A Universe of Wishes Read online

  “Look—I need a way to harvest wishes, and you obviously want some of your own. So how about we strike up a deal? I get to come here at night and take the magic from these bodies, and in return, you get three wishes from me.”

  The boy’s eyes widened, whether greedy at the idea of more wishes or stunned by the outlandish request. Maybe both. He looked at the figurine in his hand, turning it around in his fingers. “Would this count as one of those three wishes?”

  “Yes.”

  The boy thought some more, biting his lower lip. Finally, he sighed.

  “If you make this wish come true,” the boy said, holding up the figurine, “then yes.”

  Thorn smiled in victory. He slipped the obsidian from his pocket and felt the dance of magic inside, his prized universe of wishes, a handful of potential and possibility.

  He pulled on a thread of magic, teasing it from its swirling shape and out through the glassy rock. He wrapped that thread around the little figurine, never taking his eyes off it. His lips moved soundlessly, crafting the shape and size of his wish, the parameters of its probability. The magic flared, no longer dormant as it had been between Mr. Lichen’s ribs, but glowing now with purpose.

  The boy gasped as the figurine stretched like a housecat and sat back on its haunches in the center of his palm, looking up at him as its striped tail swished from side to side. He lifted it to his eyes and grinned, a world of amazement on his face. Wonder, Thorn realized, was beautiful; it banished what was impossible and made room for belief. When he thought about it, he supposed that could very well be a force stronger than most things—even wishes.

  He met Thorn’s gaze with all the weight of that wonder. Thorn felt a quiver of it in his chest, and it was warm.

  The boy held out his hand, the one not holding the tiger. Thorn hesitated, then took it in his own. They shook.

  “Welcome to Cypress’s Funeral Parlor,” the boy said.

  * * *

  The boy’s name was Sage. His family owned the parlor, and he’d grown up among coffins and caskets, scalpels and forceps, crystals and incense. The dead did not bother him. In fact, they were considered something sacred, making Thorn’s treatment of poor Mr. Lichen all the more atrocious. Sage made him help stitch the body back up and return it to its capsule before he was allowed to leave for the night.

  But Thorn returned the next night, and Sage was waiting for him. The little tiger prowled on his shoulder, occasionally batting at a curl of his hair.

  “How many wishes do you have stored in that thing?” Sage asked, referring to the obsidian.

  Thorn made a face. “Why, so you can haggle more out of me?”

  “I think three is quite enough.” He reached up to pet the little tiger, who allowed it a moment before biting Sage’s finger. “Ow. No, I’m only curious. I’m not sure why you harvest them if you don’t plan on using them.”

  “I’m going to use them,” Thorn mumbled. “That’s why I’m saving them.”

  For a wish that was bigger than any other he’d made before. A wish that in all likelihood was too improbable, a thing not even belief could conjure.

  But he had to try.

  Sage shrugged his unoccupied shoulder. “All right, then.”

  Thorn frowned at Sage’s back as they made their way down into the morgue. He’d never met someone like this before, all curiosity and no calculation. Who else on earth would think three wishes was “quite enough”? For that matter, why waste one of those precious three wishes on a tiny tiger that bit you if you petted it too much?

  Sage tapped the jade lantern on and lit the incense inside a thurible. Its cloudy perfume rose in thin ribbons, infusing the morgue with a dark, hazy scent, like a night without stars. Thorn caught hints of anise and cedar, and the musky, earthen undertone of myrrh.

  He followed Sage to a capsule at the far end of the room. Sage opened it to reveal an older woman with long silver hair.

  Sage donned gloves of fine black leather and wheeled over a tray of tools. “Where is the magic located, exactly?”

  Thorn told him, and he watched as the morgue boy got to work. He was quickly bewitched by him: the focus that hooded his gray-green eyes, the steady, methodical way in which his hands worked. The tiger was still sitting on his shoulder, peering down as if it were just as enraptured as Thorn.

  When the woman’s torso was exposed, her ribs standing stark against the incense-tinged air, Thorn felt a curious trickle of self-consciousness go through him. No one had ever observed him do this before. Sage stood on the other side of the crystal slab and looked on just as intently as Thorn had been watching him, which he guessed was only fair.

  He licked his lips, tasting the first vestiges of magic as he pulled the obsidian from his pocket. The woman’s magic was weaving across her ribs; unlike Mr. Lichen’s, it seemed restless, and Thorn wondered if she’d been more attuned to the secret power within her than most people tended to be. He’d noticed that women’s connection to magic was always a little stronger, a little more prominent.

  Easing the magic across her ribs took a few minutes. It was stubborn, but eventually it gave in and curled itself within the safety of the obsidian. Thorn stepped back and nodded, signaling that he was done.

  Sage looked confused. “That’s it? But I didn’t see anything.”

  “Did you feel anything?”

  “Maybe a bit of goose bumps, but it’s cold down here.”

  Thorn shrugged. “Most humans don’t know how to pay attention to magic. If you focused, you’d probably be able to sense it better.”

  Sage glanced behind him, at the jade lantern and its steady emerald glow. “So…you say that humans don’t know about magic. But the stones are magic, aren’t they?”

  “In a sense. At least, it’s the only form of magic that’s readily accepted. We excavate the stones and use them for their different properties, but it’s chalked up to rich soil or unique mining conditions.” Thorn snorted. “If only.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This.” He held up the obsidian. “This is what makes the stones magical.”

  Sage looked between the body and the rock in Thorn’s hand. “I don’t understand.”

  “People go on living with this inside them. Different abilities, different strengths.” He touched his side, where he could feel his own little galaxy, warm and sleeping within him, primed for wish making. “Most don’t know about it, or they can’t tap into it. So when they die, what happens? They’re buried in the earth. As they decompose, that magic strays from them and is absorbed into the earth around them. That’s what makes the stones, like lapis for water dowsing, and ruby for heat.” He gestured at the lamp. “Jade for light. They’re just different abilities we carry.”

  Sage’s brows furrowed as he thought. “I suppose that makes sense,” he said after a long moment. “But if it’s true, then how do you know about it? How come no one else does?”

  Thorn hesitated. Thankfully, he was spared by the sudden growling of his stomach. He flushed as Sage gave him that dimple-inducing smile.

  “I figured you might be a little starved,” the morgue boy said.

  They cleaned up the body and returned it to its capsule, then ascended from the incense-choked morgue to the cooler, cleaner air of the ground floor. There, Sage produced a basket from under his desk. They sat on the floor by the display coffin, and Thorn watched him carefully set out jars and napkin-wrapped foods. His stomach ached with eagerness.

  He didn’t want to admit that, yes, he was more than a little starved. Living on the streets tended to have that effect. Thorn had been lucky enough to find places to sleep: first a derelict apartment (which was, unfortunately, now being repaired), then the bed of a pretty girl who shared the leftovers from the inn where she worked (until she found another pretty girl who showered her with prettier presents),
and now he holed up in a small office within an abandoned warehouse.

  His mouth watered as Sage uncovered each item. Before Thorn could tell himself to wait, he was tearing into it all: slabs of thick bacon with mint and tamarind jellies, slices of rosewater-soaked apples, soft herb-encrusted cheese, crusty brown bread slathered with fresh butter and sprinkled with black salt.

  Sage leaned back on his hands and watched him with a small smile. When Thorn realized he was making a spectacle of himself, he swallowed his mouthful and quickly wiped his fingers on a napkin.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, blushing.

  Sage laughed. It was a strangely lively sound for the space they were in, a clear, ringing song. He leaned forward and dug through the basket, pulling out two green bottles. Thorn perked up at the sight of honey beer and eagerly took the bottle Sage handed him.

  The first sip was like slipping into a cool lake in the height of summer. “I haven’t had this in so long,” he said.

  Sage leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The little tiger was prowling around their picnic, occasionally batting at crumbs. It found a large kernel of black salt and began to play with it, knocking it about like a ball.

  “The city guard’s been on the lookout for a grave robber,” Sage said quietly. “A boy with white hair.”

  Thorn lowered the bottle of honey beer and stared at him. Sage stared back. Thorn felt oddly vulnerable; exposing your hunger, your thirst, could do that to a person. But it was more than that—he was at this boy’s mercy, kept safe only by the promise of two more wishes.

  And when those wishes were granted, then what?

  “I won’t report you,” Sage said, reading the despair on his face. “That’s not what I was implying. I just meant that you should be careful.”

  “I’ve survived this long,” he muttered.

  Sage nodded. He picked up his bottle and clinked it against Thorn’s.

  “To wishes.”

  Thorn hesitated, then clinked his bottle with Sage’s again.

  “To the dead.”

  * * *

  It became a routine: Thorn spent his days sleeping and his nights harvesting wishes with Sage. The morgue boy would open the bodies, and Thorn would extract the magic from within them. Sometime in the night they’d have a picnic, which was usually Thorn’s only meal.

  Thorn also told Sage more about magic. “You’ve heard the legend of the titans, haven’t you?” he asked after Sage inquired about humans having magic in the first place.

  “They were gods, right?”

  “In a sense. They were great beings of magic. One of them died and fell to Earth, and the Earth swallowed him.”

  “And his skeleton makes up the core of the Earth.” Sage nodded. “I’ve heard the story.”

  “Well, it’s not a story. When the titan decomposed, he released all the magic within him into the soil. Humans ate the plants and crops that came from that magic-enriched soil.” Thorn gestured at the balsamic-glazed tomato slices before them. “The magic found a place to sit inside them, unused and dormant.”

  “So you’re saying my garden is magic?”

  Sage had told him about the overgrown garden he kept behind his family’s house, crawling with tomatoes and grapevines, wild with patches of strawberry and pumpkin. It was where most of the fare for their picnics came from.

  “Yes, to some degree.”

  Sage’s eyes were wide, and his mouth perked up like a child who’s learned a secret. “Fascinating.”

  Thorn wasn’t sure if Sage actually believed him, but he seemed happy to indulge the possibility, which was enough.

  Days passed, until eventually, Thorn began to worry about when Sage would demand his second wish. The morgue boy didn’t seem eager to call it in yet, content with his first wish. But it still put Thorn on edge. What would he ask for next? Something innocent, like the little tiger, or something sinister? Or maybe he was secretly greedy and would ask for money or jewels or power.

  But still they crept down to the morgue and ate their picnics, and still Sage kept his second wish to himself.

  They were eating sugared berries one night when Thorn thought to ask, “When did you start doing this?” He nodded toward the morgue door.

  Sage licked the sugar from his fingertips. “I think I was five.”

  “Five?”

  “It’s a family business. My parents wanted me to get used to it. I’ll admit, it was scary at first. I had nightmares for a while. But the more I watched my parents work, the more I came to realize it’s an art. It’s sacred, what we do. The dead are to be respected.”

  Thorn winced. What he and Sage were doing wasn’t exactly respecting the dead.

  Sage must have interpreted his expression. “It’s not as if we’re desecrating them,” he said fairly, then quirked an eyebrow. “Not after Mr. Lichen, anyway.”

  “I apologized, didn’t I?”

  Sage made a humming noise and stared out the window. It was high on the wall, casting moonlight down onto the remains of their picnic. The little tiger was curled up within a mushroom cap.

  “Thank you,” Thorn said after a moment. “For helping me do this.”

  Sage looked at him. His eyes were pale and vivid, moss climbing over gravestones. Thorn had come to realize that Sage had his own scent, beneath the incense that crept into his clothes: something warm and clean like rosemary or lavender. When he stood or sat next to him, Thorn could smell it, and feel the heat of his body, pleasant after standing so long next to cold crystal.

  “Thank you for showing me magic,” Sage replied softly.

  And then, somehow, they were crossing the small distance. The warmth of Sage’s mouth on his was another reminder that Thorn was alive, that he was made up of so many parts, from the wild pumping of his heart to the buzzing tips of his fingers. He felt as if he had been spooled out into the universe only to come back to a body that was lighter and more extraordinary than the one before it.

  Sage’s lips tasted like sugar. Thorn ran his tongue over them and collected all the stray granules, and allowed Sage to do the same to him, as if they were sweet things to be savored. And then they were kissing in earnest, beneath the waning moonlight and an open display coffin.

  When they pulled back a few minutes later, Thorn was out of breath and happy for it. He was dazed, drunk on the heat of Sage’s mouth. The honey beer seemed flavorless and weak in comparison.

  Sage watched him under dark lashes, fingers brushing back Thorn’s pale hair. Thorn allowed himself to be touched and petted, distantly thinking that these same hands opened up the dead. But they were so attuned to living flesh, from the pulse at Thorn’s neck to the soft underside of his jaw.

  “I wish you would tell me who you really are,” Sage whispered. “And why you’re doing this.”

  Thorn’s eyes shot open. Sage looked confused at his shock until he realized exactly what he’d said, slapping a hand over his mouth.

  But it was too late. The magic began to seep out of the obsidian in his pocket, recognizing the cadence of a promised wish. Just as the thread of it had wound around the tiger figurine, it looped around Thorn’s neck, tickling his throat with words. Thorn clenched his teeth and kept them trapped for as long as he could, eyes burning at the strain, at his inner plea of No, please, stop.

  There was no fighting the magic. It wrenched his jaw open, and the words spilled out.

  “My name is Rowan Briar,” he said, his voice the monotone of one reciting information. “I come from a family of researchers who lived outside the city. They tested the properties of the stones until they realized the secret behind them. They discovered the magic that created them.”

  Sage knelt there, hands held up ineffectively between them, unsure how to make Thorn stop. He couldn’t wrench his gaze away from Thorn’s face, tight with grief and hu
miliation.

  “They wanted to tell everyone,” Thorn went on. “They wanted to spread the word. But the owners of the stone quarries didn’t want the truth getting out. One of them hired a mercenary. He killed my parents.”

  A tear began to roll down his face, body shaking at the strain of trying to shut up. “They would’ve killed me too, but my mom helped me escape before they got into the lab. I ran to the city and hid, and I’ve been here ever since. I knew about the magic—I overheard them talking about it often enough—so I decided to test it out. I dug up my first body. I made my first wish.

  “But wishes have properties, like anything else. You can’t make a wish on yourself. I tried to wish to change my hair, so that it wouldn’t stand out, but it didn’t work. I wished to go back in time, to save my parents. That didn’t work either. I wished for money, for food, for strength, and none of it came. So instead, I wished for the next body to be dug up, and that came true.

  “I wanted—” His voice faltered, but the magic pressed the words on regardless. “I wanted to bring them back. My parents. But a single wish couldn’t achieve that, so I needed more of them. A whole universe of wishes. I began to collect them, hoping I could get enough. And I’m still collecting. That’s why I came here. Why I continue to come here.”

  The magic lifted from him, and Thorn took a deep, shuddering breath. The silence after his words was terrible. Sage was no longer looking at him, but rather at Thorn’s pocket where the obsidian was hidden. After a moment, Sage opened his mouth.

  “Thorn…Rowan…”

  Thorn pushed himself to his feet. He was unsteady, his head spinning from the aftereffects of the magic. It was usually sweet, but now it tasted bitter and ashy.

  “I’m sorry,” Sage hurried to say. “I didn’t mean—Thorn, wait!”

  Thorn ran out of the funeral parlor, into the city cloaked in midnight. The air was thick from recent rainfall, the paved streets dark with water. He couldn’t draw enough of that ozone-heavy air into his lungs, but he kept running, driven by a single stabbing thought: Get away.