Free Exquisite Captive by Heather Demetrios

her fingers and the necklace he wore. He’d woken up and just lain there on his silk sheets, the jewels and gold of her miniature prison glinting on his bare chest, staring at her until she noticed he’d awakened.
    You know, I really hate sleeping alone, he’d said, just before he put her in the bottle.
    “Your master’s a human,” Raif now said, his voice contemptuous. “You’re a Ghan Aisouri. Surely you can get a necklace off him?”
    Nalia raised her chin. “Our bind makes it almost impossible for me to overpower him, the same as if a serf in Arjinna tried to attack her overlord. Even if I were able to somehow steal the bottle, he’d find me. He’s done it before.”
    Raif flicked at one of the roses on the bush beside him. Its magenta petals fluttered to the stone path in defeat. “All right. I’ll do it. Tonight while he’s sleeping. If he wakes up, I’ll kill him.” He was so matter-of-fact, as though Malek were simply an obstacle that had to be removed. “Just tell me where his room is and—”
    “Malek isn’t like most masters. He’s different.”
    “He’s human. How different can he—”
    “He doesn’t age,” she said. “He was born over a hundred summers ago, but you saw him at the party—he hardly looks older than you or I.” Nalia shrugged at the question in Raif’s eyes. “I have no idea how this is possible. His whole life is one big secret; I know more about the baristas at the Starbucks on Sunset than I do about Malek.”
    Raif furrowed his brow. “I have no idea what you just said.”
    I’ve become far too human.
    “Starbucks is this place where humans get coffee.” Raif cocked his head to the side. “Which,” she continued, “is this drink that makes you . . . happy? It gives you energy and—oh, never mind.” Nalia shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. If he wasn’t immortal before, he is now.”
    Raif furrowed his brow. “I’m not following.”
    “I had to carve Draega’s Amulet onto his chest. It was his first wish from me.”
    The amulet was one of the most powerful wishes any jinni could grant; those with it could only die by their own hand or own choosing. Though not impervious to pain, nothing they underwent would be fatal unless they wanted it to be. Nalia had studied for years to master the alchemy involved, a dark magic that required drops of the granter’s blood in each of the four elements and a sacrifice from the wishmaker of the thing they loved best in the world. Now that all the Ghan Aisouri were gone, Nalia was perhaps the only jinni capable of granting immortality, unless a few of the Shaitan mages had survived the Ifrit reign of terror.
    “Why’d you give him the best godsdamned amulet known to jinn?”
    “He asked for it by name. I had to.”
    How Malek had known one of the jinn’s best-kept magical secrets, she couldn’t guess. What Malek had given in exchange for the amulet remained a mystery, as well: that was a contract between the wishmaker and the gods. With Malek, there were always more questions than answers.
    “Well, it doesn’t change anything: get the bottle or end up hanging from the palace gate like all the other Ghan Aisouri.”
    Nalia wouldn’t let herself picture it. Those proud, beautiful warriors nothing more than skeletons swaying in the wind, denied the pyres that would send them to the godlands and thus condemned to an eternity as spirits wandering the edges of existence. If she imagined those skeletons, the memories would crash over her, an incapacitating wave of sorrow. She had to focus: freedom meant she could save her brother. That’s all that mattered now. Bashil.
    But there was a catch. There was always a catch.
    “What’s your price, Raif Djan’Urbi? What does it cost to be free?”
    A car door slammed and Nalia stood still, listening. All that was left of the raucous night was a slight hum. Malek would be coming to her room at any minute. He might even be there now.
    “Fire and blood,”