by J. C. Welker
“That’s not…” Rebel paused, glancing at all the food and then at her neatly bandaged shoulder. “I’m not used to this. Being treated like I matter.” She seemed surprised.
There was something familiar in her features. Anjeline admired the pensiveness in her gaze and the determined lines of her body. Though underfed, she noted. All bones and muscle, like an animal left on the streets, living a life of scrounging. She brushed her empathy aside. “Is that your way of saying thank you?”
Rebel bowed and looked up with those piercing eyes. “Thank you, oh great Anjeline, for keeping my heart in your hands when wolves had other ideas.”
Her lips twitched, pulling slightly upward at those words. Having witnessed and lived on a steady diet of human horror stories, to be this comfortable with one felt strange. This Rebel wasn’t at all what she seemed. A bandit who spent more time stealing stories than wealth. But she heard Madrath’s warning in her ears. She wasn’t Jinn and that made her untrustworthy. Because she’s a human, Anjeline told herself. Reckless, naive, easily distracted by the female form, and eyes too kind for her own good.
The human wanted a wish as much as Anjeline wanted freedom. “Well, you are essential to our search. What we need is direct knowledge to dark magic.”
A question appeared in Rebel’s gaze. “There might be a way I can get information.” She paused. “Those lycanthropes will be tracking you, won’t they?”
“No doubt they can smell you miles away.” Anjeline scrunched her nose and leaned in, sniffing. “You don’t smell human.” She watched as a flush filled Rebel’s face.
All the way to her ears.
Rebel indeed took a bath.
As far as one could be taken in her claustrophobic bathroom. The sink, which had been white moments ago, now bore bloodstains and something that had hitched a ride on her from the Underground. At least the girl staring back in the mirror looked less like a piece of rubbish. Though, one sporting a wolf mark on her face. The ghostly feeling of those claws would last for weeks. After slipping on her jacket, she kissed her pendant, saying a little prayer. She never dared to rely on anyone, yet now she was literally putting her life in the hands of an irritating jinni who looked at her as more of an enemy.
Once she stepped from the bathroom, she halted at the sight before her. “What are you… Are those my clothes?”
Anjeline was perched on the bed, her hair fixed in a waterfall braid. However, her quilled garb had been replaced with Rebel’s jeans, her crimson scarf, and her favorite Prussian blue sweater, which looked incredibly soft and felt even softer. The jinni had raided her closet, what little clothing she owned.
“My attire won’t work,” Anjeline said. “Not if I’m supposed to fit in.”
Dawning surfaced. Rebel held up her hand. “Oh, no. No. You’re not staying outside the vessel,” she said, grabbing her satchel and the vase off the bed.
“I am.” Anjeline stood and heat rippled off her. “Either I wear your clothes or I try conjuring what little I can of my own. But I’ve had enough of that prison of a vessel.” The gold of her irises gleamed like bands of light.
For a beat, Rebel could do nothing but stare into them, wanting to see how fiery they could get. But an unguarded look of wistfulness hid there also. The same look when Anjeline had spoken of her kind, of humans, and Rebel wondered how long she’d been bound to the vase. As she stared at the girl wearing her clothes, all she saw was just that, a girl. Maybe not too different from herself.
“Fine.” Rebel’s voice wavered more than she liked. “But don’t think I’m taking my eyes off you for a second.”
“Is that a promise?” Anjeline fluttered her lashes and stepped closer, moving like grace personified. The jeans hugged her hips in a way they never did Rebel’s, which should’ve been positively sinful.
She didn’t answer, though her face broadcasted her response. “Just…try to act human and not look like you’re about to turn into a bonfire when you dislike something.” She grabbed the vase off the bed, holding it out to her. “It’ll be your job to keep an eye on it.”
Anjeline lurched back. “I can’t touch it. It will shock me.”
Rebel noted her unease. “Why?”
“If I could hold the vessel, would I be here right now? I could flee with it myself. Thus, I’m at the mercy of whoever possesses it.” Anjeline gestured and crossed her arms over her slender chest, lovely even when irritated.
By her reaction, grabbing the vase must have been an idea she’d failed at before. Without a word, Rebel tucked it gently inside the satchel, but couldn’t help rubbing it.
Anjeline shivered with a glare. “Where to first?”
“Upstairs.” Rebel opened the door, eyeing the hallway.
“Upstairs?” She couldn’t hold back a grin at Anjeline’s confusion. Her expression was that of a supernal being unaccustomed to being puzzled. “You think we’ll find answers to my freedom in this place?”
“Humans may be mundane but we have magic of our own. Technology. And you’re forgetting one thing.”
“Which is?”
“I’m the Fingersmith.” Rebel smiled. “If something’s hidden, I’ll find it.”
Chapter Nine
Gramone’s Institute for Displaced Youth looked and smelled exactly like a home for the displaced might look and smell. As Rebel skulked down a hallway, the walls and floors groaned, weeping in voices like the fluttering of a thousand moths. Legend states it was a converted convent set on fire some two hundred years ago for employing healing methods thought of as taboo. Still, it had remained in force for centuries, unchanged for decades. Hallways reeked of history and woe.
A building of ghosts.
Rebel passed the dining hall and ignored the noise within, a teeming fest of youth, hapless girls and tempered boys. Lamps lined the corridor, some blown out, since Madame Gramone couldn’t be bothered to fix them, seeing as the dark was her usual companion. While the three floors below held living quarters, this floor housed the madame’s office and what could hardly pass as a conservatory, where the old crow occupied herself. Hopefully, long enough for what Rebel had—
A body collided into her from behind.
She flinched as a hand pressed the small of her back, followed by a honey-rich voice, breathy, and far too close. “I can’t be that physically far from the vessel,” Anjeline said. “The vase’s perimeter restrains me, more than three yards and it will suck me back in.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Rebel replied in a conspiratorial whisper, hyperaware of the touch. Anjeline didn’t seem bothered by the lack of personal space, but Rebel shifted her satchel before stepping away. “Now, quiet. You’d make a horrid thief.” Still, Anjeline attempting to look the part with a skullcap pulled down to her brow brought a smile to Rebel.
Keeping silent, they came next to the conservatory’s glass entrance and Rebel spotted the grave souls within. The sun filtered through the skylights, shining down upon Sasha, Lewis, and Malachi, ordered to fill the new seeded beds with manure and earthworms. A never-ending supply for the madame’s garden, producing exotic herbs, cloves, rosemary, and silverweed, all of which they were never allowed to eat. Working the conservatory was a mandatory duty Madame Gramone enforced for every “cast-off” in the Institute.
Towering near the three delinquents stood Gramone, resembling a crow in a black tunic. Her bobbed hair came to two points on either side of her chin, though her face looked as stern as a headstone, all cruel curving cheekbones and nose. Gramone held out one hand as Sasha filed her long nails, doing whatever necessary to suck up to the madame. Whenever it had come time for Rebel’s duty, Gramone took great pleasure in giving her the filthiest and strenuous chores.
While Lewis was shoving manure into a shelved row of mugwort, Malachi stopped, propped the shovel under his elbow, and lit the cigarette dangling from his mouth. Before the tip flared into a streak of smoke, the cigarette was sliced in two.
“You fool!” Madame Gramone squawked. “Man
ure is flammable.” She raised her other hand, holding on to clipping shears, which had cut the cigarette in half, inches from his lips.
Malachi and Lewis cursed under their breath.
“Think you’re too special for this?” Gramone hissed. “You’re just cast-offs. If you were so special, why’d they throw you away?” Her mouth curled as if she smelled something foul. Her permanent expression. She snatched the scruff of Malachi’s shirt before shoving him aside.
Sasha caught sight of Rebel behind the glass door. She jerked her chin in a silent signal, Leave while you can. If Rebel got caught, Gramone would have her head. Not needing to be told twice, she tugged Anjeline down the hall.
Anjeline looked back in concern. “Does she hurt them? You?”
“Not physically,” Rebel said, remembering how her childhood had been stained by manipulation and the absence of tenderness. She hadn’t always been the lone wolf. Since she could remember, she’d lived and breathed here, been through multiple headmistresses. Once a cordial child, she galloped along these corridors on her makeshift stick pony, playing with others at defeating the invisible trolls she believed lived in the basement. She had wanted so much to be magical.
All that changed when Madame Gramone arrived, reminding her she was worthless and unimportant, nothing at all. The jovial girl Rebel had been became a hardened Fingersmith who’d grown into her isolation, cut off from the rest of the world. Just a lost girl who didn’t think she would ever matter. Not for the first time, she wondered what life might have been like if she hadn’t been left at the Institute. In another life, who would she have become? Or not become?
Although, in another life she’d never have stolen a jinni.
Anjeline kept close behind her as they came to a blackened door. Madame Gramone’s office. As Rebel withdrew a tension wrench from her jacket, a thrill ran along her fingers. She always felt better when lockpicking. She loved cracking locks as much as they loved opening for her. Though breaking this lock might reap her more hell than not.
“Another break-in?” Anjeline whispered.
“What? It’s not stealing.”
“Your definition is different from mine.”
“So, you’re saying you enjoy that tiny vase?”
“Well…let’s not get overzealous.”
Rebel chuckled. She slipped the wrench into the door’s keyhole and with a little finger finesse, the click sounded. The door popped open like a present. There must have been something fascinating about it, because Anjeline gazed at her in wonder. “How you make thievery seem endearing, I don’t know,” she stated.
Rebel looked over her shoulder. “Are you flirting with me?”
Her glare came in response.
Once inside, their eyes adjusted to the dimness. Madame Gramone’s office fit right in with the Institute, the sort of room Rebel had nightmares of being trapped in for all eternity. It reminded her of the time she’d broken into the basement looking for food and discovered Gramone’s sick hobby of collecting enough taxidermy and preserved animals in jars to turn anyone’s stomach. After Gramone had caught her in the act, the crow locked her in the basement for eighteen hours straight.
As they entered farther, the office air overwhelmed them with candle wax, incense, and something sweet. “It smells odd,” Anjeline voiced.
“Foul is the word I’d use.” Rebel shivered. Victorian wallpapered walls, and on the center wall, a painting of Gramone herself hung, a pet python swathed across her shoulders. Bookshelves huddled in the corner were filled with volumes and other unusual objects Rebel didn’t have names for, bound books covered in fur, concave mirrors, and potted plants. Crocodile heads hung from the ceiling and two toad statues sat on either side of a marble desk.
Anjeline’s gaze slid across the things on the shelves and came to a figurine carved from ivory. She shuddered, appearing to be able to feel something from the dead animal. Rebel slinked to the desk and the mainframe of human magic. Gramone may have been ancient, but she loved her electronics.
“This’s the magic box?” Anjeline cocked her head at it.
“Humans call it a computer.”
Another glare. “I know what it is. An electronic device for storing and processing data in binary form, according to instructions given to it in a variable program.” Anjeline’s big words flowed out, and then she paused, realizing she was being stared at.
A grin rose unbidden on Rebel’s lips. There was something satisfying by the furrow of Anjeline’s brow. Riling a jinni. She reclined in the madame’s chair, kicked out her long legs, rested her boots atop the desk, and started typing.
Peering at the screen over Rebel’s shoulder, Anjeline asked, “This machine will give us knowledge on dark magic?”
“That, or how to take over the world.” Rebel opened a search window on the computer and tapped a few keys: Freeing a Jinni from Imprisonment?
Countless pages of information resulted describing fire spirits. How ancient sorcerers from secret civilizations devised indestructible vessels to trap Jinn, making them obsequious servants until the spell was broken. Other results instructed in summoning, by purifying oneself of unpleasant odors that might offend the Jinn. Anjeline laughed softly, sending shivers up Rebel’s spine. Most were false myths and offended her greatly. She rolled her eyes and waved a hand at Rebel. “Continue.”
“Hmm. A lot of…six-foot-tall women in bikinis. Don’t click there.”
Another eye roll.
Rebel imagined if she rolled them any harder, Anjeline might be able to see her own fiery brain cells. Anjeline leaned in closer and warm breath ghosted over Rebel’s cheek. She shifted uncomfortably and tried a different search: Binding a Jinni. More chasing rabbits. Rebel rifled through digital pages. After several minutes, they found something significant.
Possibly a clue.
Rebel came upon a symbol similar to one of the magician’s marks. “Says here it’s a type of oblation symbol,” she read aloud. “Though the vessel must be destroyed by the magician who bound the jinni, it may be possible to release the binding with another’s dark magic counterspell of offering.” She nodded, making her still damp hair bounce around her face. “That’s it, then. We track down a magician who knows the dark arts and force them to release you.”
Anjeline looked at her as if part of her brain had disintegrated. “A dark magus trapped me and you would bring me to another? They’re more demonic than those lycans. They’d meet death just to obtain a wish before offering anything to free me.”
Bloody hell. Rebel groaned. She thought they were on to something. “Exactly what kind of offering would it have to be?”
“Nothing I’m sure a magicless person could give,” Anjeline said.
A pang of irrational jealousy filled Rebel, wanting to challenge those words. “There must be another way around the magic you aren’t thinking of.”
“There is another solution.” Anjeline canted her head. “We could go directly to the center of magic here. If we can locate the entrance to the Sidhe Court of—”
“No.” She tensed.
Anjeline sighed. “The Sun Court doesn’t prey on humans like the Moon Court. They tolerate them. I’m sure they won’t harm you.”
“That doesn’t sound sure. I’ve read the fables, remember? Every contract signed or bargain made ends in someone’s death.”
“Not everything written is truth. Just like not every story is false.”
“Books lie in order to tell the truth,” Rebel said.
Anjeline saw she wasn’t going to win. “Fine. What we need is someone noble of magic who can identify what type of offering will break my bonds.”
For a minute, Rebel twirled her switchblade between her fingers. Holding it helped to slow her mind and caused it to rise to the occasion. Her thoughts turned to stories. Legends. She might have possessed street smarts, but she felt ignorant in the ways of magic. Not having all the answers in her precious books was worrisome, nor had they prepared her for a magician who
had tried burning her to ashes.
Like that, an idea surfaced.
“If Skinner dabbles in the dark arts, there must be other noble underground traders who are powerful in magic,” she said. “We just need a guide.”
Anjeline’s eyes narrowed. “And you know a trustworthy soul?”
Rebel nodded. “Someone who knows the trade like a second home.” If there was one person who knew every corner of London and every trader, it was the fox. Jaxon.
“I don’t know.” Doubt danced across Anjeline’s face. “Perhaps, we could seek the magician who held me last. She’s powerful enough. She might know—”
“What?” Rebel felt vaguely hurt. “You would trust a magician who stole you for wishes more than me? Did you make a contract with her, too? Do you even know what she’s searching for?”
Anjeline paused. “A dead child.”
Rebel was confused. “Why is she looking for it?”
“How would I know?” Anjeline waved it off, refusing to answer more. “The magician vowed to find a way to release me—”
“Lying,” Rebel said, knowing humans far better. “If she’s on some quest, she won’t find you freedom. She’ll just swipe you back from me.”
Anjeline went rigid. “How stupid of me to forget. I’m your treasure now.” She turned in a rush of heat, going to the end of where her invisible tether would allow.
For a split second, Rebel saw the stab of…hurt? As if a human could hurt a jinni’s feelings. But shadows haunted Anjeline’s eyes and she wondered how many humans had shaped them. Rebel knew how it felt to long for something beyond reach, and wanted to see more of what lay behind the mask presented to her. But from what she’d gathered, Anjeline had suffered enough. There was no solace in asking of things that hurt. She hadn’t meant to upset her. Upsetting Anjeline was starting to upset Rebel, and a weird hum filled her chest with the need to melt those shadows.
“I wished for you,” Rebel said. At the hushed admittance, her eyes darted anywhere but at Anjeline’s bitter ones. “I mean, I didn’t wish for you, per se…”
