The Forbidden Wish(57)
“You—you bottle them yourself?” I ask, putting out a hand against the wall to steady myself.
“Well . . . not me, personally. But I give orders to the Eristrati, who fight the jinn, and to the jinn charmers we imported from Tytoshi. Since I’ve been in command, we’ve bottled more than thirty jinn, just in a few years’ time.” He struts around the room, like a hunter displaying his trophies. “These are the maarids—water jinn. There are the fire ifreet, and the earth ghuls. We even have a few sila.” He waves at some tall glass bottles on a high shelf. “Very hard to catch, because they’re usually invisible.”
Sister! Sister! Their cries ring in my thoughts like a storm. Help us! Set us free!
Some of them have been in here as long as three hundred years, I gather from their erratic shouting. I sift through the voices, trying to pick out Zhian’s, but it’s difficult to concentrate with Darian droning on about various jinn charmings he has witnessed.
“. . . This one was hanging around near one of our fishing villages, so we waited all night until it appeared, and then I sent Vigo out with his flute . . .”
Be silent, all of you! I command, and the voices just clamor louder. My eyes scan the shelves, back and forth, searching. Zhian! Zhian, are you here?
“. . . And this one,” Darian is saying, “this one is our greatest prize. Not ghul or ifreet, not maarid or sila, but something else. Something bigger.”
My eyes snap to his face, and I barely manage to keep myself from shifting into a tiger and pinning him to the floor until he speaks.
“Which one?” I ask, smiling demurely, hoping there isn’t smoke streaming through my teeth.
Darian points to a clay jar above his head, with a fluted neck and a graceful handle. “There. We captured it two months ago. Thought it might be an ifreet, because of the fire it was throwing at us, but the way it changed form—from man to dragon to cloud of smoke—no ifreet can do that. Only ghuls can change form, and then only by eating the soul of a human or animal before taking its body. We’ve been debating what it might be. I think—”
“Can I hold it?” I ask.
Darian blinks, and then his eyes narrow. “Of course not. It’s extremely dangerous. If you dropped it and it broke—”
“I only want to look!” I snap, my facade cracking, and at Darian’s suspicious scowl I drop my eyes and whisper, “I’m sorry. It’s just, I’ve never seen anything like this. You truly are a great warrior. The terror of the jinn!”
“Yes,” he muses, his face relaxing. “Well, I’ve had a lot of practice.”
Zhian, is that you? I focus the words on the clay jar above Darian.
The reply comes like a clap of thunder
GET ME OUT OF HERE!
I stumble at the force of his words, and Darian steps forward to catch me.
“Wine catching up to you?” he asks, grinning.
I just nod distractedly, stiffening a little when his hands slide up my arms.
Zhian, I’m here to help you.
GET ME OUT NOW!
Darian’s hands are far too familiar, one on my back now, the other cupping my jaw. His touch is repulsive, his heartbeat erratic and too fast. I feel assaulted on all sides: by Zhian’s shouting, by the jinn clamoring, by Darian’s desire.
“You really are quite pretty,” he says, his eyes dropping to my lips. “I’ve shown you something secret. Now what are you going to show me?”
Steeling myself, I grasp his coat and step forward, backing him into the shelves, and around him bottles shake dangerously.
“Easy,” he cautions, but his eyes brighten greedily. Our faces are just inches apart, his eyes locked on mine. “You’re a feisty one. I knew it the moment I saw you. No wonder Rahzad likes to keep you close.”
“What about the princess?” I murmur, working a hand behind him as if to thread my fingers in his oiled hair.
“Caspida hardly appreciates the finer pleasures in life. I, on the other hand, have a king’s appetite.”
He kisses me forcefully, stepping away from the wall, and I’m barely able to grab Zhian’s jar before it’s out of reach. No bigger than my hand, it’s simple to let it slip down my sleeve. The jinn prince rages inside, but I ignore him and focus on the human trying to force his tongue down my throat. I can feel myself hovering on the very edge of the lamp’s boundary. Ripples of smoke race under my skin as I strain to keep from shifting, the effort bringing tears to my eyes.
I shove Darian hard, and he shouts as he slams into the wall of bottled jinn. A few topple from their shelves, and panic springs into his eyes as he struggles to catch them all.