Tales of the Djinn: The Double (17 page)

Noting what he’d done, Arcadius withdrew his hand.

“Your scroll,” Arcadius said, nodding toward the bedside table where Cade had left it along with his harness of throwing knives. “It’s flashing. Someone must be trying to contact you.”

Wondering what the emergency was, Cade retrieved the parchment from the drawer and unrolled it. Familiar writing spilled across the surface. “It’s Joseph. He’s asking the three of us to meet him and the harem girl in Iksander’s private library.”

“Now?”

“Apparently.”

Elyse made a grumbling noise. She’d curled up on her side, facing him. Cade gave her hip a pat. “Get up, sweetheart. We need more clothes than our skin for this.”

They dressed without conversation, though the quiet wasn’t uncomfortable. Curiosity drew Cade’s gaze toward his double as he pulled on clothes with little evidence of lingering weakness. Cade wasn’t over the strangeness of seeing his own body with—essentially—someone else in it. Those were his legs, his chest and arms, his dark hair falling down his brow. Had he and Arcadius really shared Elyse in this very closet? Arousal threatened to expand in him, but he pushed it down. He’d think about that later . . . maybe much. For his part, Arcadius cut more than one glance toward Elyse, smiling when she slid her feet into the sparkly jewel-studded slippers he’d given her. His gift was a success. Cade struggled not to mind.

Knowing Elyse, she hadn’t realized the gems weren’t rhinestones.

“Do I need a head scarf?” she asked.

“Only if you want one,” Arcadius said. “We’re in our own rooms, and this harem girl has broken protocol already.”

Since Cade would have said the same, he tried not to resent the other him answering.

When they reached the small book-lined library, Joseph and the concubine hopped up from slightly distant separate armchairs. Though Joseph was a eunuch, Cade supposed the customary man-woman divide still applied. They definitely didn’t seem easy with each other.

“You’re better,” Joseph said, seeing Arcadius walk in without support.

“Yes,” Arcadius answered with a curtness that shut off discussion of that topic.

Joseph seemed to see the wisdom of dropping it. He introduced Yasmin, who was extraordinarily pretty but shy enough to blush. Cade assumed it was shyness anyway. As Joseph and she related her recent doings, his amazement expanded. While her motivation might be understandable, Yasmin might as well have torched the agreement her parents signed with Iksander. Putting herself recklessly in danger was a slap to Iksander’s face. She was his concubine. She owed him more respect than running around the city like a literal wild thing.

Elyse, by contrast, listened to the young woman’s account with admiration and interest. Cade suspected she’d enjoy the ability to turn into a cat. Too, a harem girl rebelling was probably more understandable to her than one who obeyed every rule. Interestingly, as he imagined how Yasmin’s actions appeared to Elyse, his outrage subsided.

Was this what being part of a couple meant: that you automatically had access to another perspective? He’d have to think about that. Maybe it was just what being part of a couple meant for him.

“Your brother didn’t appear different from when you knew him?” Elyse asked.

“No,” Yasmin said. “I thought he would, but I haven’t known ifrits before him.”

She glanced at Joseph to consult him.

“Sometimes djinn who damn themselves look different, but not in every case. The sorceress looked the same before and after she killed Najat. The biggest change was that Luna had more power. Once she’d crossed that forbidden line, she didn’t cavil at crossing more to boost her magic.”

“Ramis always had a knack for spells. Our whole family does, though nothing compared to yourself, of course.”

Elyse seemed to find Yasmin’s high regard for Joseph amusing. Cade watched her humor fade as a new thought occurred to her. “If Ramis took your brother, that would explain why the emotion Joseph sensed when he touched his portrait was surprise. Balu wouldn’t have been afraid of someone familiar.”

“But why do it?” Yasmin asked. “I suppose Ramis misses Balu, but then why take the others?”

“Some ritual?” Arcadius suggested with analytical coolness. “Maybe he’s using the djinn as sacrifices. The sorceress did as much to augment her curse.”

“Ramis wouldn’t kill his own brother!” Yasmin cried. “I spoke to him. He couldn’t be that lost.”

Cade suspected he could but preferred not to be as blunt as the other him. He switched to another tack. “The human connection is interesting. Balu was last seen at a view café. The bath girl Jeannine may have frequented the cosplay club, since it was near her work. Perhaps Ramis was her mysterious ‘recruiter’ and the first contact was made there.” He turned to Arcadius. “Didn’t the bath boy say she’d been bragging that she had a way out of the life she was living in our city? That she’d been chosen to go somewhere she’d be at the top of the heap and not the bottom?”

“Yes,” Arcadius said.

“We didn’t find a link like that for the kids who disappeared from the bottle house,” Elyse pointed out.

“Not finding it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. They were down on their luck. And romantics, by the priest’s account. Like the others, they may have been vulnerable to promises of better lives on the human plane.”

Cade thought his double’s theory was possible. He pinched his lower lip. “The promise doesn’t explain what Ramis gets out of it.”

Yasmin piped up with that answer. “He had money. Maybe the tattooed man is paying him.”

She didn’t anticipate the reaction she got from Elyse and Cade. Her eyes went round as they turned to her, dumbstruck.

“What tattooed man?” Cade asked, trying not to alarm her with the intensity of his interest. They’d crossed paths with a tattooed man in Elyse’s realm, an individual Cade had been hoping to put off dealing with for a while.

“He came into the club while Ramis and I were there,” Yasmin said. “He didn’t speak to my brother, but I got the impression they knew each other.”

“Was he tall?” Elyse stretched her hand high to demonstrate. “Muscular build? Shaved head? Black swirly tattoos sort of liked thick barbed wire?”

“You know who he is?” Yasmin asked.

Elyse nodded. “Unfortunately. His name is Mario. He worked for my uncle as hired muscle until he joined forces with my cousin Cara and shot him dead.” Yasmin looked confused so she elaborated. “My home in the human world had a portal nexus in its basement. My father figured out how to access your plane with it. He was an explorer, I guess you’d say. His idea of wealth was having new cultures to learn about. My uncle preferred cold hard cash. He resented my dad keeping a secret world of riches to himself and had him thrown into a volcano so he could claim the door for himself. The reasons are complicated, but we thought we’d prevented Mario from following us here.”

“We left breadcrumbs,” Joseph said resignedly. “A smart male like Mario would have followed them sooner or later.”

“But—” Yasmin hesitated, her gaze shifting between them. “The man I saw in the cosplay club wasn’t human. He was djinn.”

“His
tattoos
were djinn,” Cade corrected. “Animated by a trapped djinni’s spirit. We’re not sure where Mario got them, but we’ve seen evidence that his spirit and the djinni’s are starting to intertwine.”

“Hm,” Arcadius said, not having heard this part of the story. “I wonder if he’ll lose the advantage of his magic overruling ours as that happens.”

None of them had sat since entering the library, and Cade’s original was tiring. Without being obvious about it, Arcadius lowered his weight to the gilded arm of a long sapphire couch. He tapped one finger on his lips. “Actually, I wonder if this Mario was the rogue sorcerer who attacked myself and Elyse as we left the bathhouse. Perhaps, because she’s human too, Elyse saw through his disguise. Her subconscious might have recognized him as the man she knew and urged her conscious self to go after him. The combination of djinni and human in his magic could be why I was able to counter his assault at all.”

“That seems possible,” Cade said. In truth, he wished he’d thought of the explanation. Seeming to know this, Arcadius smiled smugly.

His smirk faltered just a little when Elyse rubbed Cade’s arm to draw his attention. “If Mario is here and he’s behind the disappearances, how do we stop him?”

“I might be able to help you set a trap for my brother,” Yasmin said.

“That is
not
a good idea,” Joseph protested.

“You haven’t heard what I’m going to say!”

“Let her speak,” Cade said. “She’s gone to some risk already. Perhaps we owe it to her to listen.”

“The risks she’s already taken are what I’m worried about.” Joseph’s mutter was uncharacteristically ill tempered.

“The girl has shown bravery,” Arcadius put in—also unexpectedly. “I say we hear her out.”

He and the others turned to her. Given the floor, Yasmin twisted her fingers nervously. “Before we parted, my brother said he’d try to send me a message so we could talk again. I don’t think he realized I suspect him of anything. If I tell you where we’re meeting, surely you could formulate some way to catch him. Maybe you can get him to rat on this Mario.”

“If your brother sees the trick coming, you’ll be in danger.” This warning came from Elyse.

“Ramis wouldn’t truly hurt me,” Yasmin said.

“I’m sure the friend he stabbed in the heart would have said the same,” Elyse pointed out gently. “You didn’t know him then, and you don’t really know him now.”

Yasmin looked like she wanted to argue. “Fine,” she said after a brief struggle. “But I’m still the most reliable way you have of locating my brother.”

“We know his likely recruiting grounds,” Arcadius said. “We could put a watch on the view cafés and the cosplay club. See if he or Mario shows up again.”

“Respectfully,” Yasmin said, “you can’t. That guard you put on the bath boy stood out like a sore thumb. He’s probably the reason Ramis risked exposing his presence here to me. He wanted to know what the scuttlebutt at the palace was. If you make him more nervous, he and Mario will run.”

“We can’t be sure he’ll contact you,” Joseph said.

“He probably will,” Yasmin countered. “My brother always thought no one else was as smart as him. I’m willing to bet that didn’t change when he turned dark.”

~

Yasmin was proud of herself for getting through the interview with the commanders and Elyse. She’d been nervous but thought she expressed herself clearly. She’d even stood her ground against Joseph. In hindsight, maybe she wasn’t
happy
she’d contradicted him, but it proved she had spine. Fortunately, no one guessed how long she’d been watching the handsome magician. Also fortunately, she slipped back into the harem unobserved.

All that remained for her to do was hope she’d judged her brother correctly. She was pretty sure she had, but wished she knew how Ramis would contact her. What if he had trouble getting a message through the palace’s magical protections? Maybe she should ask Joseph to do something to make it easier.

Worries like these kept her awake for what was left of the night.

She wasn’t at her best when she joined the other concubines for the morning meal. Their dining room held one long table with cushioned couches along the sides. Per usual, the sultana presided at the head. She liked the meal to be quiet, given the early hour. Yasmin slid into her customary place and was offered bread and cheese and fruit. Many of the table’s seats were empty. Stupidly, she almost opened her mouth to ask where the rest of the women were. They were in the storeroom, their marble bodies wrapped in quilts to protect them from damage. Her life was currently so alive and interesting she’d forgotten them.

“Pardon, your highness,” said one of the servers. “Some flowers have arrived for you. Shall I bring them in?”

“Flowers?” the sultana asked. “For me?”

“From one of the neighborhoods where you established an emergency food pantry. The residents wish to show their gratitude. The package checkers have vetted them. They’re perfectly safe to bring in.”

“Fine,” she said. “Find a vase and put them in the middle of the table. We can all enjoy them.”

The server grinned. When she returned a minute later they saw why. The bouquet was huge and absolutely gorgeous—a tumble of sunset orange roses, decorative palm leaf sprays, and fragrant sprigs of tiny white lime blossoms.

“Oh, my,” the sultana breathed, actually lighting up with pleasure. It wasn’t a look they often saw on her. It reminded Yasmin she was a person and not just a battleax. “They’re beautiful.”

“I misted them with spelled water,” the server said. “They’ll stay fresh for a while.”

All the women got up to coo and sniff. Yasmin was no different except in one respect. When she leaned closer to the flowers, a single petal jumped from a rose and landed in her palm.

Startled, she looked at it. The orange petal glittered, only for a second, as if gold dust had been brushed over it. She didn’t see words, but this had to be her brother’s message. The spelled spritz water ought to have prevented blooms from falling off. Yasmin closed her fingers around the petal and forced herself to sit normally.

Her heart beat faster at the thought of taking this to Joseph.

~

Joseph was exiting the vizier’s office when Yasmin’s mostly black cat gamboled around the corner of the corridor.

“Cat!” exclaimed a passing cleaner, raising his broom to shoo her.

“Wait!” Joseph startled the man by rushing forward. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll carry her away.”

The cleaner bowed when he saw who’d stopped him. Joseph tried to nod like this was all perfectly normal and picked up the waiting cat. She hung from his hand perfectly relaxed, though he felt slightly rude carrying her. Resisting an urge to stroke her between the ears, he ducked into the nearest empty room. As it happened, this was a storage space for extra cushions and de-spelled scrolls. He shut the door behind them and set Yasmin down.

She shimmered swiftly into her true form. The colorful stacked-up cushions didn’t leave much floor space. Yasmin tried to retreat and nearly fell into them.