The stupor over the room lifted.
The hand over my mouth eased up.
Kadin turned to me. Before he took two steps, a guard knocked him over the head with the butt of his sword, and he crumpled to the ground.
I resumed my struggle, but they only gripped harder, and the hand over my mouth made it hard to breathe.
Daichi yelled and thrashed against three guards who held him with effort, while Bosh struggled against one. What had happened to the rest of Kadin’s men?
At the back of the room, Gideon still stood in the large doorway between two guards, as if too taken aback to remove them.
A tiny fragment of hope rose in me.
Had they come to help? Or was he just here to retrieve his lamp?
Now that I’d placed the glass shield between myself and everyone’s thoughts, I couldn’t seem to lift it. The silence in my mind as I tried to mentally scream for his help was infuriating.
I stomped on one of the guard’s toes, taking advantage of his surprise and ripping myself out of his grip long enough to yell, “Gideon, help!”
His gaze met mine across the distance. In one blink, he shifted across the room to stand in front of me, leaving his two guards blinking at the empty air between them.
The hands on my arms trembled at the sight of Gideon appearing out of thin air with his pale skin and sharp eyes.
He spoke to the guards in that deceptively soft tone, “Why don’t you two take the day off.”
Even without the use of Persuasion, they released my arms.
I didn’t bother to watch them leave.
“Thank you—” I began, gathering up the nerve to explain myself.
Amir didn’t give me a chance. He shoved the guards and holy man aside to stand beside us. “Did Queen Jezebel send you to replace Enoch? Is that why he left so abruptly?”
I didn’t miss the way Gideon’s eyes flickered when Amir mentioned the name.
“No matter,” Amir continued, waving arrogantly at Gideon. “Help me reclaim the room.”
Gideon swiveled to face Amir with iron calm, ignoring his summons. “You think the Queen of Jinn sent me?”
The murmuring of the royals grew louder. I should be able to hear what they were thinking, but whatever I’d done seemed impossible to undo. I struggled to focus, pressing my fingers to my temple. In a room filled to the brim with people, the lack of thoughts made me feel strangely vulnerable.
“Stand up,” Amir snapped at the holy man, as if he hadn’t even heard Gideon. “We have a wedding to finish. Come.” The holy man lurched forward at his command, opening his notes.
My feet turned to obey as well, until Gideon put a hand on my arm.
His blue gaze, pinned to Amir now, had turned cold.
“What’s wrong with her?” Amir growled, as if Gideon was his servant. “Why does she not obey? I saidcome.”
Though his Gift swept over me, I fought it. Outwardly nothing happened, but inwardly it felt like bracing myself against an enormous wave. Without the violet-eyed Jinni’s help, Amir wasn’t strong enough to overpower my will and I held my ground.
I envisioned mental fingers slipping under the edge of the glass bowl that shielded me, heaving it up and off. A flood of thoughts rained down with hurricane force, but I opened up to them, hoping desperately that Gideon would somehow see everything and help me as I gripped his arm like a lifeline. “He’s keeping my father in the dungeons.”
Ignoring the king and everything else at the panic in my eyes, Gideon nodded. “I’ll find him.” In an instant, he vanished, leaving everyone to blink at where he stood, unnerved by this strange Jinni magic.
King Amir strode toward me and his fingers closed around my arm, gripping hard enough to leave bruises as he spoke into the silence, “Tell everyone the truth—that you’re happy to be married today.”
“If that’s the truth, I don’t think we’d be here,” Kadin’s voice rang out only a few paces away, rescuing me even as my mouth opened against my will.
