The Jinni Key

by Bethany Atazadeh

  “It is a Jinni containment spell. It will prevent him from moving and immobilize his Gifts as well.”

  As he spoke, Gideon’s eyes opened. He glanced at the film over his feet and didn’t bother to struggle. With a sigh, he met the other Jinni’s gaze. “Hello, Enoch.”

  Enoch only nodded. Though both Jinni appeared young, there was a slight gray in Enoch’s black hair and his face was more gaunt, skin stretched and tightened with age.

  “I didn’t expect to see you again,” Gideon said calmly, as if he weren’t restrained and this was just a casual conversation.

  “I’m sure not,” Enoch replied, leaning back. “In truth, I never thought I’d see you again either.”

  “Is this necessary?” King Amir interrupted, hands on his hips, chest out. “We have a Severance to complete.”

  Gideon’s expression darkened. “Why are you associating with this human?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Humor an old friend,” Gideon murmured. They’d been friends? My curiosity was piqued.

  Enoch considered Gideon for a moment. “I truly can’t say.” Those violet eyes blinked once, then softened. “I’ve missed you this last year. You were one of my best soldiers.”

  I stared at Gideon in a new light. That stiff bearing. His strict adherence to rules. All signs of his past life. How had I never seen it? And why in the name of all the Gifts would they have banished a soldier as seemingly dutiful as Gideon?

  “Alright, enough.” King Amir stepped between them, scowling. He reached into the deep pockets of his robes and pulled out a small object. “I’ll tell you why he can’t say, and why you won’t be able to say in a minute either.”

  Gideon’s eyes widened.

  King Amir shoved the object in Gideon’s direction and yelled, “Telesmaat!” A shimmer burst out of the little totem and settled over Gideon, thicker than Enoch’s previous spell, which evaporated, almost like a heavy blanket. This one slowly disappeared as I watched, but it left a distinct metallic taste in the air.

  “I learned how to capture a Jinni and force them into service from the Queen of Jinn herself.” Amir waved the strange little totem in the air before tucking it back inside his pocket with a twisted smile. “A little gift in return for my loyalty. Now, stand up.”

  Gideon got to his feet and stood motionless by the door.

  A tiny part of me whispered that I should take this chance to attack while the king’s back was turned. But he’d told me to stay seated. So, I stayed. It felt as if a heavy pillow had been stuffed inside my skull.

  “You will be very useful,” Amir told Gideon, tapping his chin in thought. “In fact, Enoch, why don’t we have Gideon perform the Severance instead?”

  The only response from Gideon was a muscle twitching in his jaw.

  I blinked at them. Why wasn’t I following this? They seemed so tense. Gideon’s hands were clenched, but he otherwise didn’t react.

  King Amir turned to smile at me once more. “Tie that one up and make sure he can’t escape,” he told Gideon, though I hadn’t moved. “We don’t need any surprises when he sees what comes next.”

  Chapter 43

  Arie

  MY MOUTH WOULDN’T FORM words, but I didn’t stop trying. King Amir’s Gift should wear off much faster than Enoch’s. Although I didn’t honestly know what I would say, even if I could speak.

  Kadin sat tied to the chair across the room and his eyes were vacant, staring at nothing. It broke my heart. He shouldn’t have come here. But it meant the world to me that he had.

  Enoch and Amir stood at the table conferring. I tugged at the ropes for the thousandth time, trying to slip free without success.

  According to Kadin, Rena and Bosh were on their way, but it didn’t matter. They wouldn’t see the trap Enoch had set until it was too late. And with both Kadin and Gideon under Amir’s control, it was up to me to do something.

  Amir approached. “I could stand here all day and list your crimes.” He shook his head at me dramatically.

  I ignored him, staring at the wooden floorboards and woven carpet under my feet, hoping he’d come close enough that my foot could reach him.

  “For the sake of time, we will focus on the most significant misconduct: a woman who possesses a Gift.”

  Words rose in my throat, but I couldn’t quite manage to say them. I wanted to yell that I hadn’t asked for this. How was it a crime if I’d never actually done anything wrong? It had happened to me! If anything, the crime was my mother and father’s, mixing human and Jinni blood, passing down an unwanted birthright.

  But I stayed silent. Tears pricked my eyes. With my hands tied, I was forced to blink them back, struggling to keep my face clear of emotion.

  “What do you have to say for yourself, hmm?” He cupped a mocking hand behind his ear. “What was that now?”

  Slowly, I lifted my chin and met his gaze, holding it as I took a deep breath in and out. Pushing against his command not to speak, I found my voice. “I... am proud... of my Gift.”

  Amir just raised one brow, smirking at me. He wasn’t worried.

  But I wasn’t done. “You want to know what I have to say for myself?” I asked.

  Amir frowned, and his lips pinched together at his words being thrown back in his face.

  I didn’t wait for an answer. “My Gift is part of me,” I declared boldly. “I didn’t choose it, but it’s who I am.” Gideon’s words. I was finally beginning to believe them. “And I do not, nor will I ever, use my Gift for evil.”

  “Yes, yes,” Amir glared at me, waving an impatient hand. “That’s a pretty speech, but it won’t change anything. You need to stop talking now.” His Gift floated over me, making my mouth snap shut once more. “Gideon, it’s time. I don’t want to wait another minute. Begin the Severance now.”

  Chapter 44

  Rena

  KADIN AND GIDEON WEREN’T at the meeting place. “Something’s wrong,” I told Bosh, crossing my arms.

  He nodded, but didn’t stop walking. “Happens all the time on a job,” he whispered. “They had a lot more rooms to search than we did. Kadin always says if part of the plan goes wrong, that doesn’t mean you throw out the rest of it.”

  I sighed and followed him from room to room. We reached a quieter part of the castle that seemed mostly uninhabited.

  “There’s no one here,” I complained. “They’re probably waiting for us back at the stairs now.”

  “Just a couple more rooms and we’ll circle back,” Bosh replied.

  Absently, my fingers played with my shells around my neck. Pulling up the necklace, I had a flash of insight. Perhaps this shell would be more powerful on land. “I think I know how to do this faster,” I told him.

  He’d just closed the door to yet another empty room, when I whispered the words of the spell that would amplify every noise in the surrounding area. I froze at the sound of Arie’s voice. “They’re here!”

  “Where?” Bosh ran back to me, grabbing my arms.

  “Um, this way... I think.” Listening intently, I followed the voices up to a door. “Here,” I whispered. “She’s inside with someone else. He sounds mad.”

  “We can take one guy,” Bosh whispered back, grinning. “This will be a piece of cake.” He grabbed the doorknob.

  “Wait! What if it’s Enoch?” I hissed.

  Bosh made a face. “Yeah, I guess it could be, but you could take him, couldn’t you?”

  I took a deep breath. “I think so. I just need to add an extra layer of protection first.” I dropped the shell I’d used to listen and picked up another. My protection spells against Jinni were always active, but after my last encounter with the Jinni who’d smashed me over the back of the head with a bottle, I wanted to add an extra layer of defense. Whispering quickly, I allowed the buffer of air to surround me. Nothing could touch me now. “Okay, go.”

  Stepping inside, Bosh crept through the empty front room silently. My shoes clunked on the hard floor behind him. “Sorr
y,” I mouthed when he gave me a look.

  The next moment happened in a blur. Bosh and I shoved through the door of the room, ready to attack, only for a heavy piece of furniture to drop on top of us from above. My spells made it bounce off the air around me, leaving me unharmed. But Bosh wasn’t so lucky.

  It crushed him, smashing his head and body into the ground hard. The sound of a bone snapping made me cry out. “No!” I shrieked as Bosh screamed in pain. “Bosh!” I tried to shove the heavy furniture off him, but I wasn’t strong enough. Gathering the shells at my neck, I searched with shaking fingers for something that would help me lift it, when someone said, “stop her,” and the shells around my neck disappeared.

  Whirling to face the room, I took in everyone else for the first time. My mouth gaped open. Gideon stood before me, dark and broken, holding my shell necklace in one hand and a flame in the other. His face was stoic. Almost resigned.

  King Amir stood across the room, flanked by Enoch. Arie struggled against ropes that bound her to the bedpost, but didn’t speak. And on the other side, seated calmly as if nothing were happening despite being tied to his chair, was Kadin. What was going on?

  “Somebody help me,” I yelled, straining to lift the dresser from Bosh’s still body.

  “Kill her,” King Amir said to Gideon.

  I nearly laughed at the ridiculous command. Gideon might not love me, but he also wouldn’t kill me.

  My confidence faded as Gideon lifted a ball of flame without a word. King Amir smirked as Gideon threw it in my direction.

  I screamed and threw up my hands, but without my shells I was powerless to counter the fire. Only my buffer of air saved me. The flames surrounded me in a thick circle. The fierce heat caused a sheen of sweat on my skin within seconds. Fire licked at me, despite the bubble of air. How long would it hold? This was my worst nightmare.

  Fear slid down my throat, slamming into my heart, making it hammer like I’d just swum across half the ocean.

  “Enough waiting,” King Amir said on the other side of the flame. “I said begin!”

  Gideon slowly turned to Arie. His skin was almost gray and the room had grown dark as he lifted his hands slowly. He whispered to Arie, “I’m sorry.”

  His hands stretched toward her, and white-hot light shot out of them.

  Arie’s scream sounded almost feral. Her head tipped back and her body arched as if something was breaking her from the inside-out before she dropped to her knees. The look on her face physically hurt me. I’d never heard someone make a sound like that in my entire life. Chills ran up my arms despite the flames.

  Bosh groaned in pain as he roused, shifting on the floor underneath the dresser. “Rena... What’s going on? Why is Gideon helping them? Do something!”

  I couldn’t answer. My buffer spell still protected me, but the rest of my spells relied on the necklace in Gideon’s hand. Everything was going wrong. Bosh was bleeding out, Kadin was still tied to a chair in a trance, and Arie suffered at Gideon’s own hand. Gideon—he would never do this of his own volition. Someone was forcing him.

  The heat around me increased; it was becoming more than I could bear. My eyes teared up from the smoke and I made a decision. Against my better judgment, I cast aside my Mere spells that made me immune to the Jinni Gifts and yelled at Gideon, “What do I do?”

  I couldn’t tell if he heard me over Arie’s screams; his face held an awful, grim concentration, lit up by the white light, as if what he was doing was destroying him in the process as much as Arie.

  Coughing, I yelled again. “Gideon!”

  “There’s nothing you can do,” Amir answered, as he calmly watched the process.

  Just then, Gideon spoke into my mind. The amulet. In Amir’s pocket. His face was grim and he didn’t turn to me once, but it was unmistakably his voice. Break it. Break it into as many pieces as possible.

  In his pocket. I shook my head at Gideon, catching myself before I protested out loud. The king was halfway across the room. Even if I managed to somehow steal from him while his back was turned, there was no way I could escape the circle of fire without getting burned.

  Arie thrashed on the floor, only held upright by the ropes now. Her cries were growing weaker. When I glanced down at Bosh, his eyes were closed. Kadin still sat in the corner with a glazed look on his face. And Gideon—once he finished with Arie, I had no doubt Amir would turn him on me next.

  It’s just a little burn, I told myself and nearly choked. I knew better. I’d never seen a burn before, but legend said Mere burned ten times worse than humans or Jinni, and the recovery took twice as long. My feet didn’t move.

  I took a shallow breath in the smoke, then another. You can do this. Do it for Bosh. For Arie. For all of them.

  This was the moment of truth.

  I leapt through the flames, feeling the fire bite my skin, and gasped in pain. Hair smoking and skirts on fire, I ran to King Amir and shoved my hand into the deep pocket of his kingly robes. It was empty.

  “Wh—?” Amir swung around. “You!”

  He grabbed my wrist. A big mistake. My barrier spells flung him across the room and he smashed into the wall.

  The fire had made its way through the layers of my dress and its sharp heat scorched my legs.

  Roll, Gideon snapped at me, eyes never leaving Arie.

  Dropping to the ground, I rolled, back and forth. It snuffed out the fire. I took a deep breath of relief before crawling in my shredded skirts over to where King Amir lay sprawled on the floor, and dipped my hand into his other pocket. My fingers closed around something small and round. I yanked it out, immediately falling back, ducking underneath a table, before I dared to open my hand, uncurling my fingers slowly to peer at the little item in my palm.

  It was the totem.

  Arie’s screams of agony pierced the air.

  The king groaned as he opened his eyes, blinking at me. His eyes narrowed at the totem. “Give that to me.”

  I backed up.

  He stood, wary of following after what had happened to him last time. “There’s nothing you can do to stop this,” he said and turned to Gideon, opening his mouth.

  “There is one thing I could try,” I told the king, making him pause, as I set the totem down carefully on the ground.

  “No!” He dove toward it as I lifted my foot and brought the sharp heel of my shoe down on the small clay totem.

  It smashed into little pieces.

  Gideon immediately ceased the Severance’s white light and rushed forward to help Arie.

  “No!” Amir screamed in fury. “Stop them now!” He turned to Enoch, but the other Jinni only stared at him with those violet eyes now, no longer bound to obey. Like a cat stalking a mouse, his gaze was locked on the king as he stepped closer.

  “Guards! Guards!” Amir yelled, but it was too late.

  Enoch pounced. He landed on top of the king, reaching toward the table. The small knife there flashed out of sight, reappearing in his hand, and he stabbed Amir through the chest, skewering him in one swift move. Enoch carefully pulled the blade out and wiped it on the king’s sleeve, as Amir’s eyes glazed over.

  The moment Amir’s Gift faded, Kadin broke out of his trance, struggling against his ropes.

  I picked up my shell necklace where Gideon had discarded it and stepped up to Kadin, using the sharpest shell to slice through the ropes. He raced to Arie’s side. Gideon carefully transferred Arie into his arms, before lifting his cold blue gaze to meet Enoch’s.

  Without a word, Enoch folded into himself and disappeared, leaving behind no trace. Gideon ran up to the spot where Enoch had last stood, and vanished after him.

  I limped over to Bosh’s side. My first glimpse of him made me trip in shock. He lay in a pool of blood. The puddle was a dark shade of red, still growing.

  With effort, I inverted my buffer spell faster than I’d ever done a spell before in my life, shaping it so that it would happen at my will. I used it to fling the heavy dresser off of him
.

  I fell to my knees beside him. They grew wet as the blood soaked through my skirts and touched my burns, but I ignored the pain. “Bosh.” I shook his shoulder gently. “Wake up.” His face was a blur through my tears.

  His head wound wasn’t the worst of it. My eyes caught on his lower half. The dresser had cut into his stomach and ribs. I knew little about human anatomy, but even I knew that was a bad sign.

  He took ragged breaths, staring at the ceiling, not seeing me until I leaned directly over him, taking his hand. I wiped at my eyes furiously. “You can’t die,” I yelled at him. “You can’t!”

  “I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Bosh said, even as he gulped for air like a fish on land.

  I squeezed his hand, hoping he’d squeeze back, but it lay limp in mine. His eyes began to glaze over. “No,” I cried, sobbing openly now. I knew that look. I’d seen it growing up more times than I wanted to count.

  I bowed my head over his. Why weren’t any of the Mere spells designed for healing? Kadin was right. We were selfish. Me more than any of them.

  “I have an idea,” I whispered to Bosh, pulling back just enough to take the Key from around my neck. I pressed it into his hand. “Take this.” Yuliya would kill me. I didn’t care. There was no guarantee that he would ever give it back to me, but I didn’t care about that either. We had to do this together, shoulder the price of the Key together, otherwise the spell to save him would also cost a life.

  “Bosh, listen to me,” I said, shaking him a little until his eyes fluttered open again. “I need you to do something for me.”

  “I’m tired,” he slurred. “Just let me take a little nap first.”

  I smiled through the tears. “You can nap as soon as you do this, okay? I promise.” I curled his fingers around the spine of the Key, holding them together. “Say my name.”

  His brows drew together but he took a shallow breath and whispered, “Rena...?”

  Just like that my greatest desire appeared before us in an inky black vision. It was simple. We were still in this room, but Bosh stood before me on his own two feet, alive and well, his body fully intact and uninjured.