Page 30 of Jasmine's Enchanted Genie
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she said. “It’s your private space, and I wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“What if it’s messy?” I asked, my lips curling up with my tease.
“I’ll help you tidy it.”
“And what if it’s only a room with a bed?”
She stepped forward, and my arms went around her. “Then we’ll . . . lounge on your bed.”
“I shouldn’t,” I said.
She pinched her eyes shut. “I understand.”
“It’s not forbidden. But once I take you there . . .” I’d see her there all the time after she was gone. Her memory and her scent would linger, making me mourn her loss even more than I already did.
When she tried to leave my embrace, I tightened my arms around her. “I want to take you there, however, and I will.”
“We have the rest of the day. The healer will be back tonight. Can you show me everything? I want to see the real you.”
My heart pressed so hard against my ribcage; I was sure my emotions would bruise it. “Take my hand, and I’ll show you everything, my precious one.”
She placed her fingers on my palm without hesitation, looking up at me with so much innocence, I couldn’t catch my breath.
A blink, and we stood inside my small home in the lamp. On the outside, it might appear tiny, but inside, magic made us fit.
As she peered around, I tried to see it as she did, the decadence, the splendor of it all. Would she again compare the way she and the rest of the villagers lived with the opulence I’d long since taken for granted?
“Are you the first genie in this lamp?” she asked, trailing her fingers across the lush draperies shielding a window that looked out at enormous, white tipped mountains on one wall, a vast desert covered with flowering cacti on another, and the sea glistening under a full moon on the third. The scenes weren’t fake; they were real, placed there to tease me with what I’d never be able to visit on my own. I could only travel to them if they were part of a wish.
“I don’t know,” I said starkly. “There was no evidence anyone was here before me, but that could be part of the magic.”
“I’m sorry. If only I could do something to free you from this curse.”
“Cardia—your Cordellia—trapped me here.”
Her eyes widened, and her hand stilled on the shade of the ornate lamp sitting on my bedside table. “Tell me.”
“I refused to be with her so long ago, it’s hard to remember when.”
“Be with her?”
I lifted my chin. “I believe that’s why she placed me in the lamp. When someone wishes for my body, I have no choice but to do as they command. She’s getting even with me refusing her.”
“It’s horrible.”
And there was nothing I could do about it except mourn.
“You said ages ago,” Jasmine said. “How could she live that long?”
“She’s a witch, and an ancient one.”
“And she wants the lamp. Why?” Jasmine walked over to wrap her arms around me. She looked up with so much affection in her eyes, it slammed through my chest like a thick blade. “Why does she want it and why now if she could’ve tried to obtain it all these years?”
I cupped her pretty face. “I think she knows that you’re the only one who could obtain it for her right now. As for why? I assume to taunt me, to lord over the fact that she’s controlled me for a very long time and continues to do so.”
“If she rubs the lamp, would you have to grant her three wishes?”
“She doesn’t need wishes. All she’d have to do is summon me while touching the lamp, and I’d be forced to appear before her.”