by J. C. Welker
Faint noises echoed, like birds fluttering.
A few small cages swayed from the strange creatures within. Their bodies threw off a great amount of light and Rebel squinted. Most of them appeared humanoid. Their limbs were long and thin, no bigger than her foot, and they possessed wings of a hummingbird. They might have been richly colored once, but now they looked soiled and dull. Some glanced at her with colorful eyes, full of sorrow and despair. Others buzzed about the cages in circles with cries of mercy at the Siren.
A young man kneeled within one of the taller cages. Slits were cut into the back of his leather jacket, and even darker, leathery wings protruded from it. His silver bangs brushed the top edge of his ambitious eyes, and he began to ram his shoulder into the cage. Between the banging, a hissing came. The cage’s bars sizzled and his wings shuddered. He lurched back in pain and bared his teeth at the Siren, but one word from her lips and they silenced.
The water horses drifted the float toward two hanging pens, and Rebel became aware of the tightening hand on hers. Anjeline whispered, “Now would be the time for you to scheme one of your reckless plans.”
Rebel glanced around the tunnel, an idea slowly forming. “When they remove the net, distract them with your glowiness,” she said. “I’ll snatch the bag and bolt like lightning.”
“There’s water underneath us,” Anjeline pointed out.
“So I’ll swim.”
Anjeline sighed. It wasn’t exactly a plan. Though, reckless.
As the mermaids approached on either side of the net, Rebel tried calculating how she would run from eight of them while trapped in their habitat. But if fish could swim upstream, surely she could, too. She gave Anjeline a nod. The water horses released the net from their teeth, removing the webbing, and Rebel’s heart pulsed into action. She made a sudden forward thrust toward the Siren—ready for Anjeline to flare into a ball of heat.
Her own cocksure spirit betrayed her.
Rebel’s feet were used to scaling ledges, not water-logged foam. The float tipped into the water—and she landed on her backside with an oof. Hissing laughter emerged and she looked up, coming eye to eye with a trident pointed at her.
“In the cage.” A merman sneered, his mouth full of jagged teeth.
Rebel didn’t budge, blocking their access to Anjeline. As if it mattered. But then warmth rippled up her spine. A dazzle of smoke, and Anjeline shifted into that Abyssinian cat. In a blur, she pounced up a mermaid’s tail and slashed at a face—leaping from one shoulder to another—sending the merfolk into a frenzy.
Others shouted and dashed forward.
Just as Anjeline sprang into the air to claw at the Siren’s eyes, a webbed hand caught her by the scruff of the neck. The Siren threw her into a cage and, in a puff of smoke, she turned from feline to girl again. Before Rebel could punch first, several slimy hands dragged her forward, forcing her into the cage beside Anjeline’s. The door slammed on their hopes.
“Fish-eating twats,” Rebel spat. “By the way, I pissed in your river.”
The Siren hissed out a chuckle. So much for their plan. She shot Anjeline a grateful look, even if it hadn’t worked. They watched as a merman held open the satchel for the Siren and she caressed the vase within, hunger filling her eyes.
Rebel’s heart skipped and she flung her arms through the bars. “You can’t…take her!” She wheezed. “The Wishmaker is with me.” She expected Anjeline’s death glare for that. But by the smoke drifting off her shoulders, Anjeline was too enraged herself.
“You think such a powerful creature could be yours?” The Siren sliced through the dark waters, drifting to Rebel’s cage. “You humans destroy everything you touch. Including yourselves.”
“You know nothing of humans,” Anjeline spat. More heat bristled off her skin in an attempt at intimidation, and she slipped a hand through the cage to Rebel, trying to touch.
“My, my.” The Siren grinned, displaying honed teeth of a shark. “Wishmaker, are you turning empathetic of your captor?”
“Rather a human than of man-eating trawl.” Anjeline sneered.
The Siren flipped her tail, like a scaly middle finger. “I understand the human’s fox traded you without a thought. Too cowardly to pay the debt himself.”
The words stung, splintering in Rebel’s chest. All these years she’d confided in Jaxon, all he’d taught her, and this was how he’d betrayed her. Tossed her to the fishes. Until a moment ago, he had been the big brother she never had, and now, she couldn’t even call him a friend. Still, she needed to know. “Jaxon’s debt, what was it?”
The Siren’s inky gaze pinned her in place. “The fox is a solitary Sidhe. Outcast by the Sun Court, yet refused to bow before the Moon Court. Not as sly as he convinced himself he was. One of his heists went awry and the Sidhe he purloined from tossed him into the river. We saved his skin, with the expectation he pays the debt back with three years of his life.”
“You exploited him?”
“Despite what you’ve heard, mermaids are not cruel. We’re just cold-blooded.” In a grandiose gesture, the Siren swept an arm up and down her body.
“Jaxon wasn’t supposed to betray me, either,” Rebel said, taking a breath. “Clearly, I’m not a good judge of character.”
“We don’t harm humans unless they blemish our waters.” The Siren leaned in, the bars separating her face from Rebel’s, and she licked her lips. “I don’t usually take ones for pets, but I’ll make an exception with you.” Slippery fingers reached into the cage, stroking Rebel’s cheek, and she shuddered at the icy touch.
Heat rippled off Anjeline in warning waves.
“Melusine, dear?” The older mermaid drifted toward the Siren, her hand caressing the cages, calming the creatures from buzzing about. Her hair gleamed as leafy as the others, but with streaks of gray, and her face bore decades of creases. “Don’t you think you have enough pets?”
Once the Siren, Melusine, looked to the elder, her eyes seemed to soften. “Enough? They’re never enough to fix what these humans have done to our oceans.”
Anjeline rattled her cage. “The Courts won’t allow this.”
The Siren’s tail flicked savagely. “When they do nothing to aid us, we must help ourselves.”
“By keeping…prisoners?” Rebel coughed, glancing at the winged boy.
“More like pets,” he quipped.
“Workers,” Melusine corrected, observing Rebel and whatever sickness she had. “You humans pollute yourselves. You’ve polluted our homes for centuries, and seeing as feyries adore you spores, then they should be the ones to right your wrongs. And now I hold something far better…” She lifted the vase from the satchel.
At the touch, Anjeline went rigid.
Rebel knew what it meant, the imprint of power over Anjeline had shifted from herself to the Siren. In a daring attempt, she flung her arms through the bars, grabbing at the vase, and hitting Melusine’s hand. The bag tumbled from her webbed grasp, sending some of its contents and Rebel’s beloved book plummeting into the water. At the same moment, Rebel’s fingers snatched at the vase, glancing off its sides—and a jolt shocked Melusine.
Sparks flicked out.
In a shriek, Melusine lurched back. The vase slipped from her fingers, but in a flash, she caught it with her tail. Mermen raised their tridents in warning and her fingers trembled as she glanced from the vase to Rebel in bewilderment. “Who are you, girl?”
Rebel ignored them, wheezing from the exertion and focused on Anjeline. “You don’t have to cast it…”
A sad smile touched Anjeline’s lips at how untrue that was. The burden of her imprisonment showed in her eyes and Rebel started to grasp the worst part—whoever possessed the vase more than possessed her—they controlled her power.
Anjeline turned to the Siren. “Wishes come with a price.”
“Ah.” Melusine nodded. “The consequences of a darkened heart. Well, then, you should know the virtues of mermaids far exceed any human or magician alike.
”
With great pride, Anjeline canted her head, her fierceness springing from inner strength and unwavering certainty as she said, “The heart is a strange thing. Darkness often exists even beside the brightest of lights.”
“Don’t chide me.” Melusine sneered. “I’ll have my wish.”
“There are rules.” She counted them off as she did before. “I cannot grant the wish to kill, make one more powerful than the Creator, or make alive the dead. And you must agree to my term.”
“Term?”
As Anjeline had in the lycan’s lair, she glanced in Rebel’s direction. “The Fingersmith. Keep her out of the hands of the Prince and your wish will be reality.”
The winged boy drew near his bars and whispered to Rebel, “The Siren detests the Prince of the underneath. He seduced her sister and she literally lost control, now floats in the center of the oceans…the Bermuda Triangle.” Rebel met Anjeline’s gaze, unsure why she hadn’t used the term for herself. But she would be lying if she didn’t feel a wave of relief.
“You think I’d offer anything to that son of the devil?” Melusine hissed her reply. “I concur. Now, for what I desire.” She moved her lengthy mane behind her and the seaweed cape around her tail. “I wish…” she said, “…to walk the earth.”
At the words, Anjeline curled her lips and exhaled.
The wish took shape. Creating. Forming. As it became, tendrils of light streamed from Anjeline’s tongue into threads of being. The shimmering spirals swathed around Melusine’s tail end, thickening, and ever so slowly, scales dematerialized and fins faded.
What stood in its place were shapely women’s legs.
Melusine straightened before them, her body slick with river water, and as nude as the Venus de Milo. The merfolk bent low on their tails and kowtowed to their Siren, now able to walk her revenge among mankind.
Chapter Twenty-Two
If Madrath had asked her how one of the most powerful Jinn in existence could be trapped by a vile fish, Anjeline wasn’t sure of an answer. Once the mermaids carried the Siren out of the tunnel, she couldn’t move, unable to stop the wish being ripped from her core. Her insides smoldered in rage. She was tired of being a captive to her own magic.
As useless and helpless, Solomon, as the bound jinni I’ve become.
Now she could merely watch as the old mermaid, the guard of the treasures, locked the vase within a smaller cage. Trembles rocked the pen beside her own. Rebel inched closer to the bars, to her, and mouthed a single word: consequence? Anjeline shook her head. As she’d voiced before, some took more time to manifest than others. The moment the Siren had grasped the vessel, she’d felt the power shift from Rebel, now imprinted with a viler touch.
The Siren’s words were wrong. The virtues of mermaids didn’t exceed what Anjeline felt. She wanted to show them what the wish would bring, what their cowardice would do.
More trembles swayed the cage. Ice crystals had formed in Rebel’s hair like pearls against a sea of black, and her face had gone pale. Heat flourished in Anjeline’s heart of smoke, this time not in rage, but concern. She blew puffs of warm clouds toward Rebel, sensing her aura of pain. Her shoulder wound must have been throbbing again, her toes and fingers most likely going numb.
Then Rebel went rigid. She stood and glanced down at her chest as if there was something inside it she forgot. Anjeline squinted at her. Was she flirting at a time like this? But then Rebel tapped the pendant around her neck, mouthing another word: knife. The tiny knife she must have forgotten about, and what it surely could do.
For picking locks, no less.
The scheming expression on Rebel’s face nearly made Anjeline laugh. She watched as Rebel inched her hand to the pendant while her sights remained on the mermaid’s back in case she turned around. Rebel’s fingers slipped the pendant out from her shirt and over her head, fumbling in her hair, until she held it. Rebel grinned up at Anjeline and slid the mini knife from behind the locket. But her freezing fingers quivered, and the necklace fell.
It clattered against the bottom of the cage.
The old mermaid swirled around so fast her tail swatted against the water, sending a spray over them. “Won’t work, girly,” she said, her wrinkled grin staring them down. In a wave of her webbed fingers, Rebel’s pendant magically transferred to the mermaid’s hand. “You can call me Doris, since we’ll be seeing much of each other.”
Anjeline leaned against the cage in defeat. If the bars were a few more inches apart, she could’ve shifted into a feline and slipped out. Or turned to smoke. But thanks to her bindings, if she altered to spirit form, the vessel would only pull her back within. Keeping her under control. Then she’d be trapped in the vase.
She studied the wizened Doris, now noticing the resemblance the old mermaid had to Melusine. Not to mention the melody in her voice. This mermaid wasn’t any mere cold-blooded creature. She had the gift of song, too. “The Siren’s your daughter?”
Doris’s head twitched. “Some days, I question it.”
“You have my condolences,” Rebel said, her gaze fixed on her pendant.
The mermaid’s laugh echoed off the stone, appearing to calm Rebel’s nerves. She set the necklace on a floating table chained to the wall, where several other knives and weapons were. Some were bolted down; others were embedded into the wood, covered with the residue of dark magic. Using her tail like a serpent, Doris propelled herself through the water and came to stand in front of the cages, giving cakes to a few sprites.
“What will the Siren do?” Rebel persisted, her teeth chattering. “Now that she can walk the earth?”
“What does any being with power want? More of it.” Anjeline’s insides twisted. “The Siren seeks revenge on mankind.”
Doris aimed a sharp look at them. “My daughter is not vindictive.” She moved to another cage and handed a cake to the sprite, but it looked too fearful to take it. Doris sighed. “Well, Melusine wasn’t when she was a little tail. There was a time when we were peaceful merfolk, until you humans ruined it.”
Anjeline huffed. “One would think humans are the only selfish, power-hungry creatures in the world. Yet there you stand,” she said, staring down the mermaid and the vase locked away. You once said the same about the Jinn, Solomon. She might have argued it once, but she was starting to see the truth with a certain human.
“Irony…” Rebel snorted, her breath steaming into crystals.
Lips curled in a sneer as Doris’s face drew into a map of lines. “There are malicious merfolk, as there are malicious people. The waters are the lifeblood of our world and we must protect it. Sooner or later, you land dwellers will see what you’ve done.”
“And you will see what you have done,” Anjeline said. She remembered a time when the merfolk hadn’t sought vindication, when they sliced through the rivers, bringing melody to the waters.
The old mermaid ignored the remark and cleaned her teeth with a fish bone. She turned her attention back to Rebel. “How did a girl the likes of you come into possession of the Wishmaker?”
Rebel shrugged between shivers.
“She thought she was stealing a vase,” Anjeline answered, thinking of that night. She blew more warmth into Rebel’s cage, letting it surround her.
Doris’s fishlike eyes squinted between them. “When my daughter captured you, why didn’t you wish yourself away, girl?”
Rebel’s face tightened, probably wondering the same thing. Instead, she said, “Because I made a promise.” She glanced at Anjeline. “To free her.”
Doris chuckled. “Ah, you’re a trustworthy bandit unlike your fox friend?”
“He’s…no friend,” she spat, breathing harshly.
“No, I suppose he’s not. Not anymore.”
Anjeline felt Rebel’s aura revolt at the words and the thought of the fox. What must have it been like to be betrayed by a friend? Madrath had deemed her own actions a betrayal. The bond between Jinn was a sacred thing, never to be broken. Though Solomon had made mi
stakes, he never violated her trust. Now, in the aftermath of Rebel endangering her life for Anjeline, her guilt emerged for ever doubting her. To distrust her now felt as if she would somehow be betraying herself.
Suddenly Rebel doubled over.
Her face twisted in pain and she rocked forward in a spasm. She grabbed at the bars, swaying on her feet as though she were on a boat. This wasn’t one of her tricks. Anjeline reacted, reaching through the bars, touching her shoulder, spreading comforting heat. “Rebel…”
“Please…” she pleaded to the mermaid. “I need…my bag.”
Doris’s eyes closed to mere slashes. “Are you sick, girl?”
Rustling sounded closer. The feyrie boy cocked his head in contemplation. “It’s her heart,” he said, looking her over. “Something’s not right. I could hear it when she entered the tunnels. It’s a mess.”
Doris shooed him. “I know about human hearts. I’ve enchanted enough of them.”
“She needs her pills,” Anjeline said, and stretched her arm farther through the bars, her fingers touching Rebel’s cold cheek, sensing her pulse trip. She chastised herself for not asking before about the pills. They equaled medicine for whatever Rebel had. She looked expectantly at the mermaid. “They were in her satchel your daughter discarded.”
Beneath Doris’s gaze, something emerged. She considered it, and then Rebel. “Hmm. Must I have pity for a human?” She shook her head at herself. “Be back in a shiver.”
She bent low, her tail disappeared, and the waters swallowed her up.
…
Rebel gripped the cage, waiting for the quivers to stop. Heat enfolded her, calming her heart. The attack would subside, but she needed her pills to keep it that way. The hand on her face felt feverish, and she leaned her cheek into Anjeline’s palm, waiting for her heart’s spasm to slow. She counted the pulses, one, five, ten…focusing on the lingering sensation of warm fingers instead of her dreaded weakness. Somewhere beyond these tunnels, Jaxon was tallying his gold, and the Siren was promenading around the earth, while Rebel’s chances of renewing her heart were ebbing away.
