17. Boshun

Shouts rang out from the castle, and I magicked a sword into my hand and burst to my feet, seeking threats.

"What's happening?" Jasmine whispered, sliding off the gazebo seat and looking around.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out."

Her chin lifted. "I'm coming with you."

We left the gazebo and made our way toward the entrance, keeping close to the plants growing along the path to shield us from view. When we were about to leave the gardens to approach the castle itself, Jasmine's breath sucked in, and she yanked me backward, behind a big tree.

"Wait," she hissed, her gaze trained on a person arguing with the guards, their face hidden in the shadows. "That's Cordellia. She's come for the lamp." She gazed around wildly, looking for a place to hide.

"My magic should've kept her from passing the gates." Why wasn't my spell working?

Moonlight stabbed down, revealing the woman's face, and my heart plunged all the way to the ground. When had Cardia come to the village and why did she use the name Cordellia? This witch imprisoned me in the lamp long ago after I refused to sleep with her.

This explained how she got past my spell. Only a powerful witch could do so.

"Should I use a wish to ask you to create a disguise for me?" Jasmine asked, her stark gaze meeting mine.

Cardia's head whipped around, and her gaze pierced the gloom where we hid. "There you are!" She stomped toward us. I quickly magicked a new disguise for myself, that of one of the staff.

If she hadn't already seen Jasmine, I'd mask her as well. For now, I'd watch to see how this played out, though I wouldn't let her harm Jasmine.

Jasmine stared at me before turning her attention back to the witch who latched onto her elbow and shook her.

"Where is it?" Cardia snarled, dismissing me with barely a glance, as I knew she would. "I can smell it on you. You didn't . . . touch it, did you?"

Jasmine huffed. "I'd have to touch it to . . ." Her gaze fell on the guards storming over to us.

"Where is it?" Cardia leaned close, her lips peeling back to reveal the fangs she usually masked, showing how angry she truly was.

"Leave Lady Bains alone." I thrust my arm down between them and tucked Jasmine behind me.

"She's just a simple village girl," Cardia said. "She doesn't belong in the palace."

"Lady Bains has an invitation." I drew myself up stiffly. "Do you?" I nodded to the guards; grateful I'd picked the disguise of one of the king's personal attendants. "Escort this woman from the grounds. She's not welcome here."

They grabbed onto her, and sparks flickered in her eyes. But spying the crowd gathering behind the guards, many of them pointing and whispering and a few of them lifting their hands to deploy magic, she must've reconsidered blasting me to bits with her magic. If we were alone, she wouldn't hesitate.

Growling, she ripped her arm from the guards' grasp and shoved through them, rushing down the castle driveway.

Jasmine sagged against my back.

"Are you all right, Lady Bains?" I asked as most of the guards and the crowd dispersed now that the drama was over.

Biting down on her lower lip, she nodded.

"Why don't I escort you to your room where you can lie down?" I asked, since a few guards still lingered.

"Thank you. That's quite kind of you."

Still magicked in my disguise, I led her inside and to her room. But once I'd locked the door, leaned against it, and was about to remove my disguise, Cardia appeared beside the bed.

"Ah, the lamp. The lamp!" Her finger stabbed toward Jasmine. "How dare you think you can keep it for yourself?" She lifted it off the blankets, cackling as she held it overhead.

A pop and she'd disappeared from the room.

"She took the lamp." Her face creased with desperation, Jasmine rushed over and wrapped her arms around me. "I promise I'm not letting you go. She can try to drag you away from me, but it won't work." She looked up at me, and the tears on her face were enough to make me drop to my knees.

I returned to my own form and took her hands. "You, my precious one, are everything to me. But she can't take me away." Not yet, that is.

"I stole the lamp and now she's taken it from me."

"I haven't granted all your wishes."

"Ah. You'll stay with me until I have."

"Exactly." I rose to my feet and kissed her, loving how she moaned and pressed herself against me.

I was going to do all I could to claim her for all time. Was there a way I could do it?

Lifting my head, I gave her a reassuring smile. "Watch." I took her hand and brought her over to the bed.

A hum rang out, and the lamp reappeared where Jasmine had left it.

I swept my hand toward it. "Until you've used all your wishes, no one can claim the lamp."

Her eyes shimmered with tears, but she stiffened her spine. "We still have two days together, right?"

"We do." If only I could offer her more time, but wishes weren't for genies. We existed only to please others.

"Can you show me your world?" she asked.

I jerked backward. "What world?"

"Where you live when you're not under someone's thumb."

No one had ever asked me for that.

If I was doing as I should, I'd ask her if this was her second wish, but I didn't want her to use them. I wanted to make this time with her last forever, even though I knew that was impossible.

Nothing lasted forever. Soon, she'd ask for her final wish, I'd grant it, and the hourglass of time would start flowing once more. If I was lucky, my lamp would return to the treasure room where Cardia couldn't grab it.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," she said. "It's your private space, and I wouldn't want to intrude."

"What if it's messy?" I asked, my lips curling up with my tease.

"I'll help you tidy it."

"And what if it's only a room with a bed?"

She stepped forward, and my arms went around her. "Then we'll . . . lounge on your bed."

"I shouldn't," I said.

She pinched her eyes shut. "I understand."

"It's not forbidden. But once I take you there . . ." I'd see her there all the time after she was gone. Her memory and her scent would linger, making me mourn her loss even more than I already did.

When she tried to leave my embrace, I tightened my arms around her. "I want to take you there, however, and I will."

"We have the rest of the day. The healer will be back tonight. Can you show me everything? I want to see the real you."

My heart pressed so hard against my ribcage; I was sure my emotions would bruise it. "Take my hand, and I'll show you everything, my precious one."

She placed her fingers on my palm without hesitation, looking up at me with so much innocence, I couldn't catch my breath.

A blink, and we stood inside my small home in the lamp. On the outside, it might appear tiny, but inside, magic made us fit.

As she peered around, I tried to see it as she did, the decadence, the splendor of it all. Would she again compare the way she and the rest of the villagers lived with the opulence I'd long since taken for granted?

"Are you the first genie in this lamp?" she asked, trailing her fingers across the lush draperies shielding a window that looked out at enormous, white tipped mountains on one wall, a vast desert covered with flowering cacti on another, and the sea glistening under a full moon on the third. The scenes weren't fake; they were real, placed there to tease me with what I'd never be able to visit on my own. I could only travel to them if they were part of a wish.

"I don't know," I said starkly. "There was no evidence anyone was here before me, but that could be part of the magic."

"I'm sorry. If only I could do something to free you from this curse."

"Cardia—your Cordellia—trapped me here."

Her eyes widened, and her hand stilled on the shade of the ornate lamp sitting on my bedside table. "Tell me."

"I refused to be with her so long ago, it's hard to remember when."

"Be with her?"

I lifted my chin. "I believe that's why she placed me in the lamp. When someone wishes for my body, I have no choice but to do as they command. She's getting even with me refusing her."

"It's horrible."

And there was nothing I could do about it except mourn.

"You said ages ago," Jasmine said. "How could she live that long?"

"She's a witch, and an ancient one."

"And she wants the lamp. Why?" Jasmine walked over to wrap her arms around me. She looked up with so much affection in her eyes, it slammed through my chest like a thick blade. "Why does she want it and why now if she could've tried to obtain it all these years?"

I cupped her pretty face. "I think she knows that you're the only one who could obtain it for her right now. As for why? I assume to taunt me, to lord over the fact that she's controlled me for a very long time and continues to do so."

"If she rubs the lamp, would you have to grant her three wishes?"

"She doesn't need wishes. All she'd have to do is summon me while touching the lamp, and I'd be forced to appear before her."

"Because she's the one who placed you here."

"And her magic will keep me bound within this gilded cage forever."

"What can we do?" Hope I'd long since lost came through in her voice, in her palms on my chest.

"Nothing." I said it starkly, but there was no way to free me. "I'm the genie in the bottle, and we can't do anything to change that. You can't wish it away. I can't either. All we can do is treasure each moment we have together."

I kissed her, wanting to capture the memory of her touch and feel because I was going to need it if I was going to survive multiple more lifetimes without her.

When I lifted my head, she gazed up at me with infinite sadness. It wrenched my heart from my chest.

I didn't want our time together to be filled with mourning, though. I wanted to make her happy for as long as I could.

"I've never brought anyone here before," I said softly.

"No one wished to see where you live?"

"I'm a wish maker, magicked into this role. To everyone who summons me, I'm not a real person."

"You are to me."

And that was why I'd fallen in love with her.

"It's beautiful," she said, leaving my arms to explore once more.

A gorgeous trap.

She ran her fingertip down one of the silk drapes flowing around the enormous four-poster bed, then running her palm across the bedding. "Soft. You must sleep well here."

Never. I dreamed, and sometimes, when I woke, I cried.

"It's a silk cage," I said. "And I'm a captive bird who can never escape."

"Boshun," she sighed. "I'm sorry. I wish I could do something."

"I don't want to make you feel sad. I want to show you the good parts of my life. Come." I held out my hand, and she took it.

We walked from the bedroom into my workout area.

"Look at all this." She spun around, and while she smiled, I could tell it was a struggle. "What do you do with all of it?"

"I get bored waiting for the next person to rub my lamp, and I have enough pride I want to stay in shape, so I exercise here."

"I can picture you doing that."

We walked from the gym and into the adjoining sitting area, where she dropped down onto the sofa. "Everything's soft. Perfect."

"It was created with magic, so I suppose it would be."

"Cordellia created it."

"The lamp was crafted from magic far stronger than hers ages before I was sent here. She just forced me inside."

Her smile disappeared, though it had never been reflected in her eyes. "It is a cage. You're as trapped here in this life as I am in mine. I'll work hard forever and never be any better off than I am right now. I accept that; it's the lot I drew when I was born."

"There's always a way out."

"If a wealthy man wanted me, I could marry him, I suppose."

I shouldn't feel jealous.

"Or, while I'm here, I could impress the queen and she might invite me to be one of her ladies. The odds of that are zero, however."

That was only trading one taskmaster for another.

"If my sister was well, she could also work, and we'd better ourselves that way, but I don't dream of anything like that. It'll hurt too much if the dream doesn't come true."

"What do you dream of for yourself, Jasmine?"

"So much. Too much." She traced her finger along the pattern in her gown. "Things that can never come true for someone like me." Rising, she left the living area, crossed the gym, and returned to my decadent bedroom.

"Are you hungry?" I asked, following.

She shrugged, tears shimmering in her gorgeous eyes again. "Not really. I wasn't sure what to expect here. I guess I hoped I'd find a place where I could tell myself you were happy. Content if not satisfied."

"You said you'll never be completely happy, and neither will I."

"It's wrong. You should be free."

And that was the problem. It would never happen. Once her third wish was granted, I'd never see her again. She had one chance with the lamp, and no matter how hard she rubbed it after that, I wouldn't respond to her touch. In a short time, it would return to the treasure room or . . . Sometimes, the lamp plotted its own course, perhaps sensing an imbalance that needed righting. It would then send me there.

I hated this. Hated even more that I was making Jasmine sad. It was time to cheer her up if I could.

"Can I tempt you with sweets?" A flick of my hand made a low table appear with a solid gold tray holding glasses filled with every imaginable type of drink. "Or perhaps you'd like to try fruit unlike anything you've seen before in your life." Another blink, and a new table joined the first, this one laden with sliced fruit from all over this world and the ones beyond the void. "Or roasted meat and vegetables?" Yet another table appeared, and the scent of this food swirled together with the others.

"I don't want anything to eat or drink." She took a step toward me. "I don't want gorgeous dresses." Another step, and our bodies brushed together. "I don't want jewels or gold, either."

"What do you want, Jasmine?" My voice croaked. "What can I give you that I've never given another?"

"I don't even want wishes. Helping others has always been my goal, not pleasing myself."

"You deserve to be pleased as much as any other person." More so, in my mind.

"I'd never compel you to do anything you wouldn't choose to do on your own."

"Tell me what you want," I breathed.

"I want you, Boshun. Freely given. You."