Page 94 of Bewitched By the Djinn
A cold knot tightens in my chest.
Bennet frowns. “Could it be ifrit posing as us? They can change form, but I’ve never known them to have enough magic to mimic one of us so perfectly for a considerable length of time. It would require tremendous power. Is it even possible?”
Darius shifts closer. “He has the Ring of Solomon.”
Helen’s mouth goes slack. “What? How? It’sreal?”
“We aren’t sure how he obtained it.” Darius rubs his chin. “Only that he’s using it with the ifrit, to control them, give them power and enhance his own magic.”
Mimi did say myths often come from twisted kernels of truth. But this sounds like a heck of a lot more than a kernel, if Hugh is using it to control a wholepeople.
Mom leans forward in her seat. “We’ve suspected the ring has been in play for months now. Conflict has been brewing with the ifrit for years, but recently it’s been escalating, and their powers increasing. We’ve been searching for ways to weaken its influence and rescuing as many people as we can caught in the ifrit attacks.”
Helen’s voice hardens. “So Uncle has the ring. But what does he gain by marrying two ifrit posing as me and Lord Wallace?”
No one has an answer. Silence fills the space.
Helen’s foot taps against the wood floor. “Maybe, if an ifrit is put in my place, in my name, they could change the laws of the land.”
“That could be it,” Bennet says grimly. “He’s not just replacing us. He’s selling Aetheria to the ifrit. But we still don’t knowwhyUncle would do such a thing. Why steal the kingdom only to give it away?”
Helen rises to her feet. “It doesn’t matter. We have to expose the fakes. We need a plan. We need to retrieve the Ring of Solomon and expose Uncle before the wedding.”
Dad nods slowly. “We’ve been working on a way to sneak into the castle and save Dominic. It’s heavily guarded.”
Bennet clears his throat. “I can help with that.”
Chapter
Twenty-Five
An hour later, we huddle around a makeshift map, a sketch Helen and Bennet drew from memory. Tunnels, passageways, and guard patrol routes snake across the parchment in charcoal lines. Darius stands beside my dad, his arms crossed over his chest as they quietly argue about the timing of the distraction.
They’ve been working on setting up a portal just beyond the border of their camp that will open in the forest near the castle. It’s been in the works for weeks now. Darius created the gateway, but he isn’t as strong as Helen and he had to store up the magic on the site a bit at a time. It’s been ready for a few days, but they haven’t finished their plans for infiltrating the dungeon because they didn’t know all the routes and passages.
“We’ll draw the guards from the wall out front,” Dad says. “Start the fires here and here.” He jabs at two spots along the outer wall. “Gives you a ten-minute window before reinforcements circle back.”
Helen nods. “That should get us inside the west wing.”
“We’ll need to be fast.” Bennet crosses his arms over his chest. “Once we’re in, if we run into any guards, I can help. I know their routines.”
“We’ll get in, find Dominic, and locate the Ring,” Helen says. “We have to go tonight. When it’s full dark. We can’t wait. We’re running out of time.”
“Agreed.” Dad scratches his beard. “Everyone, go get some rest. We leave an hour past sunset.”
Mom wraps an arm around my shoulder while the others file out. “I don’t like you going in there.”
“I have to. Bennet and I can’t be too far apart.” Unless we want to contort in agony.
She squeezes me once and then releases me, Dad swooping in to give me a hug too. We all make our goodbyes before heading back toward the treehouse.
Bennet falls into place beside me. He doesn’t say anything, just catches my hand and laces our fingers together. Helen follows us, then disappears into her room, shutting the woven door without a word.
The bedroom where we placed our bags earlier is barely big enough for the bed. The frame is carved from smooth, pale branches, knotted with bark in places. Woven ivy and old cloth banners are draped above like a canopy. The mattress is some kind of soft, worn linen.
Bennet shrugs off his cloak, setting it on the foot of the bed, then looks at me with that careful intensity he saves just for me. “You should rest.”
I nod. Without words, we both undress, shrugging out of everything but our underthings.
