The truth was, the pain of leaving without him far outweighed the fear of leaving my family and staying with him in this place.

I felt almost too embarrassed to admit this to him, because I didn’t know if he felt the same strength of emotion for me. After all, he had been prepared to just leave me.

My mouth dried out, and I felt lost as to what to say next. The silence burned my ears as I kicked at the sand beneath my feet. I was relieved when Ben broke it.

“River, I…” He paused. I raised my eyes to his face again to see that he looked less livid, although no less tense. “I had no idea that you’d do that for me.”

I hadn’t known I would do that myself. Abandon my family for Benjamin Novak? A boy I had only just recently met and whom I still didn’t know a lot about? If someone had asked me that question, the logical answer would’ve been that I would have chosen my family, of course. My mother, brother, two sisters… They were my life, my flesh and blood. And yet it seemed that my brain had stopped responding to logic or reason.

“You’ve found your family now,” Ben continued. “All of them, and even your brother has been cured of his illness. I… I thought you could go back to The Shade and get on with your life. Maybe even turn back into a human and return to New York if The Shade didn’t work out for you.”

The way he was speaking, revealing that he had been thinking so far into the future—a future without him—sent shivers down my spine.

“Ben, what happened to you?” I managed. “How did you convince the jinn to set us free?”

His face darkened and now it was his turn to avert his eyes.

He inhaled deeply, and I could see that every part of him was reluctant to answer my question.

“I made a deal with them,” he said quietly.

My breath hitched. The hold the jinn had over us already was terrifying enough, the thought of a deal made my blood run cold. “What do you mean ‘deal’?”

He hesitated. I clutched his arms, squeezing them hard. “What deal, Ben?”

Finally he raised his head and looked directly at me. There was a discomforting acceptance in his expression, a resignation, and that same calm I had detected earlier.

“In exchange for them allowing everyone to go free, I agreed to be bound to them.”

“Bound? But… aren’t we already bound to them? These tattoos they put on us…” I reached for his sleeve and pulled it up to reveal his upper arm. Except there was no tattoo. Thinking that I’d gotten the wrong side, I checked his other arm. No tattoo either. His skin was pale and smooth, as if there never had been a black cross etched into him. I gaped at him. “Where’s your tattoo?”

“Nuriya removed it.”

“Huh?” I was feeling more confused by the moment. “Why would she do that?”

He held up his right hand, and for the first time I noticed a thin band of gold fit tightly around his wrist. It was in the shape of a cobra, and, to my horror, it appeared to have been clamped right into his flesh. His skin around the edges of it looked reddish and sore.

“What is this?” I breathed.

“Their way of showing that I have moved up in rank… River, I agreed to be bound to them permanently.”

“What?”

“The bond they have with you, and had with me—it wasn’t permanent. We could earn our freedom if we played our cards right—albeit after decades of self-control. But this”—he held up his wrist again—“is permanent. Because I’ve voluntarily agreed to submit to them, the bond is much stronger.”

I could hardly believe my ears. “H-How could you do that?”

“I didn’t have a choice. I’ve stayed in this place long enough to know that there’s no way out without permission—and even when Jeramiah let us out, we never escaped. We were under the influence of the jinn the whole time. Nobody in this place is free—not even Jeramiah and the other vampires who are allowed to wander outside. This place will always have chains on them. I couldn’t have that happen to my family and people who came here to help me. Accepting Nuriya’s proposal was my only option… And in return for agreeing to be bound, I’ve been granted an unlimited number of wishes… except my freedom.”

My heart hammered in my chest. Permanently. The word still rang through my head. It almost felt like Ben had just committed suicide. “H-How could you stay here forever?”

He shrugged. “I’m able to venture outside, though I will never truly have freedom. I will always be indebted. That’s what this band signifies.”

Ben’s world had just come crashing down around him. I didn’t understand how he could talk so calmly. It gave me a glimmer of hope that perhaps he believed there might be some way out of this for him.

“I can’t believe this is the only way,” I said, my knees feeling weak. “There must be a way to break free from them. Wh-What would happen if you just took that snake band off you?” Desperation shook my voice.

He almost smirked. “It’s not as simple as that. This band is more of a symbol than the actual cause of my bondage. I have no idea whether it’s possible to break the bond. All I know is that Nuriya said it wasn’t.” He paused, eyeing me seriously. “In light of this, River, I think you should reconsider. I think you should leave. It’s not too late. I could request the jinn to set you free of the boundary. You could return to The Shade, to your family, and just… get on with your life, dammit.”