Bottom lip quivering, Nix took a deep breath. “I should not have killed him. I had no intention of harming him today—I came here to strip him of his wishes—but when I saw Luminesa—” Her voice cracked as the memory of that sight came back in startling clarity.
“You didn’t think,” Cyrus finished for her, his voice soft and gentle, but no less firm. “Just as your father didn’t think when his lover took him down a similar path. But there are always consequences to our actions, even ones that are well intentioned.”
She nodded. What else could she say to defend herself? Nothing, really. Now that the shock was starting to wear off, Nixie knew she’d done wrong. Yes, it’d been a moment of disbelief, with no forethought involved. Nix wasn’t used to the power she wielded, wasn’t used to the reality that in this new body of hers, that anything she wished she could have. She saw him and wanted him dead and so therefore he was.
“I will not sentence you to a half-life as your father was…”
“What?” She snapped her head up, stunned for the second time that day. “But I broke the law. I killed a man.”
If he wasn’t going to turn her into a ghost, then did he simply intend to kill her? Her heart raced. At least as a spirit she would have had a couple of years to come to terms with her eventual death, had a few more years with her family when they finally arrived.
“What is”—she swallowed hard—“what is my punishment then, Cyrus?”
“You shall be banished.”
Her brows gathered into a tight vee. “Banished?”
How was that punishment?
“Banished.” He nodded in agreement. “And the terms of our previous contract are now null and void. You shall be a genie for the full hundred years with no freedoms allowed you again.”
She gasped. Clutching her breast. She’d had her freedom for all of a few hours; now they were lost to her forever. The one day a year she’d cursed before, wishing for so much more, she’d do anything now just to get that one day back. But a hundred years. That was the worst of it.
“So I’m still going to be a genie, except banished?” Her chin wobbled. “For a hundred more years?”
Panic clawed at her brain. She’d been prepared for another forty-nine.
He nodded. “By breaking our laws, you broke faith, and have nulled out the terms.” Stepping forward, he chucked her chin. “I’m being as fair and just as I possibly can, Nix, but you must understand that with the position you’ve placed me in, restitution must be wrought. You’ll serve out your term in total darkness, shoved so far and so deeply into the ground that only the most persistent could ever have a hope of finding you. And that, too, whether you believe me or not”—his blue eyes pierced hers—“is a kindness. For I am still giving you a chance.”
The tears were streaming hard now, blinding her vision. She jerked her chin out of his grip and wiped her cheeks roughly with the backs of her hands. “Why are you doing this to me? Why don’t you just kill me? A life for a life?”
A hundred years. She wasn’t strong enough for that. She couldn’t do this. What would her parents think when they found out? That thought brought on another painful bout of tears.
“Because you are young, and were thrust into a world you didn’t understand. In many ways, I feel responsible for you, child. It was because of my judgment on your father that you find yourself here today. I was hasty then, and I…” He glanced down at his feet before quickly turning back to her. “I do not wish to repeat the past.”
“Why did you send Rivet away?”
“Because he too is young, and sees the world only in shades of black and white, but the punishment must fit the crime. Do you understand, dear?”
“I know I did wrong,” she sobbed, “but this seems...so—”
Cyrus shook his head, smoothly switching the subject. “You should know that while you’re exiled, you can receive no visitors, you can know nothing of your world, or your people. You cannot alter the contours of your lamp. You will be alone and in utter darkness.”
Her breathing hitched as the ramifications began to finally impress themselves upon her. “Cyrus, I can’t. I can’t do this.” She hugged her arms to her chest.
But if he heard, he didn’t act like it.
“You’ll be tied to your lamp in a way you’ve not been before. You can go no further than ten yards from it, ever. Your freedoms, what little you knew, they are all gone.”
She shook her head, watching as the tear dripped off her nose to land on the tips of her golden slippers. Death would be preferable to this. “I can’t—”
“Where you will be, you will never see the light of day.”
Heavy pressure centered on her chest. Buried alive. “Forever?”
“Until you are found, or your hundred years are up. Whichever comes first.”
She gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed the frozen pillar of Luminesa.