“Run!” I say to Aladdin, my voice like the wind, rushing around him, tugging at his cloak. “Gonow!”
He bursts into motion but runs toward the soldiers instead of away from them. He reaches Darian, catching him in a wild tackle. Both boys roll down the stairs and land roughly, each with a hand on my lamp. They struggle to wrench it free, Aladdin pinning Darian down and getting in one solid punch to the prince’s face before the soldiers are on him. They drag him off, and Darian scrambles away, the lamp clutched in his hands. Still Aladdin fights on, wrenching a lance away and wielding it with sharp efficiency, driving the butt into one man’s stomach, using the tip to sweep another’s feet out from under him. But their numbers overwhelm him, and when his lance breaks, they pounce, twisting his arms behind him and forcing him to his knees.
Furiously I condense into half tiger, half smoke and fling myself at Darian, claws and fangs bared and glinting, but he holds up the lamp, grinning madly.
“Jinni!” he cries. “I command you to return to your vessel!”
Like a dog that has reached the end of its tether, I am halted in the air as the lamp takes control and pulls me toward itself. Helpless, I shift entirely to smoke and pour inside, as Aladdin calls my name.
I rage inside the lamp, throwing myself against the walls, shifting in a blinding flurry from smoke to water to sand to fire. It’s pointless. Outside the lamp, I sense Aladdin’s pain as the soldiers beat him with the butts of their lances. I sense Caspida’s raging fury at being betrayed. I sense Darian’s elation through the drumbeat of the pulse in his fingers, the lamp ringing out in time with his heart.
“Take him below,” Sulifer commands. “He will die a traitor’s death at dawn.”
No!Horror washes over me like a wave. I hear Aladdin gruntas he’s hauled to his feet, and push my senses as far as they will go, feeling Caspida’s steps as she descends from the dais.
“Caspida,” Aladdin croaks. “I can explain—”
“Silence,” she says coldly.
I follow Aladdin for as long as I can, but too soon he is dragged beyond my senses and lost to me. Despair churns inside me like nausea, and I curl into smoke on the floor of the lamp. Where is Nardukha now, when I need my freedom most? Why has he not come? Have I been played for a fool? I knew I should not have taken his deal. I knew he couldn’t be trusted.
“I must withdraw for a while,” says Caspida, her voice starting to break. “I have much to think about.”
She and her Watchmaidens turn to go, heading for the back door of the temple, but Sulifer’s voice stops them short.
“I’m afraid I cannot let you go, Your Highness,” he says.
Caspida turns. I can hear the astonishment in her voice. “What did you say?”
“Guards,” says Sulifer softly, “arrest the princess.”
“What is the meaning of this?” Caspida cries.
Sulifer’s voice is hard as steel. “Princess Caspida, you stand accused of complicity with sorcery and communion with demons.”
“This is absurd!”
“Did you not receive the jinni Zahra to your chambers several weeks ago?”
“That proves nothing.” I can hear Caspida’s composure fracturing like ice beneath a hammer. “I did not know her true nature. I knew nothing of—”
“That will be determined by the judges.”
“The judges!” She laughs acidly. “The judges are your leashed dogs, trained to tear apart whomever you point out.”
“Imprison her,” says Sulifer. “And her handmaidens too.”
I sense the soldiers moving toward the girls, but they never reach them. Nessa and Khavar slice through their midst like a sharp and deadly breeze, while Ensi flings poisoned powder in a glittering arc. Soldiers fall, clutching their throats and chests, as the girls’ attack parts them like a scythe through dry grass. Caspida spins free of the soldiers holding her, felling them both with a series of strikes, her bare hands slipping past their defenses to decimate their nerve points, leaving them twitching on the ground. Before Sulifer, Darian, or the remaining guards can make a move, the girls vanish, running from the temple and disappearing into the palace.
“After them,” Sulifer says to Darian in a low voice. “Bring that girl to me, whatever it takes! Wait—give it to me first.”
I can feel Darian’s hesitation, but he slowly gives the lamp over to his father. Sulifer’s will replaces Darian’s, clamping down on my mind like an iron cage.
The prince calls the soldiers to himself, and they run from the temple.
Just like that, all comes undone.
Chapter Twenty-Three
