I backed away, tripping over the edge of the rug. My backside hit the floor.

The vizier let out a cruel laugh that bounced off the wall. “There’s no one to save you now, street rat.” The edge of malice in his voice promised me a painful death.

I shrank away from him, unsure how to save my brother and genies and get the hell out of there. By the look of it, we were well and truly screwed. Ali and I would meet our ends, our bodies tossed into the river.

I glanced at my genies. Dahvi’s gaze was glued to Kaza.

Zand said something, but I couldn’t make out the words. Frustrated, he yelled and pointed at something to my right.

I scanned around the room for what he meant. Was he trying to point out a weapon to fight the vizier? Sure, I cold bash him over the head with a hookah pipe, but that wouldn’t kill him. Maybe choke him with some silks. Burn his eyes out with some incense?

“Now that everyone is assembled, I have no need for this little flea anymore.” The vizier pushed my brother to the floor.

“Ali.” I crawled on hands and knees across to him.

“What do you want me to do with them?” the Shaitan asked.

Zand’s fingers twitched, as if he was pointing at something.

My gaze followed his line of direction, my gaze landing on a white column with gold-leaf embellishment at the top. What was so special about that?

“Kill them,” replied the vizier. “Throw their bodies to the sharks.”

Anger pulsed within me, hungry for the destruction of both of them.

Zand jabbed with more fury and mouthed the words “dark flame.” What was he trying to tell me?

I tried to connect to his heart, but there was only darkness. Damn it.

My gaze flew to Dahvi, hoping he understood and could help me out. He, too, pointed at the column.

What was so special about it?

Think. Think. What was my genies’ plan? Smash the dark flame into the column? Cause a chain reaction and blow up the palace? But what about everyone else who lived within the walls? My mind was such a blur.

The Shaitan gravitated in our direction. She seized my brother by the throat and lifted him into the air. Ali’s dangling legs kicked as he tried to break free.

Fear clawed across my body.

“Ali, no!” I launched to my feet.

My fingernails dug into my palm as I curled my fist. Filled with the fierceness of a mother bear protecting her cubs, I cracked her right in the nose. Blood poured out her nostrils, and she stumbled backward.

Huh! Djinn bled, too.

My brother slumped to the ground.

For laying a finger on him, I kicked her in the gut.

Residue from Zand’s fight clung to her. I sensed it. She was burned, wounded, and weakened from their fight. It wasn’t going to take much to push her over the edge.

I’d been in many scrapes as a youngster. In the orphanage. On the streets against older and bigger kids. I could handle myself in a fight. As long as the Shaitan didn’t unleash her power on me, we were on an even playing field.

“Get up, you fool,” shouted the vizier.

I’d deal with him next.

While the Shaitan was bleeding and distracted, I made my move. The heel of my foot laid waste to her consciousness. Her head smacked against the marble. Out cold, she’d no longer been a problem.

Hah! I’d just beaten a djinn without any magic. This gave me confidence I could take on the vizier. But I may have to weaken him first.

Dahvi cheered me on from inside his prison.

Zand flashed me a proud smile and pointed to the column again.

What was up with that?

A wave of the vizier’s hand made the dark fire grow. Darkness replaced the white in his eyes. His skin took on a gray pallor as if the dark magic absorbed his life force. But I knew that was a fool’s hope. The evil power was only fueling him with shadow, rage, and vengeance.

A blast of his gloomy magic struck me, lowering me to my knees. The evil power sank its claws into me. My life force bled from me as it had the last time, feeding the dark magic. Energy stripped out of my muscles. My heartbeat slowed. Breaths were stolen from my lungs, and I gasped, clawing at my throat.

Eyes closed, the vizier seemed drunk on the power flowing into him.

My gaze swung around the room. There was no Karim to save me now. The guards had seen to that by setting my house ablaze.

Ali crawled closer me to from my right.

Kaza groaned to my left.

The genies were trapped in front of me. Both of them trained their finger at the column.

Against the blood draining away and the energy being zapped from it, my mind scrambled to make sense of the genies’ meaning. What did they want me to do?

Then I saw them. The trails of black dots on the floor, leading to their jails.

Something Zand had said before we entered the tunnels clicked in my mind. On his scout of the palace, he’d seen traps buried beneath the floor. But how did they work? What did the column have to do with it?

By this point, Ali had reached me. “No, Azar, no.”

When he touched me, the darkness crawled along his skin, and he sucked in a breath. I was powerless to push him away.

“Break the traps,” he whispered in my ear.

With what? I glanced again at the column, and the answer finally hit me. Gods. I was so stupid. Make the post fall. How the heck was I going to achieve that? I couldn’t just punch the thing and make it topple. But if I could hit it hard enough, then it might fall.

I glanced at Zand.

His eyes begged for me to stay alive.

The fog in my mind cleared a little. Finally, I understood his message. Get the vizier to strike the column with his magic. Maybe, in the process, I’d weaken him, too, like he’d done to Zand. Then, once my genies were free of their traps, they could burn him to a crisp.

When I glanced up, I caught sight of Ali hobbling straight for the vizier.

Shish kebab. What was he doing? I couldn’t find my voice. It was jammed way down in my throat thanks to the dark magic bleeding me.

I wished Ali could kick the evil vizier in the balls, but that wasn’t happening with my brother’s chained feet. Instead, Ali lifted his hands and clunked the end of his wrist chains on the vizier’s forehead. Just like Karim had done. Ali would have made the monkey so proud!

The blow shook the vizier from his stupor.

All claim on my life from the dark flame faltered. Energy seeped back into me. My chest pumped air through my body. Blood crashed through my veins.

The vizier batted away my brother with a powerful blast.

“No!” Power returned to my limbs in a torrent of fury. I stumbled to my feet. Woozy and unsteady, I stomped forward.

In my mind, I apologized for not going straight to Ali, but any deviation from the plan might end us all.

The vizier’s glare cut into me. He aimed a finger me.

But with each step, my energy returned.

I ducked as another of the vizier’s detonations exploded above me. I’d always been fast—other than the one time the vizier’s guard had gotten me. I did have an injured foot. Today, history was not going to repeat. I dived another discharge and rolled along the floor.

More bombs went off. For a dark sorcerer, the vizier was a pretty awful shot. But I didn’t begrudge him that because it kept me alive longer.

Just a few more yards.

Up on my feet, I grabbed anything small. Candleholders sailed through the air. One smashed behind the vizier, and he jumped. Another crashed at his feet. The last one hit him in the chest.

Hah!

He roared with rage.

I kept going.

So did he. Tearing everything to shreds with his magic. Pillows exploded, pumping stuffing everywhere. Chairs exploded into thousands of pieces. Glass from the lamps rained down over me. The acrid smell of burned fabric drowned my nostrils.

For a few blows, I hid behind his sofa until he turned it into sawdust.

Dark magic sliced through my arm, and I screamed. Instead of blood gushing out, the wound festered with bubbling black goo.

Clutching my arm, I scrambled to my feet.

Dead ahead, the column called for me. It was now or never. I made a run for it.

The vizier aimed all his hatred at me. Buzzing black projections sailed past me. One gazed my leg, and I yelped. Not even my limp stopped me. My legs pumped hard, pushing me the last bit of distance. Just as Zand had calculated, the vizier’s final blow cut the pillar right through the middle.

A laugh rumbled in my chest that he’d been stupid enough to fall for our plan.

The column groaned as it teetered. Down it crashed, sending vibrations rattling through my bones. The roof creaked and sagged as it lost one of its supports.

The vizier’s piercing shriek sounded as if it belonged to a thousand dead souls.

Tremors rocked the palace. Cracks traveled along the marble floors and walls. The whole place groaned as if about to collapse. A split several meters deep opened up in the ground. The stand storing the dark flame toppled and smashed. It burned into the floor like acid. How it had not done the same to the stand, I did not know.

The magical barriers holding the genies went out with a crackle and snap.

Horror claimed the vizier’s face. “I’ll kill you for that, you insolent street rat,” he screamed.

Hope thawed the iciness inside me.

Flames zipped across Zand and Dahvi until the fire covered every inch of their skin. Vengeance didn’t begin to describe the gleam in their eyes. They were going to kill the vizier before he hurt me.

Zand limped forward, spinning a fiery lasso. Dahvi shot out watery darts that hit the vizier. His body sizzled, and he screamed. A lasso whooshed through the air, hooking the vizier. Zand gave a yank, and the vizier crashed to his knees. The vizier roared, and black balls ejected from him. Both genies blocked them with fiery shields. But each strike ate away at their magic. Zand didn’t have much left and teetered on the edge of mortality.

I ran to Ali’s side out on the balcony and shielded him. Blood trickled down his forehead. Each time my gaze darted to one of his bruises, a tornado whisked through my blood.

“Azar,” he said, lifting a weak finger behind me.

Something exploded behind us. Chunks of the wall smashed on the floor some feet away from us. I crushed my brother’s head to me. Those blocks scraped across the ground, coming right for us.

Fear shackled me to the floor as marble trapped us.

“Zand, Dahvi,” I screamed.

The vizier stomped toward me. Clasped in his hands was a long black sword, dripping with black goo. Made from dark flame. Designed to kill me and probably destroy my soul at the same time.

Behind him, Zand and Dahvi were on the floor, clambering to their feet. The vizier must have bowled them over with a powerful attack.

Terror chased through me as the marble chunks squeezed my brother and me. I clutched him for dear life. My brother shrieked in my ear. Sobs racked my throat. I’d failed him. Let him down. What a disappointment of a sister. Found three genies and still couldn’t save him. Talk about an absolute loser.

Hatred burned in the vizier’s eyes as he raised the sword above his head.

Ice stabbed my guts.

A flash of red burst behind him.

The vizier jolted as a burning blue spear pierced his chest. He gasped and fell to his knees. Choking noises came out of his mouth. His hands weakly gripped the spear, trying to pull it out.

The pressure from the marble chunks eased on my brother and me.

“Sorcerer,” growled Zand, hobbling over to the vizier. The dark flame flickered in his palm, staining it black. “Today, you threatened my family. Now I claim the right of the djinn to destroy your inner flame.”

I didn’t quite understand that because only genies and djinn had inner flames. Did that mean Zand was going to strip the vizier of his evil power? Whatever it meant, I was totally fine with it. But I still flinched as Zand thrust the dark flame into the vizier’s chest. The magic spread across the evil sorcerer, eating away at him until there was nothing left but ash. Zand’s chest heaved as he stood over the remains of the vizier.

Relief teamed in my veins as Dahvi shifted the barricade around Ali and me.

My heroes. My protectors.

I was shaking like a palm tree when Dahvi wrapped his arms around Ali and me.

“Thank you,” I cried into his chest.

The genie brushed my hair from my face and kissed the top of my head. I wanted to stay in his arms forever.

Behind him, Zand used his magic to burn the chains from Ali’s wrists.

My brother made a brave face, even though I could tell the heat stung him. The chains dropped to the ground.

“Thanks, Zand,” Ali said, rubbing his swollen and bruised wrists.

The genie ruffled his hair. “Anything for my brother.”

I basked in the warmth that flowed between them.

I ran my hands all over Ali’s face, neck, shoulders, and chest, searching for injuries. “Ali, are you hurt?”

He rubbed his wrists. “Just a little bruised and broken. But if Ali Baba can handle it,” he said referring to his favorite comic book hero, “then I can, too.”

A relieved laugh rumbled in my chest.

He pushed me away and clasped my hands. “Azar, stop fussing. I’m okay.”

Part of me knew he was putting on a brave face for the genies. The way he puffed out his chest, acting macho, told me so. How could he not with all his new brothers surrounding him? A deeper, more sacred part of me understood my baby brother was becoming a man. His newfound attitude had blossomed in the genies’ company. Call it the big brother affect.

My heart sagged in my chest. Ali was his own man now. But I worried that he’d get too attached to the genies. Zand had called me his mate, but in less than a month, he’d belong to The Collector. Dahvi had promised me he was mine forever. But who knew what Kaza’s plans were once our business was concluded. I didn’t want to break Ali’s heart. There was still the news of Karim to report. One heartbreak was enough for my brother.

Ali gave Zand a teasing tap on the shoulder. “You know I could have escaped those chains Ali Baba style?”

Zand raised a sarcastic eyebrow. “Want to demonstrate?”

Ali leaped onto the genie, engaging in a light-hearted wrestle. My stomach tightened at the idea of my brother getting hurt. Obviously Ali wasn’t thinking about his health. The laughter sprouting from them both spoke of their enjoyment.

Clearly, they’d been having a bit too much fun while I’d been away from home on errands. For now, I’d let them enjoy each other’s company and discuss it later. Luckily, their horseplay didn’t last long, interrupted when a coughing fit doubled Ali over. Zand cleared that up with a thump on my brother’s back.

While Zand and my brother kept each other busy, I had another job to do. Free Kaza. From across the room, I spied a hint of his normal color returning to his skin, and my chest lit awake. But as I crossed the room, someone blocked my path.

The djinn, her expression hard and cold, promising me retribution for kicking her in the face, stood before me.