“Your arrogance, sire, is astonishing.”
“I apologize, once again, for any inconvenience my personality has caused you. Please unpack your belongings.”
Alizeh clenched her jaw. She wanted to kick him. “I have been dismissed from Baz House,” she said. “I cannot return to work. I have little time left to vacate the premises, after which I must, with all possible haste, run for my life.” She yanked the quilt off her bed. “So if you will please excuse me.”
He moved in front of her. “That’s absurd. I won’t allow that to happen.”
She stepped aside. “You do not control the universe, Your Highness.”
“I control more of it than you might consider.”
“Do you even hear yourself when you speak? If so, how can you stand it?”
Improbably, the prince laughed. “I must say, you are a surprise. I’d not imagined you’d be so quick to anger.”
“I find it difficult to believe you imagined me at all.”
“Why?”
Alizeh hesitated, blinking up at him. “I beg your pardon? What reason would you have to wonder about my temperament?”
“You need only one? I have many.”
Alizeh’s lips parted in surprise. “Are you making fun of me?”
He smiled at that, smiled so wide she saw the white flash of his teeth. It changed him, somehow. Softened him.
He said nothing.
“You are right, in any case,” Alizeh said. “I am not usually so quick to anger.” She bit her lip. “I fear there is something about you that makes me angrier than most.”
He laughed again. “I suppose I should not mind then, so long as I am memorable.”
Alizeh sighed. She shoved her small pillow into her bag, snapped the overstuffed bag closed. “All right, I w—”
There was a sound.
A distant creak of stairs, the sound of wood expanding and contracting. No one ever came up this far, not unless it was absolutely necessary—and if someone was here now, it was without a doubt to make certain she was gone.
Alizeh did not think before she reacted, instinct alone activating her movements. Indeed it all happened so quickly she’d not even realized what she’d done until her mind was returned to her body, sensation returned to her skin.
She felt him everywhere, all at once.
She’d knocked them both back into a far corner of the room, where they now crouched, and where Alizeh had cloaked their bodies and her bag with invisibility.
She also all but sat in his lap.
Ferocious heat spread through her body, something like mortification. She could not move now for fear of exposing them, but neither did she know how she would survive this: his body pressed against hers, his warm breath at her neck. She inhaled the scent of him without meaning to—orange blossoms and leather—and the heady combination filled her head, startled her nerves.
“Is it possible you’re trying to kill me?” he whispered. “Your methods are highly unusual.”
She didn’t dare answer.
If she and the prince were caught alone in her room together, she could only imagine the fallout for both of them. A plausible explanation seemed impossible.
When the doorknob turned a second later, she felt the prince stiffen with awareness. His hand tightened around her waist, and Alizeh’s heart pounded only harder.
She’d forgotten to blow out the candle.
Alizeh tensed as the door creaked open. She had no way of knowing who would be sent to check on her; if it was one of the rarer Jinn servants, her illusion of invisibility would not hold, as it was effective only on Clay. She also knew not whether her attempt to extend this protection to the prince would be successful, as she’d never before attempted such a feat.
A figure entered the room—not Mrs. Amina, Alizeh noted with relief—but a footman. His eyes roved the room, and Alizeh tried to see the space as he did: stripped of all personal effects, save the small basket of dried flowers.
And the candle, the blasted candle.
The footman scooped up the flowers and headed straight for the flame, shaking his head with obvious irritation before blowing it out. Doubtless he wondered whether the girl had planned to set fire to the house upon her exit.
He was gone a moment later, slamming the door shut behind him.
That was it.
The ordeal was done.
Alizeh should have rejoiced in her success, but the small, windowless attic room had gone suddenly, suffocatingly dark, and a familiar panic began to claw its way up her throat, constricting her chest. She felt as if she’d been left at the bottom of the sea, consumed whole by infinite night.