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“Where did you go?” Niko’s question was soft but firm, grounded in the reality we needed to face.
“Everywhere and nowhere. We vanished into the wind, lived in shadows, loved in secret. But Zayn...” Cairo trailed off, his gaze haunted. “Zayn is relentless. The earth may hide you, the night may shield you, but fire...fire finds a way to burn through it all.”
“Which explains why we’re now sitting ducks in a pond he’s heating to a boil,” I concluded, frowning as I considered our next move.
“Exactly,” Cairo confirmed, nodularity returning to his posture. “And the stakes are higher than ever because Zayn won’t stop until he’s turned our love—and everything else—to ashes.”
With a deep breath, Cairo’s voice softened, the edges fraying with raw emotion. “Poppy,” he said, and even her name seemed to pain him, “she is—was—the light amidst my eternal servitude. A human woman whose spirit shone brighter than any flame could aspire to.” He looked away, his guilt seeping out like smoke from between his clenched fingers.
“Romeo and Juliet had nothing on you two, huh?”
“Perhaps.” A ghost of a smile flitted across his lips before vanishing just as quickly. “But unlike those star-crossed lovers, our story has yet to meet its end. Zayn captured her.”
“Ok, so Zayn’s got Poppy. How did he manage that?” I asked.
Cairo’s shoulders slumped and he ran a hand through his hair, a gesture of distress that made him look almost human—if you ignored the hint of smoldering embers in his eyes. “We were careful—always moving, always hidden. But love, it seems, is brighter than the deepest shadow. It wasn’t enough to escape his spies.”
“Spies? That’s a bit cloak and dagger, isn’t it?” Riker chimed in, his skepticism written all over his face.
“More like scimitar and sandstorm,” Cairo corrected, his accent sharpening the edges of his words. “Zayn’s informants are as numerous as the grains in a desert storm. One whisper of our whereabouts was all it took.” His fists clenched, and a tendril of smoke curled from between his fingers, betraying his inner turmoil.
“Let me guess, they snatched her from right under your nose,” Niko speculated, his voice low, eyes narrowing in thought.
“Close. We were at a market; she was just steps away from me. I blinked—and she was gone.” Cairo’s voice broke, and the air seemed to crackle with his suppressed rage. “It was a trap, one I walked right into. And now, Zayn has her.”
“Damn,,” Helen muttered, shaking her head.
“Right, so these fires...” I pointed out the window where the city’s fountains had been turned into pyres, “they’re a message then? A ‘come hither’ for the wayward djinni?”
“Exactly,” Cairo confirmed, and I noticed the flicker of fear in his eyes. “He’s burning his signature across the city to draw me out. Each fire, a beacon. Each flame, a threat.”
“Or an invitation to a very heated reunion,” I said, trying not to imagine the scorch marks on my favorite cityscape. “But why the public displays? Why not just...I don’t know, send a flaming text or something?”
“Zayn’s ego wouldn’t fit in a text,” Cairo said drily. “He wants me to know he’s here, powerful and unafraid to show it. And he won’t stop until I face him—or everything I love turns to cinder and smoke.”
“Great, nothing like a vengeful supernatural with arsonist tendencies to spice up the week,” I said.
Cairo’s fingers clenched into fists, and his eyes blazed with more than just reflected firelight. “I’ll save her,” he vowed, voice as gritty as sandpaper on raw wood. “And I’ll end Zayn’s reign, even if it chars my soul to ash.”
“Okay, dramatic much?” Helen said.
“Wait, back up,” Riker interjected with a furrowed brow, looking every inch the brawny bounty hunter that never skipped leg day. “What exactly can this Zayn do? Besides the whole barbecue bonanza outside?”
“Imagine the sun, confined in the palm of your hand,” Cairo described, and I thought how that would seriously cut down on my SPF expenses.
“Can he be killed?” Niko asked, his blue eyes sharpening. “Permanently?”
“Only by another djinni,” Cairo admitted.
And as he spoke, there was that flicker again—fear, or maybe heartburn from all this fiery talk.
Shit. We were about to walk straight into the fire.
I already knew it.
CHAPTER 7
Still, I had to hear the rest of what Cairo had to say.
