Jinni's Wish, Book 4 Kingdom Series by Marie Hall Read Free Book Online

asked before
she could fade.
    Danika’s face was solemn as she stared at
him. Finally she said, “You know why. You worked that magic once
before.”
    Jinni stayed where he stood long after Danika
faded into the ether. Staring out of the cave, at the darkness that
engulfed like a shroud beyond. The violent whistle of the wind
mingling with the jaggedness of his thoughts made him feel more
alone than ever before. Slowly the fire died, until all that
remained was the blackness.
    In a corner of the cave rested the two
necklaces Danika had given him. If he took them, if he acknowledged
them, then he knew he’d never look back.
    Could he do this?
    Dare he trust her?
    Not only Danika, but Paz?
    The spot in his soul where his heart used to
be bled raw imagining a world without Paz in it. Closing his eyes,
he sealed his fate as he forced the energy to roll down and gather
in his limbs. Floating to the necklaces, he picked them up and
using a small bit of the magic still left to him, sealed it within
his person.
    The stones flared bright and hot, seeming
sentient and joyful, as if a friend saying hello.
    Before he could rethink this madness, he
cracked open one of a million dream stones hidden within Kingdom--
a stone to give him the ability to travel swiftly through
dimensions-- and opened a portal to her.
     
    ***
     
    Paz huddled on the floor next to the corner
of her bed, shivering and next to tears. He was gone again. She
didn’t know why.
    Why would he leave again?
    Was she a bad person?
    Terrible to talk to?
    Boring?
    “ Is she going to be okay?” Richard
asked the nurse standing next to him.
    His voice was raw, rough, as if he’d been
crying for hours. Which he had. Her brother had looked better. His
skin was waxy, his eyes bloodshot and purple. His hair
disheveled.
    Paz rocked methodically back and forth,
hugging her knees to her chest as the cold, cold floor seeped into
her cold, cold soul.
    “ We’ve done all we can ,” the nurse
said softly.
    But it didn’t hurt to hear it. She was dying.
Which should have probably made her sad, but all she felt was
relief. She was tired of existing in this weird place where nobody
knew her, heard her, or touched her.
    No, it didn’t hurt her at all. But it was
killing her brother. Richard hiccupped, trying hard to stay
composed, but Paz knew him. Knew he was seconds from completely
losing it and if the nurse had any kindness left in her, she’d walk
away before he bawled like a baby.
    Paz should feel terrible for him. A part of
her recognized that things that’d once mattered so much in life,
the love of her family and her artwork, meant very little here. A
restless desire to go was blooming in her heart.
    She stared at the body that had once been
her. The swelling looked better.
    Maybe.
    The hair was matted, greasy, probably smelled
gross.
    Paz touched her still silky hair and then
frowned as it dawned on her that her sense of touch was further
diminished. She didn’t know how long she’d been here already. A
week? A year? Richard was losing weight, his sweater hung on him
funny. So probably a week. He was drinking a lot of coffee too.
    She knew that because she’d started counting
the cups piling up in the trash bin of the body’s room. First time
he’d started drinking there’d been three. Then there’d been six.
Now, he was on cup fifteen and the day was only half over.
    She stared out the window, startled to note
the sun was already down.
    It’d stopped freaking her out how time spun
out of control here. What she thought she knew, she didn’t know,
and what she hadn’t known, she now knew.
    Like the fact that she kept seeing a lit
tunnel glow at the end of the corridor, and that tunnel waited for
her. And that now she could go further down the corridor than ever
before, that at the end of the hallway waited a tunnel that smelled
of a million different flowers and that warmth emanated from
inside. That inside that place was joy and she desperately wanted
to