Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions (Wicked Lovely 5.50)

“Why’s that?”

“It just seems . . . wrong. I’ve had it used on me before. I can’t believe I was going to do it to someone else. To use magic and find out about people I . . .”

“Love?” I say eagerly.

“No.” Lawrence cuts me off quickly. “Not even close. People I’m interested in.”

“But it was part of our deal,” I say, a little frantic—how am I supposed to get kissed without Lawrence’s help?

“Relax, I’ll still help you,” he says. “Although really, you could introduce yourself to people. You don’t need me, you know. Just try it.” We stand together for a moment while I think about the possibility of walking around, talking on my own.

What would I talk about? I’ve been to this world plenty of times, but I can count the number of conversations I’ve had with humans on one hand.

“Lawrence?” a voice from behind the bar asks. It’s a boy I don’t recognize, with short hair and blue eyes that seem too bright for his face. Lawrence nods at him.

“Sampson, hey,” he says. I turn away from them. I can do this. I walk toward the other side of the room, arms crossed. First person I see wishing to talk to me, I’ll introduce myself to. It’ll be easy. I turn and look, and a wish seems to grab me. It tugs at me desperately, the longing to talk to me hot behind the boy’s eyes.

Behind Jeffrey’s eyes.

LAWRENCE

Sampson is confident, certain. While everyone else looks at his sculptures with a slightly bewildered expression, he looks thrilled. He talks me through how he creates them, and by the time I turn around I’ve lost track of Juliet. This place has so many walls that unless she’s standing in the main hallway, I won’t be able to see her. I notice Jeffrey has disappeared as well.

“Are you okay?” Sampson asks. “You’re not looking for a way to run out of here, are you? Because that’s occasionally the reaction to my long explanations about sculpting.”

I laugh. “No, not at all. I was just looking for my friend. The girl I came in with?”

“Pretty, dark-haired girl?”

“That’s her.” I nod. “Let me go make sure she’s not getting into trouble. . . .” Sampson nods and claps me on the back as I walk away, back to the room with the dog sculpture.

JULIET

“Did you lose Lawrence?” Jeffrey says, glancing at his hands like I make him nervous.

“No, he was talking to someone else,” I answer. Now that I’ve seen one wish, it’s impossible not to see dozens of them flooding out of Jeffrey. He likes me. He wants to hold my hand. He wants to see what kind of music I listen to and know if I saw the play he was in.

“Oh. Hey—have you been in this room yet?” he asks, pointing toward another gallery room. There are paintings in there, mostly portraits of the sculptures that are to the front, but the room is darkened so that the lights on the paintings shine bright in comparison. I shake my head.

Lawrence wants Jeffrey. I know this.

Jeffrey wants me.

I want to be kissed. I want to break the spell. The spell that makes jinn different than humans, the spell that keeps us from understanding love. I want it gone.

I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, then follow Jeffrey into the darkened room.

LAWRENCE

Juliet isn’t like Jinn. He was cocky, overly sure at first. He always had a plan, till Viola turned it upside down. I’m sure Juliet can take care of herself—she’s a genie, after all. Still, it makes me nervous that I can’t find her, knowing people can see her—I’m more protective than I realized, I guess. I set my wine down on the edge of a table and weave through the small crowd. I keep an eye out for Jeffrey as well, wondering if he’s looking for me.

I hope he is.

JULIET

“I have to say,” Jeffrey muses, “there is no way I would hang these things in my apartment.”

“Yeah . . . me either,” I answer honestly—we don’t really have art in my world. Certainly not art like this.