The Wishing Heart

by J. C. Welker

  A bitter laugh cracked the moment.

  “Trusting doesn’t make it true.” Jaxon’s words were a dagger that went against the expression on his face. “Tell me, jinni, when my father was pounding his fist into my skull, where was magic then?”

  Anjeline fell silent and looked to Rebel in regret. Countless stories she’d heard. Countless abuses she’d seen. Madrath never punished physically—Jinn didn’t need to. They destroyed from the inside out. Their disappointment and discipline could be felt in a single flare of eyes or a lash of fire tongue. Or one might be banished for eternity. But if there was one thing she knew about pain, it was that some Jinn were no different from the human monsters they claimed destroyed their own kind.

  “Free will is what makes evil possible,” Rebel voiced, taking the pressure off Anjeline. The fox’s eyes narrowed, seeming to hate when she quoted her books at him. “You’re still alive. And your dear old pop is on the far side of metal bars. To me it looks like someone’s wish saved you.”

  Jaxon appeared to ponder it but made no reply.

  “A promise is a promise.” Rebel gave a nod. And as Anjeline met her eyes, a certain awareness surfaced between them, an unspoken agreement.

  Then Rebel bumped his arm. “Are you in, or not? There must be someone who dabbles in magic among the traders you know and isn’t vile?”

  “There may be traders we can talk to. Fair ones, who like to remain secret. But only after midnight.” He grinned with the sort of expression Anjeline felt didn’t quite fit their predicament. “First, you know the rule,” he said to Rebel. “You must earn a fox’s favor.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Rebel ducked, sliding across the floor.

  The knife missed her arm by half an inch. Fake as it was and carved from wood—it could still rip flesh. She twirled back around, swinging her own wooden knife. The tip caught Jaxon’s coat, tearing a gash in the sleeve.

  The onlookers gasped.

  This was the rule. Beat the fox to earn a favor. With nothing given in return. It was mostly for show, of course. Jaxon’s method of maintaining his reputation and intimidation among others. The thieves’ way of striking deals. Instead of shaking hands, they compared knife skills. Few had won a favor, though she’d defeated him once before, one of a handful who could.

  “Lucky shot,” Jaxon jeered her on.

  Rebel circled him. “Lady luck adores me.”

  A throng of Freebooters overcrowded the training room, wagering over how many taps Jaxon would get in, or if the Fingersmith would steal his soul with her wicked fingers.

  Shivers ran up Rebel’s neck, feeling someone’s fiery gaze pointed on her. Tucked away in the corner, Anjeline pulled the hoodie lower over her head, her eyes intently fixed on Rebel’s every move. She willed her blood not to rise to her face and felt her heart sputter, but flashed a brilliant smile at the crowd, enjoying how concerned Anjeline appeared to be over this favor rule. The way she pretended not to be interested whenever she knew Rebel was looking at her. With a sour expression, Anjeline had called this “a fool’s way of making deals.” As though she’d agreed to give him an internal organ. Nothing bad would happen. Hopefully.

  Another lunge came at her, and she dodged.

  Silk like a fox, Jaxon sidestepped and hooked his ankle behind Rebel’s. She miscalculated, her thoughts too focused on a jinni. Her heart too tired. Her balance shifted, her feet clumsy with exhaustion, and he tapped his wooden knife on her shoulder, indicating a blow. A murmur of excitement rose and the crew roared in shouts.

  They were tied now. Whoever tapped next won.

  “Remember if you lose”—Jaxon’s eyes darted to the corner, where Anjeline crouched lower—“I get a favor.”

  Rebel didn’t like the sound of that. Then again, she rarely liked anything coming out of Jaxon’s mouth when discussing deals. No matter if she lost, he would still help them in their quest. Offer a favor to a friend. Though he’d require one in return. And she recognized the look in his eyes when he’d held the vase. The last time she’d witnessed it, the two of them had broken into the British Museum for her birthday—or what she thought as her true birth—as she’d never seen such artwork before, and he’d wanted nothing more than to liberate every shiny thing from its glass prison. She could imagine the countless wishes he was thinking of being granted now.

  Jaxon winked, daring her to make the next move.

  She rolled her shoulders, ignoring her wavering heartbeat and glanced once more at the corner. She was almost certain that Anjeline gave her a smile.

  Intent on getting the last tap, she licked her lips, gripped the hilt of the wooden knife, and lunged. She dove into a roll behind Jaxon, popping back up onto her feet to give a final tap to his backside. But Jaxon appeared impossibly faster than normal. He slithered out of the way at the exact moment she pivoted. Just as the flat end of his knife came down to meet the top of her head, something red flashed on the floor—right under his boot.

  Before he could react, his foothold slipped.

  He teetered back on the red thing and Rebel seized her chance. Her elbow struck true, nudging him over, and sending him sprawling to the floor on his back. Vulnerable for a hit. She stood over him, leaned close, and tapped her wooden knife against his forehead.

  The room went wild in applause.

  A chuckle overtook Jaxon as he lay there, untroubled with the outcome, and mouthed to her: queen of the thieves. Only he had ever let Rebel best him in a fight without argument, or retaliation. She caught the fiery gaze in the corner and saw a smirk rise behind Anjeline’s hoodie, looking utterly satisfied. Rebel’s eyes dropped to the red thing now squished on the floor, realizing its origin, as if the apple had appeared out of thin air like a gift from heaven. Or a jinni.

  Once the room cleared, Rebel stalked to the corner. “What did you do that for?” she whispered harshly, still catching her breath.

  “You were losing our favor.” Anjeline shrugged. “I helped.”

  She flushed in humiliation. “I wasn’t losing. It’s called diversion.”

  Anjeline’s half smile emerged, heart-stopping in its loveliness, as if to say, Doubtful. Then her eyes paused on a bruised cheek, and her hand fluttered to Rebel’s face. “You would have just added another bruise to your collection.”

  A soft thumb struck the place on the corner of Rebel’s lip where a wolf’s claw had cut her. The touch felt electric, jolting her into silence. Her pulse turned into a hummingbird and her face simmered. From the flutter of Anjeline’s lashes, she seemed to be taking some small pleasure in Rebel’s reaction. An urge surfaced, to brush her thumb over soft lips. She suddenly felt inappropriate rousing in inappropriate places, and cursed herself. Bad Rebel.

  “Is there a reason for your face to be that red?” Jaxon was grinning at her. He wiped his boot, not bothering to ask about the fruit. “Looks like you won the favor.”

  Rebel cleared her throat, ignoring Anjeline’s gaze, but felt her pulse skip. She withdrew her meds and then popped a pill. “How hurt is your pride?” she asked him.

  “Nothing can damage that.” He patted his backside and waved a hand. “Come now, charmer, you look positively whipped.”

  A curtain of fatigue pulled Rebel into a slump as she followed, waiting for the pill to kick in. Her heart and body reminding her of every pang and bruise she wore as one step closer to their goal. Anjeline eyed her with what looked like sympathy, and if she hadn’t felt ready to drop, she would’ve pushed to find out. Part of her wanted to sleep for days, and if she were next to the warmth of say, a blazing jinni, well, maybe weeks.

  As Jaxon guided them down the hallway back toward the main room, he glanced over his shoulder. “The two of you will be sharing my bunk.”

  Anjeline’s scowl returned like a solar flare.

  “Down, girl.” He chuckled. “Share it without me.”

  “Jax’s humor never fails to please,” Rebel told her.

  “I’m only a part-time asshole.” His pla
yful voice forced a snort from Rebel. “Though one might suspect there’s a jocular jinni hiding beneath all that hair.”

  Anjeline eyed him. “You wish.”

  If it were anyone else, Rebel might have felt jealous. But Jaxon flirted with everyone, usually to get a rise out of someone. She shook her head and caught a glimpse within the other rooms. Young thieves and pickpockets milled about, laughing as though invincible. Naive and fearless. And no longer abandoned.

  Rebel had not been the first orphan Jaxon befriended and aided in survival. There was the blue-haired Raposa, who enjoyed stealing replicated Fabergé eggs. The brightest Freebooter, called Vos, who adorned himself in rainbow scarves and specialized in absconding anything glittery and electronic. Pike, the dagger collector, each one called by a different name and at least sharper than his wit. Then there were the youngest ones, Fani and Fadil, twelve-year-old runaways who never strayed far from Jaxon’s side.

  Noticing where Rebel’s attention had been drawn to, Jaxon’s face softened into a brotherly expression. “You know, there’s still a place for you among the Freebooters, with your skills, and well”—he glanced between her and Anjeline—“the beasties would never want for anything with you here. After all, family shapes you.”

  “So can a bad one.” Rebel shook her head, dispelling the countless stories about his own he often confessed. Illustrating a family that had given birth to Jaxon’s motivation, the existence of the Freebooters. To rescue those like him and offer them a better chance. A home. Where the only hand that was raised would be in applause. On many occasions, he’d invited her to become part of it all, to utilize her special fingers, but she always refused.

  And now with Anjeline at her side?

  “You can stay as long you want,” he added.

  Rebel read between the lines of what Jaxon really meant. Despite her trust in him, he was always working an angle. If he couldn’t win a wish out of Anjeline, he would at least try and squeeze out what magic he could. “We’ve been over this,” she told him. “I have no desire for a thieving life.”

  Anjeline’s gaze swept over her, surprised. “You don’t?”

  “Why would I want a life of running? Anything you run from will just be waiting around another corner.”

  “That’s what I thought you would say.” Jaxon seemed more disappointed than the last fifty times he’d asked her. Like this time was the last.

  Still, under his plaintive gaze, Rebel felt an urge to accept. In a life isolated from a home, her books had opened her heart to the possibility of one. She longed for a place that didn’t exist in their reality, where her heart was healed and her soul had a place to dwell. But thieving had no future. The truth came down to them just being lost youth, playing at a dangerous game, until one of them ended up behind bars—or with a blade in their back.

  When they reached the main room, Jaxon halted, and Rebel collided into him from behind. He swirled around, shoving her and Anjeline back down the hallway. She opened her mouth to snap at him, but he hissed one name, “Skinner.”

  Rebel stiffened.

  Swallowing back her words, she dared to peek around the corner and saw what had stopped Jaxon. A figure entered the room, pushing Basil out of the way, as several other Freebooters scattered. Skinner, adorned in his magician’s garment of fire-breathing creatures, spied the club. Judas trailed in his wake, sporting a broken nose. And they looked infuriated.

  Bloody hell. She heard Anjeline add a curse behind her.

  “Those lizards dare enter my club?” Jaxon rasped.

  “How’d he find us?” Rebel whispered.

  Jaxon clicked his tongue. “I am your only friend.”

  She met his eyes, a mutual idea forming. “Corner them off?”

  He nodded. “Find a place to lock up.”

  Anjeline spoke up. “It’s safest to hide within the vessel.” She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear as if she were nervous. As if it were possible. For all her verbal hatred of the vase, Rebel knew if that were an option rather than facing Skinner, they didn’t have much choice.

  Jaxon couldn’t hide one thief, let alone two bodies. But he could conceal an object if they were inside of it. For a moment, she allowed herself to indulge in what exactly that might mean. As a child, she’d envisioned what a jinni’s bottle might be like from within, an infinite place of wonder, not a prison. All thanks to the ideas of an ignorant world. Her hand gravitated to her satchel, withdrawing the vase. The thought of Anjeline fitting her entire self inside, besides the both of them, seemed impossible to fathom. But then, that was magic—tricky, puzzling, and impossibly possible.

  “Hurry, love,” Jaxon said, peering around the wall. “Make a decision.”

  Finally, she found her voice. “You—can hide me inside with you?”

  Anjeline’s expression was halfway to becoming an actual smirk. “My full power may be curbed for wishes, but I can still work a little magic on you. If you touch me, my essence will allow me to pull you inside.”

  A flutter opened in Rebel’s chest. She sensed this was more a test of trust, to put her well-being in someone else’s grasp. The promise they made. Once more, she glanced at the vase. “We’ll be safe?”

  Anjeline nodded. “Take my hand.”

  Ignoring all her doubts, Rebel took it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The moment the words drifted off Anjeline’s tongue, her magic swathed around her and enveloped Rebel in its shroud. Leaving the fox to work his own silver tongue on the magician. The ground fell away and they were swept up into a billow as she turned to smoke, allowing the force of the vase’s allure to pull her essence within. Rebel’s sudden gasps were met by silence, as if the dizzying effects of being wrenched in between stole her breath.

  And as quickly as it began, they were within.

  Plush carpet materialized beneath their footing, grounding them from stumbling. Anjeline’s essence curled and uncurled back into form, the transport of magic making her feel like a squeezed fruit. If it wasn’t for Anjeline clasping Rebel’s hand, her spirit would have drifted afar. She heard Rebel’s stomach grumble, and recognized the queasy hitch in her breathing. “Probably should have warned you first,” Anjeline said.

  “Pro-ba-bly.” Rebel wheezed, releasing what would be considered her best glare, though it was ruined by the fact that she was halfway bent to her feet.

  Anjeline tried not to laugh at the fierceness of that glare. “Now you understand my hatred of the vase.”

  A nod came. “I’ll never ask you…to get inside it again.”

  The vessel shook momentarily. Jaxon had told them he’d be hiding it within a concealed compartment under the floorboards in his office. A place Skinner would never think to look. Not when they searched for the Fingersmith. She pressed her lips together, still listening as Rebel mumbled words Anjeline had never heard, though certain they were curses. But once Rebel glanced in front of her, she ceased.

  “Holy mother…”

  Rebel’s eyes glistened, taking in every inch. The feathered pillows, the circular bed with its canopy of draping silk, the decorations covered in gold clasps or dotted in chips of jewels. A smile cracked Rebel’s stunned face as she spotted Anjeline’s own galore of books piled in pyramids. Then her gaze fixed on the oval-like windows peering out of the vase’s enclosure, and her mouth dropped like an open door.

  Sunbeams glistened through the windows, showing a magical view, giving the impression they were on an island unlike any other. A sunset streaked across the sky, from lilac to deep purple, reflecting off the sea and the surrounding islands.

  The image cast colors over Rebel, dazzling across her awed expression. Judging by her reaction, Anjeline suspected she’d never seen the actual ocean. No. This definitely wasn’t the ocean. Because if it were, then Anjeline would be free from this prison, and Rebel certainly wouldn’t be beside her with a bruise on her cheek in the shape of a lycan’s claw. Nor would a magician be standing outside, sniffing around.

&nb
sp; “It’s an illusion,” Anjeline told her. “The vase’s bound to my essence so I can subconsciously create fantastic worlds within. Like being in a constant dream state.”

  Rebel touched the window, but the wall rippled like she’d thrown a pebble in it. “Being imprisoned in a bottle isn’t exactly the hell one would think it is,” she said.

  “It is when it’s been your hell for seventeen years,” Anjeline replied.

  Her brow knitted together. “And I’m the first? That you’ve hidden within?”

  Anjeline nodded. The only one.

  In light of her reaction to the appearance of the dragon, she’d found herself anxiously coaxing Rebel to hide in the vessel with her. Something Anjeline had never done. Not inside her safe haven. And certainly not with a human, Madrath would say. The vase might have been a prison, but at least it sheltered her from the pain and darkness from the outside world. Still, the loneliness within had become unbearable, so much at times she wished it might obliterate her completely. But now, as she drew closer to Rebel’s side, she realized she didn’t feel the burden of it, not like she used to.

  Not before a girl had stolen her.

  Rebel’s focus drew to the ruby satin of the bed, then she looked to her in question. Anjeline gave a nod to whatever she wanted and said, “You might as well. I have a feeling we’ll be in here a while.”

  No faster than a blink, Rebel removed her satchel, and in one loud whoop fell backward onto the bed, sinking into the pillows. A gratified sound slipped from Rebel’s throat. “If I could sleep on clouds, I imagine it would feel like this.”

  Against her will, a smile tugged at Anjeline’s lips, pulled to the surface by Rebel’s charm. She sat on the bed. “Clouds are vaporous,” she said matter-of-fact. “You’d slip through.”