Chapter 21

CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE

Ezra woke the following day to the smell of coffee and something strangely sweet, like tobacco and incense. She wasn’t sore like she had been expecting to be. Her body was soft and languid, her muscles deliciously tired of a night of excellent sex.

You can’t hide in this bed forever. She wished she could. She rubbed at her face and realized there was only one mark left on her arm. The magic of the bargain had done its work. She tried not to panic at the thought of having one more night with him. Something was raw and open inside of her, and she didn’t know how to close it up again.

Ezra sat up and spotted Zahir’s bare brown back on the other side of the room. He was sitting on a cushion in a loose pair of black silk pants, drinking coffee, smoking a hookah, and toying with black stones spread out on a low table. She pulled on her robe and went to join him.

"Ah, she wakes," Zahir said, pulling her down into his lap and giving her his coffee.

Ezra glowed with a strange pleasure. She had worried the previous night that it was sex that had made him affectionate. It made her dangerously pleased that he was being so comfortable with her. She sipped her coffee and hummed with happiness.

"What is all this?" she asked. The black stones were chips of obsidian in all different sizes. Glyphs she didn’t recognize were carved into them. She could feel that they were magic, so she didn’t dare touch them in case they zapped her.

"As you might be aware, my kind don’t really use tarot cards. We use these instead." Zahir held one out to her. "Instead of showing us one future, a practiced user can see as many futures as they like. It’s a hard skill even for a djinn to master. They can get too many futures at once and get lost in them." He passed one to Ezra, and she held it gently in her palm.

"And what question are you putting to them?" she asked him.

Zahir tapped on the piece of notepaper he had on the desk beside it. On it was a letter saying two words, Arrest them.

"This is a letter to Arkon about the two Cabal members that we already know of. I am done waiting for them to reveal themselves. We take these two and see who scrambles out of their holes in a panic." Zahir kissed her shoulder. "I know you want to help, but this foreign mage troubles me greatly. Are you sure you don’t recognize the accent that he had?"

Ezra shook her head. "No, nothing that I’ve heard before. It was thick. I haven’t traveled too widely, but it’s not even something I’ve heard in the marketplace when the merchants have come in." She curled further into Zahir just thinking about the cold, blue eyes of the mage and his happy smile as he made her scream.

"I won’t let him or anyone else hurt you like that again," Zahir replied. He touched the letter, and it folded itself up into a bird before it burst into flames and flew away. "In a day’s time, we will know everything we need to about this Cabal. I’m not above a bit of practical torture to get the information I need." He had a vicious look in his eyes that Ezra had never seen before.

"If they aren’t a part of the Wands District, please don’t upset the Doge on my behalf. Let his grand sorcerer take care of it." Ezra kissed the curve of his jaw. "I still don’t know if the Cabal ended up with my father’s sigil that could trap a djinn. I don’t want you to be hurt."

"Trying to trap me will be the last dumb mistake they make," Zahir assured her. He smiled a crooked smile. "If they did, you would figure out a way to set me free anyway. You know sigil magic better than anyone. You would be able to figure out a way to fix what your father created."

Ezra grinned back. "You hope I could figure out a way to do it."

She toyed with the obsidian chip in her hand and felt it go warm. Her magic was tingling underneath it, and she quickly put it down. As she did, a vision struck her of Zahir screaming on a floor made of stone. Her hands were broken, and she was hanging from a roof. Ezra let out a startled cry and pulled back from the table.

Zahir cupped her face, his expression concerned as he stared deep into her eyes. "Are you okay, sparrow? What did you see?"

Ezra rubbed her eyes. "Nothing, I think. It just gave me a little shock, that’s all."

If she told him, she didn’t know if he would believe her. If she mentioned her being hurt again, he might follow through with his threat and keep her wrapped up in feather blankets. There was no way she could stop that future from happening if she was stuck inside the boat.

"You shouldn’t have been able to infuse the chips with magic at all." Zahir touched the chip that she had held, frowning at it. "When this mess with the Cabal is over, we are going to look more into your magic, habibi."

"We? After this bargain is done, what makes you think that there will be a ’we’?" Ezra said, only half teasing. She was already feeling far too much when it came to him. She knew that only pain lay down that path, but she couldn’t seem to stop listening to what her heart was saying.

Zahir tucked one of her curls behind her ear. "I see we are back to you thinking that I’m only behaving this way because of the bargain we struck. That’s okay. I am immortal. I have a lot of time to prove to you all the ways that you are wrong about that."

But I am not. Ezra didn’t say it, but she thought about it. What future could they really have? He would always be the king of the djinn long after her ashes were poured into the sea.

"I need to go home and start working on something to give to the Cabal. As lovely as it is, I can’t hide here forever," she said.

"It’s not hiding. You can lie in my lap while I feed you baklava and tell you stories of all my wonderful exploits," Zahir argued playfully.

Ezra tugged him down to kiss him. "It sounds lovely, but it is still a no, I’m afraid. It’s not in my nature to run away from a fight. Give me two days. If we still have nothing at the end of them, then I promise I will do things your way, and you can feed me as much pastry as you like."

"You do realize you are trying to make a bargain with the king of bargains?" Zahir said with an amused quirk of his brow.

Ezra kissed him softly again, touching her tongue against his lips in a playful swipe. "Is that a yes, my king?"

Zahir let out a frustrated sound of defeat. "Fine. But you only get two days and not a second longer. I am all out of patience dealing with these assholes."

"Thank you, oh generous one," she said with a fond smile.

"You see now I just feel like you are mocking me."

Ezra laughed and gave his golden earrings a playful flick. "I wouldn’t dream of it."

"I’ll take you home, but not until I have one more taste of you," he purred into her ear, his hand sliding up a silk covered thigh.

"Really? You didn’t get enough sex last night?" she laughed.

"I’m not going to see you for a whole day," Zahir complained and nipped at her throat. "And I want you to be able to feel me while I’m not there."

"We really need to talk about this possessive streak you keep showing," Ezra said, her breath catching.

"Do we? And why is that?" he asked.

"Because we are impossible, and you being possessive is ridiculous," Ezra admitted.

Zahir laughed a sinful chuckle and turned her head. "Amore mio, I am King of the Djinn. Nothing is impossible for me." He kissed her before she could argue, and she went soft in his arms. Maybe she was willing to believe the impossible, even if it was just for a morning.