Wish Quartet- The Complete Series, page 13
part #0.50 of Wish Quartet Series
“So let me get this straight.” Jo stopped, putting her hands on her hips. “You’re telling me I’m the descendant of some ancient witch, one of seven, and you… woke up what was passed on in me by forcibly drafting me into your Society?”
He paused as well, a look of focus overcoming his features. “I suppose that encompasses the rough idea of it. Though your lineage is far more special than a mere witch.”
“Let’s say I buy all this about lineages and magic.” She didn’t really have a compelling reason not to at this point. But Jo hated the feeling of giving in easily. “Why have the Society at all? I only remember you alone coming to grant my wish.”
“As I said, you were a rare case.” Snow stopped walking for a moment, a look of focus overcoming his features. “Very rare,” he added so softly and delicately that it almost took her aback. He resumed his step before she could question. “You, and the other Society members, are not the norm for wishes. To understand the necessity of the Society, you must first understand how wishes work.”
Jo bit back a groan, the almost tender moment forgotten by his continued evasion. Seriously, getting anything Jo could consider a straight answer was like pulling teeth. No man on earth could be pretty enough to be worth all this hassle. And, yet, here he was, making a compelling case.
“When a wish is made, something of equal value must be given. Every choice mortals make divides their reality. If you say yes to a decision, there is a world in which you said no. To grant a wish, I must utilize the very essence of that possibility. I harvest the energy that exists in each alternate future world by destroying it. Then, I take the energy released from that destruction and turn it into the magic that will be used to help see the wish in a single reality.”
Jo remembered reading something about parallel dimensions in quantum mechanics when she’d fallen into a binge-watch of one of Yuusuke’s favorite pop science shows. “Alternate realities?”
“You may be able to think of it that way . . . But know there is only ever one timeline at a time. What it looks like merely changes due to wishes.”
“I didn’t ask for all this,” Jo muttered, even if there was little use in pointing out the fact now. As Ranger agents and office workers floated around her, oblivious to her presence, it was obvious that what was done, was done.
“You asked for your family to be safe, for your friend to be alive. These were the terms.”
“Don’t bring my family into this,” she chastised.
“You don’t want magic, then?” He arched his eyebrows. Jo instantly hated the way she felt under his gaze, like he could see right through her to something that had always been there without her knowledge or permission.
“That’s irrelevant,” Jo insisted. Just because the idea of magic was sparking some curiosity—enough to give her a bit of fire to fuel her through the exhaustion that was trying to smother her—that didn’t excuse his actions. “There’s something called consent, and it’s necessary.”
“I believe your words were: ‘Take me, I’m yours.’”
She had said that. “I didn’t know what I was agreeing to!”
“Would you rather live with magic, or have died? Or would you rather your friend died?” he snapped, frustration creeping to the surface at what Jo could only assume were all her questions.
Her own front wore thin and Jo finally averted her gaze, her hands falling limply to her sides. She wanted to keep up her righteous tirade of inquiry, but she just felt exhausted. It was downright disorienting being a specter in a world she was so clearly—despite all logic—no longer a part of. “Is that supposed to excuse being forced into this agreement?”
“It doesn’t much matter if you think it does or doesn't.” There was the Snow that Wayne had warned her of—a colder, calculating, more calloused man. And, yet, something didn’t feel right about it. It was like a front she wanted to shatter. “There’s no revoking wishes and no leaving the Society. Furthermore, the reality in which you existed is gone forever.”
“What if someone wishes me back?” She just couldn’t leave something be. She had to try to pick it apart.
Snow seemed to legitimately think about the idea for a moment. “No one knows who you are to wish you back. Josephina Espinosa was never born. She never ‘adjusted’ the local ATM at age eleven to dispense credits at will for her friends. She never argued with her mother about what college to attend, knowing she’d never go because she was already embroiled in organized crime. She never kissed her best friend only to have him—”
“Stop.” Her toes were suddenly the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen. “I get it.” Something about having her life boiled down in Snow’s warm voice and icy manner made it all the harder to bear. It was hard to believe what was happening, but Jo was finding denial harder given all the evidence that was right in front of her eyes. “So, if all that never happened, if that Jo never existed . . . What do I do now?”
“You help the Society grant wishes with your magic.”
“Oh, are we finally getting back to my question on why there’s a Society at all?” Jo shoved her hands in her pockets as she finally gave in and let him lead again. Moving was an outlet to the frustrations she was barely keeping contained at the idea of being unwillingly selected for a team—not to mention a team that existed outside time.
Snow either didn’t hear, or ignored her sass entirely. “I can only grant wishes once the world is close enough to seeing the wish happen naturally. Otherwise, I risk tearing the very fabric of reality.” Snow paused, clearly reflecting on the convolution of the statement. “Think of it this way: If the world is at state A, and a wisher wants to see it at state C, I need the Society to help move the world to a B state before a wish can be granted.”
“So,” Jo started, trying to logic through what he was saying in a framework she understood. “If someone hates the prime minister and wants to see them assassinated, they make a wish.”
Snow nodded, allowing her to continue.
“State A would be the world where the prime minister is alive and well.”
“And will keep living,” he added. “State C would be a world where the prime minister is dead.”
“But the B state . . .”
“In your example, those in the Society would assist with maneuvering the prime minister into a perilous situation, perhaps.”
Jo thought about it a long moment. “Not just kill him?”
“I am the Wish Granter. Any changes made outside of reducing that margin by any member of the Society other than myself can risk serious implications for the overall success of the wish.”
“Gotta keep yourself useful?” She grinned smugly. “Everyone else is doing all the heavy lifting . . . Jumping from A to C is too hard for you, so you make it so that you’re the only one who can flip the final switch?”
“That jump is dangerously easy,” Snow corrected ominously.
Jo was distracted from any follow-up.
The narrow, office-lined hallways of the Ranger compound opened up into a large meeting space. Men and women sat at round tables, eating, working, talking—all oblivious to the specters in their midst. Snow and Jo walked the length of the room to the wall of glass that overlooked a much more familiar sight.
Picturesque hills rising into purple mountains could stay in their postcard-land of the Society of Wishes. This was the world she knew.
Dallas swept out before her underneath the towered headquarters of the Rangers. The gray sky loomed over a metropolis of straight-lined, industrial buildings. Every tower competed for light by trying to smother the next in its shadow. Other official government buildings bore large flags with two horizontal bands of red and white and one vertical band of blue with a single white star and five blue stars inside—an adjustment made to the original Texan flag from back in the days of pre-WIII USA. Highways stacked over highways, congested by a meaningless rat race that Jo had long avoided.
She’d always placed herself outside the norms of conventional society. Why should it be any harder to place herself outside of reality itself?
“Is this real?” she couldn’t help but ask, motioning to the cityscape.
“It is, for now.”
“Until someone makes another wish?”
“Possibly.”
“How many?” Jo’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “How many wishes have there been that have changed the world itself?”
“Too many to count.”
So, nothing was real. Nothing had ever been real. It was all luck of the draw crafted by a handful of people who were playing at power by making wishes using an ancient ritual they didn’t even understand. At least, she hadn’t understood it. Not really. Not at all.
Jo remembered what Wayne had said: “Reality is what we make it.” This was supposed to be her new reality now. An odd existence outside time and space, where she was magic and nothing beyond the Society was permanent.
Her mother came to mind. Jo gripped her sweatshirt over her stomach, trying to quell the uneasiness there. Could her mother blink out of existence with one wish gone awry? If Snow was to be believed, her mother didn’t even know who she was. Tears at the thought prickled her eyes dangerously.
“I’m ready to go back now,” Jo forced out the words.
“Back?”
“To the mansion.” Jo swallowed hard and wiped her cheeks, making sure no more rogue tears had continued their bold escape. Too much information swirled in her head to process at once. But the truth of everything Snow said all boiled down to one word. “Home.”
Because Magic
The rest of the walk through the compound was done in silence.
Snow led Jo back to the supply closet where she’d started her futile attempt at escape. She contemplated telling Snow it was locked, but before she had the chance, he reached for the handle and wrapped his hand around it. The moment those elegant fingers made contact with metal, the door shifted, like a veil giving way. One second it was the wooden door of the supply closet; the next it was the solid steel door of the briefing room.
It was almost too quick to see, like watching a hologram glitch out of existence: blink and you miss it. But as if the little bit of magic was commonplace for him—which Jo had no doubt it was—Snow merely pulled the door open without a word and ushered her inside.
“How did you get it to turn back?” Jo asked, clearing her throat a bit when she heard how hoarse and exhausted she still sounded. “When I tried before, nothing happened.”
“Intention,” Snow answered as he closed the door behind him. “The door to return never left. You simply believed it had.” Still not looking at her, Snow headed back through the briefing room.
Jo hovered a moment, unsure if she should follow. But she wasn’t about to try the Door again, not until she had a little more information on it. With nowhere else to go, she remained in tow behind him.
“Next time I’m out there, what do I do? Do I just clap my hands or click my heels and believe?” Jo sniffed, latching on to the concept with her usual vigor; a sense of purpose would help, surely. Learning as much as she could about the Door was a good place to start. Perhaps the next time she went through it, she’d find a way home. Or perhaps it’d just make everything feel a little less overwhelming.
Again, that soft chuckle of Snow’s graced her ears, her heart fluttering a bit at the sound. “If that offers the assistance you require,” he said. “But as long as your intent is to return, the Door will always be there to grant you access.”
Jo nodded, even if the explanation lacked some of the more logistical requirements she was familiar with. Part of her reality now came with “magic” as an explanation, and that was something the more logical side of her mental framework was simply going to have to get used to.
About halfway back to the Four-Way, an unfamiliar woman stepped out from where she had been leaning against the wall, blocking their path. She looked to be Jo’s height, Japanese, and about as attractive as every single person Jo had met so far. She had short black hair, combed to one side, and the sort of sturdy muscularity that reminded Jo of a swimmer.
The woman turned in the direction of the Four-Way and cupped a hand around her mouth.
“Snow has her!” she called out, presumably to Wayne or Nico. There was a small flash of guilt at the thought that Nico might have gone looking for her, even going so far as to recruit other members of the Society in his search. But she’d needed to try to escape, needed to find out on her own, even if knowing was less than ideal. “Ignorance is bliss” just wasn’t how she did things.
“Takako,” Snow said, grabbing the woman’s attention. Takako turned to face them both, locking eyes with Jo only for a moment before offering Snow her full focus.
“Snow,” she said, face stoic.
All of a sudden, there was a hand at the small of Jo’s back, her shoulders tensing at the abrupt contact. She glanced up at Snow in surprise, but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he just gave her a slight push in Takako’s direction, his hand falling away in the same motion.
“Accompany her back to the others?” It was formed as a question, but even Jo could tell it was more of an order. Takako nodded, seemingly used to the unequal balance of power. This time, when she locked eyes with Jo, she offered her a small, barely-there smile. It might have been worn purely for Jo’s benefit, and it didn’t last long, but Jo was grateful for it nonetheless.
When Takako turned to lead her away, Snow stepped ahead. For a second, Jo considered saying something, possibly thanking him for explaining things, or for not leaving her panicked and stranded, but in the end she decided against it.
As if sensing her, Snow slowed and turned. Jo’s chest tightened despite herself. It’d been way too long since she was last around attractive men; she was like a cat in heat, heart fluttering at every turn. Snow spoke right to Takako: “Look after her.”
Takako gave a small nod. Jo didn’t miss the curious glance in her direction, but the woman said nothing more.
Jo watched him walk away, eyes following the steady stride, the length of his frame, until he turned the corner of the stairs to the right of the Four-Way and vanished from sight.
It was like dealing with a ghost, watching him float in and out of her life in the same breath, haunting her memory with the sound of soft laughter and unexpected kindness only to be cut short by the edge of something rough. It was something that seemed dangerous to even think of, never the less want.
“Jo?” Takako’s voice wrenched her back and she could feel her face heating. Takako was already a couple of steps ahead of her, staring at her with an eyebrow raised in confusion. “Are you coming?”
“Yeah, sorry.” Jo swallowed down the embarrassment of being caught staring and hurried to catch up. The other woman didn’t seem like the conversationalist type, but Jo struck one away, not quite ready to be alone with her thoughts. “So, your name’s Takako?”
Another nod, her face remaining passive, not quite cold but definitely far from open.
“Takako Kanazawa.”
“Cool,” Jo said eventually, when it looked like that was all she was going to get. A thought filtered in past all of the chaos her walk with Snow had kicked up, and Jo rolled with it. “So, um. What year are you from?” Snow had mentioned everyone joining the Society at different times throughout the thousand-ish years of its existence, but as far as she’d seen, outside of Wayne, everyone she’d met so far looked to be dressed in the sort of retro-grunge, industrial, uninspired fashions of the 2050s.
When Jo glanced over at Takako, her eyes looked distant. Maybe that had been an intrusive question? Before she could dwell on it for too long, however, Takako said, “I was born in 1998.”
Despite expecting an unbelievable answer, Jo couldn’t help the rush of surprise. Takako appeared close to her age, maybe a little older, but technically she was old enough to be Jo’s mother. In an attempt to regain composure, Jo picked up the pace a bit, stepping past her.
“Wow. Looking good for fifty-nine.” As she glanced over her shoulder with a smirk, she was met with a look of surprised amusement. Jo considered that a win; little victories were going to help her get through this.
The moment the two of them walked into the kitchen and lounge area, she was met with the sound of billiards being played and murmured conversations being had—conversations that stopped as soon as the room became aware of her presence. As Jo scanned the small gathering of people—all men save her and Takako—she caught sight of Wayne at the pool table and Nico having a conversation with someone by the stove. The other two faces were unfamiliar.
The man playing pool with Wayne had long, black hair and unusually defined features. Even from a distance, she could see a striking green tint to his eyes, the color all but popping against his russet skin. The way he looked at her was almost calculating, like he was looking not just at her but into her, seeing something beyond just her physical presence. It reminded Jo of the way Snow observed the world around him, but with a much more clinical, emotionless nature.
The other man, currently leaning against the kitchen counter next to Nico, had a mess of curly hair in a color similar to burnt sienna, one side of it shaved in strips between tight braids. The shade of it seemed to brighten beneath the natural light flooding the kitchen, popping against his bark-brown skin and seemingly highlighting his sharp and almost elongated features. He too had a sort of supernatural quality. Nearly identical to her own humanness, and yet, different.
