Chapter 13
Imust have dozed off but couldn’t have been resting for very long when a nightmare jerked me back awake and I found myself drenched in cold sweat.
My heart slammed so violently against my ribs that it hurt as Rahil’s face still burned behind my eyes.
In the dream he had stood over me, close enough that I could smell the metal of the knife and see every strand of blue in his beard.
The image refused to fade, clinging to me even as the dark room came back into focus, leaving me with the horrible certainty that if I listened hard enough, I might hear his footsteps or feel his hot breath against my neck.
I gulped for air, staring around the empty room. The candles continued to burn, and I wondered how they hadn’t fizzled out yet. Additional light came from the silvery moonbeams streaming into the room, casting patches of moonlight onto Zafir as he slept.
My mouth was incredibly dry and my tongue felt like leather.
I squinted through the darkness for a pitcher of water but didn’t see anything nearby.
I knew there was one on the desk in Zafir’s study; the chain could probably stretch that far if it wasn’t tangled.
Would Zafir wake up if I moved? If the last two days had been an example of a well-rested Zafir, I certainly didn’t want to deal with a cranky, sleep-deprived version the next day.
As quietly as possible, I folded back my blanket and arranged the chain so I could tiptoe out of the room without waking Zafir. He was sprawled on top of his bed coverings, arm with the fire tattoo crooked over his eyes and mouth agape. His breathing was slow and deep, just short of snoring.
Carefully, I placed the chain on the floor so it wouldn’t rattle or clink and silently stepped out into the study.
The only window did a poor job at letting in any moonlight, so I stretched my hands out, blindly feeling for where I thought the water pitcher was.
Finally, my fingers struck what I was hunting for, and I held onto it, searching for a glass with the other hand.
I couldn’t find it.
Too frustrated and thirsty to search any longer, I simply lifted the pitcher to my mouth and drank straight from it. When I lowered it, my fingers brushed against a few items on Zafir’s desk. One felt familiar. I traced my finger around the hard, smooth circle.
The mirror.
I snatched it up and immediately turned it over three times.
The mirror glowed warm, but no answering face appeared.
Did Nadia have her mirror on her? Had Rahil found her and taken it back?
I ran a finger along the crack on its surface.
Perhaps the mirror had been damaged so badly it wouldn’t work anymore, or else the charm lost its efficacy with the vast distance between us.
I waited, and when the mirror faded back to cool, I turned it over three times again, hoping against hope.
Still, there was no response. She could simply be sleeping or wasn’t near the mirror.
“Nadia,” I whispered. “Where are you?”
“So apparently you do go for midnight strolls.” Zafir’s voice came from behind me.
I nearly leapt out of my skin, came close to dropping the mirror, and whirled around. Zafir had emerged from his bedroom, blearily rubbing his eyes as he went over to light an oil lamp.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I answered shortly, hastily shoving the mirror into my pocket while speaking to the armchair so I didn’t have to look at Zafir’s bare chest again.
He looked at my shoulder where Rahil had stabbed me. “I suppose sleep would be difficult for anyone in your situation right now.”
My fist clenched around the mirror in my pocket. Zafir’s eyes drifted down to where my hand was scrunching the dress fabric, then snapped over to where the mirror had been lying on his desk.
“I figured you would take that back at the first opportunity. I’m familiar with two-way mirrors. They’re fairly rare, but I’ve seen a few.”
I took a step back. If only I’d taken the time to swipe potions instead of stealing back my mirror.
“I have no interest in taking it from you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Zafir said, crossing the room to pour himself a glass of water from the pitcher I’d just drunk from. “I’m assuming a friend or family member has the other?”
“Yes,” I told him. “But my sister and I don’t discuss anything that would be of interest to you.”
He drained his glass. “I don’t doubt it. I remember what my sister blathered on about anytime I was forced to listen.”
I fidgeted with the fabric on my skirts. “When you were doing my makeup, you said you had a sister,” I said. “What happened to her?”
“She died about ten years ago.” Zafir’s tone was softer and less dismissive than it normally was.
Some of the ice around my heart melted, but just a little bit. Rahil had tried to tug on my heartstrings too.
“I’m very sorry,” I told him quietly.
Zafir shot me a calculating look, as if trying to decide if I was sincere or not. His shoulders relaxed a little. Apparently deciding to trust that I was genuine, he said, “Thank you. I miss her, as obnoxious as she was from time to time.”
Silence hung in the air, less frosty than before.
“What was her name?”
“Jasmine.”
“May I ask what happened to her?”
“She fought in the recent war against Termarth. She died the day before the war ended.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“They said it was an infection that killed her, actually,” Zafir continued placidly.
“She sustained an injury during battle, but the healer stationed to her platoon had been killed. I was there as an apprentice healer, but I didn’t have the expertise at the time to save her.
I wasn’t allowed to move her, so her infection festered until she finally died. ”
“That’s horrible.”
“Yes, it was. I cared for my sister a great deal, and watching her pass away so painfully was something I’d never wish on anyone.
After her death, I vowed that I would find a way to overpower any illness.
” He gestured at the bottles lining his shelf, and I thought of how Rahil had claimed that Samira wanted something similar.
“Now I’m a reclusive workaholic who thinks of nothing else. ”
He locked his jaw, looking hard at one of the bottles. “You would’ve liked Jasmine. She always loved antagonizing me.”
“It sounds like we would have gotten along splendidly, then.” I couldn’t help my voice getting softer to match his tone. “If my sister had died young, I never would’ve married Rahil. Nadia tried to steal from Rahil, and he said she would go to prison unless she married him.”
Zafir looked up at me. “But then he married you instead?”
“I volunteered to take her place. Nadia’s only seventeen, and Rahil is more than double her age. He agreed to shorten her prison sentence from many years to a single month if I married him.” I smiled wistfully. “Nadia’s birthday is coming up soon and I won’t be there to celebrate with her.”
“So he coerced you into marriage.” Zafir let out a soft noise of disgust.
I laughed. “Hey, at least he didn’t arrest me to try to exploit me for knowledge about a genie. I think your ability to scoff at him is minimal.”
The ghost of a smile flitted across his face as he headed back to the bedroom. “That’s fair. Are you coming back to bed?”
I followed him. “Am I going back to the floor, you mean? Yes, I planned on it.”
“I was rude not to offer you the bed. I’m sorry.”
Zafir was apologizing? I blinked several times. He was apologizing to me, and it sounded sincere. The world must be ending.
I shrugged, trying to stay nonchalant about it. “It’s only fair. I was rude to you all day. I’m not going to take your bed.”
“There’s a cot in the closet; I’ll get it out for you.” Zafir went to the closet, opened it, and pulled out a folded-up cot that he stretched out on the floor for me.
“You made me sleep on the floor when there was a cot readily available? Now I don’t feel as bad for being rude to you.”
“You can be doubly rude tomorrow to make up for it then,” Zafir said. “I deserve it.”
“Why are you more tolerable at night than you are during the day?”
Zafir paused as he unfolded the cot. “I didn’t realize there was such a difference in my behavior. There, that should do it.”
“Thank you.”
“Manners from you? What, are you more tolerable at night as well?” Zafir lay back down on his bed.
“As I matter of fact, I am. I tend to use up all my venom during the day so I’m worn out by night. Don’t worry; I’ll be back to my normal self in the morning.”
“As long as you manage to be charming around Julian, you can save your venom for me.”
I grinned into my pillow. “That sounds like a wonderful idea.”
Zafir yawned so widely that I heard his jaw crack.
“Good night, Zafir.”
“Good night, little viper.”