Inna's heart froze over, her blood reduced to a river of ice crystals cutting into every part of her body. She felt the echo of her father's pronouncement like a noose tied around her neck. "Treason?" she whispered, hurt lacing every syllable.

The Shah raised his chin, not once breaking her gaze. Inna watched him and wondered who this man was. It was definitely not her father. Her father wasn't the type of person that made other people tremble out of fear.

"You have always been my favorite, Serafina," he confessed, his tone soft and disappointed. Wholly fictitious, of course, words woven together by lies.

This is not going to end well, she thought, and she took another step closer to Arran. For protection, although she hadn't figured out yet who should be protecting whom.

"Haven't I always been good, baba?" she asked, putting on her mask of total innocence.

The Shah barked a dark laugh and gestured at the Sphere of Truths, buried in her arms. "Then what are you doing playing around with that, whereas I told you not to touch it again?"

At that point, Rabyatt finally decided to step in. "Your Majesty," he began, laying a hand on his heart as though he was swearing an oath of truth. "This is my fault. I didn't know you had prohibited the princess from using the Sphere. Not to question your motives, sire, but I wonder why."

The Shah narrowed his eyes. "Stay out of this, prince. The Sphere is mine now. My daughter is trying to steal it from me, so she brought this upon herself. You'd do well not to meddle in the Palace's affairs."

"Well, since the princess has yet to accept my marriage proposal, the Sphere still belongs to me—"

"Do you hope to share a cell in the dungeons with her, Rabyatt?" the Shah growled. Rabyatt kept his mouth shut, his ruby eyes wide with surprise. "That's what I thought."

Inna swallowed as her father turned his attention back to her. A sharp gleam had appeared in his eyes, the sign of lingering madness on the verge of breaking through.

"Please, baba," she pleaded, desperate. "I'm not trying to steal anything. Don't you see it's the Sphere driving you mad? It has you wrapped up in its power."

"SILENCE," he bellowed. Inna swore even the songbirds outside had gone silent. When he continued, his voice was quiet and low with a thinly-veiled threat. "Guards, take the princess to the dungeons below the palace. Her and that scoundrel behind her."

Inna gasped and backed away until her back was pressed against Arran. His hands gripped her waist, probably in a reflex, and she could feel his chest heaving with quick, shallow breaths. "No! He didn't do anything!"

"He has trespassed on the palace's grounds," the Shah stated, face devoid of emotion. "No self-respecting noble would grow their hair like that. I have never interfered with your choice of bed partners, Serafina, but I cannot open my doors to the scum of Primsharah. No matter how many fine clothes you dress them in."

Arran's fingers dug into her sides. An apology already bubbled up in her throat, but she was cut off by a pair of strong hands grabbing her wrists and forcing her arms behind her back. "Get your hands off me, you bastard!" she yelled. She thrashed and kicked and managed to wrench one hand free, yet the guards' grip was unrelenting. Rabyatt tried to come to her aid—tried, because one of the guards pointed the tip of his sword at the prince's throat, rendering him helpless. Zazi shot up from the bed, her long body taut like a spear, and sank her teeth into a guard's leg. The man howled with pain as the snake's venom leaked into his veins. Several guards lashed out at her with their swords, but she dodged them all and slithered back under the bed, out of their reach.

Before long, Inna and Arran were both dragged to the door of her apartment, surrendered to a madman's mercy. One week in the immediate presence of a World Artifact and Inna no longer recognized her own father.

The gods have mercy on all of them.

As a last resort, Inna summoned the magic in her blood, intending to unleash a destructive wind. Next to her, Arran's form melted into its environment until the guards seemed to hold empty air in their hands. Their joint escape attempt was unsuccessful, though. A pair of iron handcuffs, sizzling with magic, locked around her wrists, and her magic dissolved, like a severed limb. She gasped in pain. Arran flickered back into view, his face distorted with equal distress, similar handcuffs binding his hands in front of his abdomen.

Some servants cried out Inna's name in shock when they passed, their hands clamped over their mouths. Though waves of shame swept through her with every step, she held her head high and met their stares with pride. The guards might have shackled her magic, but they would not strip her from her dignity too. She would not let them.

The descent to the palace dungeons took hours; it was over in mere seconds. The metallic scent of dried-up blood mixed with other human fluids greeted them long before they reached the cells themselves. Inna scrunched up her nose. The last man to have been imprisoned in this hellhole had been a Primsharahn noble accused of dabbling in slave trade, and that had been three years ago. Yet, the stench never wore off, an eternal reminder to those who ended up here of how well they had messed up. It was like the palace itself mocked them for their crimes.

But Inna and Arran had committed no crime. She clenched her teeth. Correction: she had committed no crime. By sheer coincidence, Arran had been accused of one he didn't commit.

A strong, unyielding hand shoved her into a cell, about four paces deep and three paces wide. No windows. A single, bare cot leaned against the far wall, at its footboard a chamber pot which hadn't been cleaned in ages. Arran grunted and swore when his escort threw him into the opposite cell, but the brutes merely laughed and closed the barred doors with a loud clang. The sound was so definitive that Inna winced, despite her brave, defiant demeanor.

The heavy thuds of the guards' boots disappeared back up the stairs to the land of the uncondemned. Howls of rage clawed at the tip of her tongue, yet screaming wouldn't help her get out of here sooner. Instead, the princess sank down onto the cot and buried her face in her hands. She missed Zazi's familiar weight coiled around her shoulders. In all the commotion, Inna had forgotten about her friend.

Her lips trembled with a weary, incredulous sigh. How had everything, her whole life, gone so wrong so fast?

"I'm sorry."

Her head snapped up, confused. He had spoken so softly she feared she had misunderstood him. "What was that?"

Arran's slackened body slid down the wall until he sat propped up against it, knees pulled up to his chin. He cleared his throat. "I said I'm sorry, Inna. For bringing you into my mess. This is all my fault." A choked-off, bitter laugh rumbled in his throat. His eyes were trained on the floor, avoiding her questioning gaze.

Inna clucked her tongue. "Oh, shut up, you idiot. Yes, you made my life ten times as complicated in less than twenty-four hours, but you are not to blame for our residence in the palace's loveliest quarters." She grinned and spread her arms at the dungeon walls around them, both gestures dripping with sarcasm. "In fact, my father's weakness is at fault here."

Frowning, Arran plucked at the sleeve of his blue tunic, which Tata had gifted to him last night. Inna wondered what wardrobe the maid had had to plunder for it. "I can count the times I've seen the Shah in real life on my hands," he said. "He never struck me like a tyrant, but his conduct in your apartment was bordering tyrannical, Inna. Is this ... normal behavior for him?"

She scoffed to mask the way her heart shriveled up at the truth in his words. "My father is many things, including a bad, naive politician who swallows most lies and offers his councillors feed him. He's a sweet man and a fairly good father, who, after my mother died, took over her task of reading me bedtime stories and cuddling me to sleep. It comforted him to do so, too." Closing her eyes, she paused and waited until the tears brimming her eyes had dried up again. "But he's a weak man, and the Sphere of Truths took advantage of that weakness."

"The Sphere of Truths?" Realization dawned in Arran's eyes. "Oh, you mean that sphere you were using in your apartment to get answers about the Amulet?"

She nodded. "Yes. It's a World Artifact, like the Amulet, only this one contains an infinite amount of knowledge. My father's been obsessed with it ever since he first saw it the day Rabyatt offered it to him in exchange for his permission to marry me." She made a face. "Actually, come to think of it, the Sphere is to blame for our current situation. Or maybe just Rabyatt, because he's the one who had to bring another World Artifact into our city—"

"Speaking of which," he interrupted her rant, "what did the Sphere tell you?" His fingers hooked around the necklace under his clothes.

Flashes of swirling black smoke and blazing red eyes. A power so vast and dark it had the potential of consuming a world. Inna shuddered and banned the images out of her head the best she could. "The Amulet does indeed contain a soul," she began, hesitant. He lifted an eyebrow. "Not a human soul, though. It houses an ancient creature with terrible powers." The words got stuck in her throat, and she bit her lower lip.

Arran rolled his eyes. "Just spit it out already."

"A djinn, Arran," she blurted out, cringing as though she expected the djinn to pop out its head and say hello just because she had mentioned it. "You're wearing a djinn's house around your neck."

His face paled to a sickly hue and his throat bobbed, with bile or a panic attack, she didn't know. "The Sphere is lying." His voice was an almost inaudible whisper.

"The Sphere never lies!" she spat back. At the sight of his shaking hands, she wanted to lean forward and take them in hers to soothe him, but their cells were too far apart. Bracing herself, she erased her own fear from her face instead. One of them had to be the stronger person, even though she could not carry Arran's burden for him. "You stole the Amulet, so you're the djinn's master now. If we are to believe the stories, it can't cause you any harm. On the contrary, it will protect you at all cost, which explains why it acted like a talisman earlier during your encounter with the mind warpers."

"What would they possibly want with a djinn?" he mused, the contorted lines of his face betraying that he already knew the answer. "A dark spirit which can wipe out entire populations with a snap of its master's fingers. I feel like we've stumbled upon the great evil in a classic fairytale, and we're supposed to be the world-saving heroes."

Inna let out a humorless chuckle. "You know, I also asked the Sphere about those mind warpers, their identities, but it only showed me an endless sea of darkness. What do you think that means?"

"That we're doomed, just like you predicted." Groaning, he scrubbed a hand over his face. "Onshra should have killed me the moment I wrapped my fingers around that stupid Amulet."

"Yet he didn't, so there may still be a way to fix this." False hope, perhaps, but it was better to grasp at straws than to sit by and regret actions that could no longer be altered. She slammed a hand flat against the bars of her cell. One of her rings produced a metallic jangle loud enough to draw Arran's attention. She sighed. "That is, whenever we get out of here. I'd suggest bribing a guard, but I doubt they'll be willing to face my father's wrath now that he's thrown his own daughter into jail."

Arran brought his thumb to his mouth and nibbled on the nail. His other hand still played with the Amulet. "You claim the djinn is compelled to protect me," he said, giving her a sidelong glance. She nodded. "Would it also help you and me get out of these dungeons if I asked nicely?"

She tapped a finger against her chin. "I don't think it works that way. According to the books I've read on the folklore of the Orabi Desert, a djinn only protects its master in situations that pose a direct threat to the master's life. Just like a talisman does: it only responds to the threat it was created for in the first place. Anything else you ask from it ... There will be a cost."

"There's always a catch, isn't there?"

A twisted smile danced across her lips. "I guess. The stories portray these creatures as cunning for a reason."

He pulled at the chain to look at the Amulet. The purple gemstone reflected the flickering torchlight in darker facets, emitting a hollow aura of doom and nothingness. Goosebumps traveled across Inna's bare arms all the way to her toes. Was it just her, or had the light dimmed just now?

Arran's teeth flashed white in the gloom. "There's only one way to find out. Tell me, princess, since you seem to know so much about the subject: how do I summon a djinn from its house?"

Her eyes bulged. "What? In here? Are you crazy?" She recoiled in her cell until her back was pressed against the wall, trapped. "That thing will bring down the palace on top of our heads!"

"No, it won't." His eyes shone with a desperate brilliance. "You just said so yourself: the djinn has to protect my life, so why would it take any actions that would end my life in a heartbeat?"

Fair point. She lapsed into a sullen silence.

A wild grin curved his lips. "This might be our only chance to escape before the guards realize they forgot to search me for stolen antiquities and come back. Or before the mind warpers trace me back to the palace and decide to delight us with their presence once more."

She shook her head, yet her traitorous legs already crept back to the front of her cell. "If you're wrong—if I'm wrong—and the djinn goes on a murdering rampage, I'll kill you."

"How. Do. I. Call. It. Serafina."

Her lips withdrew into a vicious snarl at the mention of her full name. "Prick. Just ask it to come out."

A sliver of the same fear that scourged her own stomach returned to his eyes, but his features hardened, jaw set with determination. He flicked the Amulet over with his thumb and index finger, once, twice. With a certain sense of drama, he brought the triangular pendant to his lips and murmured, "Come out."

The torches flickered once before a breeze as cold as death itself swept past and extinguished them.