Her smile grew wider, revealing more of her thick pearly-white teeth. “We are wish-fulfillers, my love. But there is also such a thing as deserving before desiring. We are generous to new arrivals, since you are first coming into our fold and getting used to a new way of life. But after that, you must be deserving of the wishes you ask for. Letting loose all those newcomers, that’s a very, very heavy request. Certainly, you are not deserving of it right now, but even if I agreed to grant it to you in advance of your earning it… I’m not certain that you are ready to bear the burden of deserving such a thing.”

So there’s the catch. Twisted creature.

“So tell me,” I said, gritting my teeth, “is there a way I can deserve it?”

She paused, looking me over from head to foot. Then a glint of what appeared to be excitement sparked in her eyes.

“Of course, there’s something you could do. Although it’s never been done before, since before now we’ve not come across anyone who desired so much from us, but if you’re determined… we could form a bond deeper with you than anyone has ever formed with us before. Which would grant you not only freedom of River’s family and those we took from the desert in the last hour, but also an unlimited number of wishes from us.”

I paused. “What exactly does this involve? What would be the difference between this bond you speak of and the hold that you already have over me?” I asked.

“Even with the bond we share now, if you decided that you hated your life here, and you wanted to leave your new family, you could earn freedom. In fact, that is what some vampires here have been working toward for the past few decades—cutting down on the things they desire while here in The Oasis and doing us extra favors… But you… if we went a level deeper with our bond, you would be eternally indebted to us. A soul bound to serve the Nasiri family for life. Although you could ask us for anything else you wanted, and we would fulfil it as long as it was within our powers, you could never ask for freedom, no matter what you did to deserve it.”

My mouth dried out. It was hardly a wonder why nobody had ever entered into such a contract.

Selling myself as a slave to these creatures for the rest of my immortal existence.

There must be some other way.

“Why were we allowed to leave The Oasis before?” I asked. “River and me. Jeramiah allowed us to just leave. Why was that if we supposedly did not deserve it?”

The queen let out a soft chuckle. “But you never truly left, did you?”

The truth dawned on me. Of course, the presence of The Oasis had been with us the whole time. River had even remarked after hearing the echoing in her ears that it had been like we’d never left.

“The reason I let you go,” Nuriya continued, “was because sometimes it takes time for loved ones to realize what is best for them. I wanted you to experience what life was like without us, and realize the richness of the life you could experience here… where anything is possible.”

“That vision I had,” I said quietly, my eyes boring into hers. “Me as an infant. In Aviary. You gave that to me, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “As I’ve been trying to get you to understand, we can help you in ways nobody in the world can. Not even your own flesh and blood.”

I sat down in the chair nearest to me and covered my face in my hands.

My personal problems and the mystery about myself that I’d been so desperate to solve—all of this was the last thing on my mind now.

All I could think about was my family, River and everyone else I’d led here. And the responsibility I had to free them. Their imprisonment here was all my fault. If I hadn’t taken up Jeramiah’s suggestion in Chile to come here to begin with, none of this would’ve happened. I was the one who’d sparked these events, and now I had to do whatever it took to get them out of it.

I’d had more than enough experience of the jinn’s influence over the past weeks to not be foolish enough to believe that any of us could escape without their permission. That there was any other way to set them free than to agree to this jinni’s proposal. She was the one who ran this place and decided who came and left. Heck, she even had Jeramiah under her thumb.

The situation seemed utterly farfetched and downright insane, but the thought of where my family could be right now and what the jinn could possibly be doing to them was eating away at any reason and logic my panic-stricken brain still possessed.

When I looked back up at Nuriya, waiting for my decision, there were only two words on my mind:

“I agree.”

Chapter 13: River

After sitting with my brother for a few more minutes, I needed to go back to Ben. We had to figure out how we were going to escape this place with our families. I moved to the door, but as I touched the handle, it moved and clicked open. I moved back. To my surprise, Ben stepped into the room.

I was instantly struck by his expression. It was strangely calm. More calm than I remembered seeing him for a long time. My heart lifted, wondering if he could have somehow come up with a solution while I’d been in here with Jamil.

“What happened?” I asked, staring at him.

His eyes fixed on mine intensely. “I found a way out,” he said, his voice low and deep.

“What do you mean?”

“I found a way to free us all.”

“How?”

“Just follow me.”