"Vitesh, thanks," Walt croaked, looking more emotional than I ever recalled him being as a teen. "I know you're doing all this for Adam."

"A Jinn is bound by a wish. I am fulfilling the most important wish as well as helping an old acquaintance," I answered truthfully. "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have heard the voice of my Chosen."

"Chosen?" Verun cocked his head with a cute frown. "Nonetheless, thank you. For my Guardian Mate and Adam."

"I need no thanks. Rest," I prompted and followed Wei out into the hallway. A facility as big as he could afford to spare had at least a hundred rooms for those afflicted. We passed sobbing spouses, solemn pack members and even some who were recognising the signs of healing. Wei would announce the results and the Wish in effect when the doctors checked for sure that the poisons' effects were rendered moot. Up a flight of wide stairs, Wei's office had two solemn weres stationed there. The woman in her suit of leather and holding a deadly-looking machete leered at me as we passed them.

Once the doors slid shut behind us, I took the offered seat at the low tea table. We weren't sticklers for traditional tea serving so he poured us each a very strong cocoa blend, grimacing at the bland, dark taste. "It keeps you awake," He offered with a weak smile.

"Thank you," I accepted the cup and looked over his shoulder. In every office, he hung a portrait. The woman in the gilded frame didn't have a name inscribed but I knew Wei's first child had been born before the woman 'died'. The first and only woman that Wei had ever loved looked over us with a sweet smile and electric yellow eyes. They had once shone with sparks, Wei often told his son.

"Xian'hi would be so happy. I've prayed to her that this affliction may be cured and it seems I forgot I had a Jinni as ally and friend," He choked on a laugh of disbelief. His eyes glistened as he looked up to her, at the end of his tether and he gulped down a heavy mouthful of the rich cocoa. "It's been a century and two years to this very date. It is only fitting miracles happen on the day of her parting."

"She is beautiful," I murmured, knowing that look. My father had looked upon old portraits of my mother before he decided to Pass on with her.

"Very. She was not what my family desired in my Mate. She came from a weak line of Thunder Mages. She could create the most lovely lightning, though," He smiled fondly, the lip of his cup at his mouth and being drained in seconds. "We were happy for a time. Thirty years. Until my sister."

His breath got ragged and I grimaced. Ah, no one pretended to not know of the infamous feud that divided his family, causing this loving man to turn his back on them and his blood ties, to remove himself to a foreign land and search for his own place in the world. It seemed it centred around the woman that graced us with her spirit of loving patience. Wei Shun had painted these himself, the way the brush strokes curved her lips into a smile and the warm eyes tilted into happy crescents.

"Mai Ying thought herself above us, above the power of a Mage. Older, yes, but she had no respect for others. My Mate was pregnant with what was to be our second child when she... Mai Ying challenged her to a fight to the death. Xian'hi refused to allow me to give up my life in return for hers."

The far-away glaze in his eyes hurt more than hearing the pain behind every syllable. He fought back tears. "I watched... restrained and frothing in rabid hatred as my sister just... stabbed her. Stabbed my mate and unborn child through the stomach. I didn't get to hold her as she lay dying. Her face wasn't contorted or in pain, yet she whispered that she loved me, that she loved our sons. The very words she whispered before she took her last breath were that they'd be back to complete our family, to heal us once more. I have yet to see her but I have hope."

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