I was about to turn on my heel and march back into the reception room to rearrange our appointment when Bahir let out a gasp, his body becoming rigid, eyes wide open. I froze, staring at him. His jaw slackened, his complexion growing pale. His eyes rolled in their sockets, then fixed somewhere above my head, as though he was seeing and also not seeing.

“Bahir?” I breathed, stepping toward him. “What’s wrong?”

My words snapped him out of whatever trance he had just fallen into. He rushed forward and grabbed my arms, sheer terror in his eyes. His lips parted, his breathing quickened. “Nuriya,” he said in a choked whisper. “S-She needs me. She is… in grave danger. I-I must go!”

Panic surged through me. “What? No! You can’t—!”

But he did.

I could barely believe my eyes, but a second later, the jinni had vanished from the spot.

CHAPTER 26: BEN

What just happened?

I was in a state of shock.

It took a few moments for reality to sink in as I stared dumbfounded at the spot where Bahir had just disappeared.

He’d abandoned us. Just like that.

My thumb reached for the golden band around my wrist and brushed against the snake’s head.

No. He has to come back. He has to come back.

I pressed against the band of gold harder than I’d ever done before, so hard that the snake’s head bent out of shape. I kept expecting him to come back, or if not him, some other jinni. But nobody came. And of course Aisha was stuck inside me staving off the Elder—I couldn’t afford for her to come out for even a moment.

What did he mean, Nuriya is in danger? And how can he just abandon his duty to me like this?

I could only think that something had gone terribly wrong back in The Oasis. What, I couldn’t imagine.

And what now? How will we get through this without a jinni by our side?

“No!” I exhaled in frustration. I left the castle and raced down the hill toward the shore. Toward the direction I supposed the jinni had headed. However futile it was, I couldn’t think of anything else to do in that moment but run. I had been so accepting of the idea that a second jinni would remain assisting me as long as I needed. Now that he’d gone, my mind spiraled into a panic.

I reached the bottom of the cliff, arriving at the beach. I stared out at the endless mass of water surrounding us. I breathed in deeply, trying to calm my racing pulse, even as I continued to touch the twisted snake head.

Think. Just think. There has to be a way out of this. There just has to.

I was too preoccupied to notice the speeding footsteps behind me until they arrived so close I could no longer ignore them. When I spun around, it was to see Arron, brandishing a sharp iron rod, aimed directly at my chest.

“No!” Julie’s shout came from my right.

I barely had time to react when she shot into Arron’s side like a missile, flooring him. Before I could even come to my senses enough to yell for her to stop, Julie had wrestled the rod out of the Hawk’s hand. Hurling it aside, she extended her claws and slit right across Arron’s throat.

“No!” I bellowed, lunging forward and hauling her off the Hawk.

But it was too late. Far too late. She’d plunged her claws so deep that they had severed his jugular.

I turned on her, shocked.

“Y-You killed him!” I hissed.

Her lips trembled as she gasped, “He was going to murder you! I suspected he was waiting for this moment all along—for you to be without a jinni by your side. He would have gouged your heart out! I didn’t know what else to do.” Her voice rose to hysteria as she clasped a bloody hand to her mouth.

I looked back down at Arron’s body. He, the great leader of the Hawks, who had once stricken fear in the heart of all vampires, now a bloodied corpse in the sand.

I still hadn’t wrapped my mind around the fact that Bahir had left us, and now here I was: two of my most useful companions lost within the space of a few minutes.

God help me.

My gaze shifted back to the shell-shocked vampire.

Now it’s just me… and this girl.

CHAPTER 27: BEN

I didn’t have even the slightest clue of what was to happen now. What would become of me. I continued rubbing the gold band, but it was to no avail.

“Benjamin,” Julie said in a quiet voice. “I think we should get rid of Arron’s corpse. I don’t know how the witch sisters would react if they found out that we had murdered someone on their property. Arron even seemed to have some kind of connection to them.”

She was right. The two of us bent down over the Hawk—me clutching his shoulders while Julie held his feet—and dragged him into the waves. We swam deep enough for the current to begin carrying him away. We returned to the beach and approached the bloodstained patch of sand where the Hawk had lain. I dug my heels in deep and unearthed the sand, kicking it about until the bloodstains were less detectable. When the tide came in, it would wash over it anyway.

I dipped down to the water and splashed my face—even though it was already wet—as if it would bring me some semblance of clarity.

One thing was for certain: I had to give up hope of having the heart surgery now. There was no way Julie and I would be able to procure the merflor, which meant that there would be no chance the witch doctor would see us—her sister had already made that amply clear. And, heck, I didn’t even have the first clue about how we were going to get off this tiny island.

“What are you thinking?” Julie asked.