Chapter 28
The cell smelled like damp stone and despair.
It was smaller than I’d imagined prison cells to be, with walls that pressed in too close and a narrow slit of a window set so high it offered a sliver of light but no comfort.
Straw covered the floor in uneven clumps, and the iron door loomed opposite me, solid and indifferent.
My only comfort was that they’d cut my bonds so I could use my hands once more.
I paced until my legs ached, five steps along each wall, until I thought I’d be driven mad by my thoughts, which all spiraled around Nadia.
I tried whispering wishes to the genie mark on my wrist. I tried to summon the genie to come to me, but nothing happened.
What was the point of being a genie’s master if I couldn’t even summon it when I wanted to make a wish?
Anytime I stopped pacing, the silence rushed in, so heavy and suffocating I thought I’d be smothered by it.
Rahil was forcing marriage upon another innocent bride, and this time, it was my sister. This time, I couldn’t volunteer my way in to save her.
I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my forehead to the cold stone wall, breathing through the rising panic. Nadia wouldn’t survive him. He was going to kill her as revenge on me, I knew it.
And I was useless, locked away so the world was safe from me and so I couldn’t stop Rahil.
I’d rot here while my sister was married to the monster I’d escaped.
I slid down the wall and curled into myself, arms wrapped tight around my knees and heart hammering. I tried to count my breaths, but every inhale caught halfway, turning into something sharp and painful.
Think, I told myself desperately. Think. There must be a way out of this.
But there wasn’t.
Zafir wouldn’t be able to come up with a small fortune soon enough. He wouldn’t even be able to contact Nadia because the mirror was broken. There was nothing to do but sit and despair.
How I wished it was only me who was suffering.
The hours crawled by in an indistinct blur of fear and exhaustion. Somewhere outside, footsteps echoed, keys jingled, and voices murmured, but none of it was for me. I would be given no news, no word of the outside world, nothing to connect me to anyone.
I buried my face in my hands. Would Zafir be punished as well? Would they know he helped me? Was I to be interrogated so painfully that I was forced to tell them of our plan?
When the weight of my feelings became too overpowering, I got up and began pacing again.
“Sit down; you’re making me motion sick,” the prisoner in the cell next to me snarled.
I shot him a disgusted look. He immediately made me think of a thinner, slightly older version of Rahil, with oily hair and skin and a look in his eyes that made me instantly distrust him.
“No,” I told him curtly, continuing to pace.
“Best do what I say,” the man said, his voice just as oily as his hair. “You’ll need some friends in here.”
“I don’t need friends like you.” I knew his type; they were all too common on the streets of Brisden and they never boded well.
“How long is your sentence?” he asked.
I ignored him. I was sure the guards had told me how long I was to be imprisoned, but I hadn’t paid attention—I’d been too consumed with fear for Nadia. I pressed my fingers up to massage my temples. Zafir had said he would get me out. I had to trust him.
I had no other option.
Would he be allowed to see me? The thought that Parliament might still retaliate against him for helping me twisted my stomach. I ruined everything I touched. That was the pattern and it always had been.
Rahil had Nadia. There had to be a purpose beyond wanting to keep his inheritance. Revenge on me, of course. But also…
Ice flooded my veins. Zafir had said that genies could have multiple masters. What if… what if Rahil wasn’t the genie’s master at all, but married women and eventually forced them to make wishes?
That way, any revenge the genie sought would end up taking the wife’s life instead of his own. It made sense. Of course Rahil would have married multiple women; his fortune would have become immense, and he never once suffered because of it.
I thought of Samira. Rahil had said she wanted an apothecary, but had died trying to get an ingredient.
What if after a year of marriage, he won her trust and Samira had become the genie’s master and made the wish?
Rahil wouldn’t have paid the price; Samira had.
And Rahil still managed to reap the rewards of the wishes.
If I hadn’t broken into that room, Rahil might have convinced me that his story was genuine.
He had donated to the worship center. He had petitioned to get Nadia out of prison.
He had done everything to earn my trust and allegiance, and if he had continued to be kind, I easily might have learned to look past his blue beard and how much older he was.
Then once he had my trust, he easily could have told me about the lamp and persuaded me to make a wish.
If I hadn’t seen the room, he would have succeeded.
Would he do something similar to Nadia?
All that day and through the night, I continued my pattern of pacing until my legs felt too shaky to stand, then I would sit until my thoughts whirled so much that I thought I’d be sick.
Dull-looking meals were served three times that day, but I had no interest in food. I had no interest in anything other than information, which was the one thing I would never be freely given in prison.
It wasn’t until evening the next day that something happened. I must have dozed off, because I jolted awake at the sound of boots stopping directly outside my cell and a key sliding into the lock.
I scrambled to my feet, heart in my throat, dread flooding my veins. I was going to be interrogated; I was certain of it.
The guard on the other side of the door, a man dressed all in black and holding a ledger, addressed me. “Alia of Brisden,” he said in a flat voice. “You’re being released.”
I stared at him. “Released?”
“Your bail has been paid and you’re to be deported back to Brisden.”
“What?!” The oily-haired man in the cell next to me jumped to his feet. “I’ve been here for years and she gets out after one day? That isn’t fair!”
“She clearly has friends with deep pockets,” the guard told him. “And you, Saul, have no friends left after what you did.”
My knees nearly gave out. How could that be?
“I don’t—” My voice cracked. “I don’t know anyone like that.” Julian had said he wouldn’t spend that much on me, and Zafir hadn’t had enough time to get that sort of money.
“You do now.” He stepped aside and motioned me forward. “Let’s go. They’re waiting.”
My mind raced as he escorted me down the corridor. Bailed after one day? Parliament had no love for me and wouldn’t willingly release me. What had changed?
They led me through a final set of doors and into a wide antechamber flooded with sunlight, and there he was.
Zafir stood near the center of the room, hands clasped behind his back. When his eyes met mine, acute relief immediately relaxed his face and he ran toward me.
He caught me, arms wrapping around me with a force that bordered on desperate. I buried my face in his chest, clinging to him like he might vanish if I let go.
“You’re here,” I breathed. “You came for me.”
“I promised,” he said hoarsely, one hand cradling the back of my head. “I told you I would manage a way.”
I pulled back just enough to look at him. “Zafir…how?”
He didn’t answer right away. His eyes still searched mine.
“What did you do?” I whispered.
“I paid your bail.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. How did you do it?”
He gave me a weak smile. “I resigned.”
The words didn’t register at first. “You resigned from…what?”
“Everything,” he said quietly. “My position as vizier. My advisory role to Parliament. My contracts. I called in all the favors I’ve been owed and got them to agree to deport you if I personally funded the trip, and I said I’d accompany you to ensure you left.”
The room seemed to tilt. “Zafir, that’s your entire life. Your ambitions, your career, everything.”
“I know.”
“And the money?” I demanded. “My bail wouldn’t have been cheap, and you paid it? How?”
“I sold everything.” His mouth curved into something like a rueful smile. “Turns out rare potions and magical artifacts fetch a remarkable price. I sold everything I’ve been collecting over the years.”
My heart cracked wide open.
“Your books?”
“First editions and all.”
“Your potions?”
He nodded. “Everything.”
“The wardrobe?” I whispered.
He winced. “That one hurt, but yes. Want to know the worst part? Julian was the one who bought the wardrobe.”
Tears blurred my vision. “Zafir, you loved that thing.”
“I love you more.”
The words hit me like a blow.
I shook my head, overwhelmed. “You spent your entire life building your reputation and your collections…”
“And they’re just things,” he interrupted gently. “You’re worth so much more than that.”
I laughed weakly, a sound that was half sob. “You shouldn’t have done that for me.”
“I absolutely should have.” His dark eyes burned with intensity. “And I’d do it a hundred times over.”
“But your career—”
“Careers can be rebuilt,” he said firmly. “I want a life with you, not a life as Parliament’s scapegoat.”
My chest ached. “Zafir, I don’t even know how to thank you.”
“You don’t need to.”
All my fear, panic, grief, and guilt collapsed. He had given up everything. Not because he had to, and not because I was chained to him or had tricked him or drugged him.
Because he loved me.
I didn’t remember moving. One moment I was staring at him in stunned silence, and the next my hands were clutched to the front of his coat, pulling his face down to mine.
I kissed him.
It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t practiced or restrained or in any way polite. It was messy and desperate and full of everything I hadn’t been able to say—the terror of losing Nadia, the fear I’d felt in prison, and the sheer, overwhelming gratitude that he had chosen me.
Zafir’s hands slid up my back, pulling me closer until there was no space left between us, as if worried that if he let go for even a second, I may disappear. His mouth was warm and insistent, the kiss deepening with a low, broken sound in his throat that made my knees go weak.
I pressed my forehead to his when we finally broke apart, breathing hard. “I love you.”
The words tumbled out before I could second-guess them, and the way his breath caught told me they’d landed exactly where they were meant to.
Zafir’s expression became utterly undone.
He cupped my face like I was something precious and breakable. “Alia,” he murmured. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to hear that. And as much as I want to stretch out this moment, we need to go now.”
My panic surged back. “Nadia—”
“I know.” His expression hardened. “That’s why I didn’t just pay your bail. Like I said, I got Parliament to agree to deport you back to Brisden immediately.”
My breath hitched. “They’re just…letting me go?”
“They’re washing their hands of you, and I bribed them handsomely to do so,” he said grimly. “They don’t want further entanglement. I suggest we hurry before they change their minds. The dragon will be waiting for us.”
My stomach lurched. We were going by dragon. Would it be soon enough to save Nadia?
I gripped his hand like an anchor as we turned toward the doors.
I was terrified, but I was no longer alone.