demon captain joined them in the library. Watching Taytoch end Ishmael’s confinement was entertaining. Even the lizard man smiled at the imp’s gleeful bouncing around the walls.
To Georgie’s amusement, Ishmael improvised his own take on Ding-Dong, the Witch is Dead.
“Not dead,” she said. “Just out of our hair for now. The sultan’s people will take Luna into custody when they’re able. In the meantime, hopefully, you guys can go home.”
“Ah,” Ishmael said, glancing uncertainly at his boss.
“Miss McFadden agreed to help set up a portal with the empress’s
power stores.”
“If I can,” Georgie cautioned. “I’ve never done anything like that.”
“We’ll instruct you in the formula,” Taytoch assured her.
“No worries then,” Ishmael said, hopping to perch on the back of a nearby chair. “It’ll be a piece of cake for someone with your talents.”
The imp was suspiciously confident for someone who’d repeatedly insisted she’d never be a great sorceress.
Before she could mull that over, the library doors opened. Pink had returned with another of Taytoch’s crew. He was a strange one. Almost human in appearance, Fariel glided along the floor as if riding an invisible Segway. Cadaverously skinny, his slick black designer suit didn’t flatter the gray-green tint of his skin.
“Wait a second,” she said, his distinctive looks triggering a memory. “Didn’t I see you trick or treating in town on Halloween?”
“Certainly not,” the demon denied. “Halloween is a primitive holiday. Anyway, many humans might have worn costumes that made them look like me.”
She was pretty sure he was lying. Taytoch was giving him a sharp look, so maybe Fariel’s field trip hadn’t been boss-approved. She didn’t like the idea that the captain wasn’t completely in control. She needed to get these demons out of here . . . the sooner the better.
“Why don’t you explain the portals?” Connor proposed. “Neither Georgie nor I are familiar with how they work.”
They’d gathered in the center of the library rather than the alcove that held the magic books. Connor leaned his hips on Ishmael’s apple table, and was easily the most relaxed person there. The demons especially seemed leery of standing close to him.
Taytoch glanced at Iksander, who gestured he was welcome to play teacher.
“As you like,” Taytoch said. “The first fact to understand is that traveling in the Qaf is a game of Can You Get There From Here? We djinn don’t reside on a globe like you. Indeed, our reality is difficult to map. We have various stable lands and cities, between which stretch the dangerous mists of the In-Betweens. The Qaf Mountains, from which our realm takes its name, wind around and jut up through them. If the In-Between mists are narrow, the gulfs can be traversed in smoke form. If broad, flying carpets are required. If the gulfs are especially large, only a magic portal will safely send djinn across.
