If he’d had access to magic, I would have woken up in a lot more pain. I was willing to bet my life on that.
He folded his arms and glared at me.
Heh.
“Hand it over,” I told him, making a give me motion.
He looked at me as if I was speaking gibberish.
“The charm. I know you have it on you. Give it over.”
He dug it out of his pocket and passed it to me. “Not like I can’t get more.”
“But you won’t be using this one.”
No reason to make it any easier on him than necessary.
I turned the charm over in my hands. A medallion with strange etchings around the edge, it was attached to a black ribbon. It looked like the sort of thing found in a hipster shop, not something used to commit a B and E. It was such a simple thing to have opened my locks as if they weren’t even there.
I stuffed it in my back pocket. Might come in handy later.
“As fun as this has been, it’s time for you to go.”
“Take this off and I will.”
Erg. The guy was like a dog with a bone.
I folded my arms over my chest. “I take that off and what do you think the first thing you’re going to do is?”
He opened his mouth but caught my expression and closed it, having the decency not to tell a lie so obvious that even astronauts in orbit would have been able to see it in glaring neon letters.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“So you’re just going to leave it on.”
Pretty much. That was the plan.
“What can I say? I’m pretty attached to my life.”
“What if I promise not to kill you?”
I laughed. “I’m not fond of torture either.”
“You can’t do this.” He sounded every inch the teenager after mom told him he was grounded.
“Sorry, guy. Until I can find a way to protect myself from whatever you’ve got cooking up in that brain of yours, you’re stuck wearing that very trendy bracelet. Congrats on your fashion accessory.”
“No, this isn’t fair. I need access to my power. I’m a sitting duck without it. I’ve already had to fend off a pair of harpies wanting to steal a sixth century manuscript.”
I blinked. That was a new one. What would harpies want with a manuscript?
“Welcome to how the rest of us live,” I told him, not feeling a lot of sympathy. He’d pretty much described my everyday life.
His face twisted in anger, his eyes becoming an emerald green so vivid they glowed. His anger was a tempest in a teakettle.
“I’ll figure a way out of this and when I do, you’re going to pay.” He shook his head. “I’m not even going to kill you. I’ll make you beg for death, wish for its sweet release. These next hundred years are going to be hell on you.”
With such sweet promises as that, was it any wonder I refused to remove the genie cuff?
