“I am,” I whispered back, tears filling my eyes so that he was only a blurry image when I looked up. “Please. I just want to be free of it.”
“You misunderstand. You cannot be free of it, because your Gift is a part of you,” Gideon told me. His eyes burned with intensity. “You can no more remove it free of consequences than you could remove an eye or a limb. The women do not die because someone murders them, they die because they can’t live without it. So, do not ask me again. No Jinni in his sane mind will ever agree to do this for you, do you understand?”
My hopes fell and a pit formed in my stomach, growing dull and bitter as I nodded. “I understand,” I whispered.
He gave me a moment to stare at the blurry floor in silence, before standing with a sigh and sitting on the sofa beside me.
“What exactly does your Gifting entail?” he asked.
“It’s hard to describe,” I said, swallowing my disappointment and blinking tears of frustration away before he could see them. “I can hear... well, noteverythingpeople are thinking, but I always hear when a thought exists, like the way you’d hear waves on the shore or the buzzing of an insect. And then, when they’re about me, I hear...” I glanced around to make sure no one was nearby before I whispered, “I hear every single word.”
Gideon didn’t move. He didn’t blink or react in any way. Only stared at me.
I dropped my gaze.
It appeared he’d spoken too soon. I was a disgrace after all.
“What was your mother’s name?” he asked, out of nowhere.
“Hanna,” I said, frowning. “Why do you ask?”
He didn’t answer, only took a deep breath, slow and steady. Was he surprised? I remembered the note I’d found in the book that had insinuated my mother might be a Jinni... “Did you know her? My mother?”
“It’s hard to say.” Gideon’s expression didn’t reveal a thing. “But the Gift of Intuition is very rare. It’s certainly not something to be ashamed of.”
The name caught my attention. Intrigued, I turned it over in my mind. “Is this your Gift as well?”
“One of them.” He nodded. Before I could ask what his other Gifts were, he added, “You can control it.” He rapped his cane on the floor to punctuate his words. “With time and practice.”
He lifted his cane to point toward a mouse scurrying along the edge of the wall. “Imagine each thought is like a mouse. Right now, the mice are running around in chaos.”
I nodded vigorously at the mental image.
“Close your eyes,” he continued. “Imagine picking up each thought like catching one of the mice, and placing it in a jar.”
When I struggled to picture it, he only said, “Take your time.”
As I picked up each squirming thought by the tail out of the mess in my mind, dropping them into an imaginary glass jar, the noise surrounding me didn’t change. Was it working at all? I kept going, laboring over them, until my imaginary jar was full.
The chaos of thoughts washed over me, as overwhelming and muddled as ever. Even more so now that I was paying attention to it.
“It’s impossible... there’s too many.” I blinked back tears.
He gave me a small smile. “It will take some time and practice. Now, put a lid on the jar, and screw it shut.”
Closing my eyes again, I tried to picture a thick lid for the glass jar, twisting it hard, locking them in. The din instantly softened. My eyes flew open in surprise. “I did it!”
“Well done,” Gideon said, and it felt like high praise. “Once you’ve mastered this, you can begin to open the jar, taking out one thought at a time whenever you choose.”
A lump rose in my throat. “Thank you. Truly. I didn’t know this was possible. I didn’t even know my Gift of hearing thoughts was called Intuition.” He nodded in response, turning to look out into the room where I assumed Prince Dev had returned.
I took that as my cue to leave and stood, enjoying the regular everyday noise of conversation with only a soft hum of thoughts—one in particular stood out. Gideon’s method of singling the thoughts out had made them feel more tangible, more like the person they belonged to. This one felt close by. Familiar.
I turned and my eyes met Kadin’s. Just two steps away.
Staring at me.
All the thoughts I’d so carefully placed in the jar exploded out into the air as I lost control, but I didn’t need to pick his out of the crowd. From the disbelief written all over his face, I had no doubt he’d heard everything.
