Daichi dropped back to the floor.
We were quiet for a long time.
I wracked my brain for another con—something that had a better outcome.
But nothing.
Daichi lay down to sleep, but I couldn’t.
At least a few hours later, Arie’s dress rustled in the quiet as she stood. “I have an idea!” An outline of her form appeared at the door of her cell, and I could just make out her arm as she stretched it through the bars, holding something out toward us.
In the palm of her hand was a small dot.
As I squinted, the dot turned into a rock and triggered my memory even as she spoke, “Gideon’s talisman!”
CHAPTER 23
Kadin
ALL THREE OF USstared at the Jinni’s stone. That small gray pebble held our future in the balance. Would Gideon even come to a prison cell? And who was to say he would help us if he did?
“What have we got to lose?” Arie asked as we all just stood there, ogling the rock in silence. Before we could argue, she rubbed it. At first gently between two fingers, the way one would feel a coin to test its purity, barely visible in the gloom. Then more aggressively, holding it in her palm, while scrubbing at it with her other hand—first the thumb, then the butt of her palm.
“A little patience, please,” a voice said from the opposite corner of her small cell, “I got your message when you first began. Why in the name of Jinn is it so dark in here?”
A light appeared behind Arie and she turned to face the owner of the voice.
Gideon stood tall and pale as ever, eyeing her cell warily with those sharp blue eyes. He held a ball of white light in the palm of his hand. It flickered and cast shadows on the now brightly lit walls. “This is quite unusual,” he commented with a frown.
“Greetings, Gideon.” Arie sank into a deep curtsy. “With respect, we’re in a bit of a situation and we’re hoping to ask for your help.” Her ability to shift into formal speech and the ridiculous curtseying made sense now, knowing where she came from.
“Name it,” he said, but not in a generous way, so much as just impatient.
“I would like to once more request the same bargain as Kadin offered you,” Arie began. “I would like to see you bear witness to a Gifted prince for a day. And then we will give you the lamp for half what we paid for it.”
Gideon eyed us. “You don’t appear to have the lamp in your possession,” he said finally.
