“This way,” says Darian, leading me down a narrow, winding stair. I worry that “just around the corner” was an exaggeration, or that Aladdin might wander off and unwittingly summon me back to the lamp. But this chance at finding Zhian is too good to pass up. As we walk, I count my steps carefully.
. . . 64 . . . 65 . . .
The sandstone walls echo with our passage as we descend, the darkness closing in and swallowing us up. The glimmer and light of Fahradan fade quickly, until the prince and I are alone in a dark subterranean world of black passages and dusty chambers. My sixth sense probes the emptiness of the palace’s underbelly, but my reach is blunted, the clarity of my Ambadyan sight blurred. The walls here are lined with strips of iron, the metal interfering with my thoughts, and my sixth sense is repelled back at me. I blink furiously, hoping Darian doesn’t notice my mental reeling.
One, two, three levels—the architects of Parthenia dug deep into the earth for these foundations. The farther we go, the farther we are from my lamp, and I feel the distance stretching like a tightening rope. I haven’t explored this area before; we are far from Aladdin’s rooms and well outside the perimeter that has held me captive every night till now. I thrum with excitement and nervousness. This is the closest I’ve come yet to finding Zhian and finally securing my freedom—now my every thought turns toward not ruining this chance.
. . . 101 . . . 102 . . .
My stomach tightens. Any moment, Aladdin could take a few steps one way while I take a few steps the other, and my leash will snap and I will turn to smoke. I wonder if Darian notices how tense I am. He still holds my hand, too tightly for me to pull away.
The walls are stone slabs, their faces etched with fading glyphs and symbols. Brass hooks hold burnt-out torches on the walls, but Darian manages to find one with a little oil left in it, and he lights it with a strike of the decorative knife on his belt against a bar of flint tied to the torch.
“The old crypt,” says Darian, holding up the light. His hand tightens more around mine, and I stare at him curiously. Darian is afraid, of the dark, the deep, or the dead. As if sensing my glimpse of this vulnerability, he scowls and pulls me onward.
“The old kings and queens are buried here. Now we lay them in tombs above ground, in the hills to the north. But the walls here are lined with iron, which makes the crypt perfect for storing our . . . special prisoners.”
The hair on my neck stands on end. This is it. This is really, truly it—the night I find Zhian.
And not a day too soon.
. . . 126 . . . 127 . . .
As everything in me screams to turn around and run back, I wonder if Aladdin has noticed me missing yet, then chide myself for even thinking of him right now. I need to focus fully on the mission at hand. I know that soon, perhaps even this very night, I will have to let Aladdin go forever. That is a thought I swallow for now, finding it too painful to touch.
“Prisoners?” I ask, keeping my voice high and frightened. “Are you sure—”
“You’re safe with me,” Darian assures me. “We’re almost there.”
. . . 138 . . . 139 . . . If I had a heart, it would be pounding like a drum.
He stops in front of a door made of iron, a massive thing he couldn’t possibly open on his own. But, dropping my hand, he opens a wooden panel in the wall to reveal a clever system of gears. He pulls out a handle, fixes it to one of the gears, then hands me the torch so that he can grab the handle in both hands and throw his weight against it. Darian strains and curses, and slowly the gears begin to turn. The wall hums and clicks as levers begin to work, and the door slowly eases sideways, sliding into the wall.
When the door is open just enough for one person to fit through, Darian slides an iron bar into the gears to keep them from slipping, then turns to me with a grin.
“Now you’ll see just how mighty we Amulen warriors are.”
And not a moment too soon. I’m nearly sick with apprehension, the distance between me and the lamp seeming to hum dangerously. Just a few more steps. I can last that long. I have to.
He steps inside, and I follow, a sharp pounding in my chest like a phantom heart.
Inside the room, I can feel them all.
Hundreds of jinn, of every kind, are trapped in small bottles of clay and bronze, glass and porcelain, set on shelves that stretch wall to wall. The room is large and high-ceilinged, the floor bare save for a table holding a heavy scroll and several quills.
The jinn feel me enter, sense my true nature, and begin to clamor and cry out, their voices an overwhelming tidal wave. I sway, gasping a little at the impact of noise and desperation.
Darian of course can hear none of this, and he looks pleased at my reaction. “Yes, it’s quite impressive. We’ve been bottling jinn for hundreds of years. There’s no one better at it.”