Chapter 25
Zafir’s hand closed possessively around my wrist and he pulled me away from Julian, his stride quick and unforgiving.
“The whole point of you giving me all those lessons was for me to charm Julian, and the second I was getting close, you came in and ruined it,” I snapped at Zafir the moment we were alone, pulling my hand out of his grip. “Don’t you want our plan to succeed?”
He didn’t answer.
“Zafir, I’m talking to you!”
“I know!” he burst out. “I know. I heard you. I just need time to think.”
“Think about what? We need this to work.”
He exhaled sharply. “I know.”
We walked on, and that same awkward silence hovered over us.
“Thank you,” Zafir said curtly after we’d left the courtyard.
“For what?”
“For sticking up for me back there,” he said in clipped tones. “Julian was right: I was not myself.”
“I know the feeling.” I glanced at him sidelong as we entered the building and strode down the corridor leading to Zafir’s quarters. “You could’ve let him kiss me, you know.”
Zafir’s knuckles became white as he balled his hands into fists. “No, I couldn’t have. I told you before, I don’t share well.”
We walked the rest of the way in silence. Several times, Zafir opened his mouth and took a deep breath like he was about to say something but inevitably would exhale sharply a moment later and clamp his mouth shut.
I wished he would break the silence but also couldn’t blame him.
I couldn’t think of anything to say, either.
We had been so close to getting Julian to kiss me, and Zafir had stopped it.
Though to be fair, I didn’t want to be shared either.
I wanted the Zafir from back in the moment when he had kissed me so passionately.
I wanted the man whose gaze lingered every time he did my makeup and who helped my sister.
The moment we got into his study, Zafir began haphazardly adding ingredients into a bottle without once looking at a recipe. He finished making his potion so quickly that I barely had time to shut the door, and by the time I’d gotten to his side, he had downed the entire bottle.
“What was that?” I asked, eyeing the bottle.
Zafir’s face shifted from angry to cool and calculated. “Nothing important.”
I picked up the bottle and gave it a sniff. Stillheart, I’d bet my life on it. A strange combination of anger and longing battled within me, and I was surprised to find tears threatening to build up in my eyes.
If Zafir had felt anything for me, he wouldn’t anymore.
I glared as the last remaining droplets of the dark potion clinging to the bottle’s rounded interior.
With that in his system, he might not be upset with me or jealous of Julian, but at least he would still care.
If only I could rip that potion from his books and memory and purge it forever from all existence.
If only he wanted to feel something for me.
Suddenly, I understood his desire to take the Stillheart every day.
This pain was too great to bear. The moment Zafir’s back was turned, I tilted the bottle up to my own mouth, hoping that the last few droplets would do something, anything, to take the edge off my pain.
There was barely enough to moisten my lips.
I waited for some of the pain to disappear, but it remained as sharp and agonizing as it had felt from the first moment.
“You take the bed,” Zafir told me calmly. “I’ll sleep on the cot.”
“Why?”
“It’s my way of apologizing for how I acted earlier.”
“Good move.” I’d been envious of the plush bedding ever since seeing his bed. “I accept.”
After lying down, I wished I’d refused. The room had never felt smaller, Zafir’s bed smelled exactly like him, and it was impossible to prevent myself from closing my eyes and inhaling deeply.
Our kiss replayed in my mind over and over until I thought it would drive me insane.
I couldn’t allow myself to get distracted by thinking about anything other than returning to Brisden and stopping Rahil from killing more girls.
A dreadful thought slunk into my head. Rahil had put up reward posters for me, and when they hadn’t yielded any results, he put up posters for Nadia. He couldn’t be targeting her for his next wife, could he?
Knowing Rahil, he could, and he likely would if I didn’t do anything about it. But there was nothing I could do from here.
The silvery moonlight bled through the window and cast illuminated squares across the floor. One fell onto the cot, where Zafir was tossing and turning, interspersed by exhales that came out in long streams of air.
“You’re sulking,” I said aloud. “And it’s making it difficult to sleep.”
His voice had lost the jealous, clipped quality from earlier and was now infuriatingly calm. “I’m not sulking. This cot is simply uncomfortable.”
I rotated and propped myself up onto my elbow so my hair slipped down over my shoulder. “You shouldn’t just take the Stillheart elixir every time you feel any emotion.”
“Your concern is noted, but I can take care of myself.”
It took a long time to fall asleep, and as Zafir’s breathing pattern never changed, I assumed that I wasn’t the only one lying awake. I gently drew a thumb across my lower lip, where I could still feel the phantom traces of the kiss that never should have happened.
What had I done when I kissed Zafir?
Nightmares came when I finally fell asleep, and I was plagued the entire night by images of my time in Rahil’s forbidden room, all flashing through my mind at lightning speed—the portraits, the oil lamp, Rahil standing over me, stabbing me…
More than once, I woke up, sweating all over and my breath coming in short, ragged bursts.
I could still feel the blinding pain of the dagger entering my shoulder.
I massaged the spot where a thin scar still marked my skin.
A few inches lower, and it would have punctured my heart.
As much as Zafir had mocked the absurdity of my desperate wish, at least the genie had saved my life.
I tried to distract myself by picturing Zafir in my position—hand on a magic lamp and a blade slicing through the air toward him.
Maybe he would have closed every loophole as he made a perfectly worded and wholly unemotional wish and gotten stabbed in the process.
As dawn slowly pushed its earliest rays into the room, I rolled over and looked at Zafir.
His face was relaxed, and he had one arm sprawled above his head so it hung off the cot.
I couldn’t stop myself from studying his features.
A slight stubbling shaded his cheeks so that his jaw, which was usually so meticulously groomed, was shadowed over.
His eyebrows weren’t pulled inward as they were when he wore his perpetual frown, and the change suited him.
If only he hadn’t taken the Stillheart. As unreasonable and ridiculous as it was to think so, I preferred the emotional, passionate Zafir to the alternate cold, logical version.
His lips were slightly parted, framed by his thin goatee and the facial hair that lined his angular jaw.
He really was very handsome. If only I didn’t have Julian as my only option for getting to Brisden.
Zafir gave a snuffling snore, and I hastily looked away.
The last thing I needed was for him to wake up and find me staring at him like some lovestruck puppy.
I slipped out of bed and tiptoed out of the room, trying to make sure the chain between us didn’t clink, then I sank into one of the armchairs on the other side of the door, staring at the handcuff.
Maybe it would be better to release Zafir from the vow bond.
He couldn’t help me more than Julian could, and the longer I stayed tethered to Zafir, the more distracted I became.
If Julian found out I’d been kissing his father’s vizier, even if it was just a lesson…
I buried my face in my hands. It had felt like so much more than a lesson.
That time and the time Zafir drank the infatuation elixir, I had felt desired.
Was it so wrong to want to be yearned for?
At the same time, I couldn’t force Zafir to stay linked.
Keeping him chained and forcing infatuation elixirs into him was no way to make a man fall in love with me.
I slowly raised my wrist to stare at the golden chain winking innocently in the early morning sunshine filtering in through the window.
What if I told Zafir I was ready to release him?
I could try to get Julian to gift me a trip to Brisden and if that failed, I might be able to stowaway on a ship heading that direction, then I could beg, barter, or trade my way onto another ship to Brisden along the way.
Across the room, my wedding ring sat on Zafir’s desk. I had no interest in wearing it, but it could be sold to make up a fraction of the cost of the journey. Maybe if I had twenty years to work, I could save up the rest, but what would happen to Nadia in the meantime? I had to get to her.
I rubbed my temples, then slowly examined the genie mark swirled around my wrist. I was bound to a genie. Could I make a wish from here?
“I wish I was back in Brisden,” I whispered to the mark.
Nothing happened. Did the vow bond make it impossible to wish to be parted from Zafir?
Was there something else that was needed in order to make a wish?
I thought back. I’d had my wedding ring on when I made the original wish that was granted.
I knew it was the lamp that allowed me to make the wish, but Zafir had said genies were often contained in rings, so maybe…
I slipped the ring back on and tried again. “I wish Nadia was here with me.”
Still, nothing.
I sighed in frustration, then rose and deposited the ring back on Zafir’s desk and set about scouring Zafir’s bookcases, looking for the book on genies I’d been reading.
When I located it, I lifted it down from its shelf and began thumbing through it.