"Well, at least you know now his intelligence doesn't match his looks," Idrak's words reverberated dryly in her ears.
Appalled by the interruption, Nadira grabbed the stone pendant with every intention of pulling it over her head and stuffing it in her pocket when his voice bellowed in her mind causing her to wince.
"Nadira, don't!" There was an unexpected urgency to his tone that stopped her. "Do not leave me in the dark again…I need you Nadira," the rare vulnerable words made her heart clench. "I cannot be left alone and forgotten again…" His words stopped just shy of an unspoken "please," and her heart ached for the djinn.
Giving Jordan a polite if not forced a smile, Nadira grabbed the stone tighter in her fist, settling on smothering the impudent demon instead.
Tucking a section of hair behind her ear, she answered. "Umm, yes, I believe it will be on this test."
Jordan gave her a playful look of dismay before turning back to her book he was using, leaving her alone with her thoughts about the djinn around her neck.
~*~
After that day in class, a new element to their relationship began a feature that should have been quite obvious from the beginning. Each night she found herself asking him more and more about the lost empires of history or the day to day lives of civilizations long ago. Idrak's first-hand experience was spellbinding. Occasionally he would delight her with a scene from the past conjured in smoke and light.
"Everything you have shared with me sounds so beautiful, I am not sure anything you see and experience today would ever compare," she had told him with a wistful note of sadness in her voice.
Basking in the sound of his deep responding chuckle, she smiled at his response.
"Ah, but my darling Nadira, history in retrospect, will always sound more charming than it was."
Today, she had looked forward to her classes even more so than usual. Idrak expounded on every subject the professor discussed after ridiculing the man for his ineptness. Unfortunately, her eagerness for her next class was cut short by the notification email from her professor stating that her class for that day had been canceled.
Pulling the car to a stop in the parking space, Nadira sat quietly for a second—waiting. Idrak had yet to say anything to her since her second class, although that wasn't necessarily unusual. The djinn mostly waited for her to speak to him, which often made her wonder if that habit wasn't a remnant training from the previous owner of the necklace. From what little Idrak had told her about his life in the stone, it wasn't too hard to believe that there was a previous owner. Although technically her grandmother was the previous owner Idrak had told her when she inquired that he never once spoke to her grandmother, stating he feared he would shock the old lady into an early grave.
Locking the car, Nadira walked across the sandy parking lot towards the beach.
The deep displeased growl reverberating inside of her head came a lot later than she expected as she slowly made her way across the large sand dunes.
"Nadira," her name vibrated through her head in warning.
"I promise, I won't go in," she began explaining, just how she mentally practiced on the way here. "I won't even let the water touch me. It's just that classes are never canceled, and I really don't want to go home early if I don’t have to. Besides," she added. "I figured you rather be underneath my shirt than stuffed in my bag inside my hot car."
He made a grumbling noise half-way between a groan and a sigh. "I have not seen the ocean in a long time," he confessed. "In my physical state, I would have nothing to fear from the water, in this state, however…I am vulnerable…"
Walking along the far edge of the beach, keeping at least twenty to thirty yards of beach between her and the water Nadira turned her face into the salty sea breeze and stopped.
"Would you like to look at it? Again, I promise I won't get you near it," she offered.
"Yes," there was a quiet longing to his voice that pained her.
With each passing day, she felt sorrier and sorrier for the trapped creature. Pulling the cord around her neck, the stone slid up from underneath her shirt. Holding it steady, she faced the ocean, hoping he could take in the beauty of the deep cyan sea.
With a deep noise of appreciation, a comfortable silence surrounded them both as they stared at the water. For the briefest moment, she felt like a child as she stared at the crying seagulls above swooping and diving against the rough sea winds. Turning around, she walked towards an old wooden fence. The giant round horizontal poles were weather-beaten and had only flecks of blue paint that once covered it here and there, but despite its appearance, the wooden structure held her weight firmly as she sat on one of the long poles.
Searching her heart for the words that had been eating at her conscience Nadira took a deep breath and plunged ahead. "I want to set you free, Idrak, I really do—but I am afraid. I am afraid you are not all that you say you are, I am afraid you will do terrible things if I were to let you out. But at the same time," she swallowed nervously, her throat and chest feeling unbearably tight at the painful admission. "It feels terrible keeping someone caged against their will."
Holding her breath, she waited for him to reply. She waited for the expectant rage, the growls of betrayal, or the curse of her name—she got none of that. All she got was silence.
"Idrak?" she whispered desperately.
Was this it? Was he no longer going to speak to her? Even though he never said it and he never asked, she knew his freedom was what he wanted from her, and it didn't take much to figure out that the only way to set the djinn free was to wish it from him. But how could she? How could she set something free that she wasn't even entirely sure of?
Feeling sad and a little empty at the possible loss of their connection, a surge of excitement went through her as she heard his voice again.
"It is said a djinn is the soul of a warlock getting exactly what he wished for in life, ultimate power. While others say that a djinn is the collection of selfish wants and desires whispered into the night, taking form. Who knows what I am or where I came from, I have long since grown beyond that concern. But I can tell you djinn are not the ones to fear, my sweet, the sons of witches are the true sources of evil."
A pit of worry formed in her stomach as she dreaded but yearned for his next words.
"Warlocks are a loathsome kind of man. Offspring of witches, they have very little if no magical abilities at all. Each one grows up completely infatuated with their mother's unlimited power only to come of age and realize they are powerless little curs. With life spans three times that of a human and only a fraction compared to their mother's, they roam the earth in a constant search for immortality and power."
Nadira's mind spun at what she was hearing. Witches and warlocks, this was too much. She could still hardly believe that Idrak was a djinn and not some fabrication of her broken mind much less to hear terms she only ever saw in movies and books as a child.