A Fork of Paths

I cleared my throat and as I spoke, my voice was several tones deeper. “You’re right. That was a monstrous thing of me to do. I’m not even going to try to justify it.”

“Then why did you do it?” the jinni snarled.

I heaved a sigh. I couldn’t tell her about Hans, of course—I needed to keep him undiscovered for as long as I could. My mind worked furiously trying to come up with some kind of rational explanation.

“I’ve been a victim of the Elders for almost as long as I can remember,” I said, adopting a pained expression. “My entire life was destroyed by them. They took my family from me, my husband, and even my young child. I’ve spent decades living in fear of them, waking up each day terrified about what they had in store for me next.” I paused to make a show of swallowing hard, as though just the memory of it was making me choke up. “Then one day, one of the Elders came to me with a proposition. None other than the feared Basilius himself. He told me that he had been privy to a prophecy by an oracle that indicated Benjamin Novak would be the one to help them recover after the war with the Hawks. He wanted my help in procuring Benjamin. He said that if I succeeded, once they came to power again, I would be treated with respect. I would be given power, and even freedom if I wished it. It was an offer that I just couldn’t refuse.”

Aisha frowned. “But they lost control of you after the war with the Hawks. The Elders were no longer powerful enough to control any of their vessels. You were already a free woman. Why would this offer even interest you?”

“That’s true,” I said, trying not to miss a beat. “But I was convinced that they would rise to power again, with my help or without, and then they would reclaim all their lost vessels. I believed I would be thrust back into the same miserable existence I’d endured for so long. So I… I decided to safeguard my future by offering to help them.”

Aisha’s lips parted in a grimace. “You disgust me,” she murmured.

You’re not exactly my favorite person either, I thought bitterly.

I knew that I ought to avoid hot buttons with Aisha but, perhaps because of how smoothly my meeting with the witch had gone, and her quick agreement to help me, I was experiencing a surge of confidence. I dared lash back a little at the jinni, if only to soothe my ego.

“And what of you? Weren’t you essentially holding Benjamin as a prisoner, a lifelong slave to The Oasis?”

Aisha’s eyes flashed, and I knew already that I’d gone too far again in mentioning Benjamin’s name.

“We were his guardians!” she hissed. “He was a part of our family, and we were to protect him with our very lives. Something that a selfish, deceitful coward like yourself would never do for anyone.” She paused, her eyes narrowing, before cutting me deeper. “I doubt you’d even do that for your own child if you had one.”

Anger bubbled up within me, as well as righteous indignation. If only she knew the lengths that I was willing to go to for the man I loved. At the end of the day, the only difference between the jinni and me was that we loved different people. She and her family had apparently loved and accepted Benjamin as their own, and they were working to do everything they could to protect him, while I loved Hans and was doing the same for him. And I had experienced firsthand just how ruthless Aisha could be in that protection. Back when we had first met with Arron on that small island, if Benjamin hadn’t stopped her, she would’ve killed me right then and there to use my heart for him. Then, she hadn’t even known that I was working against Benjamin’s best interests. In her eyes at that time, I’d been innocent.

Still, I held back on saying more. What use would bickering with this jinni do other than sink me deeper into the mud? I fell silent, pursing my lips and averting my attention to the ocean. I took in a deep breath and turned my thoughts to other things. Like how I was going to rid myself of the jinni after we had dealt with the ship of Bloodless. She’d made it clear that she was only keeping me alive because I was assisting her in this task. I was certain that she was going to try to murder me after that. I would have to beg the witch for protection—but I just hoped that the jinni’s magic would not overpower the witch’s. I was beginning to regret not adding a fourth request to my list for the witch doctor—to protect me from Aisha—but I was afraid to ask for too much at once.

I would have to hope that her inbuilt dislike for jinn would make her side with me rather than Aisha. Although both were wielders of magic, they worked in different ways and had completely different methods of manipulating their power. But from what I understood, jinn usually had the upper hand over witches.

Aisha wandered away from me, further up the shore, which I was glad about. That left me alone, with the box—still stained with the werewolf corpse’s grime. Being stuck on the beach at the jinni’s insistence and having nothing else to do, I decided to clean it. I dragged the box into the waves and submerged it, dipping down and using my hands as scourers to remove all the dirt. Despite the shadow the witch had cast over me, the sun was still bright in my eyes as it glistened off the surface of the waves. I had to squint to see what I was doing. Once the box was clean, I returned it to the beach and then waded back into the ocean to clean myself. I had rinsed myself off before but somehow, I still felt dirty.

I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but the jinni and I stayed on separate parts of the beach, although I did notice her keeping an eye on me, shooting a glare over her shoulder every now and then.