Chapter 2

CHAPTERTWO

Ezra’s eyes burned like someone had poured salt into them. She swore at the stinging pain in her neck and tried to sit up.

"I would go slowly if I were you, signorina," a voice said in the blurry darkness.

Ezra’s vision started to clear. She was lying on a woven rug in a room crammed with books and papers. Notes, sigils, and sketches were tacked onto the walls. She could smell clay and magic and blood.

She finally recognized where she was, and her chest squeezed too tight. Her father’s study.

They had taken her back to Venice.

"What the fuck did you people do to me?" she mumbled. "How long was I out?"

"About eighteen hours. A lot longer than I would’ve liked, but someone mixed up the dosage," the voice said. There was a rustle of movement, and a man came to stand in front of her. He was older than his voice, with gray through his hair and a gauntness about his face. He seemed vaguely familiar, but she didn’t know from where.

"What do you want with me?" Ezra asked.

"Your father was working on something for us. We thought it was completed, but he deceived us." The man had the decency to look embarrassed.

Ezra laughed, even as her heart cracked with grief. "You are one of his Cabal, aren’t you? I told him you would use him and cast him aside. I never thought that you would have the balls to kill him. He must’ve realized it too in the end and made sure that you would never succeed in your plans."

The man slapped her hard across the face, making her head rock back. It hurt, but it cleared the cobwebs away from her mind.

"We know you helped him create a golem. We saw it ourselves. You are the only one who knows how to complete his work. If you want to live, you will do it quickly. If you work with us, you will reap the rewards of that," he said, looming over her.

Ezra rubbed her face. "I don’t know what you’re talking about. We never made a golem. No one has made one since Prague in the 1600s."

The man pulled a small device from his pocket. It was a piece of magical artifice that captured moving images within a crystal and played them as a small projection.

He turned it on, and Ezra saw a smiling version of herself with her father. They were standing in front of a man made of clay. It was a beautiful creation that looked so lifelike. They had made it together, using magically infused clay and all of Ezra’s creative skill.

She knew what was coming next, and her stomach dropped. Ezra hadn’t known that her father had recorded that day.

In the projection, Judah waved a small scroll in the air and placed it in the golem’s mouth. Magical lines of light streaked over the golem, and it shuddered to life.

The man turned the artifice off. "I need to know what was on the scroll. The one that he gave us only brought our creature to life for a limited time. He fooled us into thinking that it was done."

"And you killed him before you realized. Why would you do that? He was helping you." Ezra reached for her magic, but it was silent in her veins. Whatever they had injected her with had dulled every one of her senses.

"He lacked a proper vision for the future," the man said.

"I know what it looks like on the crystal, but I don’t know what he wrote on the scroll. I’m not an idiot. I know you are all powerful enough to get what you want from me. I can’t give it to you because I don’t know," Ezra said, giving him her most sincere expression.

The man crouched down beside her and placed his hands on her wrists. "I believe you can. We have all of Judah’s paperwork, and you will unravel it."

Before Ezra could pull her hands away, the man spoke a word and black manacles appeared on her wrists. She didn’t have time to contemplate their appearance because he uttered another word. The most agonizing pain she had ever experienced scorched her skin, and she screamed as the manacles melted into her and fused with her bones. The man let her go just as she fell forward and vomited on the floor.

"We won’t be making the same mistake with you as we did with your father. You are bound to us, and nothing can break it. We know how strong your power is, so if you try to tamper with the bindings, they will kill you. Try to leave Venice, and they will kill you. Help us create life, and we will give you your own back." The man patted her on the head like she was an obedient dog. "We will be back in two days to check on your progress."

With that, he turned and walked out of the study and the house, the front door slamming behind him. Ezra was shaking and sweating in fear and fury. She was a slave.

* * *

When she could finally stand,Ezra went to the kitchen for a cloth and cleaning gear and mopped up the vomit. She climbed up the stairs to her old room and pulled some clothes from the cupboard. Everything was how she left it six months ago, like Judah had been waiting for her return. Maybe if she hadn’t been so proud, he would still be alive.

Ezra went into the bathroom, stripped off her clothes, and turned the shower on. Blessed hot water. She felt like vomiting again, so she sat on the cool tiles and put her head between her knees. She sobbed, a shaky, horrible sound of grief.

The drugs in her system were slowly wearing off, and she could feel the faintest tingle of warmth in her fingertips. She had never felt that powerless. The shock of it was hitting her, and she couldn’t stop shaking.

Ezra had been so proud the day they first got the golem to move. They were descendants of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the famous Maharal of Prague, and making golems was in their blood. It had started as a fun project with Judah after her mother had died. It had been something to turn their minds to and puzzle out. Both Ezra and Judah were better when they were busy.

If she had known that the Cabal would try to get Judah to make more golems, she wouldn’t have dared leave Venice. Her father had been lonely, but she had never imagined that he would tell anyone about their experiments. They knew as soon as they had created it that it could be used for deadly force. They had destroyed the scroll and had boxed up the clay man.

What had convinced Judah to try again? What had they promised him? Ezra had to find answers. She couldn’t let the Cabal get away with murdering her father.

Ezra rubbed her wrists. She let her magic softly brush against the bindings under her skin. Black marks rose to the surface like tattoos. They were starting to burn when she released her magic, then they disappeared once more. She had to find out what her father had been working on. She didn’t think golems would have been enough for the Cabal to want to kill him.

Depends on what they were going to use them for.

Once Ezra was in dry clothes and the world stopped swaying, she went back downstairs and made a strong coffee. Her father mustn’t have been dead long because the kitchen still had edible food in it. She didn’t know where his body had been taken. Had they buried him already? Had anyone done rites over him? Said words?

"Focus on what you can control now. Grieve later," she growled at herself. She wasn’t going to get revenge for her father’s murder if she fell apart.

Coffee in hand, Ezra went back into the study and started going through the papers scattered on the walls. Judah had a wild, creative, unstoppable mind when he was fixated on a project. It was one thing they had in common. A small sketch on the corner of a grocery bill caught her attention. It was an urn with a sigil on the side of it. It had no power in it, only a scribble to represent the magic that would go in its place. There was a line of Judah’s writing underneath, so messy, it was almost unreadable.

Infused clay will hold them with a powerful enough sigil. Ask Ezra.

Ice filled Ezra’s belly. She remembered her mother telling her magical fairy tales about the djinn when she was small. Tales where they had been captured in bottles and were able to grant wishes that always backfired. She looked at the sketch again and realized what it was. A prison for a djinn.

"Oh, Papa, tell me you didn’t…" she whispered. Judah had a deep mistrust of the djinn, but this wasn’t like him. He believed all beings should be free.

But you know what he is like when someone gives him a problem. Or what he was like. His mind couldn’t help trying to solve it. He often referred to the compulsion as a curse because he couldn’t stop it once it started. If the Cabal had proposed such a prison in passing, presented it as a hypothetical thought study to Judah…

Ezra felt like crying again, but she swallowed the salt in her mouth and tried to think. She was powerful, but the slave spell wouldn’t let her magic anywhere near it, and she couldn’t run away. She couldn’t give the Cabal any help with their golems or clay djinn traps. They would kill her if she didn’t. They had already proved they were capable of it

Ezra was smart enough to know she needed help. She had to find someone in Venice who was strong enough to take on, not only the spell, but the Cabal as well.

One name was at the top of her list. A chill swept through her as she considered it.

Judah hadn’t had many rules for her growing up. There were only two that he continued to warn her against as she got older. Never make a deal with a djinn, and never speak the name of Zahir the Eternal, in case he comes to find you.

Ezra didn’t have to speak his name. She knew exactly where to find the King of the Djinn.