She glanced up at me, and gave me a small nod.

“Okay,” she said in a quiet voice. “I-I’m going to board the ship… I will first attempt to get to the box without waking anyone or my father knowing, but I’m sure that will be impossible for the reasons I already described.”

I had no idea how she was planning to convince her father to part with such a supposedly rare and valuable item, especially after she had betrayed him and run away. But she seemed confident that she could find a way to pull it off, so all I could do was trust her.

Her gaze remained on me for a few moments before she backed away. Moving to the bow of our boat, she took a giant leap and latched onto the railing lining the deck of the tall ship. She swung her legs over and disappeared from sight.

That left me waiting in excruciating silence. I took up the reins, worried that the dolphins might go lunging forward for some reason. My eyes traveled toward the front of Mr. Duan’s ship. Dozens of ropes hung down the front of it—reins—and submerged in the water. I wondered what sea creatures drove this huge ship forward. Hopefully not something that could aggravate the two dolphins. Thankfully, they remained quite still.

I doubled over as an intense pain fired through my chest. The same disconcerting pain that I’d prayed was a one-off. Now I couldn’t push away the doubt that this was more than just a temporary lack of Aisha’s concentration or a slip-up. She was becoming tired, I could sense it.

Aisha, you’ve got to hold on. I willed that she could hear me.

“Benjamin.”

Julie’s hushed voice called down from the deck of the ship. I looked up with both relief and surprise. I hadn’t expected her back nearly so soon. Perhaps she’d managed to get the box without her father waking up after all, or perhaps the ship was empty.

Though it turned out that neither was the case.

She beckoned me to jump up to her. “You can come now,” she whispered. “I’ll explain. Just leave the dolphins where they are. Don’t worry, they won’t go anywhere.”

I double-checked that the reins were secure before leaping up to her. When I arrived on the deck, I expected it to be empty—especially from the way that Julie had been whispering to me. I certainly wasn’t expecting to see four vampires standing behind Julie in a semi-circle.

I looked with uncertainty from one to the other. Three men and one woman. They were all young, perhaps a year or two apart in age. Their skin was whiter than Julie’s, and each possessed distinctly European features.

I didn’t get much further into wondering who these people were exactly, as the young man standing directly in front of me whipped out a thin tubular object, placed it against his mouth, and released a breath.

The next thing I knew, a sharp object had buried itself into my neck. A burning sensation erupted around it. My head felt light and I fell to my knees. Dizziness overtook me as the half-circle of vampires closed in around me. Hands forced my back against the floor and closed around my ankles, hands, and shoulders. I was lifted from the ground. My sight and awareness were fading fast, but I was still conscious enough to feel my limbs knock against hard edges, my body placed in some kind of narrow trunk.

As I gazed upward through foggy vision, it was Julie who stared down at me, expressionless. Her hands moved to the lid of the container and she lowered it down slowly over me until all faded to black.

CHAPTER 29: BEN

I woke to a cool wind blowing against my face. My eyelids felt heavy as lead. I became keenly aware of the throbbing pain in my neck. My muscles felt strained and torn, as though I’d been put through a shredder. As I tried to move my legs, they knocked against hard walls either side of me.

When I forced my eyes open, my misted vision cleared, giving way to the sight of… Aisha.

She crouched over me. Her lips were puckered, and I realized that she’d been blowing on me. Panic gleamed in her eyes and she looked drained and exhausted.

“Benjamin!” she whispered. “We’re trapped!”

I tried to distance myself from the jinni, but there simply wasn’t enough room. I couldn’t sit up fully, but I sat up as much as I could, while Aisha slid down my legs, giving me some breathing space.

“What happened?” I asked. Although my vision had cleared, my mind was still in a fog.

“I don’t know,” she hissed. “I couldn’t stay in you any longer. The Elder sucked too much out of me. I was forced to emerge, and when I did we were both trapped in… this? What is this?” Her voice rose to soprano. “I’m a jinni. I can move through walls. Why can’t I penetrate this box?”

This box.

The words triggered something and slowly, the pieces began to fall into place. My head reeled as my last memory came back to me. Julie, closing the lid of this… this box.

Her Elder trap.

The sheer magnitude of her betrayal hit me full force. All that time… I wondered when exactly it had started. Had it been after she’d found out what I was capable of unleashing? Had she seen me as the threat that I was, just as Arron had? Unlike the Hawk, she’d gained my trust. Was her motive truly the same as Arron’s? She had been opposed to the surgery from the start, and instead had proposed her box idea. The box that held the power to trap an Elder. Apparently also capable of trapping a jinni.

Had Julie been planning to finish me off all along? But too many things about this simply didn’t make sense. If this had been her plan, why hadn’t she teamed up with the Hawk? Why had she killed him when he had attempted to stake me? She should have just hung back and watched as he aimed the iron rod right through my chest. Why had she helped me in the dragon cave? And why hadn’t she attempted to kill me herself already, when she’d had more than enough opportunity?