Page 31

Chapter 28

The One Responsible for This Mess?

~DOLLY~

I blink. “Excuse me?”

But it’s already hitting me. I know this voice.

If I were a djinn with a master like you, that would be the first thing I’d do.

Your life wasn’t meant to be chaos, Lolly.

It isn’t me, Lolly. You’re the one who can’t let go. I’m just here to observe.

Folly. Lolly. Dolly.

It’s the voice that’s been taunting me since I first set foot in the Celestial world. It always sounded familiar, but I didn’t recognize it before—because it was missing its accent.

“My Lolly girl, what a mess they’ve dragged you into.”

I back against the darkened windows, ready to scream for any one of my genies in the other room but determined to squeeze out an ounce of information first. “What is this?” I demand. “What did you do with the real Alex?”

The imposter leans casually against the wall, which I now realize is the door to the rest of the apartment. “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘real.’ Doesn’t get more real than me. I’m the only Alex I know who looks like this.”

My chest tightens, mind racing as I mentally scramble through a pile of puzzle pieces, desperate to make them fit. “I’ll scream for them. They’ll be here in a second.”

“Do that, and you’ll miss out on what I’m here to tell you. I’m not supposed to speak to you like this, but we’re running out of time.”

“You’re not here to hurt me?”

“Now, my girl, why would I want to hurt you? I’ve already broken the rules to save you—lest we forget the night of that djinni party?”

“Save me? Weren’t you the one who poisoned me?”

“Well, yes, I did do that. But it was only so you could be saved. Again. See? It’s always about the saving, my girl.”

“You kept Velis from reaching me when I was in danger the night we were attacked by Davii and his gorgon henchmen!”

“I did, yes. But you’re missing the point. Who came to save you? Yet again?”

What the hell is going on? Isn’t he human? Isn’t he tethered to Jeb?

I recall the way Alex looked at me from the end of that tunnel the first time Arrik and I encountered them in France—the interest in his eyes, watching how Arrik was all over me. Arrik questioned why Jeb would fully contract someone like him instead of striking a one-off deal just to find us. Then Jeb insisted Arrik bring me to meet them in the UK, where Alex, the ‘T.A.,’ was giving a lecture, so I could ‘convince’ him to use his wishes. He even insisted Jeb bring him along to Vel’s coronation. Why?

The more I think about it, the more things don’t add up.

“Who are you really?”

He holds a finger to his lips, signaling it’s a secret.

For the record, I am also over secrets!

“But you can think of me as a guardian. Now then, down to business. The next forty hours are crucial.”

“Why forty?”

“Because that’s when we veer too far off course. It’s where fate bends too much. An unexpected life is created, and reality can’t handle the weight of the outcome. It’s the deadline my clan’s given me. Which means you have two options: give in and restore your broken fate, or I’ll fulfill the mission I was sent here to complete.”

I can’t be the only one full-on fucking confused right now.

“What mission!” I cry. “Who sent you? And what ‘unexpected life’? Because that sounds suspiciously like a baby? And there’s no chance in hell—”

“Look.” He glances away, almost as if he’s feeling sympathy. “There’s only so much I can say. I’m already putting a lot of pressure on your fate map by swaying you this hard, but I don’t want to take the guy out either, okay? I’ve been watching him. He’s a decent djinn. Tell you the truth, it’s the tattooed one I’m not fond of, but I don’t dictate fate—I only correct it. And they’ve decided his death would cause the fewest ripples—the least of all evils. You know how destiny is.”

“Wait. Go back. Who are you here to ‘take out’?”

Alex reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a card with blood-red ink on it, and tosses it across the room. He probably knows that if he approaches me, I’ll scream. Eyes locked on his dark ones, I crouch and retrieve the card.

V. Reilhander

“You’re here to kill Velis?! What are you, some magical hitman?”

Alex shrugs. “When I have to be.”

“Why would you have to kill Velis? Because he’s the new laird? Did Amoira send you? That Grandaddy fuck ?”

He doesn’t answer directly, sidestepping instead. “I need you to focus on your heart. Search deep—not just through one possibility but through all of causality—and decide what you truly desire. It has to be organic. I can’t make you. No one can.”

“What are you talking about?” I plead—at him, the cosmos, or maybe just myself.

“There’s a reason he is your greatest temptation, Dolly Jones.”

He. Temptation.

“Arrik,” I whisper.

“Says something, doesn’t it? That you knew exactly who I meant.”

Is... that what this is about? My stubborn attraction to Arrik, despite everything I have with Velis?

“I’m sure you can feel fate trying its hardest to redirect,” he adds.

And then it hits me—like being flung headfirst into an icy lake. Through all the wordplay and rule-dodging, Jeb’s magical hitman master is telling me...

“You... want me to leave Velis for Arrik?”

Clap , clap , clap . His applause echoes against the hospital-white walls, mockingly slow.

But I’m not clapping. “Who on Makaya, Earth, Célesteen, or Aphrotica could be that invested in my relationship?”

No, really.

“You’re Beckham.” I toss out a hand, grasping at any explanation. “You have to be.”

“No, and actually, he isn’t even supposed to be alive right now. I have to figure out what we do about that.”

Random. Beckham is very much alive.

“Well then, whoever you are, you should know I will never, ever leave Velis for Arrik. Ever .”

Whatever this person’s motives, I know that with absolute certainty.

“Are you sure about that?”

I said favorite.

And I said forever.

And I meant both.

“Fine, then.” Alex vanishes, leaving a pile of white feathers drifting to the floor where he stood .

Panic surges through me. I race to the button beside the door, slamming it to open up the hallway, tearing down the stark white tunnel, and skidding to a halt.

Arrik stands there, his mouth open wide, Jeb peering down his throat with glowing eyes, while Velis waits nearby with his arms crossed, looking foul.

“It’s there,” I hear Jeb say. “And it’s identical to Velis’s.”

Goosebumps crawl up my arms, and I storm across the room. “What are you doing?” I demand, my words wavering with a mix of panic and anger, feeling trapped, overwhelmed, because I don’t want them looking in Arrik’s mouth—I don’t want them peering into his soul. I don’t want to be—

“His heart’s greatest desire,” Velis says, his voice hollow. “Apparently, now it’s you.”

Realization slams into me. My near-death experience, orchestrated by a being that wanted Arrik to save me, to witness my last breath—so that he’d be forced to confront this truth within himself.

Just like fate wanted me to save him outside Evangeline Tower.

And like it wouldn’t let me wish he and I could never...

“You’ve saved me before,” I murmur, my voice weak as I finally confront the open secret Arrik’s dream version revealed during my near-death experience. “Why now?”

I saw Arrik gripping his chest when we first arrived here, the way Velis and I did in his father’s office that day—when our souls felt like they were on fire, both of us passing out as Evaris looked into our mouths to confirm that the thing we desired most in all the realms was to be together.

“You’re bonded through the Lover’s Vessel this time,” says a voice I now recognize as Alex. “That’s what’s different.” The imposter draws our attention as he rounds the corner from Jeb’s kitchen, his hands casually tucked into oversized pockets, like he’s been listening in the whole time. His eyes now gleam with the strange, iridescent sheen shared by the prince and his posse.

“Alex?” Arrik snaps to attention, instantly attuned to something being off—and admitting, for the first time, that he remembers lowly humans’ names. “Why are his eyes like that?”

“You know him?” Velis jumps into position, his fingertips crackling with yellow electricity. “That’s the guy who’s been fucking with us! He’s a hybrid—Human-Celestial! He gave Beckham my mother’s journal!”

“Jeb?” Arrik growls, accusation riding his breath.

“Velis, that’s Jeb’s master!” I shout. “Get away from here! He said he’s here to kill you!”

Jeb, standing beside his brothers, begins to shake, like a kernel on the verge of popping, as if fighting to divulge something he isn’t allowed to say. Meanwhile, Alex raises his hand with an air of authority. As if summoned by a djinn, the heirloom vessel—once Velis’s, now Arrik’s—flies straight into his palm. In an instant, he vanishes, and the unmistakable sound of shattering glass ricochets from Jeb’s swanky kitchen.

But I thought Celestials couldn’t teleport! That’s the whole reason Arrik and I had to hide underground!

Forced proximity bullshit!

I start for the kitchen, but Arrik and Velis block me, forming a protective genie barrier to shield me from the chaos beyond.

“Velis is the one who needs protecting!” I scold them. “I was just alone with Alex, and he did nothing. He’s after Velis!”

Neither of them budge, but from around them, I see it.

In the kitchen, our intruder crouches where the vessel broke, pushing away the debris to uncover something produced by the wreckage, then rising to show off a bow that’s the same glossy dark color as the vessel—like it was somehow inside the glass.

He pulls back the bowstring, though there’s no arrow, and a wide set of dove-white wings jut out from his shoulders.

A Celestial, after all.

He points the taut bowstring in our direction—

Fwumph!

Only after Jeb’s master looses the string does a blood-red arrow appear. Arrik’s hand around my waist pulls me out of the way, and the arrow hits the wall behind us with a splat .

“Is that blood?” Arrik questions, smelling at the air.

It may not have hit any of us, but one of us reacts as if it has. Velis holds his stomach and drops to the ground like he’s just been shot.

I start for him. But Arrik stops me with a firm hand to my chest, ordering, “Go back into the bedroom!”

I swat him away and tear over to Velis.

Fingertips painted red, Jeb’s master pulls back his bowstring a second time.

“Stop!” I cry.

Fwumph!

Arrik rips me away to the other side of the room to get us out of the line of fire. The viscous arrow whizzes past us and paints Jeb’s pristine living room in a splattering of blood.

But it doesn’t matter where Jeb’s master shoots the arrows; Velis suffers the same.

His body wrenches with a scream like he’s just taken a cleaver to the chest.

“Enough!” I cry again. “Stop this, Alex! Can’t we just have a conversation about whatever’s going on? You seemed so reasonable before!”

Fingertips slick with Velis’s blood, Alex lowers the bow made from the same glassy substance as the vessel. “And now you know I mean it, Lolly. Think about what I said. I’ll be back in thirty-nine and a half Earth hours.” He closes his wings around himself and warps off into the void, like a genie teleporting away.

Unusually pale for his tan complexion, Velis looks like he was just gutted from within, his blood splattered around the room, though there’s no wound to show for it.

“Velis? Vel?! Jeb, heal him!” I charge to the brother who was totally useless during that extremely one-sided fight.

“ I can’t ,” he says through his teeth. “I told you, upper- tier magic—”

“Arrik!” I shout, not caring that this will potentially tether us. “Heal Velis and return all his lost blood, I wish you would!”

Unable to stop it—because yes, we are indeed bonded—Arrik’s eyes and fingertips glow blue as he follows through with my command. The splashes of blood all around Jeb’s apartment begin to collect and slide down the walls and across the floor like putty come to life. Jeb and Arrik have similar reactions, disgustedly moving out of the way as Vel’s blood slithers itself over the white carpet and into Velis’s ears. It’s the second time Arrik has ever tasted my soul, and for a moment, he wears a look like he’s just gotten water for the first time after wandering a hot, hot desert.

“Granted.”

He catches my eye afterward in a way that makes my heart thump hard once. He feels it too, based on the sharp widening of his eyes. He wrenches his focus away and grabs Jeb by the collar, the air between them thrumming with volatile energy as I wait for the color to finish rising beneath Velis’s skin.

“What gives, Jeb? Your shiny human isn’t so shiny after all? You’ve been working for Mother this whole time, haven’t you!”

“Get off me, idiot!” Jeb bats at him, irritation flaring. “As far as I know, Mother has nothing to do with any of this. My master is working on his own. He was normal until the night of Velis’s coronation. After that, he demanded I bring him here and started making wishes in rapid succession.”

“What did he wish of you?” Arrik asks, barely tempered.

“Many things.”

“I assume teleportation is one of them. And fate allowed it because he’s not fully human?”

Jeb stays silent, but the way he stares straight back at Arrik without resisting suggests he might be intentionally letting his brother read his thoughts.

From the ground beside me, there’s a groan.

I throw my embrace around Velis the moment he opens his eyes, squishing him with my weight, relishing the feel of his palm against my back, pulling me closer.

I thought he was dying.

He thought I was dying.

This has been the worst honeymoon ever.

“I know.” He holds me tighter, savoring the warmth of my aura in this moment.

I nuzzle closer, my lips brushing his ear, quiet enough that none of the others should hear. “I wish you would kiss me, Velis Reilhander.”

I know I don’t ever have to wish for a thing like that. But I do it anyway, because Arrik just siphoned my soul and granted me a wish—and I need to know what that means for me and Velis.

Relief envelops me when I see the blue light from Velis’s magical eyes blanket our kiss, confirming that we’re still united. Two brothers, one Dolly. Two hooks, one double-tethered soul. How?

“Hey!” comes a patronizing voice from the spare bedroom where Beckham is likely still chained up. “Sounds exciting out there. What’s going on?”

“I’d like to know that too,” Arrik says, his aim fixed on Jeb. “So start talking, and tell us as much as you can.”

Jeb’s scowl is as unbridled as ever. “Tch! There isn’t much I can tell you. I’ve seen little of him since he forced me to stay here. I’m a victim in this! He won’t let me leave!”

“One of the wishes was to not speak of the wishes?” Arrik presses.

Jeb raises an eyebrow, as if to confirm Arrik’s suspicion.

“I’ll find a way around that. In the meantime—” Arrik sinks his tired, tattooed body onto one of Jeb’s couches, clearly intending to make himself at home. “Our lady is hungry, Jebidirah. Fetch food.”

“Excuse me?” Jeb’s rage begins to bubble over, his body trembling. “You aren’t staying here! Get out of my dwelling! NOW.”

“I don’t think so. You’re involved in this now. Take off that mask and get us something to eat. We need to debrief.” Arrik pats the couch beside him, his gaze dark and commanding. “There’s room over here, Master.”

I cinch myself closer to Velis, the thought of sitting next to Arrik right now extremely terrifying.

“Why?” Velis, Arrik, and even Beckham from the bedroom say in unison.

Oh my god.

Our stories converge, Velis’s following Alex through the jungle and the seemingly wild goose chase he sent him on after Beckham, who’s still hiding Adelle Evangeline’s journal in the void. Jeb, who’s been wished inside his apartment all week so thoroughly that he’s unable to even summon himself to his master’s side. And Arrik, who tended to me while I was dying of something called a doom poison, for which there is no known cure. Lucky he placed that safe haven spell on me weeks ago, or I’d be dead.

Feels like an act of fate.

In fact, ALL of this feels like an act of fate.

I can tell there’s something about the story Arrik’s hiding. Something about our time together in that lagoon. And I don’t believe it has anything to do with that wild fever dream. But apparently, the outcome of seeing me nearly die while being tethered to me through the special vessel is that, just like Velis, at the thought of losing me permanently, something inside him unlocked.

And now it’s my turn to share, strangely gathered around Jeb’s fancy curled-foot coffee table, eating noodles.

In Jeb’s apartment.

Jeb .

While bored, powerless Beckham sings annoying songs from the other room.

“I don’t know,” I pick up where I left off, recounting what happened when I was alone with Alex in the other room. “It seemed like there were rules around what he could and couldn’t say, but what he did tell me is that we have forty hours.”

“Until what?” Velis asks beside me. “Until he tries to kill me again?”

I’m not sure I agree with the phrasing. Based on what I just saw with that magical bow and blood-made arrows, it seems like less of a ‘try’ sort of thing.

“He said that’s when an ‘unexpected’ life is created, and reality can’t handle the outcome—whatever that means. He gave me an ultimatum, basically.”

And it’s just now occurring to me that the creation of this ‘unexpected life’ is supposed to happen on Vel’s birthday. DOES HE EXPECT US TO HAVE AN OOPSIE BIRTHDAY-SEX BABY?

“Magical ultimatums,” Arrik says with a sass-filled sneer, washing down an inhuman amount of noodles. “Fun.”

Not exactly.

I can’t stop it—the tightness in my chest, which I’m sure all the djinn around me can feel. Arrik’s expression softens, and he leans across the table as if to reach for my hand. It seems involuntary. Whatever distance he’s been keeping over the past day, it’s gone now. No matter what else he feels, in his mind, I’m fully his master—the most important person in his life—and comforting me is something he can’t help but do.

I curl my fingers away from him, tears spilling down my cheeks like an idiot in front of all these genies, all these brothers, feeling completely stuck.

A comforting hand rests on my back. “Give us a moment,” Velis says to his two non-sociopathic brothers.

Jeb surveys the scene—his messy coffee table overtaken by djinn-world takeout, half-empty glasses, and Velis’s boring, aluminum-like vessel.

I have no idea what’s going through his mind, but with his magic dulled, it’s easier to meet his eyes—though he quickly looks away whenever I try.

“I’ll check on Beck,” he mutters, grumbling as he huffs out of the room.

Slowly, Arrik rises, tossing his head back as his Adam’s apple bobs, giving us a dry, sidelong glance before following after Jeb.

I don’t know what he’s thinking right now either. That cushion pat felt like a snippet of old times, but there’s no ‘for old times’ sake’ between us. Everything that’s happened in the last hour has only confirmed what I always feared about him. There’s no way we can ever be friends. I doubt we can even be around each other ever again.

He’s never said those forbidden words to me, but I can feel his desire pouring out now, every time his eyes graze my freckles and count my eyelashes. Something has definitely changed, and he can’t hide it anymore. I’m the last holdout.

Velis clears his throat, sensing that my thoughts are consumed with the wrong genie. “What’s the ultimatum, Dolly?”

I suffer a pang of guilt, though I’ve done nothing wrong. “It makes no sense,” I say, my confidence cracking.

He looks like he already knows where this is going.

I take a shaky breath, that familiar prick of emotion building inside me as Velis’s hand slowly slides down my back. In a low, shame-filled whisper, I admit, “He wants me to fall in love with Arrik instead of you. And if I don’t, he’ll kill you so I’m forced to fall in love with him anyway.”

Velis nods to himself, tongue pressing into his cheek, his frigid stare locked on some insignificant part of the wall.

Then he disappears, and a moment later, I hear him shouting from the other room, “Which one of you is responsible for this? Arrik? The long game finally coming to collect? Or is it you, you sadistic, manipulative motherfucker?! ”

The sounds of a genie tussle break out, and I’m frozen in place. What the hell am I supposed to do? Run in there? Insert myself into the chaos? I don’t think Beckham has anything to do with this, and I definitely don’t believe it’s Arrik. We have a new enemy, someone who has been manipulating us with his magical red light, steering us like puppets. How much of this has he been controlling? I heard his voice at the Celestial gala. Could he be the reason we were invited in the first place?

And with all that talk about ‘correcting my fate,’ he almost made it sound like I was always meant to be with...

Arrik, I wish that you and I would never become physical.

That’s not the way you were supposed to—Hmph. Won’t work anyway. Too much destiny manipulation.

Fate has never allowed me to stray far from him.

“If I want to be with Velis, I should be able to be with Velis!” I shout at Jeb’s ceiling, half hoping Alex might hear me. “He found me first! He’s my soulmate ! AND NOBODY SHOULD GIVE A DAMN WHO I DATE!”

I clamp my mouth shut, my chest heaving. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that Velis might not be my only soulmate—or, much more soul-crushingly, maybe he never was.

In the other room, there’s shouting, fighting, and I can’t mobilize myself to do anything about it even though I’m directly related to, and some might even say, in the center of it.

Suddenly, there’s another presence in the room—Jeb, charging in with his teal sweater and scoop-neck tank top. I duck out of his way as he marches past me, scowling, and starts furiously gathering up dirty dishes from the table. “You are the worst thing that has ever happened to this family, Dolly Jones,” he snaps.

I can’t help but respond, “It’s beginning to feel that way, isn’t it?”

He pauses, watching me over his shoulder for a moment before huffing away into the kitchen.

I don’t want to go into that drama-filled, testosterone-charged bedroom, and I don’t want to sit here and cry on Jeb’s floor. With nothing else to do, I gather up the remaining bowls and follow Jeb into the kitchen. It’s as fancy as expected, with an orb-lit chandelier and a large marble-topped island. Everything in his apartment looks straight out of a magazine for magical interior design.

Jeb scowls when he sees me but ultimately lets me hand him the dishes, taking them like a kid snatching back their belongings from a sibling. I return to the parlor for the goblets.

Strangely, Jeb washes them by hand in the sink. With how liberal Arrik and Velis are with their magic, I sometimes forget what Velis first told me about their economy. Normal people don’t use magic willy-nilly. Jeb wasn’t a wish-granter for those six years like Arrik and Beckham were. His first instinct is what I would consider normal.

“What?” he barks without looking at me when he feels me lingering.

“Should I go in there?” I ask, hesitating. “With the others?”

“Do what you like,” he nips over his shoulder.

I don’t want to go in there.

“Then don’t,” he says, catching my thoughts. “And stop bothering me.”

“Do . . . you want help?”

He narrows his eyes, then glances down the hall, where the muffled discussion is fading. “Can you dry without smudging your human germs on them?”

“I didn’t have a dishwasher growing up.” I reach for the woven dish towel hanging beside the sink.

He never hands me a wet dish—just sets it down for me to pick up and dry. The kitchen falls into silence.

“How did you and Alex become bonded in the first place?” I ask as the sounds from down the hall grow even dimmer. “I remember in France, Arrik was surprised you fully contracted him rather than just making a one-off deal.”

I’m not sure Jeb will answer. I’m not sure he even considers a non-master human worthy of an answer .

But surprisingly, he mutters, “Master and I never saw you in France. That was Belgium, dumbass.”

I guess I didn’t realize they spoke French in Belgium.

“But it was a strange cast,” he continues, seemingly theorizing out loud rather than speaking directly to me. By ‘cast,’ I assume he means the way they cast their vessels like lures for human fish. “The other times, I remained in place until my next master found me. With him, it felt like I was gravitating in my vessel toward him.”

“You think he sought you out?”

“It would seem so, wouldn’t it?” he says, clearly irritated by the reminder that he was pulled into this whole mess, likely because of me.

“ Sweetheart .”

The sound of a raspy voice makes my stomach twist.

Arrik stands at the kitchen entrance, nose a little bloody and fingertips a little inky, as lean, tall, and buff as ever. “Would you join us?”