Chapter 8

Najeem and I sat in a small room, waiting for the merchant who bought the orbs to arrive. The young man from the shop was quite willing to talk after Najeem presented him enough gold coins in return for his answers.

“Where did you get all that money from?” I questioned him. Since we were all alone here, I could finally stop playing his wife. I wasn’t even sure why he started this play to begin with. “Did you steal it?”

“No,” he said firmly. “I still had some money in the pockets of my coat.”

“You call this ‘some money’? You could have bought solid gold with this amount!”

Najeem was still hiding so much and it frustrated me to no end. No detective would have this much money on him. How could he even earn that much at his young age? Although I didn’t know how old he was, I was sure he couldn’t be older than 25.

Instead of answering he simply shrugged, not bothering to further explain anything. As always. Finally fed up with his behavior, I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine. Two could play this game.

“Fine, if you’ll insist on acting this way, I’ll just do the same.”

“Kadira, please-,” he started, but was interrupted by the door opening.

The merchant from a few days ago entered the room and sat on the couch across from us, forehead creasing as he recognized me. “You’re the girl who sold me the orbs!”

I only nodded, letting Najeem carry the conversation, since he seemed so good at deceiving and lying. “Yes, my wife here made a mistake by selling you some precious family heirlooms. That’s why we came here searching for you. We want to get them back.”

The merchant appeared sympathetic, but had a wicked glint in his eyes. “Oh, that’s rather unfortunate, sir. But I’m sure you understand that I can’t just give them back for free. I paid a hefty sum to get them.”

I reached for Najeem’s hand. “I’m sure my husband will compensate you accordingly,” I said, nudging him to present the merchant the pouch full of glowing marbles. “This should be enough, right?”

The merchant returned my smile, ordering his son to bring us the orbs. I quickly counted them, remembering exactly how many I’d given him. “There’s one missing!”

“Ah, yes. Yesterday a wealthy noble bought one as a gift for his fiancée. You’ll have to talk to him to get that one back.”

I exchanged a glance with Najeem. Great. Now we had to deal with some arrogant nobles.