Chapter 27

CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN

Zahir landed in the Square of the Ghetto Nuovo in a pillar of flame and rage. People cried out in surprise and scattered as he fought to pull back the fury of his magic. He didn’t trust the artist’s babbling and his claim that they were going to take Ezra. She would have alerted him with her notebook. He would have felt her in pain. He had to check things for himself.

Lira, the djinn he’d assigned to watch over Ezra, was sitting on the paving stones in front of her stall, staring at nothing and singing to herself in the early evening darkness.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Zahir demanded, striding over to her.

Lira grinned up at him. "Catching the pinkie butterflies, so they tell me all of their secrets. Ohhh, there’s a red one." She waved her hands, about to reach for the invisible bug. Zahir grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a firm stake.

"Focus, Lira! Where is Ezra?"

Lira’s eyes were dazed. He let his power touch her. Ezra’s magic hit him like a slap. She had enchanted his djinn. Fuck.

Zahir released her and walked to Ezra’s house. The wards welcomed him and unlocked the front door. She had built him into her security. His heart lurched dangerously.

"Ezra! Are you here?" he called, moving through the lower floors. He could smell her maddening scent of myrrh, like she had just stepped out of the room seconds beforehand. His magic reached out for her presence and felt nothing. The house was empty.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." He whirled on his heel and almost collided with Lira.

"She went… Ah, this magic… She was following a tall blond man. He’s been to the house before," she struggled to get out before she collapsed into giggles and ran out of the house. Ezra had really fucked her up.

Zahir shut the door on his way out and threw in an extra layer of protection over the house. He needed to focus and find her. Karsudan said they were connected beyond the bargain. He hadn’t felt her distress so wherever she was, Ezra wasn’t in any pain.

Zahir spoke an ancient incantation under his breath. It revealed magical trails in the air left behind by mages. It was a frustratingly pointless spell in places like Venice, where every second person held some magical ability. He knew the feel of Ezra’s power and reached out for it. A starburst of bronze light was on the other side of the square.

"Ah, so this is where you were standing when you knocked Lira on her ass," he muttered under his breath. He was torn between being impressed with Ezra’s skill and wanting to murder her for disobeying him. Stay home. Stay safe. How fucking hard was that?

If Vladek had come to fetch her, she might have had no choice. Zahir was going to murder that fucking mage and give Ezra his head on a silver platter. Now, that would be the perfect courting gift.

Zahir followed the magic, and his stomach clenched. He knew every canal and calle in the Wands District, and with every step, he was getting closer to the Fondamenta Fornasa Vecia.

The artist had been telling the truth. Miracles did happen.

Zahir turned onto the street, and a bolt of electricity shot through the darkness and collided with his shoulder.

"What the fuck!" he snarled. He looked up to where the attack had come from. A hooded figure gave him a cheeky wave from a nearby rooftop. Zahir hissed in frustration and teleported himself beside them and knocked the figure to their ass.

"Jesus, Zahir! It’s me!" Stella said, pulling back her hood. "What the hell?"

"You attacked me! What was I supposed to do?" he replied.

"I gave you a little zap to get your attention. How many fulmian mages do you know, asshole?" Stella huffed and held out her hand. "Well? Help me up."

Zahir lifted her back to her feet. "Would you mind explaining to me what the hell you are doing up here?"

"I will if you don’t get mad," Stella said.

"I am already mad, woman." Zahir’s eyes narrowed. "If you don’t tell me this minute, I will inform Domenico that you have been stalking rogue Varangian mages without him knowing."

Stella put her hands on her hips. "You are such a bitch when you want to be. I’m actually up here at the behest of your current paramour."

Zahir hadn’t been expecting that. "Explain and be quick about it."

"She came and saw me today. She had a vision and was freaked out about it," Stella began. Zahir grew more pissed off and worried with each word out of her mouth. Ezra had a vision when she had touched the obsidian chips and had lied to him about it. The lying part hurt more than the sneaking around with Stella.

"Don’t be mad, Zahir. She is genuinely trying to protect you in this situation. She loves you, even if she won’t admit it yet. She wouldn’t risk her own safety like this if she didn’t," Stella tried to console him. He was not in a consoling mood.

"She’s my mate," Zahir admitted, feeling like he’d been knifed in the chest.

Stella’s eyes went wide. "What? That’s not…a thing for djinn."

"Apparently, it is. We don’t use that word. We use consort, but it amounts to the same thing. Maybe you can understand why I’m so fucking mad at the both of you right now," Zahir said, pushing his hands through his hair. "You should have messaged me straight away when she came to you with this idiotic idea."

"Hey, don’t put this on me. She has no idea she’s your consort, does she?"

"Of course not! I didn’t even know until this morning! I haven’t seen her since."

Stella placed a hand on his arm. "For the record, she’s lovely and very much her own woman. It wasn’t a dumb idea, and she made sure she had me backing her up. She wanted to be taken so we could find out where they were keeping the golems. She was worried they were making rings or vessels to trap djinn. She was scared for you, but she was thinking clearly."

"So what have you been doing while she’s trapped in that damn house?" Zahir demanded.

"I’ve been waiting to hear back from Arkon. I sent him a message to send the Inquisitors almost an hour ago," she said, a frown forming between her brows. "He hasn’t gotten back to me."

Zahir cursed. "I know why. He’s too busy in the Doge’s prison, interrogating the other Cabal members about the fucking Varangian mage."

"He’s in the house with Ezra," Stella replied.

"What? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me."

"No. He was sent to collect her. I saw a heron shifter go in there too about thirty minutes ago, but he hasn’t come out again," she replied, biting her lip.

"Call Dom, Stella. He was meeting with Gio and Nico today. He might still be at the palace. Get him to find Arkon and send the fucking Inquisitors," Zahir replied. He wanted to level the building. He was so mad.

Stella was wise enough not to argue with him about it. "What are you going to do?"

"What do you think? I’m going to get my consort," Zahir snapped, his magic flaring along his arms. "And when she is safe, I’m going to throttle her for being so disobedient and making me fucking worry this much."

"Sure you will." Stella fought back a smile. "Good luck. Be ready for us when you see us. And don’t kill anyone! Doge’s justice and all that. Hey, baby," she said, brightening when Dom answered his phone. "So I’ve fucked up and need you to find Arkon. Zahir is about to do something dumb. Yes, more so than usual."

The fuck he was. Zahir flipped her off in annoyance. Going after Ezra was the smartest thing he would ever do. He didn’t give a damn about anyone’s justice but his own that night.

Zahir stepped off the side of the building, disappearing into the ether. He could feel Ezra’s magic being worked, its song calling out to his own. He didn’t think. He dropped through the building’s chimney and rematerialized in the center of a workshop.

"Hello, sparrow. Fancy finding you here," he growled.

Ezra leaped up from a chair with a shout of warning. "Go, Zahir! Get out of here!"

Zahir froze as lines of complex warding shot into silvery life, like a magical net around him. He was caught like a fly in a fucking web. A deep voice started to laugh, and Zahir whirled. The mage was tall with silvery blonde hair and pale blue eyes.

"Let me guess, Vladek the Varangian?" he asked, forcing down his sudden panic. Arkon and his Inquisitors wouldn’t be far away. He would never live it down that the mighty Djinn King had got himself caught by a bunch of fucking human mages.

"Very good. You must be Zahir the Eternal," he said, his accent as thick as Ezra claimed. "I thought one as old as you would’ve been smarter."

"What can I say? I was blinded by love," Zahir replied, looking at Ezra. She only rolled her eyes.

"Idiot," she muttered, but she was smiling as she said it.

"You can’t talk. You were the one who thought all of this…" Zahir gestured around him, "was a good idea. You and Stella are forbidden from being friends from here on out."

"And you’re going to stop me? You’ve just walked straight into a trap! The very thing I was trying to prevent!" Ezra exclaimed.

Sweet Creator, spare him. She was beautiful when she got angry. Zahir forgot all about his situation and just grinned at her like an idiot. She grinned back.

Vladek looked between them and started to laugh. "Well, isn’t this interesting? Let’s see how fast Ezra works now that she has proper motivation."

White searing pain burned through Zahir, and he screamed before he could hold it back. Needles of pain electrified his entire body, and he collapsed onto the floor. Ezra was shouting, her fists beating against the warding.

"Leave him alone!" she begged, tears tracking down her face.

Zahir shook his head. "Don’t do it, sparrow." Like always, his beautiful Ezra ignored him.

"Please," she begged Vladek. "I’ll do it. I’ll give you the sigil. Just don’t hurt him anymore."