Tales of the Djinn: The Double (39 page)

“There’s nothing we need to see in this front bit,” he announced. “Keep going down the aisle until you spot the sign for military books.”

The military books were in the back and around a corner.

Her father followed behind the three of them. “You see that
Training Horses for War
by Dunkirk? Knock on its spine and say, ‘Please let me in, if you’d be so kind.’”

Elyse did as he instructed. The charm must have been easy to activate. A gritty grinding noise was her immediate reward. The tall shelf slid back and then swung around to the side. The area behind it was as dark as a cave.

“There’s a light switch on the right,” her father said helpfully.

Cade reached in and flipped it.

“Ooh,” Elyse exclaimed.

They’d accessed a secret library. Perhaps ten feet in diameter, the space was octagonal and lined all around with mahogany shelves. The books that stood in ranks within them were less dusty than those out front and mostly leather bound. A dark flowered Persian carpet cushioned the wooden floor. Toward the back wall, opposite the door, two comfy armchairs, a reading table, and a double-headed banker’s lamp supplied the furniture.

“Your grandfather and I would come here to read and practice spells in private. It took decades, but eventually we hit on how to make the nexus work. Well, I did. Dad didn’t live long enough to travel through the door.”

Saul Solomon had died when Elyse was nine or ten. She remembered him as an intense personality with a thin face and shaggy brows. He’d been very smart, very particular, and occasionally quite funny. She’d liked him but warily. It was no accident Saul’s sons had ended up at odds. He hadn’t been as easygoing as her dad, and his temper was sometimes sharp. Seeing this place, imagining him and Leo poring over books and conducting magic experiments, made him realer but also more peculiar.

“This is your heritage,” her dad said. “Doing magic is officially in your blood.”

That sounded odd to her. She walked deeper into the handsome room, trailing her fingers along the chest-height shelf. Would she read these books some day? Many weren’t in English. They were Latin and Spanish and . . . djinn, she realized, as the titles blurred and rearranged themselves for her eyes. Her gift for translating the other dimension’s language, which had magically rubbed off on her from Cade, was still functioning.

Arcadius’s voice turned her back toward the door. “You mentioned you had a solution to our problem?”

His tone was circumspect, as it had been all day. His guardedness troubled her—and the way he deliberately kept his gaze on her father and avoided her. What exactly didn’t he want her to see?

“I
may
have an answer,” her father said. “Not to flatter myself, but I have a better than average memory. When Cade first told me how you two came to be, my brain started nudging me to remember something I’d read in here years ago. I know your friend Joseph is a skilled magician, and I’m sure he’s done everything he can to help you recombine. The fact is, however, that he’s a djinni. When it comes to magic, human power is top dog. Because djinn magic split you into a pair, possibly a human with the right spell could put you back together.”

“And you think that spell is inside these books?”

“That one specifically.” Her dad pointed toward the shelf Cade was near. “The smallish royal blue journal. I believe it’s called
Mending With Magic: Broken Items Restored As Good As New.
I found it at a flea market in New Jersey. The title was obscured with a chocolate stain. No one noticed it but me.”

Cade pulled the book from the shelf and opened it. “It’s handwritten, in English. Dated August 12, 1967.” He turned a page and his eyes widened. “The description says it’s ‘a manual for servants away from home.’”

Her father came to stand at Cade’s shoulder. Inches shorter and lanky, he was downright skinny next to the brawny djinn.

“Yes,” he said to Cade. “That’s the book I recall. You didn’t think you were the first of your kind to pop up on this continent, did you?”

“I suppose not. Samir found his way here, after all.” Cade flipped a few pages. “Here’s a spell for ‘Returning Two to One: when copies become clutter.’ The sorcerer who wrote this couldn’t have meant people, but I imagine it could work.”

“May I see it?” Arcadius held out his hand. “Not that I consider myself
clutter
.”

Cade smiled and handed the book to him. Arcadius read it without twitching one face muscle. “Yes,” he said. “This seems do-able.”

Elyse’s stomach clenched. This was moving too fast for her. She had to swallow before she spoke. “We can think about this before we try it, right?”

The men turned to her as a group. Arcadius’s expression was impossible to read, but Cade looked slightly surprised. Thank goodness her father seemed to understand what she felt.

“Of course you can,” he said, his eyes soft with compassion. “You need to decide what’s best for your heart . . . for all your hearts. I showed you this so you would have a choice. Just don’t put it off too long. Cade and Arcadius have been doubled for quite a while. The more separate experiences they have, the more difficult it will be for even you to put them back together.”

She went hot from a sudden rush of adrenaline. “You expect
me
to do the spell?”

“There’s no one better,” he asserted. “Emotion adds power to enchantments. This one is likely to take everything you’ve got.”

In more ways than one,
was her instant thought.

Her father must have seen her dismay. He clapped one hand on her shoulder. “I’ll leave you three to discuss this among yourselves. I don’t mean to rush you, but—if you can—you might want to decide here and now.”

He went back into the store, working the mechanism to swing the secret bookshelf door shut again.

Cade looked at her, a hint of her same helplessness in his eyes.

The third member of their party had a different perspective.

“We should do it,” Arcadius said firmly. “If this works, it would solve everything, for us and for our city. Now of all times, our people need their commander to be at full strength. In addition to this—though I don’t think personal considerations should come first—neither of us would have to face losing you. We could truly share you, because we’d be one person.”

“Neither of you have to face losing me now!”

“Don’t we?” Arcadius asked, his naturally serious face pulled into even more solemn lines. “In truth, haven’t you chosen which of us you care for more?”

Had she? Elyse wasn’t sure of that.

“He has a point,” Cade broke in even as he rubbed his upper lip doubtfully. “Since we’re both in love with you, a combined commander would be unlikely to fall out of it. Maybe we’d love you even more.”

“I like the way you love me now!” Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best way to put it. She lost her fight with the blush that stung her cheeks. Cade noticed and cracked a grin. “I don’t just mean I like having sex with both of you.”

“One is less awkward,” Arcadius pointed out. “You don’t have to worry about making either of us jealous.”

“You
do
worry about that,” Cade said. “We can tell.”

Hell,
she thought. Was she resisting for selfish reasons, because making love to two men appealed to her kinky side? She didn’t think that was the reason. Her heart was uneasy, not her sex organs.

“What if I screw this up like I did the protection spell?”

The men exchanged confused glances. “How did you screw that up?” Cade asked.

“I couldn’t come up with an effective chant. I said words but they didn’t work. If I hadn’t noticed that shovel lying there, Mario might have beaten you.”

“But you did notice the shovel,” Arcadius said. “And you turned the tide of the battle by wielding it. That’s the way magic works sometimes—not as you will but as the Almighty does. That’s why light djinn petition Him.”

“That’s not magic. That’s coincidence.”

Arcadius smiled tolerantly. “You performed the right action at the right time. I call that inspiration.”

“Arcadius thinks
he
screwed up,” Cade teased. “Because a girl had to save our butts.”

“I didn’t call her a girl,” Arcadius corrected. “I definitely said ‘woman.’”

If Elyse turned the men back into one person, she’d never hear them bicker this way again. She frowned. She couldn’t rationally explain why that felt like a bad thing.

“I want to do this,” Arcadius said.

“Are you sure you’re in the right frame of mind to decide?” she asked.

“Yes,” he insisted.

She gnawed her lip, then extended her arm for the book. “Let me take a look at the instructions.”

Arcadius handed her the journal with the page left open. Elyse had hoped for something complicated . . . a bunch of ‘eye of newt’-type ingredients they’d have to scour the city for. Instead, the spell seemed simple. The doubled items needed to be placed close together while the spell worker chanted the incantation and pictured them as one.

“It’s simple,” Arcadius said, seeming to read her mind. “After what you’ve pulled off, you should be able to accomplish this with no problem.”

No problem apart from a person she’d grown attached to ceasing to exist.

She reminded herself Arcadius’s personality would be included in the mix, but how much of it would there be? He’d been allocated the smaller portion of their shared spirit. Would she even know he was there?

“Are
you
sure you want to try this?” she asked Cade. “We can’t be certain how it will affect you.”

“It’s now or never,” he answered soberly. “One more hour spent apart might make it impossible.” He bent a little to look into her eyes. “I think we need to do this, sweetheart. I think we’ll be making this situation right for all us.”

So . . . he wanted to do it too. She couldn’t squirm out of it that way. The palms of her hands turned clammy.

“Okay,” she said reluctantly. “You two stand together in the center of the carpet.”

The men stood together, muscular arms bumping each other. She looked at them: so tall, so handsome, their serious expressions almost a perfect match. Cade was dressed casually in a white T-shirt and gray sweats. Arcadius wore his trousers from the night before and a blue polo shirt. Both their shoulders were broad, both their chests beautifully developed. Other than their clothes, there appeared to be no difference between them.

They’re the same,
she tried to tell herself.
You won’t be losing anything.

She took few stiff steps backward and held the book before her.

“Relax,” Cade said. “We have faith you can do this.”

For once Elyse didn’t doubt she could do a spell. Unfortunately, faith was her enemy now, the source of her growing dread.
It’s their choice
, she told herself,
their city that needs them.

She began to read the spell haltingly.

When she’d gone through it twice, Cade let out a quiet gasp. He seemed to be in pain. His face had drained of color and one fist pressed his breastbone. He and Arcadius had locked their free hands together.

“Just keep going,” Cade instructed through gritted teeth.

“Please,” Arcadius seconded in the same clenched tone.

She didn’t want to, but she resumed. The air started thickening, the faintest glow beginning to glimmer around the djinn. Shit, should this feel so wrong? Like her heart was being twisted to face the wrong way around? She remembered she was supposed to visualize the men as one. The instant she had the thought, the glow brightened. The light formed an envelope around them, their divided spirits beginning to rejoin.

Suddenly, a slide show flicked through her mind. She saw herself sitting with Arcadius in the hot sunny garden outside the harem walls. His sly little grin after he’d tricked Cade into spending all day behind their desk. The sparkly slippers he bought for her from the bazaar. The kiss he’d stolen in her apartment.
I want you to myself,
he’d said.
I want to make love to you, without him
. Like it was occurring that very second, she glanced back over her shoulder as she and Cade stepped through the Arch of Triumph portal, seeing the yearning and the worry in Arcadius’s face at being left behind.

That was the moment she first suspected he was in love with her.

Her chest hitched, the ache that gripped it making it hard to speak. She couldn’t read anyway. The words of the spell had blurred. She was crying for Arcadius.

“I
can’t
,” she burst out, flinging the magic journal away from her. “I’m sorry. I love him too!”

She dropped to her knees and sobbed, too wracked to get up or even lift her head. She never let herself fall apart, but she couldn’t help it then.

Please,
she prayed.
Don’t let the spell have worked yet.

Warm male hands gripped her shoulders.

“Shh,” Cade said, pulling her against him. “Hush, honey, it’s all right.”

He rubbed her back, but she couldn’t stop crying.

“Is she ill?” asked Arcadius.

Her head jerked up. It was him. Conflicting reactions warred in his face: alarm, pleasure, and a weensy bit of disapproval that she’d so utterly lost control. She laughed at that through her tears. “You’re still here.”

“I am.” Sighing, he came down on his knees like Cade. “You really love me?”

She turned and flung her arms around him, burying her face in his warm strong neck. He held her back with almost no hesitation. She didn’t care if he did hesitate. She loved that about him too.

“I love you,” she said, squeezing him even harder. “Exactly the way you are.”

“Well,” he said, like she’d astounded him.

She’d astounded herself. Until she fell for Cade, she hadn’t thought she’d give her heart again. Her deceitful departed husband had broken it too well. Now here she was, risking it twice over.

Cade stroked her hair. “It’s all right,” he said, leaning to kiss her temple. “We’ll make it work this way.”

Elyse pushed back. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do the spell. I know it was important.”