42. James

42

JAMES

T he morning after the wedding, I woke up to darkness. The blinds on the windows in the bedroom were still down, which was odd. They were supposed to rise automatically every day.

Today, it was even more important than ever that we got up on time.

Adina and I were supposed to have breakfast with my parents and figure out when we wanted to tell them the truth about her past. We couldn't count on sandstorms to help us evade the truth forever.

"Lights," I muttered, but nothing happened. "Lights!" Still nothing.

"Hmm?" Adina rolled over to face me.

I felt her body stretch under the light blanket we were covered with, and a surge of heat flooded me. I wanted to take her back in my arms and kiss every inch of her, give her pleasure again and again until we both were as satisfied this morning as we had been last night, but first things first.

"It's all right," I told her, then called out, "Ravana! What's going on with the lights?"

There was no reply. The heat I'd been feeling leached away, replaced by cold trepidation. "Something's wrong," I murmured. "Ravana isn't responding to me. Did you deactivate him?"

"No," Adina said, sitting up next to me. "Gene! What's going on?"

Again, there was no response.

Adina shivered. "Oh no," she whispered, then dove over toward the bedside table where Gene had ended up last night. "No, no, no?—"

"Yes." A familiar voice echoed through our suite. All of a sudden, a massive hologram appeared in front of the bed. It was nothing but Jeffry's face, looking more self-satisfied and smug than I'd ever seen him. Adina squeaked and pulled the sheet up to cover her nudity.

"Don't bother," he sneered. "You have nothing I want. You've been a thorn in my side ever since you arrived, Princess Aramar…or should I say, Adina? You are such a clever girl." He smiled. It was an ugly expression on him. "Surviving all my efforts to eliminate you. I never would have suspected that you had survived if not for Lavanya."

"What are you talking about?" Adina demanded.

"I'm talking about the fact that you used a very familiar technique to push her away, one I've been zapping her with to keep her in line ever since she was a child. She recognized it immediately."

Adina frowned. "Are you talking about your ring?"

" Yess ," Jeffry hissed. "My ring. My genie, whom you stole from me like the miserable little thief you are." His smile turned into a grin. "But I repaid you last night by stealing your much more powerful genie in return. Not that it was ever yours. It was mine from the start."

"You found Gene," she whispered.

"I found the genie I sent you to retrieve for me from the Vault. I merely took back my own property." His face pulled back enough for me to see the elaborate, familiar collar around his neck.

"How did you get in here?" My parents were one thing, but Ravana should have stopped Jeffry from being able to enter.

"I didn't. One of my minions did."

The lookout. The spiky little lookout that had helped my father get me ready for my wedding. Oh God, was my father in on this?

"The clever little prince understands at last," Jeffry mocked. "Oh, this is so sweet. This is a beautiful moment for me. I watched you, a hapless little fool who didn't even understand the favor of his position, sit in state as the prince of Londabad—a title that should have been mine."

"You're delusional," I said.

"I should have been the king!" he thundered. "Your father's marriage to a commoner should have cost him the throne." He rubbed his hands together. "And then I worked for years to earn his trust, to make him into my thrall with my genie, and this worthless girl goes and makes decades of work useless in the blink of an eye."

"You've been brainwashing him?"

Jeffry waved a hand. "Such a crude term. I prefer to call it neuro-linguistic programming, and it's so much more effective when you have a genie powerful enough to affect the king's neural pathways. Your father is currently…" He shrugged. "Well, useless. Babbling. It appears as though he has had a stroke; the palace physician calls it the aftereffect of your ridiculous marriage. Your mother is tending to him, but before he lost his mind, he returned the power of the regency to me."

"Oh my God, this is the longest villain monologue ever!" Adina snapped. "Get to the point, you freak!"

"Very well." Jeffry's smile faded away. "The point is this—I control the palace. I am the legal ruler of Londabad while your father is indisposed. You are locked in your suite, and you shall not be leaving it until I let you. I will send you no food. I will give you no water—you have been completely cut off. If you try to sneak out, I will have Ravana kill you." Suddenly, I heard a growl on the other side of the door. "Yes, he's out there. Really, Adina, this genie is magnificently powerful, isn't it?" He stroked his necklace greedily.

"You will only be let out on two conditions, James. First, that you annul your marriage and marry my daughter."

"Fuck that," I snapped.

"I was in favor of simply letting you die," Jeffry mused, "but Lavanya has a soft spot for you, so if she wants you as her husband, I will support her. If you will do that, I will also give your father back his mind as long as you swear to remain obedient to me."

"And the second condition?" Adina asked.

"Oh, I think you know it." He laughed. "You must die. For real, this time. I can't have you messing things up for me anymore. I don't care how you do it, but do it you shall."

Ice gripped my heart. He was serious. "I can see you plotting from here." Jeffry leaned in until all the hologram showed was his bloodshot eyes. "Don't bother. With this genie, I am all-powerful. I control every system in the palace, and my lookouts are everywhere. You cannot escape, and you cannot outlast me. All you can do is die. And if that means you die together, well." He blinked. "I'll make it up to my darling daughter somehow."

The hologram faded, leaving us in darkness again. All I could hear was the ominous clicking of one of Jeffry's lookouts somewhere in the room and beyond that, Ravana's growling.

I turned to Adina. "I won't let you die." There was no way. I would sooner kill myself than let harm come to her. "I swear it."

She smiled at me. "I know you won't." She didn't seem as worried as I thought the circumstances merited. Perhaps bravado was her way of covering up her fears…or maybe she knew something I didn't. I scooted closer to her and opened my arms, and she entered them gladly.

"What are you thinking?" I murmured once I held her close. "Jeffry has made off with your genie. He's so powerful. I don't know how we will fight him, unless you've made some sort of pact with him?" That would be nice.

"No, I'm afraid not," she said, dashing that hope. "Genies aren't sentimental that way; their programming doesn't allow it. Now that Gene is in Jeffry's hands, he'll do his bidding. But…" She squeezed me tight. "I still have the other genie," she whispered.

So she did. She was still wearing Jeffry's old ring right now. I was a little surprised he hadn't tried to take that from her, too, but with such a tempting prize on offer, I suppose his old genie didn't look so impressive anymore. "What can you do with it, though? It's nowhere near as powerful as Gene, right?"

"True," she said. "But power isn't everything. All I need to do is access my things, which—" I felt her frown against my chest. "Shit, they're in your mother's rooms. We were going to move them in this morning."

"Then what can we?—"

"Oh, we can still do it." Her hair shifted, and I felt a tiny tentacle poke over her shoulder and tap me reassuringly. "It's just going to be a lot more complicated."

"Do what?" I asked.

"I'll tell you." And she did.