Damian grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back to the present.
I gasped and looked up at him, disoriented from being suddenly yanked back to this world.
“Careful, there. You almost left without me.” His hands were still firmly planted on my shoulders, and my stomach did flips.
I hadn’t been prepared for either of those things—tumbling headfirst into a book, or the strength of his touch—his power was haunting.
I took a deep breath. I yearned to return to the page and fall back into that realm. It called not just to my heart but to every fiber of my being. What was this sensation?
I flipped the page.
More text and a map of the Realm of Fire inscribed in red ink. Heat rose off the page, as if the paper would spontaneously burst into flame.
Flipping to the Realm of Earth, a strange sense of revulsion surged through me. I coughed, as if breathing in a cloud of dust, and felt my throat closing. I slammed the book shut.
“What?” Damian said, curiosity streaking his face.
“Nothing.”
I opened it again and returned to the first pages. The text recounted the far travels of the tenth-century explorer, al-Muqaddasi. He described the denizens of each world and the method for focusing one’s mind to pinpoint your destination.
I sat at the desk for hours, studying the manual. Damian might have passed in and out of the room while I read, but I hardly noticed. At one point, he brought me a roast beef sandwich and a latte, which I devoured ravenously, before returning immediately to the book.
I internalized everything I read, making memories of the pages.
Finally, realizing my back ached, I looked up. Damian stood before me dressed in blue jeans and a black T-shirt and jacket. When had he changed his clothes? I measured his form. He was a man shaped from steel or stone. Beautiful but austere.
He hefted a pack over his shoulder. “Are you ready?”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.” I looked down at the book. “But I suppose we have to go.”
I got up and staggered, my legs having fallen asleep. How long had I been reading? It was night, and the lights of the sprawling city shone like stars.
I gazed out the window, stretching my legs, and trying to get my bearings. I could see the Hall of Inquiry and the Gaslight District beyond. My apartment was somewhere to the south, in the part of Magic Side called Old Mud City.
Damian joined me. “It’s a hell of a view at night.”
I nodded and looked up at him. Dark shadows crossed his face, hinting at a dangerous past I couldn’t even imagine.
Fallen angel.
What had he done to lose his wings? I shuddered, unnerved. His kind had impossible power, and I’d heard he was the strongest of them. I could feel his power even now, washing over me like a warm wind. His silhouette was magnetic. I felt myself take a step, longing to be closer, drawn in by the angelic lines of his face…
Fates. What was I thinking? This man was the devil.
“Why did you need to build such a tall tower?” I glared at him. “Who are you trying to impress?”
“No one except the clouds.” Traces of a smile ghosted his lips. “In truth, I like to watch the storms roll in—and to keep an eye on Magic Side below. Someone has to.”
I scoffed at that.
“What? I provide a simple service. I recover things that are taken. I bring back people who have strayed from the path.”
“You work for gangsters. You’re a thief and a hitman.”
“Don’t kid yourself. This city is run by criminals. They are the law. Everyone else is just going through motions and filing paperwork. The sooner you understand that the Order is a farce, the more clearly you will see the world.”
I scowled. Was I actually going to work with this man? A criminal? We needed to get rolling before I lost what resolve I had. “I have to freshen up before we go. I’ve been reading for hours.”
Damian pointed me to a bathroom, where I splashed cold water on my face. I leaned on the counter and looked at myself in the mirror. Was I really doing this? My reflection gazed back at me, slightly skeptical. I steeled my resolve and nodded. “Yes,” I muttered. “I’m doing this.”
It wasn’t much of a pep talk, but it was all I could muster in the face of having to leap from Magic Side to a completely different plane of existence. Not to mention that I barely knew my traveling companion.
I strode back into Damian’s office, slightly refreshed and pushing down my jitters.
“Were you talking to someone in there?” Damian asked.
“Absolutely not. Why?”
His gaze locked on me, like he was reading my thoughts. “Never mind. Before I forget, do you have an item that belongs to Rhiannon? It’ll help in tracking her.”
I hesitated for a moment. The thought of him being able to track Rhiannon scared me, but what choice did I have? He was a seeker and my best chance to find her. I reached for my opal necklace. “Will this work? It belonged to her a long time ago, but she gave it to me.”
“Good. I can use it to find you both—not that you’ll go missing.”
My heart clenched at those last words. I was becoming less and less confident about the plan. Maybe I should’ve let Gretchen know what I was up to—but that would have raised way too many questions. I’d already gone too far.
I turned to the Atlas on Damian’s desk. A faint force tugged at my chest, urging me toward it, compelling me to open it.
Weird.
I delicately opened it to the map of the Realm of Air. I’d never planes-walked like this before. Heck, I’d only ever planes-walked once. I reached my palm out to Damian. Did we have to be touching if he was going to come with me?
He took my hand in his, and I felt a calm wash over me. How odd. Sensing the strength of his magic, a part of me was glad to have him beside me.
I put my other hand on the page, visualizing the destination in my mind. I sucked in a deep breath, summoning the power buried within me. The Atlas drew me in, as it had before.
We whirled downward. The magic tore and ripped at us, pulling away every vestige of the material realm around us. Terror washed over me as my earthly form disintegrated, leaving only our ethereal bodies.
My grip on Damian’s hand began to slip as the howling vortex of magic threatened to tear us apart. He pulled me closer, wrapping his arms around me, as every element of our beings was stripped away.
Suddenly, I was whole again. My stomach dropped as we plummeted into a realm of blinding blue sky.
Wind rushed around us, buffeting our clothes.
I gasped.
We were free falling and spinning out of control.
6
This is all wrong!
Panic shot through me as Damian and I plummeted through a vast reach of blue sky stretching in all directions.
Disoriented, I looked around for a landmark. Nothing.
Damian clutched me close as we spun. Oh, fates! In using the book, I must have focused on the Realm of Air and not a specific point in space.
I clenched my eyes shut and summoned the images from the Atlas. I saw a city in my thoughts, rising from the clouds. There was a great open square. I focused on that point and drew upon my power.
The air exploded around us in a whoosh, and we collided with stone pavement.
Sprawled on the ground, I took stock of my situation. I ached, but nothing was broken, thank fates. The world reeled around me as I tried to regain my bearings. My head pounded, and my arm tingled.
Damian helped me to my feet. “Nice save. Where are we?”
We stood in a square in the middle of a vast city. Massive spires rose around us. The buildings seemed hewn from fog, built as if they were of gray, semi-translucent stones. In the far distance, at the end of a long, uninterrupted street, a gray fortress towered above the clouds. A thin mist enveloped us.
I looked around, feeling queasy. “Specifically? I have no idea. I just picked a cloud city from the
Atlas.”
We were not alone. The street was filled with exotic beings going about their business. Some looked like us, while others were avians—birdlike people with wings, beaks, and taloned feet. Cloud-like creatures darted between the buildings.
I drew closer to Damian and breathed in the city’s heady aroma of fruit and spices.
The people paid us no heed, as if our sudden arrival was neither surprising nor uncommon.
Two black ravens alighted on the ground near us and looked at us quizzically with beady eyes.
“Welcome!” someone squawked.
I turned, but nobody was there. “Hello?”
“Hello!” it squawked again. “Are you new?”
I looked down. It was one of the ravens.
“Huh?” I turned to Damian. He looked bewildered.
“Are you here to see the fine city?” the other raven said in a high voice. “Many fine sights.”
A third raven flopped down on the stones. “I can show you the city!”
The first raven hopped closer to me, saying, “Do you have precious things?”
The ravens looked like any normal ravens would, but they were talking to me. Two more birds came down from the sky. “I’m the best guide to the city,” said one of them.
The bird beside him pecked at his feet. “No, I’m the best guide to the city!”
“We’re new here. Can you tell us where we are?” I asked, just going with the moment. I knew Damian was going to use his seeker sense to track Rhiannon and the djinn, but I figured we could use all the help we could get in navigating this foreign place.
One of the ravens flapped its wings. “The city of Tayir! In the wind-blown isles, of which Madinat al-Nasim is crown jewel.”
I recognized Madinat al-Nasim from the Atlas. It was the capital of the Realm of Air and seat of the Grand Caliph, who was a djinn. I hadn’t read about Tayir. It must be one of the many small strongholds in alliance with the capital.
“Do the djinn rule here?” I asked the birds.
Another raven hopped close to me. “This is the fortress of titans.”
A third raven pecked at him. “No more without precious things!”
Damian put his hand on my shoulder. His eyebrows raised. “Are you talking to the birds?”
“Do you not hear them?” I asked.
“I hear them, but they sound like birds.” He was looking at me like I was half mad.
I could still hear the birds muttering intelligibly below. Maybe I was mad.
“It must be because I’m part djinn, and at least partially native to this realm. That, or I hit my head too hard on landing.” I related to Damian what little I knew of the place and looked back at the flock that had begun to surround us. “They’re offering to show us the city.”
“Perhaps that’d be a good idea.”
A raven pecked my foot. “Precious things!”
“What do you want?”
“Shiny things!”
I unslung my backpack, which by some miracle I still had. I dug around and found my wallet, pulling out a few coins. I showed the raven a dime. “Will this work?”
It pecked at the coin. “These are good things!”
Grabbing the coin with its beak, it flew off.
“Hey!”
The other birds crowded in around us, squawking for shiny things.
“No!” I clenched the coins in my fist. “Not until you show us the city.”
The birds looked slightly dejected.
One said, “Fine, follow!”
The flock took off into the air, leaving us in the middle of the square.
I looked quizzically at Damian. “Our guides seem to have just abandoned us.”
Some of the ravens returned, landing at our feet. “Why not follow?”
“We can’t fly,” I said.
“Everybody can fly! You are of this realm, of course you can fly!” The raven cocked its head, squawking. It stood up straight and flapped its wings at me to demonstrate the process, as if I was slow on the uptake.
“It wants us to fly,” I told Damian.
He shrugged.
A much larger raven landed amongst the flock. In a sudden whirl of feathers, it rose upward, and the bird transformed into a crooked old woman. She cocked her head at me. “Can’t fly, eh?” she said in a crackling voice.
I took a step back. “Can you all transform?”
“These scallywags?” She pointed to the ravens around us. “No! They’re just opportunists. They can’t tell one city from the other. You’re lucky they didn’t rob you blind.”
One of the ravens squawked, “Mother’s unfair!” It stalked off, stomping its little clawed feet.
The old woman came close, inspecting me with myopic vision. She wore a gray shawl, and several shiny trinkets were slung on a string around her neck. Her magic tasted like fresh wheat and smelled of dried herbs. She grabbed my wrist unexpectedly, gently moving my arm up and down. I was too surprised to respond, but Damian stepped forward protectively. The old woman paid him no heed. “Yup, you can fly!” She looked me in the eye, staring up from her short stature. “Half djinn.”
It was not a question. It was a diagnosis.
I gaped, unable to summon a response.
She took my other wrist and seemed to weigh each of my arms together, waving them up and down. “Hmmm….but which half?” She looked at my right hand, then my left hand, and let them go. “Humph! Doesn’t matter. Can fly either way.” Glancing around the square, she asked, “If you don’t know how to fly, how did you get here?”
I looked at Damian for some sort of cue. “You can understand her, right?”
“Probably not, he seems kind of thick!” the old woman cackled.
I stifled a smile, looking back at Damian.
He shrugged off the barb. “Yes, I can understand her, all right. Are you sure we need her help?”
Before I could answer, the old woman quipped, “Big rooster, gets his tail feathers all in a bunch.”
Damian sighed.
I leaned close to him. “I think this woman knows something about me and what I can do, so just go along with it.”
He nodded.
I turned to the woman. “I planes-walked us here.”
The old woman eyed me. “Hmm…but you don’t know where you are. So you’re not good at that, either. No one ever taught you anything?”
I hesitated, but the old woman waited for my response. “When I was young, I planes-walked away from my family. I never found them again.” What the hell, I figured. My secret was out now.
I glanced at Damian, and something flashed across his face. Surprise?
The woman tapped me on my chest with a bony finger. “So the little chicky fell out of the nest. Very sad! Still…has to learn how to fly.” The woman muttered to herself, “Can’t fly and comes to the Realm of Air. Like a book taking a vacation to the Realm of Fire. Or a rock swimming in the Realm of Water. Half djinn, maybe only half smart.”
“Can you help me or not?” Irritation fluttered in my chest, and I was beginning to lose my patience.
“Yes! Do you have precious things?”
I opened my palm and showed her my pocket change.
“Bah! I know when I’m being swindled.”
Damian unslung his pack and drew out a small gold coin. He held it out for her to inspect. “Will this do?”
She looked closely. “Yes, very nice.”
She reached to grab it, but he palmed it away from her. “After you help her.”
“Mmmm. Fair.” She pried my hand open and took a nickel out. “Also, I like this one! Now, listen, little chicky. Flight is all about lift!” she continued, pocketing the coin. “You must ask the wind to lift you up.”
“How do I do that?”
“You must call the wind by its name. Do you know its name?”
I shook my head.
She whispered the name in my ear, then stood back. “It is not a secret. Everybody knows the name of the wind
. But it is best never to say it too loudly, lest you attract the wind’s attention. Also, you must say it breathing in, and not breathing out. In a whisper!”
The woman spread her arms out and walked in a slow circle. “You must ask the wind with your thoughts to lift up your body. You try it!”
I was deeply skeptical. Was I really learning how to fly from a bird-woman?
I closed my eyes and stretched out my arms. I sucked in a breath and called the name of the wind, imagining myself lifting slowly in the air.
A very different thing happened, though.
A gust of wind hit me, and my feet rose into the air. Only my feet. The world was, for a moment, upside down, and then it was primarily comprised of pavement. The flock of ravens around me took flight as I hit the ground.
Pain flared through my skull as Damian helped me up. “That was rather good,” he soothed, but gave me a look that said, You asked for this.
I glared at him. Smug rooster.
“No, no!” The woman shook her finger. “Too long thinking with two feet. Feet are unimportant. Think with your whole body. Lift your whole body. Balance on the wind.”
Irritated, I tried again. I focused my energy on my whole body, imagining it lifting into the air. That time, the wind curled around me, buffeting my clothes, and I slowly began to rise. I caught my breath in elation as I drifted a few feet above the ground. Suddenly, I began to slowly tilt forward. I pushed myself back with the wind, but the sky spiraled violently out of sight, and I flipped completely over and cracked into the pavement.
“Uhhhhh...” My elbow screamed. My neck, too.
Damian pulled me to my feet, forcing back what looked like a smile. “Are you okay? You hit pretty hard that time.”
“I’m fine. Just a minor case of whiplash. And some bruised elbows.”
“Ten points for style.”
I harrumphed. At least I hadn’t landed on my head.
On the other hand, I was rapidly drawing the attention of those around. Why did I pick a crowded spot to learn?
I was angry and more determined than ever to succeed. Third time’s the charm, I told myself.
Wicked Wish (Dragon's Gift: The Storm Book 1) Page 4
