‘What did he do?’

  Keira stared into her glass, the liquid rolling from side to side in her trembling hands, shivering like her insides.

  ‘Did he stand idly by while his friends mocked you again?’

  ‘No…’

  ‘Have you seen him with someone else?’

  Keira clamped her mouth shut and shook her head, looking away.

  ‘Kiki…’ Isolde started, her harsh tone blending into a soft hush. ‘I know you think yourself in love with August, but…’ She paused as if weighing her words while tears pressed behind Keira’s eyelids. ‘Sometimes we think ourselves so much in love with a person that we mistake who they really are for our idea of them.’

  ‘I know August,’ Keira forced out, like she had so many times before when they’d had this conversation. But before, he had not… She struggled for breath, and her mind spun.

  ‘I’m not saying I don’t understand. It is far easier to love an idea. It hasn’t hurt you, yet. But—Keira!’ Isolde rushed over as Keira sank to the floor, sobbing.

  A door creaked wider, and she could hear Echo and Makenna stepping into the room, the swish of silk robes, and one of the women asking if everything was alright.

  ‘It’s not him who has done anything,’ Keira cried. ‘It is me. I failed. I took him in my mouth, and I was terrible at it!’

  The cottage was struck with silence, save for Keira’s heaving sobs.

  ‘You…what?’ Isolde stared.

  ‘He said…he said it would help him take the edge off.’

  ‘I bet he did,’ Echo murmured, while Makenna scoffed beside her. Isolde ignored them both and helped steer Keira to a chair, ordering one of her lovers to bring her the cheese platter they’d been enjoying in the bedroom.

  ‘Tell me everything, love. From the beginning, please, so I might have a chance to catch up.’

  ‘We’ve been seeing each other this past summer,’ Keira murmured, bowing her head at the intensity in Isolde’s glare. When they had kept it a secret, they had kept it from everyone. Even Isolde, although Keira could not quite remember whose idea it was, hers or August’s. She remembered wanting to tell Isolde, but that August had told her not to and that she had agreed with his reasons.

  Tears trickled into the corners of her mouth as she thought of him again, the images flashing by drudging bile into her chest. She told Isolde everything, and even before she finished speaking, Isolde had risen to her feet and was pacing the small space, dark blotches upon her brown face. Makenna wrapped a blanket around Keira’s shoulders while Echo attempted to offer her some more wine or cheese.

  ‘And then he left,’ Keira finished and looked up at her friend, ignoring the bit of white cheddar being nudged against her lips. ‘Iz, what if I was so bad at it that he won’t want to marry me now?’

  Isolde stopped, lightning raging in her eyes. Echo and Makenna cast one glance at her before they decided to leave them alone and disappear into the bedroom again.

  ‘That is not what is the problem here.’

  Keira frowned, unable to discern what she meant.

  ‘Are you certain he intends to marry you?’

  Keira’s lip began to tremble. ‘You don’t think he will? You really think I was that bad?’

  ‘No, I think you have been played like a fiddle.’

  Keira held her breath, staring at Isolde with incredulity. ‘You think he doesn’t love me?’

  ‘I think he does not.’

  ‘Well, you are wrong!’ Keira rushed to her feet, uncertain who she was trying to convince: her friend…or herself? ‘He does. He will marry me. He has as good as given me his word!’

  Isolde shook her head. ‘In all these years, I did not watch you grow up to be such a fool, Kiki.’

  Keira clamped her jaw shut and looked away, refusing to meet her eye. Instead, her gaze fell on a collection of bottles and containers on one of the shelves.

  A new addition – a vintage oil lamp – stood amongst them, and Keira faintly remembered her grandmother’s stories of djinns and wishes. What if…she could take it all back?

  Slowly, Keira began to gravitate towards the shelf, her mind churning. There would be a price, she knew that. But even so, was there a price she was willing to pay to make it so that the last hours had never happened? Or to have August pay her a visit later that night to make good on his promise?

  Behind her, Isolde sighed. ‘I know you wish to see yourself mistress of Thornfell Manor again, and that having August’s hand in marriage would secure that, Keira, but there are some circumstances where the price is too high. Do not pay it.’

  ‘You are wrong about him,’ Keira murmured, forcing back the last of her angry tears.

  ‘I hope I am,’ Isolde said, still speaking to Keira’s back. ‘But that lamp won’t help you make him love you. Leave it be, Keira.’

  Keira retracted her hand as if she had been burned, glaring at Isolde. Her expression was strained, alert, and Keira’s gaze flickered back to the lamp. Was it…could it really be the lamp of a djinn that stood before her? Were her suspicions right?

  ‘Use this change of events to free yourself from this unhealthy infatuation instead, Keira,’ Isolde said over her shoulder, heading back into her room. ‘Cut August loose.’

  Then she closed the door behind her, leaving Keira alone in the space, pondering her words. She definitely needed to do something with the situation, but giving up on August would not solve anything. She would simply be without him. Without dreams. Without any hope for her future.

  With that in mind, Keira turned and grabbed the lamp off the shelf, promising the nibble of guilt in her gut that she would make it up to Isolde later – she was merely borrowing it after all – and headed outside, her spirits rising. With the lamp tucked against her chest, her despair gave way for eager certainty that, by the end of the night, August would be hers and that what had occurred earlier would be as if it had never happened.

  4

  ENGAGEMENT

  Keira placed the lamp upon the mantelshelf of her fireplace and settled into an armchair, pulling her legs up to her chest, without ever taking her eyes off it.

  A djinn.

  A demon spirit.

  Isolde had been too wary for it to be an ordinary lamp. What else could it be?

  All her nan’s old stories came rushing back to her, and these days, djinns tended to be exactly that. Stories. Fabled creatures that the grown-ups told their children by their bedsides to stop them from leaving the house at night. But Keira never went far. She had, in fact, never been further than the palace ruins of Theveserin where the Tyrant Emperor and his court of vices once ruled.

  Keira shifted her gaze towards the window as if she could see through the woods to the ruins in the distance. It was once the home of the Cardinal Seven; each djinn so corrupted and malevolent that they were described to be the sins incarnate: lust, greed, indulgence, indolence, pride, wrath, and envy. The tyrant himself so prideful that it caused the war and his eventual demise.

  A woman had been his Achilles’ heel in the end. Saint Helena, whose beauty left him blind to the rebellion rising against him. His court was never seen again after the opposition stormed the castle, yet the myths would have it that the tyrant escaped, bound by a witch to forever walk the realm in the shape of a stag. Which was how the annual hunt had come to be, and a stag its most symbolic prize.

  Whoever shot one first would be the champion of the village for the year to come and free to pick whomever they liked to marry. If August had not asked her to meet him, she would have had half a mind to hunt for the stag herself. Perhaps she would have been better off if she had.

  Her gaze drew back to the oil lamp on the mantel. Since the reign of the Tyrant Emperor, djinns had been hunted, and few – if any – had been seen for decades, a fact many regretted whenever they harboured a heartache or lost a loved one, pleading to the heavens for one simple wish.

  Yet here a lamp stood. On her mantelshelf. Its foot was of delicately ornate porcelain, its lamp chimney made of glass that rose like an elongated rose bud from its oil burner. Could it really be? Or was she letting her desperation get the better of her? It was prettier than other tired-looking oil lamps she had seen, but to think that it could house a spirit was stretching her imagination rather thin.

  She rose to her feet and took the lamp, turning it between her hands, her reflection mirrored in its polished surface. Either it worked or it didn’t. It seemed a small risk to take for the chance to erase the incident of the day. For the chance to wish for August to finally ask for her hand in marriage.

  She reached for the pin.

  But would it be real? Would it be without cost?

  An image of her mother and father flashed before her eyes. Happy and entirely consumed with one another. Their love like a flaming star. And now they were both ashes. Because she had wished it.

  No. She put the lamp back again.

  Nothing came for free. She knew that.

  Shivering, Keira took a couple steps back and walked through her cottage, passing her tattered furniture, and paused by the windows, gazing out between the decorative iron grates on the outside. When her parents were alive, the small cottage had once belonged to their groundkeeper. From here, she could gaze over the tops of the trees in her garden and spot the lights shining from Thornfell Manor, perched upon a steep hill covered in acres of corn. Her former home.

  She had made such a fuss when her parents told her that they were to leave it. To move somewhere else and start anew. She had made more than a fuss, actually.

  She had been quite mad. Furious even. And she had raged that she wished that they would leave without her and never come back. Then she had run off to Isolde, cried against her shoulder, and fallen asleep in her bed. When she returned the next morning, it was to find all three of her family members dead.

  Murdered. Without a trace of the murderer.

  The days after were but a blur. She remembered the coffins. The funeral processions. And August’s parents, who showed up on the grounds of their ancestral home, ready to reclaim the house with their young boy on one side and her council-appointed guardian on the other. He had sold it back to them, the whole estate, and thought himself very clever, since he had secured the groundkeeper’s cottage and the Thornfells’ protection for her in the transaction.

  No. Wishes are not free, Keira thought and shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself against the memory. They always cost something, and right now, so close to having everything she desired, she would not risk it. Faith would have to be enough. Faith that August loved her and would make good on his promise to her. That they would talk about and move past what had happened, together.

  With that in mind, Keira pulled on a cloak and rushed into the night, heading to the town’s local tavern.

  It was the first night of the hunting season. All the hunters were sure to be gathered there. August too. After today, surely, he longed to see her as much as she longed to see him, to make sure she was okay and to discuss what had happened. Perhaps they could make another attempt at intimacy. One where she felt…more secure. Less… Her mind trailed off from the unpleasantness that coiled inside. Instead, her mind conjured a fantasy of him returning the gesture, and by the time she reached the tavern, she had quite convinced herself that what went down that morning hadn’t been as bad as she thought. If only she didn’t think too much of it.

  It seemed the whole village had gathered within the small space as she stepped inside, the smell of stale ale and raw meat wafting towards her.

  Boisterous men chatted with the ladies and waved over the barmaids manoeuvring the thick crowd in their mini pouch aprons, serving refills of wine and pints of locally crafted beer. Fathers patted their sons on their backs and mothers introduced their daughters. Glasses clinked together and chairs were shoved out of the way to give place for the trophies – the prey of the day – and the men that had shot them. August was between them – the men, not the trophies – yet, as her eyes fell on the hind beside him, she could not help but picture herself, bound and shot.

  Diverting her gaze, she locked eyes with Miles instead. Mockingly, he tapped his lip with a finger and winked, but he did not say anything. Perhaps August had warned his friends to keep quiet after all, but Keira wished hard that she hadn’t turned red at the gesture.

  ‘Welcome, all as one!’ boomed Mr Meroni, spreading his arms wide. His wife and daughter stepped up beside him, and the Thornfells came to stand beside their son. It was odd to see them amongst such crowds, let alone in the tavern. They typically found themselves far above such places.

  ‘You’ve all had a look at today’s catches. There was no stag amongst them today, but there is still much of the season left to capture the “Tyrant Emperor”.’ He winked, and some chuckled. ‘That being said, we have more to celebrate tonight. August! Where are you, my lad? Come here.’ He waved August forward.

  Keira’s heart thudded a little harder, watching him move to stand beside the large man, the whole room’s attention rapt upon him. Perhaps that was why August’s jaws were clenched so hard, and why his cheeks had paled a little.

  ‘Congratulations with the biggest catch of the day,’ Mr Meroni said, and patted his back. ‘And it is not the only prize he has secured on this first day of the hunt.’ He turned to the rest of the crowd with a playful twinkle in his eye. Keira felt herself go cold all over, pins and needles pinching her hands.

  Did he know what had transpired between her and August earlier that day? Would he proclaim it to the entire room like this?

  Miles cast her a glance, but she could not fully take it in. Could not read it. Could not comprehend or think or act beyond waiting with bated breath.

  Mr Meroni waved over his daughter, who stepped forward with the softest, widest smile on her face. She bowed to August, who allowed her to place her hand upon his, returning her smile with a polite one of his own.

  Keira frowned in confusion. What was he doing? People would think…

  Time stilled.

  ‘Today, August Thornfell asked my daughter Gianna for her hand in marriage, and she has accepted him! Please allow me to present the future Mr and Mrs Thornfell!’

  Mr Meroni spoke, but the words…the words fell through her. She could not make sense of them. Could not make sense of freefalling while standing still. Could not make sense of the hands clapping, sounding like thunder in her ears.

  Her eyes caught August’s. He looked away. Miles gaped, like she was sure she was doing. He had not known, then. Had not known that August…was to be married.

  It had to be a mistake. A night terror, his parents’ doing, or⁠—

  The doors swung behind her as she dashed out of the tavern, running as fast as she could down the road leading home. Cutting through the woods for a shortcut, her slippers stomped on tufts of grass, her hem soaking with the wet of evening dew. She rushed over the rickety old bridge, moaning at the harshness with which she crossed it. No sooner had the old cottage appeared between trees crowned in autumn leaves, twinkling at her from the foot of Thornfell Hill, than she exploded over its threshold and grabbed the lamp from the mantelpiece. Merely hesitating for a moment, thinking about her nan’s warning, its meaning and what she was risking, Keira drew a shaky breath and turned the pin.

  5

  THE DJINN

  ‘Well, well, well, G – that’s quite a body you’ve found yourself.’

  The husky voice curled itself around her ear like the violet smoke caressing her living room walls. In the darkened space, a pair of amber eyes gleamed, trailing her every move. Keira stilled as the man sauntered closer, not daring to move a muscle as he gripped her chin and tilted her head to the side. Although she had expected it to hurt, his grip was featherlight, like the kiss of a cool duvet in the summer heat.

  ‘What an exquisite jawline.’ His forehead creased with the same intrigue that danced into his almond-shaped eyes and spilled across his lips.

  He was rather handsome, she had to admit. His dark hair curled over his forehead, and his skin was pale with a peachy hue underneath. The muscles rippling down his shoulders and arms were perfectly sculpted, as were the sharp cheekbones cutting down his face, pointing towards lips succulent with coy interest.

  He had the kind of beauty that made her stomach knot. She did not care for it.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ She swatted his hand away, and his eyes widened. Pausing to wonder, the djinn looked around the room, taking in the pillow- and throw-covered furniture, the built-in bookshelves, and the low roof with horizontal wooden beams running from wall to wall, before he turned back to her, comprehension dawning. ‘You’re not G?’

  Keira crossed her arms with a sneer. ‘I have no idea who G is.’

  His lips twitched with amusement before he gathered himself and stepped back. ‘Then excuse me, young lady, for my poor informalities.’ He bowed. Somehow it seemed to make the overwhelming nature of his presence withdraw, like shadows being called back to their masters, but she watched him warily still.

  ‘I didn’t expect djinns to have manners,’ she commented when he raised a brow.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said, studying his nails. ‘Humans are always ignorant about that which they fear.’

  She scoffed. ‘Oh, really? Well, I’ll retract what I said. I seem to have been entirely correct the first time around. What sort of manners is it even to talk to a lady without giving her your name?’

  ‘Call me Elijah if you’d like. As for manners, the same can be said of a lady calling a man to her home without telling him what he is there for. Unchaperoned, even! Am I to be used?’ His face twisted in feigned outrage as he leaned against the wall, arms crossed, eyes sparkling with mock delight. ‘Did you hear precisely which djinn was in that particular lamp and think to have your sweet time with me?’