The Conjurer (The Vine Witch #3)(13)
Soon her mind’s eye opened in a meadow near a stream. A grove of trees with standing stones in the middle of a clearing came into view. Two chairs made out of bent branches posed beside a stone font. But no one was there. The forest was eerily quiet. No birdsong, no rustle of leaves. She felt hot breath that reeked of charcoal on her neck and for an instant thought she should reel herself back in, but then a woman approached at the edge of her vision. She wore a metallic-green gown that reminded Elena of the beetle shells she sometimes collected near a rotting log on her walking path. The woman’s shimmering gown floated just above the periwinkles poking out of the earth. On her head she wore a crown made of tiny seed pearls and dragonfly wings, and around her neck hung a silver chain bearing an agate stone no bigger than a thumb. The woman’s eyes glittered when she smiled.
“Welcome,” she said, staring straight at Elena as if she were truly standing in front of her. “I’ve been waiting for your arrival.”
“Titania?” Elena couldn’t be certain if she said the name out loud or not.
The fairy queen nodded, then looked past her as if meeting another’s gaze. The sparkle she’d carried dimmed, replaced by a hard glint full of warning. For the briefest moment her countenance changed from ineffable beauty to something wraithlike and threatening. But it was only a flash before she was herself again.
The heat on Elena’s neck flared at the sight. Jamra. A nasty trick by the jinni, piggybacking on her vision. She’d have to cleanse with salt for a week to get the trace of him out of her mind. Titania had seen him and somehow made him withdraw with her brief, bizarre transformation. Was this queen’s power strong enough to make the jinni take flight? The women exchanged half smiles in the shadow world as their minds met on the same ground.
“Yvette and her guest are no longer here,” said the queen, anticipating the reason for Elena’s intrusion.
So, she’d been right about Sidra escaping to the Fée lands with Yvette. That would explain how she’d slipped through Jamra’s binding spell. He’d been careless after all by restricting his spell to the earthly realm. Pity for him, but good for resourceful Sidra for figuring a way out.
Elena was about to ask the fairy queen if she knew where the two had gone when Titania held a finger to her lips.
“I do not know the mortal place-name, but I can show you. She and my granddaughter are there together,” she said and held out her sleeve. Elena reached out with her spirit hand, and soon her mind was flying over fields of flowers that grew in neat agricultural rows. Fields of roses, lilacs, irises, violets, and jasmine. Though her body was not truly there, the heady scent of the flowers intoxicated with their magnificent fragrance as she breathed in the southern air between mountain and sea.
As soon as the place was fixed in Elena’s mind, the scene faded at the edges. Her sight was at its limit. Titania, perhaps sensing their connection was nearly undone, made a request. “My granddaughter was hastily sent abroad before I could fully inform her of the risk.” The queen looked from side to side as if checking for another’s presence. “Please, you must warn them.”
The connection quickly failed. Elena gasped for breath as she was yanked home to her own time and place. Waking from her trance, she swayed on the bench as she acclimated to her physical surroundings again.
Jamra stood before her, his arm outstretched as if he’d summoned her back with his jinni magic. He relaxed his fingers and rested his arms behind his back. “The witch queen told you they were not there, so why did you stay with her?”
“How did you go there with me?”
He leaned forward, his gaze uncomfortably piercing the space between them. “Jinn are master travelers of the mind, able to see into the dimensions of thought when left unguarded.”
His boast unnerved her. But, thank the All Knowing, he’d backtracked out of the vision before the rest was revealed. She could tell him anything, lead him anywhere. Though she had not seen Sidra in her vision, she now knew the jinni had gone to the southern province where the perfume witches made their famous scented concoctions. Titania claimed she would also find Yvette with her. But why had they gone there?
Elena had to think quickly. “I know her granddaughter,” she said, standing and straightening her skirt. “I helped her reunite with her family in the Fée lands. Titania wished to thank me for my assistance.”
“But where is Sidra? The witch queen must know where they went.”
“Why the city?” Elena asked abruptly.
“What?” He looked at her as if she were a gnat that kept buzzing in his nostrils.
His annoyance was growing. She needed to be careful. “That’s where you set your trap for Sidra. So why there? Why the city? Why were you so certain she would show up there, of all places?”
“Because it is where I sometimes live so that I may observe the ways of mortals. The spell was as much for my protection as it was to ensnare her.”
“You thought she’d come looking for you?”
His eyes sharpened like a hawk singling out its prey. “There is a blood feud between our clans. Neither can abide the other drawing breath in this world. But she, as green as she is, has hurt me like no other.”
“Because you believe she took your brother’s life?”
“No, witch, because he fell in love with one who is our enemy. And then she robbed his dead body of an object of indescribable worth. One that she continues to taunt me with. And I will have it returned.”