“Welcome back,” Zafir said.
I blinked. Zafir had been stabbed. He’d been gravely injured, and yet here he was, looking wholly undamaged and surrounded by six other women. I had been killed…hadn’t I? I went to place a hand up to my forehead and, as I did so, saw that my tattoo had disappeared. I was no longer marked by the genie.
“What…what happened?”
“You won,” one of the women said. She looked by far to be the oldest of the bunch, but something about her looked strangely familiar…
“Joy?” I looked between her and the portrait on the wall. Her face was more lined now and her hands showed their age, but it was undoubtedly her. “Aren’t you… weren’t you…”
“Rahil’s first wife, yes. He stole a great many years from me to sustain his own life.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes. You saved us.” Nadia knelt at my side, her hands clasped around mine.
I blinked slowly, still struggling to comprehend.
Zafir cleared his throat. “When you wished to be Rahil’s only master, it freed everyone else and made Rahil very vulnerable. He lost his supply of human prey, and then was confined by the vow bond I put in place. You threw yourself in front of me, and you were his only living master. Without a living master and having the vow bond’s consequences for killing you, he was destroyed. He’s gone for good.”
“Too bad,” one of the former wives said, cracking her knuckles in a menacing way. “I’d have liked to punch him a few times before he died.”
“But how am I not dead then?” I asked, bewildered. I ought to feel more pain than I did. “I’m…alive, aren’t I?”
“You’re forgetting that I made a wish after getting stabbed.” Zafir’s face split into a grin.
“You…you wished that you could heal anyone.”
“Including myself.” He pulled his shirt to the side so I could see where the wound had neatly sealed itself. “I healed myself then got to you just in time.”
“So the wishes didn’t vanish along with Rahil?”
One of the other wives shook her head. “No. Just look around you. Rahil was the one who had us wish for this house, room by room, but it’s still standing. Any wish he granted while alive will live on, but the genie is gone. Once a spell is cast, it lives on, regardless of whether or not the caster is alive.”
I tried to sit up and Zafir leapt to my side to assist me.
Samira was smiling from ear to ear. “I wish there was something we could do for you to show how thankful we are.”
Karis, the musical wife, shuddered as she looked around. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I just want to get out of here as fast as possible, and I’m never coming back. I’ve spent far too many years trapped here.”
All the other wives agreed, nodding their heads and expressing how they loathed every wall.
“Are you kidding?” I said with a laugh. “It’s a magical mansion that gives you anything you could ever want, and you’re turning it down? Rahil isn’t here anymore.”
Samira smiled. “Then it’s all yours, unless your sister wants it instead.”
Nadia shook her head. “No way. Alia’s the rightful owner of the entire house.”
“Keep it, along with our gratitude,” Samira told me. “You’ve earned it.”
Rahil’s former wives began to leave, already talking amongst themselves about the things they would be able to do now that they were freed, from smelling the fresh air to seeing their families again.
Within minutes they’d all vanished, leaving me alone with Nadia and Zafir.
“Now what?” Nadia asked. “Does Zafir have a job that he needs to go back for, or…”
“Funny question,” I told her, pushing myself off the floor as my strength returned. “Zafir’s actually looking to start a new life now. He sort of resigned his position and sold everything he had to come here.”
Zafir pulled me to my feet and I held on to him. “What do you say, Zafir? Do you want a tour? You’ll love the alchemy room, though you may not care now that you’re a healer.”
