Chapter 17: The Ring of Cari
Jafar al-Sharif had trouble sleeping in the wizard’s mountain castle. Notwithstanding his brave air in front of his daughter, he was every bit as frightened as she was. With every second, it seemed, he was having to tell a new lie to cover one of the old ones—and each lie took him deeper down the path of no return. He wondered how long he could maintain the ruse, but knew he had to do it as long as he could—Selima’s life was at stake as well as his own.
He spent much of the night reviewing what he’d said the day before. A liar needed a good memory, he knew, and he dared not let Akar trip him up on some insignificant detail. Finally, a few hours before dawn, he drifted into an uneasy sleep that was troubled with dreams of Afrits and Jinn taunting him and chasi
