None of it made any sense. And besides these inconsistencies, she had seemed so genuine… So… helpless. I couldn’t help but wonder whether any of her story was true at all—whether she was indeed on the run from her father. But then who were those men who’d come after her, the ones I’d ended up killing? Perhaps that part of the story was true, and it was only once she’d found out that I was marked by an Elder that she’d changed her plans, deciding that getting rid of me was more important than running from her father. Her words rang in my ears. “Helping you is more important than my escape from my father.”

Had she meant that getting rid of me was more important? But then why hadn’t she? Why lock me in this box? Why keep me alive for another moment knowing the destruction that I was capable of causing?

“Where are we, Ben?” Aisha asked, her voice shaking. “You must know where we are.” She grabbed my hand and shook it.

Before I could answer her, the obvious hit me.

“Aisha,” I breathed, gaping at the jinni. “You… You’ve left me. How…” My voice trailed off. How am I still myself? The twisting pain that I’d felt earlier when I’d feared that Aisha was on her way out… I could no longer feel that. Although the hunger pangs remained, I was sensing no signs of the Elder taking control.

What is happening?

Aisha continued to harass me with questions, but I still had too many of my own to come up with a single answer.

Could it be that this box separates me from the influence of the Elder? That, although he has bored a connection between the two of us deep within my heart, being in this box means that his influence cannot reach me?

If what Julie had told me was true—and it seemed true to me based on the jinni’s inability to escape—this box could contain subtle beings. Beings who weren’t of flesh and bone. And while I was inside it, these walls would serve as barriers to the Elder’s influence reaching me.

My mind churned, my doubts swinging in another direction. What if locking me in here was Julie doing me a favor? Cutting me off from the Elder.

But then why not make the suggestion to me herself? Why shut me in here in such a backhanded manner?

Aisha’s desperation boiled over the edge. She clutched my throat and shook me hard. “What’s going on, Ben?”

I had to attempt to answer her questions. Gripping her hands, I shoved them away from my neck and tried to form a coherent sentence.

“First of all, I don’t know exactly what happened,” I said, my voice hoarse. My mind traveled back to the last time Aisha had seen the light of day—back on Breccan’s island. “After Bahir left me, we managed to get the dragon scale. Then we headed back to Uma’s island, but I couldn’t get an appointment with the witch because somehow we had lost the merflor. I suspected Arron of taking it…”

Now my trust in Julie had been shaken, I wondered whether it could’ve been her who had removed the merflor from the sack. From the very start she had been vocal about her doubts about the surgery and made it clear that she thought we ought to find some other way.

I tried to think how she could have taken the merflor. I recalled the night Bahir had left me and the Elder had overtaken me. Before leaping from the cliff, I’d dropped the sack. In the blur of confusion that must have followed my leap, Julie could have found a way to remove the plant, perhaps flinging it over the cliffside. The others being preoccupied, I supposed it wouldn’t have been that difficult to do it without anyone noticing.

Even still, I couldn’t place a finger on exactly what her motive would’ve been for me to not have the surgery. If she had locked me in this box because she wanted to somehow save me from the Elder’s influence rather than destroy me as Arron had wanted, why was she so against my being cured by a different method? That surgery, if successful, would have brought me a permanent cure. I couldn’t remain in this box forever… Could I?

Aisha shook me again. “Ben!” she hissed. “What happened after you found out that you were missing the merflor?”

I fought to refocus my addled brain. “Then… Then Bahir left altogether,” I said. “He just took off.”

Aisha’s eyes bulged. “What?” she gasped. “Why? How could he have just left you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He said something about Nuriya being in grave danger. He just said that he had to go. Using my wrist band, I tried to summon him back, or summon another jinni to me, but nobody came.”

The jinni’s hands clamped over her mouth. “Oh, no! No! I can’t believe this could have happened.”

“That what could have happened?” I asked.

“I can only think of one thing that would cause Nuriya to be in such danger that Bahir would abandon you. The one thing that caused her to flee to The Oasis in the first place.”

Now it was me who was shaking her. “Flee from what?”

“The Drizan jinn,” Aisha breathed, her eyes wide with terror. “They must’ve found her. Found us. I can’t think how else—”

“The Drizan jinn? Who are they?”

She hesitated, doubt filling her face, as though wondering whether she really ought to answer my question. But she’d spilled so much already, it didn’t make sense for her not to continue.

“What?” I urged.

“Do you remember the first day we met… before lunch?” she asked. “I slipped up and said something that I shouldn’t have. From the look in your eyes, you noticed.”