by J. C. Welker
The vulture’s beaks clattered, and in a banshee wail, the mermaids surged after them. Rebel flew, lithe and fluid, slicing through the wind as sharp as a blade, with Anjeline pressed against her back, prompting her on. Using the same maneuver she’d witnessed Anjeline carry out, she swept her arms to her side, allowing her to drop through the air, dive-bombing them toward the traffic-filled street below before coming back up and sending her stomach into her chest. They nearly missed a stoplight turning green, and Rebel’s boots grazed the top of a double-decker bus. Her muscles ached, feeling the sting of her ankle, and her heart shouted curses in her skull.
But the melody only increased.
“Your time’s ticking!” Melusine crooned.
Something whizzed by Rebel’s head. She craned her neck, barely able to see the long and curved objects in the mermaid’s grasp. Three of them drew the objects up and pulled back a string. She squinted. “What are they—”
Another zipped past.
“Arrows!” Anjeline flattened herself against Rebel as more flew by. Arrows skittered off buildings, breaking in two, and disappeared into the night.
Rebel shot savagely forward, going into a wobble, giving them greater distance between the mermaids. She swerved to the right, then dizzily to the left, plunging and lifting higher. The arrows missed them by a prayer. Every time she weaved, her heart trembled violently, her energy running low, her flying dodges becoming less quick. A wave of vertigo washed over her, and her heart sputtered, her lungs gasped, and then hands were on her. Heat magic. Anjeline spurred her on, and she pushed harder, propelling them against the wind.
Another arrow split the air.
As quick as Rebel was, she couldn’t get out of its reach. One glanced off her bicep, opening a red gash along her jacket. She felt the arrowhead catch flesh and slice, but no pain. All her blood had migrated to her heart, numbing the rest of her with adrenaline.
Another arrow flew at her thigh. Before it could make contact, Anjeline pressed against her side, shrouding Rebel’s body. The runes upon Anjeline’s arms began to glimmer through the clothing, pulsing sultry energy, and the arrow bit into her leg instead. Light and smoke poured from the wound, and then it vanished.
“Anjeline…” Rebel wheezed.
“The arrows aren’t magical. They can’t harm me.” Her face showed no pain. “Two spheres left.”
“Good. Make them count.” Rebel swirled around for a better aim. She withdrew the last two globes and handed one seething Shockwave to Anjeline. In unison, they hauled back their arms—and launched.
The spheres spun, twinkling like gems in the dark.
The first one cracked against a mermaid’s abdomen. Waves of electric shock rippled along her tail, bouncing off its end and up to the vulture. The fowl convulsed, wings stopped mid-beat, and it tumbled from the sky as if they were never there. At the same time, the second sphere hurtled straight at Melusine. Though her vulture looked of sizable mass, he was apparently brainless. The bird opened its beak wide.
With a snap and gulp, it swallowed the sphere.
The vulture shook its beak as Melusine shouted violent commands at it. It squawked. Bolts of blue lightning shot out from the vulture’s mouth, licking up around its head in shocks and flashes.
“It’s going to explode,” Anjeline shouted. “Fly, Rebel!”
She took off again.
Electric shockwaves bounced and rocked off the vulture, zapping into the Siren. With a brilliant shower of sparks and a croak, the sphere erupted inside the vulture. The bird’s face swelled with the sounds of crackling, and it burst into a shower of plumes. Melusine cried out as they dropped from the sky like a stone.
Leaving one lonely feather drifting in the wind.
The few remaining mermaids shrieked in revenge and darted after Rebel and Anjeline. Just then, something blasted upward from the streets below, the object ascending and curving over them, only to explode near a vulture. Its wings beat frantically, keeping the mermaid aloft long enough for another blast to hit. The vultures dropped one after the other, taking the mermaids with them.
Their screams rang all the way down.
Rebel caught her breath and furrowed her brow. “Where did the blasts come from?” She could barely make out a skirmish on a near rooftop.
Striking black lycanthropes scaled over buildings, meeting the Night Guard head-on, and a dozen figures in crimson leather battled with blades glinting. The Bright Guard. In the middle of the chaos, a figure was shrouded in rippling magic. Lady Danu. The wail of fire engines flew down the street, and another flash of smoke crashed from a rooftop.
Then, like a twisted fairy tale, the heavens opened and it began to snow.
The cold weighed Rebel down, numbing her fingertips, pressing on her lungs, and stuttering her heart. Her muscles bunched in her back, and she began drifting lower toward the leveled rooftops. Her arms had never felt so heavy, as though they had been filled with iron. The corners of her vision hazed, turning unfocused again. She shook her head.
“Rebel?” Anjeline called.
“I can make it.” Another prick of pain.
“Hang on, Faddi.” She pointed. “We are almost there.”
Woozy, Rebel followed Anjeline’s finger. Ahead of them, she could see the moon dazzling above Westminster Palace. Three blocks more. The distance had never felt so far. Her lungs felt refrigerated, and she blew out a frosty breath. She struggled with her arms in a fevered effort to keep them level, but her heart was gasping, on its last pumps of power.
It was then she realized, fate was coming for her.
Anjeline shouted at her, looking over her shoulder. Lips were moving, eyes searching Rebel’s for any sign of understanding, but all Rebel heard was the rushing of winds and fate moving in closer. Words were in her ear: “…can you hear me?”
But it didn’t matter as gravity took hold.
Chapter Forty-Six
Rebel hurtled through the air toward the earth. Her body helpless as the world tipped them forward, propelling her down into a spiral from which there was no recovery. She cried out as they spun through the air, weaving with little gaps and spurts like a fly caught in a hailstorm. She jerked and choked. “I have…no control!”
A hand pressed to her chest.
“Hold on,” Anjeline called.
Relief engulfed Rebel as strong arms tightened, latching them together like a magnetic force. Anjeline’s one arm stayed on her waist, strong and steadfast, then she weaved her other arm around Rebel’s own, keeping it straight out. With a last-ditch effort, Rebel went rigid, tilting her head back with Anjeline’s help.
Their nosedive abated.
Rebel wobbled violently, barely clearing a smokestack, and sank through the darkness, her feet skidding over gravel to slow them down. Neither had time to curl into protective balls before they collided against the roof, rolling into a knotted mess of limbs and heat. Her stomach hit hard, something cracking along her ribs, and Rebel tried to cry out, but the impact knocked the breath out of her.
Consciousness strobed black dots behind her eyes.
Her heart sputtered. One…three…five.
She felt hands on her face, on her shoulder. “Rebel…”
The touch warmed and fuzzy energy encased her. She wheezed, gasping in a breath. Her face felt wet, and something cold ran down her neck. Blood? But something caught her on the cheek. The flakes of snow melted against her windburned skin. She opened her aching eyes, blinking away a haze, seeing a halo of heat encircling a lovely face.
“Come on, Faddi.” Anjeline had her palms on either side of Rebel’s face, cradling her head between them. Rebel blinked, seeing her properly now in the pale moonlight, her eyes feverish. Her sweater—Rebel’s sweater—was covered in soot, and one sleeve had been completely torn away, displaying gleaming runes, but otherwise, she seemed unharmed. “You’re all right,” Anjeline rasped with a catch in her voice.
“Well…my heart’s a little angry at me.” Rebel coughed and rolled over.
Pain shuddered through her lungs with each breath. Swelling bruises covered every inch of her body, her heart feeling like the biggest one.
Anjeline brushed fingers over her brow. As Rebel glanced up, the night sky they had been soaring through wheeled above her. They had landed atop a graveled rooftop, turreted with gargoyles and four smokestacks, where snow was beginning to collect in lumpy piles. In the center of the rooftop stood a hut-like structure with a door, rusted in neglect. Their only way down.
“Now we go on foot?” Rebel stood up and swayed. “Or not.”
“You’re not used to flying into cement.” Anjeline wrapped an arm around Rebel’s waist and levered her, helping her toward the door. Her chest tightened with each step. The gelid air bore down, cold sweat trickled along her back, and she wished, irrelevantly, that help would come.
Just then the doorknob vibrated.
She tensed and Anjeline fumbled back as the roof’s door swung open. Matching sounds of disbelief left their throats. The figure stood in the doorway sporting his coat of many colors and grinning like a fox who had caught the golden goose.
“Sorry I’m late, love.” Jaxon took a step.
“Don’t!” Rebel thrust up a hand, sending a shudder of pain up her side. “You’re not…taking her or the vase.”
He recoiled as if she’d punched him. “I deserved that. But I’m not here for her.”
Anjeline’s eyes turned fevered. “The only thing worse than a liar is a fox.”
He looked to Rebel, an apology on his lips. “Have my actions not shown my repentance?” In his hand, he displayed a switchblade with a bone hilt. Her beloved blade. “When I heard about the Siren being hoodwinked by the Fingersmith, and her plans to infiltrate the Moon Court for a jinni, I coaxed them into bringing me along.” He knelt on one knee, flipped the knife, holding the blade tip, and offered the hilt to her. “Told you I’d come back for you, love. Sorry, I’m a bit late.”
“Late? How does stabbing me in the back put you on time?” Rebel pushed away the thoughts of his deceit, wanting to believe him, needing to, at this point. “You betrayed me.”
“I know.” Jaxon’s mask slipped for the barest second. “I betrayed myself. A momentarily lapse of judgment. It won’t ever happen again.”
She remembered Piran’s words and squinted, warily taking her knife back, then slipping it in her belt. “You sold us to the Siren. I could be fish food right now.”
He huffed. “They only eat sleazy businessmen.”
Anjeline sighed with infinite patience. “The longer you two squabble, the closer—”
A howl severed her words.
Anjeline’s grip on Rebel’s waist tightened. Together, they turned their heads to the building’s edge and glanced down at the street below, overcome with the billowing curls of smoke and chaos. “If Lady Danu doesn’t get to Wulfram, I’d say five minutes before those mutts scent you out,” Jaxon warned and met Rebel’s eyes. He offered her a hand. “Well?”
Unable to resist, she gave a nod. As Jaxon began toward the rooftop door, she leaned against Anjeline for support. But the little movement made her winded. A tingle of energy encircled her, Anjeline’s heat enveloping her, but only for a few steps. Her heart spasmed and she gasped, her breath sawing at her damaged ribs. Dizziness surfaced, and she shook her head against it. Against the pain blossoming in her chest like a deadly rose.
Two sets of concerned eyes turned on her.
“I can…make it.” She wheezed.
“No. No, you can’t.” Anjeline stared, understanding how bad off Rebel’s heart had truly become. No amount of her offered energy could help now. Unless. Unless Rebel used her wish for her heart—and took away Anjeline’s one chance at freedom.
A deep chuckle slithered from behind them.
Like a door collapsing on Rebel’s hopes, a terrible voice echoed across the rooftop, “Once, there was a girl who wished to fix her heart. Instead, she lost it to the Wishmaker…”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Under the sway of that voice, Rebel and Anjeline shook in unison. They swirled around as an unseen hand split the air apart. A shadow massing in the far corner near a gargoyle dotted out the light. A figure stepped straight out of midair, first fingers and then an arm and leg, and in its whole, the hunched shape rose, unbending itself.
There, framed under the pale moon like a picture, stood Nero.
It hadn’t occurred to Rebel until then. They had been too distracted by the chase to realize that he was one step ahead of them this entire time. Jaxon inched back on the uneven gravel, not far from the rooftop’s door. With stiff movements, she fumbled at her waist for her switchblade but only felt Anjeline’s warm fingers cover her own.
“Looking for this?” Nero wore a smile like a trump suit and raised the knife in his palm. He tossed it over his shoulder, and it disappeared beyond the roof’s edge.
Rebel gritted her teeth. “You have no power here,” she said in a pained breath.
“Magic”—he inhaled a breath—“is power. You think I would offer up a piece of my soul and then let the Wishmaker vanish with my daughter?”
“She’s no daughter of yours,” Anjeline hissed. “You’ll never have your wish.”
A chuckle came in response, sparking a shudder through Rebel, and her fingers itched to wipe that smirk off his face. Nero cocked his head and his one arm slid from behind his back. When he uncurled his hand, her eyes narrowed down to what he held. Prince Sithchean’s ivory staff. It had fallen from his bony fingers and right into the magician’s waiting grasp. A stave possessing more magic than even he possessed. To command the shadows. For a second, they froze, imagining what he might have schemed.
“Your minor tricks were cleverer than I expected,” Nero told her. “I’m almost impressed, though inconvenienced. Even I wouldn’t have dared to enrage the Prince.”
“Maybe,” Rebel said, proud of her steady voice, “I’m just better than you.”
“Dear, that’s what I was hoping for.” A grin wrinkled Nero’s eyes, and they swirled to pitch-black. His grip on the staff tightened, amplifying his strength and purpose as he moved. “An amazing thing. You wished and the consequences touched you not. All this time, the most selfless of hearts was of my own flesh. I knew it was you. You merely needed a little help coaxing it out.”
The pride in his voice caused a wave of nausea in Rebel as realization surfaced. Everything he’d carried out had been preplanned, forcing her to this point. To take her heart.
“You can’t have it.” Smoke flashed off Anjeline.
She pulled at Rebel, taking them both another step toward the door. Jaxon gave a nod as his one hand slipped inside his jacket. But a snap of Nero’s fingers and a gust of wind slammed the door shut. Locks clicked magically into place. Rebel stumbled back as a sudden cough racked her chest and she found herself gasping for air.
“And yet your heart will be your downfall,” Nero said, glancing over the roof’s ledge. “If those half-breeds don’t get beyond the Bright Guard first.”
At his words, another howl broke through the night. More screams drifted from beyond the streets below, and a melody pervaded the sky—drawing ever closer.
Nero moved forward, holding out a hand in a calming gesture. “Light and dark magic within you are at war,” he told Rebel. “But a wish, my dear? A wish can liberate what is suppressed. Have you any inkling of the power you possess, to wish without consequence? How powerful we could be—together?”
Rebel caught her breath and shook her head. “Men like you always believe they can take whatever they want.”
“You think there are others as powerful as me?”
“There will always be those like you.”
A weight permeated the air. The repulsiveness of his magic penetrated the heat of Anjeline’s. This was what he wanted. For Rebel to use her wish. Taking away the only means for Anjeline to be set free. Then he’d manipulate them both. Use her.
A figure rushed passed them, moving so
fast that Rebel only saw the quickest flash of a foxtail and Jaxon gripping a revolver. A gunshot reverberated through the air. Just as Nero raised his staff—the bullet zipped by him, swirled around like a boomerang, and drove into Jaxon’s own stomach.
“Jax!” Rebel cried.
Jaxon’s mouth opened in a soundless cry.
A spatter of blood hit her on the cheek, and like a bag of bones, he crumbled on the roof, clenching his side. Anjeline and Rebel tried to rush toward him, but their limbs slowed as though they were treading in cement. Rebel’s shoulder grew heavier, the weight of her satchel and the vase dragging her down. And a horrible force clotted the air.
“There will be no miracles for you.” Nero swept his hand. “You can choose my way…or the hard way.”
Another gust from nowhere pulled against them.
The magician’s eyes swirled to a black abyss, and the wind increased, swathing them in a cloud of putrid sorcery. The darkness clenched Rebel’s spine, weaving around her insides, stroking her heart. It overwhelmed her senses, and a horde of other sickly sensations assaulted her all at once, greater than last time. Her feet slipped on the gravel.
Anjeline caught her around the waist. “Stay with me,” she said.
Nero balked at them, curling his fingers around the staff, and the wind flourished. His voice came out less smooth and less human. “You think you can have love with one of them? They aren’t your family, Rebel. I am. In our own way, we are all searching for home. You had one with me once.” He held out his hand, his power heaving the atmosphere like gravity, slicing through it and drawing her in.
Rebel felt it within her—magic—dark clashing against light. It drove up inside her, yearning to meet his. Its irresistible enthrall calling to her. Wanting to give in.
“Stay strong…” A voice broke through. Rebel looked up into the fiery gaze of Anjeline staring back with the same tenderness and care that had been snatched from her before. “He’s not your family, Rebel. He’s not your home.”
Nero snarled, stamping the staff, and the roof trembled. “Listen to me!” Another gust pulled at their clothing, whipping at his words. “You need magic to heal. Don’t you see? I’ve come to save you.”
