The Conjurer (The Vine Witch #3)(15)
A fair question. Sidra assumed Yvette had been sent along to aid in her fated journey, but given the high probability of death, it was possible Oberon had a separate purpose for the girl. “Perhaps your grandfather merely wanted to air the place out from your smoking,” she said and knocked on the arched door before them.
After a pause, the door creaked open. An older woman wearing a simple cotton abaya and hijab answered. She held a goat in the crook of her arm that bleated in protest at being restrained.
“I wondered when I’d see you again.” The woman’s kohl-rimmed eyes scanned both guests.
She didn’t invite the two in, as was generally customary, instead blocking the door against entry. Left standing on the threshold, Sidra slipped a bangle off her wrist and held it out in offering. The woman met her gaze, accepted the gold, and shut the door. A moment later she returned, gazed briefly at Yvette in curiosity, and handed Sidra a small bottle of civet oil in an amber-colored glass vial.
“Three drops should do, but there’s a little extra. The stars say you’ll need it.”
The women nodded at each other and the door closed. A second later the door opened again, and the woman beckoned Yvette closer. She slipped a small leather pouch in the girl’s hand. “For later,” she said and shut the door. The lock slid into place.
“Is she one of yours too?” Yvette sniffed at the contents of the pouch—which resembled two dried-up figs—and made a face. She quickly closed it up again. “Smells off.”
“She’s closer to Elena’s kind. Though perhaps a bit like you too,” she said. “She, too, steals from her employer a little at a time to work her magic.” Sidra held the bottle up to the light before adding it to the fold in her robe where she’d stashed the saffron. “I’d protect that if I were you. She’s rarely wrong.”
Yvette tucked the oddly scented pouch in her bottomless pocket. “Oh là là, I don’t steal anymore.”
“But you’re good at it, yes?”
“I suppose I always was. So, what’s the oil for? What did she mean you were going to need extra?” Yvette’s skin began to glow from the heat of her rising emotions.
“In time, girl, in time. Right now, we need to find a dishonest man with one leg.”
“Of course. You can find one of those in every marketplace, if you know where to look.”
“Calm yourself and follow me. We need to put your skill to work. There is something I require.” Sidra led them up a stone staircase that looked as if it had been carved out of the hillside with the buildings added as an afterthought. They climbed single file until they emerged into another square sequestered from the rest of the village. There a secondary market flourished, one where the usual baskets of flowers and spices were offered for sale along with an array of ingredients a jinni in trouble might be on the lookout for.
Sidra walked beneath the loggia that ran alongside the market, observing the crowd. Women in pale blue-and-white dresses and broad-brimmed straw hats sniffed at jars filled with aromatic potions. On the sidewalk, woven baskets the size of fish traps displayed mounds of pink magnolia petals that had begun to wilt from the afternoon heat. Their fragrance stirred the air with the promise of perfumed love spells. A boy scooped his hand in a bowl of cowrie shells, then held each one up to his ear to find the one that would tell him his future. And there, in the corner, sat the man with one leg. A worn taqiyah covered his wretched head.
“Is that him?” Yvette asked with a nudge of her chin. “The one scratching himself.”
“Like a camel with fleas. That’s the one. Yanis the Dishonest.”
The man’s stall displayed half a dozen small brass incense burners, innocuous tourist talismans, and mesh bags full of herbs and shaved tree bark for sale. There were also fuzzy yellow flower sprigs that floated in jars of marula oil. The blooms were of the mimosa flower. The mime flower. Some called it the mocker of death. But Sidra knew that to be a lie when left to his care.
“Do not let him see us approach,” she said. “The coward will scream for his life, and I don’t wish to be chased through a busy market.” If not for the crowd and the need to keep an eye on the girl, she would dissipate and seep into the man’s stall to whisper in his ear about an insect small enough to enter through the nose during sleep and chew a path through the soft tissue of the brain. A most maddening death. One she would wish upon him a thousandfold.
The man with one leg kept busy braiding sweetgrass into bundles for smudging. He didn’t look up until they were standing right in front of his table. Sidra took pleasure in the way his face sank when he saw her, as if he’d been forced to abandon every ounce of comfort he’d ever known. His hands flew up, fingers spread wide, to defend himself.
“It had to be an accident,” Yanis said, his voice rising in pitch. “The potency was the same in both bottles. You have to believe me.”
“And yet I do not.” She wanted to strike him with fire. Burn his scalp down to the white-bone skull. Melt his eyes as if they were candle wax for his part in everything that went wrong. But, curse the fates, she needed this twisted scrap of a sorcerer. Without taking her eyes off the man, she told Yvette to go behind the table and look for a jar of frankincense.
“What’s it look like?” The man risked wiggling a finger as he pointed to a canister on his right beside his wooden leg. “Much obliged,” Yvette said and gave a little smile. She hadn’t even shown her teeth, yet Yanis smiled back at her like a lovesick puppy despite his predicament.