LITMIR.BIZ

       Delilah

      Breakfast was delivered by two of our fellow captives—a selkie and a dryad, whose hair looked like a curtain of woody vines and whose fingers and toes branched like delicate tree limbs. They pushed a steel cart into the room and passed out trays from two different stacks—one for the shape-shifters, who were largely carnivorous—and one for the rest of us.

      The food was bland but nutritionally sound, a definite improvement over the menagerie, but what I found truly noteworthy was the fact that captives were allowed to perform work duties with minimal supervision, because their collars wouldn’t allow them to go anywhere they weren’t supposed to be, or do anything they weren’t supposed to do.

      If I earned a work detail that let me roam the property, I might be able to observe Vandekamp’s security systems and procedures in search of a weakness that could be exploited.

      After breakfast, two handlers in tactical gear came in to call six more women out for work duty. Lala and Mahsa were among those chosen, but they weren’t told what their chores would be or when they’d be back.

      Sometime later, the squeal of hinges drew my attention to the door as it opened, and the familiar, waiflike figure who stood in the hall drew a gasp from me. I stood, and Mirela joined me, but we both kept our distance from the ifrit—a fire djinni—in spite of the drugged haze lingering in her eyes. “I didn’t even know they’d bought Nalah,” Mirela whispered.

      “Me neither.” I’d secretly been afraid she’d been euthanized. After all, we’d had to keep her sedated since we took over the menagerie, and we weren’t even trying to hold her prisoner.

      Nalah looked tired and disoriented, standing there in the doorway, but she wasn’t trying to melt the walls and her gray scrubs weren’t even smoldering. Either because the sedatives we’d given her hadn’t worn off yet or because Vandekamp’s collar had succeeded where we’d failed.

      “Go on.” The handler behind her gave her a small push, and as the ifrit stumbled into the dormitory, long strands of tangled hair fell over her face, reflecting light in every conceivable shade of red, yellow and orange. Her hair resembled the flames the fire djinn lived and breathed, and could kindle out of the air with little more than an angry thought.

      From the hall, the handler aimed his remote at her, then clicked something on its screen. A red light flashed in the front of her collar, and the sensor over the door flashed at the same time.

      Nalah was now restricted to this room just like the rest of us.

      She wobbled on her feet, and I saw no awareness or recognition in her expression. She appeared to be in a total drug fog.

      “Come help me with her.”

      Mirela grabbed my arm. “As soon as the drugs wear off, she’s going to roast you.” Nalah blamed me for Adira’s death.

      “Not if her collar works.” If Vandekamp’s tyrannical tech made Nalah easier to deal with, I was more than willing to take the good with the very, very bad. “She needs help, Mirela.”

      “Fine.” The oracle let go of my arm, still staring warily at the ifrit. “I’ll get her some water and a mat to lie down on. You get...her.”

      While Mirela pulled one of the gymnastics mats from the pile stacked against the wall, I approached the teenage djinni cautiously. “Nalah?”

      Her gaze snapped up, fiery copper eyes focused on me with a familiar, burning hatred. But a second later, they glazed over again. That was all the malice she had the strength for, at least until the drugs were out of her system.

      “Do you want to lie down? Mirela’s getting you some water.” I reached for her arm, but the djinni stumbled backward to get away from me, putting her dangerously close to the doorway sensor. “You need to move away from the door. It’ll—”

      “Nalah?”

      I turned to find a woman about my age staring at the ifrit through wide ice-blue eyes. Waist-length silvery hair hung down her back and the fall of light made it shimmer like water flowing in sunlight—easily the most identifiable feature of a marid, a water djinni. And she didn’t look friendly.

      “I’m Delilah Marlow.” I stepped back, so I could keep both djinn in sight. “What’s your name?”

      “Simra.”

      “Do you know Nalah?” My understanding was that the young ifrit and her royal marid companion had been captured by Metzger’s shortly after they’d sneaked into the United States and had no friends here.

      “Everyone south of the border knows her.” Simra’s cold gaze narrowed on Nalah. “Where is Princess Adira?” she demanded.

      Tears filled Nalah’s copper eyes.

      “Um...Adira was shot when we took over the menagerie,” I whispered, afraid that my explanation would upset Nalah. “She didn’t make it.”

      “You failed her.” Simra glared at Nalah with feverish spite. “You should have taken the bullet for her. That was your obligation!” She let out a high-pitched war cry and lunged at the ifrit. I threw myself between them, but before she could crash into me, the marid collapsed in the grip of a seizure.

      Her collar worked faster than I could, and it was a hell of a lot more effective.

      Mirela led the sobbing ifrit to the sleeping mat she’d prepared while I knelt next to Simra with no idea how I could help her. Fortunately, her convulsions only lasted a few seconds, but she’d hit her head on the floor when she fell, and even after she stopped shaking, her eyes looked unfocused.

      “Simra?” I swept glittering, silvery hair back from her forehead and searched her pale blue eyes for any sign of awareness. “Are you okay?”

      She nodded, then rolled onto her side and covered her face with her hands. “I knew that would happen. Still, I had to try.” She pushed herself upright and smoothed long hair back from her pale face, composing herself.

      “Try what? To hurt Nalah?”

      Simra’s icy gaze focused on me. “To avenge the princess.”

      “Did you know Adira?”

      “I saw her in a parade once,” she replied, her expression softening with the memory. “When she was a girl. Nalah sat at her feet, and I was mad with envy. So many of us wanted to be the princess’s companion, but the ifrit royalty sent her Nalah as a gift, when the betrothal of their prince to our princess was announced. As a cross-cultural gesture.” Her gaze hardened again and she clasped her pale hands in her lap. “But Nalah let our princess die.”

      “She’s just a kid. And she was Adira’s companion, not her bodyguard,” I pointed out.

      “She has disgraced herself by outliving the princess she served.” Simra sat up, her spine as stiff as the line of her jaw. “If I could restore her honor by taking her life, I would.”

      The casual brutality of her declaration sent a chill crawling over me, and for the first time, I was grateful that Sultan Bruhier, Adira’s grieving father, had denied us entry into his kingdom. Djinni culture sounded ruthless, and the injustice of it would have driven me—and the furiae within me—insane.

      “Delilah?” a low-pitched voice called, and I looked up to find Bowman standing in the dormitory doorway holding a clipboard.

      I stood, my heart thumping in anticipation.

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