24. Boshun

"How can I use my remaining wishes to free you?" Jasmine asked. I leaned against her headboard, sitting on her bed, while she lay in my arms.

"I'm not sure we can."

"Not sure isn't the same as no possibility of making it happen." She turned and crawled onto her knees, facing me. "Does it go against the rules to discuss ways?"

"I don't remember any rules stating we can't talk about it."

"What if I asked for a new lamp that looked just like yours only with a spell cast on it to suck someone else inside?"

"While I'd love to offer a lamp like that to Cardia, and it might even work, that wouldn't free me from my own trap."

"At least she'd get a taste of what she's done to you."

"Vengeance, while it would taste sweet, won't solve this problem." Though it would feel fair.

"Hmm." She collapsed back into my arms.

There was nothing I enjoyed more than holding her. I couldn't remember the last time someone touched me with true affection before Jasmine.

"Do you think it's too late to look for that book in Cardia's office tonight?" she asked.

Normally, I'd use magic to find out if Cardia had left for the day, but whenever I tried to pull in the energy to cast a spell, it slipped through my fingers like sand. I didn't want to mention that I was worried Jasmine would ask her next wish, and I wouldn't be able to grant it. Was my magic gone forever? Living in the lamp was bad enough, but being unable to make my life better with a flick of my finger would make the rest of my existence pure torture.

"I think so." We needed to get there and be back before midnight, when Jasmine's second wish was due.

We left her room and crept through the silent halls, avoiding the ballroom where the party was still going and avoiding Viscar, though we nearly ran into him outside her room. Only ducking behind a big plant kept him from seeing us.

He was lurking around her room, probably hoping for a chance to take the lamp. Good luck to him with that. Jasmine hadn't used her wishes yet, and the lamp would not allow itself to be taken from her until she was done.

We left the castle and hurried down the drive, stopping at the gate to ask for a carriage. When it arrived, we climbed inside and had the driver take us into the village and leave us a few blocks away from Cardia's dressmaking shop.

While the driver waited, we slunk to the building and went around to the back. I broke a window in the rear door and let us inside.

"Where's her office?" I whispered, studying the long hall with doors on either side.

"Upstairs. This level is made up of rooms for women to try on gowns, a tiny room where I work, plus a larger room in the front where women can parade past those who come with them for fittings."

At the end of the hall, she opened a door on the left, revealing stairs, and we climbed up to the second floor.

It was dark inside the building, and no light shone beneath the door to Cardia's office. The door was locked.

"I could use a wish to open it," Jasmine said softly.

"Save them." I tugged her away from the door and charged toward it, slamming my shoulder into the panel. It gave way, and I spilled into Cardia's office with Jasmine following. She shut the door as best she could. There would be no hiding the fact that someone had been inside.

"I saw the book on a shelf there." She pointed. "She noted my interest and put it inside her desk. We should probably search the room in case there's something else here we'll find useful."

A sense of urgency shot through me, and I knew we had to be out of the office as soon as possible.

She sat at the desk, finding it locked, and searched for the key. I sorted through boxes of papers and shifted aside bolts of material. I didn't find anything that would be out of place in a dressmaker's shop. Anyone stumbling through this stuff would never believe the owner was a powerful witch.

"Any luck?" I asked as Jasmine dumped out small containers of sewing notions onto the desk.

"Not so far. Maybe she keeps the key with her and doesn't leave it behind."

I went through the books on the shelf, not finding anything other than those related to her dressmaking business.

"Ah-ha." Jasmine held up a key. "She tucked it beneath this stack of papers." She waved to the pile on the desk. Inserting it into the lock, she twisted it, and it clicked open. She tugged open a drawer and pulled up a book, crowing as she held it up. "Here it is!"

I took it from her, studying the worn spine.

The Ways of Genies.

"We'll take it." Fear spiraled through me, though I couldn't determine why. "We need to leave."

"Let me look through the rest of the desk." She pawed through the drawer. "There might be something else we want—"

Something banged downstairs.

My heart came to a shuddering halt, and Jasmine shot me a look of pure panic. Swallowing, she rose to her feet, adding a second book to the one I held.

I nudged my head to the door, and we rushed over to it. It creaked much too loudly when it opened, and I'd give almost anything to have the power to spirit us back to the castle.

In case my magic had returned, I tried to gather the energy to cast a spell, but it didn't work.

Another bang was followed by the stomp of footsteps on the stairs.

"This way," Jasmine hissed, tugging me down the hall past Cardia's office, around a corner, and along another stretch of hall that ended in a door. "Storage." She reached above the door for a key that opened the lock. "Too bad the other one wasn't as easy to find." After returning the key, we slipped into the room, and she secured the door from the inside.

"If someone investigates," she said softly, "they'll assume we couldn't get in. I hope."

"Unless they suspect you're here."

She shrugged. "I don't have a solution for that. This way." She took my hand and led me through a maze of huge stacks of cloth and boxes full of ribbons, bows, and various sewing goods, all the way to the back.

An old couch sat against the wall, and we sunk down on it, hidden behind the mess in the room.

"We should be okay here," she said softly.

"Until whoever's here sees Cardia's broken door." The odds were good it was Cardia, and she'd see right through this. "I'm sorry. I should've tried to get inside without leaving evidence we were here."

We sat quietly, only our breathing breaking the silence. I opened one of the books, but with no windows or light, we couldn't read.

Footsteps echoed in the hall, and a subtle creak rang out, telling me whoever was here was testing the door. A long pause followed before the footsteps moved away.

We waited twenty minutes or so more without hearing anything else before we tiptoed back to the door.

But when Jasmine unlocked it on the inside, it wouldn't open.