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Hah! Finally, my skills would come in handy.Thank the gods.I’d felt so useless without any magic tocontribute.
“Okay,” I said. “I know a few waysin.”
“No.” Zand grabbed my hand and ran his thumb overit.
Fire scorched through me, leaving me breathless and wishing he’d never let mego.
His next words brought me crashing back to reality. “During my surveillance of the palace, I found four tunnels, one leading to each tower of thepalace.”
I’d never heard a whisper about any tunnels. Nor had I found any evidence of them in all my sneaking around. I’d been everywhere in Utaara, and there was no place I couldn’t find a way into. I searched Zand’s heart, and images flashed in my mind of even more tunnels, all of them connecting to different realms withinHaven.
Perfect. Once we defeated the vizier, we had an escape route to the ideal little life I envisioned by the sea. If that option didn’t work out, we could find a new home in either The Cove or near Scarlet inTerra.
“Where do we find these tunnels?” I asked, bursting with excitement to retrieve Ali and Kaza and to start our newlife.
“I tracked an entrance back to a wall a few blocks to the north,” said Zand. “But there is a door sealed bymagic.”
Of course, there was. The vizier had cast ithimself.
Zand touched the band on his wrist. “No. This is the work of adjinn.”
Recollections flew back to me of the city circle tower, which people said was haunted by a djinn. They left tributes there in hopes the djinn might grant their wish. And it did sometimes. How the djinn managed to do so while trapped, I didn’t know…the entire concept didn’t seem to make sense. Then again, neither did genie magic or dark sorcererpower.
“A djinn is more powerful than a genie,” Zand said. “With our limited magic, we might not be able break itsspell.”
A drowning sensation captured mygut.
Something poked me in the back, and I twirled to find Dahvi’s magical carpet waving a tassel at me to getonboard.
As always, Dahvi lifted me onto it, and Zand leaped on besideus.
Did I mention I loved having genies by my side? Zand for protection. Dahvi to comfort me. Kaza to make me laugh. I set my mind to the fact that soon we’d be reunited as afamily.
Normally, I was the planning type, laying out every part of my mission in advance. Entry and exit points. Spare tools for unforeseen circumstances. Various “Plan Bs” in reserve in case of emergencies. But today, I was going in completely unprepared and out of my depth, to fight against an evil sorcerer wielding dark magic. A sudden coldness tightened around my entire body. What was I getting myselfinto?
At the djinn wall in the center of the city, rock scraped as Zand’s magic shifted a loose block about the size of a tiger, leaving a space wide enough for Dahvi and I to hunch down and enter. Stale air, probably hundreds of years old, blasted us, and I coughed, pulling my shirt over mynose.
“Gods, I can hardly breathe in here,” Isaid.
“Shall I make it smell like roses?” Dahvi adopted the smartass tone I’d expect fromKaza.
Either Dahvi missed his brother, or he was trying to lighten the mood. Gods knew, I needed something to take my mind off this rescue. For the last hour, a vice had clamped down on my heart, one I knew wouldn’t let go until my brother and the genie were safe and sound, and we were a thousand miles from here. But humor always did the trick when it came to making me a little lessstressed.
I tickled his armpit for being cheeky, and he gave me a quickkiss.
Zand closed the stone block behind us, releasing a puff of dust that stuck to my hair and eyes. I blinked a few times to dislodge the dirt and rubbed the restaway.
I groped around in the pitch black that had swallowed us. “A little light,please.”
“We must conserve as much magic as possible,” warnedZand.
Fire snapped to life, crackling and writhing on his palms. Its illumination stretched about twenty feet in either direction, revealing the same view on both ends. Large bricks, stained with red iron marks from water dripping down the sides. Tree roots crawled along the wall, seeking the water, ending where they found it. Spiders hunched in their webs, which clung to the corners. Gods only knew where they got their food when there wasn’t another bug insight.
The chill clinging to the air raked along my skin, and I rubbed my arms for warmth. Arachnids and darkness didn’t bother me. What turned my bowels to water was the thought of the evil awaiting us in thepalace.
Dahvi ran his palm flames along my upper arm, and an invigorating warmth filled me, chasing away my fears. Dahvi—my strength, my rock. I leaned into him so our arms just touched. Fire sizzled between us. I needed his calming energy right now. The possibility of losing my brother was turning me into a crazy mess, and only Dahvi kept mesane.
“Thanks,” I said, looking up at him through mylashes.
