Safi planted a generous jug of blood in front of me along with a tall glass. I looked at it, my mouth already watering. I didn’t miss River eyeing it with disgust before she set her focus back on her own plate. I filled my glass to the brim.

Once everyone had been served, Nuriya stood up and gazed around the table. She held a crystal glass filled with that odd purple liquid, which, going by the smell, I assumed was some kind of juice rather than liquor.

“I’d like to introduce you all to Benjamin Novak and River Giovanni,” she said smoothly. “I believe that this is the first time most of you are meeting them.”

There were mutterings of, “Good afternoon.”

“This really is quite a special lunch for all of us,” she said. “It marks the day Benjamin Novak became a permanent member of our family. He has become eternally ours, and we eternally his.”

Way to kill my appetite…

The rest of the jinn eyed me with a lot more curiosity after that little speech.

Nuriya sat down, and everyone began to dig into their food. For a while, I held off starting on my blood. I was too interested to see exactly how these creatures ate. But it turned out that there was really nothing interesting about it. I wasn’t exactly sure how their bodies worked, having no visible lower half, but they appeared to consume food quite ordinarily, the way a human would.

I raised my glass to my lips and took a sip from the blood. That sweet, succulent blood. I still hadn’t tasted anything like it. Jeramiah had told me it tasted so good because they kept the humans well, but I was interested in getting confirmation from the jinn.

“What is it about this blood?” I said, looking directly at Nuriya. “It’s unlike any other I’ve tasted.”

She raised a silk napkin to her mouth, daintily wiping her upper lip before responding. “We take good care of the humans upstairs,” she replied, offering me another wide smile. “They’re fed lots of fresh milk and other wholesome foods… As well as a homemade juice that my dear niece Safi here concocts herself.”

My eyes set on Safi, who was still standing next to the trolley, watching with apparent pleasure as everyone tucked into her food.

“What’s in the juice?” I asked.

“It’s mostly plant-based,” she replied, shortly.

I hadn’t realized that diet could have such a drastic effect on the taste of human blood.

I looked down at River, who had begun chewing on the most recognizable substances on her plate—she had mixed the salad with the rice, and was eating it with the bread.

“How is it?” I asked in a low voice, as the other jinn began to chatter amongst themselves.

River’s expression was conflicted as she chewed slowly and thoughtfully. “It’s… delicious,” she said.

“All you’ve touched is bread and rice salad!” Aisha’s voice came from my right. Apparently she had been observing River and me closely. She raised her own plate to River and gestured toward a lumpy reddish preparation in the center of her plate. “You must try this next.”

River eyed the dish cautiously. “What is this exactly?” River asked the jinni, indicating one of the lumps as she rolled it around on her plate.

“Stuffed and fried potato,” Aisha answered.

“Stuffed with what?” River asked.

“That would be spoiling the surprise. Just try it, I promise you’ll love it.”

River looked reluctantly at the lump, then, scooping it up with a spoon, raised it to her mouth. Gingerly, she took a bite.

“Ouch!” River spat the lump out into her napkin and clutched the side of her jaw. “It’s so hard! What the hell is that?”

Aisha giggled before proceeding to place one of her lumps in her mouth, then chew and swallow it with no problem at all.

River gaped at her. “How can you eat that?”

“Easy.” After Aisha had finished swallowing, she bared her teeth, revealing how thick and sturdy they looked. Certainly not the jaws of a human.

“What was that?” River asked again.

It was Safi who answered: “Bone.”

River glared at Aisha. “Why would you ask me to bite into that?”

Aisha just giggled in response.

“What kind of bone?” River asked.

“The only kind of bone we eat here,” a female jinni on the other side of River replied. “Human bone, of course.”

River’s face drained of all color.

“Ground human bone is also in the salad dressing,” Aisha added cheerfully. “That’s what makes it so nice and thick.”

River doubled over. The next thing I knew, she had vomited all over the floor.

I abandoned my glass of blood and bent down to help her up. But she gagged again and threw up a second time. Her knees were trembling. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, looking the jinn over with sheer disgust, the same way many of them were eyeing her after watching her vomit all over the dining room floor as they had lunch.

I’d hoped this luncheon would be an opportunity to learn more about the jinn. Clearly, this hadn’t been the brightest of ideas.

“Let’s go,” I muttered, picking River up. “Lunch is over.”

Chapter 18: Ben

Neither River nor I bothered to apologize for her throwing up in the middle of the lunch. It was their damn fault for not warning River what she was eating.

Carrying River, I brought her back to the apartment that Nuriya had allotted to me. It was on the fifth floor, and while not nearly as large as the others, it was still infinitely more luxurious than the apartment I’d inhabited in the upper atrium.