Jalia Prevails (Book 5) Read Online Free PDF

bedroom and tried to think where the ring and dagger could be. While the ring could easily have been concealed on Gally’s person, the dagger could not. There was not a chance that Gally had been carrying it on her in a dress as revealing as the one she wore that night. It had to be hidden somewhere.
    There were no less than four pillows on the bed. Jalia took each one in turn and squeezed them, felling for anything that might be concealed within.
    In the fourth she felt an object shaped like a brick. It was sewn into the pillow. Jalia carefully unpicked the thread holding the pillow together. Inside, she found a wooden box. It took some time for her to get it out of the pillow without taking any of the hundreds of duck feathers with it. Jalia did not want Gally to detect the theft for as long as possible.
    The box was locked, with no sign of a key hole. As Jalia turned it in her hands and felt something slide within it. This was a puzzle box, turn it over in just the right sequence and it would open, as a weight would travel down a labyrinth and push against a lever holding the box closed.
    Jalia closed her eyes and visualized the box in her mind. She turned the box in various directions, feeling the shift in weight as she did. A three dimensional image formed with each turn, as possibilities were considered and rejected. She had solved the puzzle of many such boxes when a child. Her mother always bought new ones for her as soon as she solved the one she had.
    Jalia threw the box lightly into the air and moved it vigorously forward before halting abruptly. Something went ‘ping’ inside the box and the lid hinged open.
    “Child’s play.”
    She had known from the moment that she picked up the box that it didn’t have the dagger in it. It was not heavy enough. As Jalia suspected, it contained a number of tightly rolled papers.
    Jalia stuffed the papers in her pocket, as she knew she was running out of time. She closed the box and turned it to move the weight around. Getting it back into the pillow was not that difficult, but she didn’t have a needle to sew the thread back into place.
     
    Hala was shocked to hear the suite door being unlocked and then see it swing open. Jalia had told her that she wouldn’t come out that way, whatever happened. Hala was considering running for her life when Jalia’s head appeared around the side of the door and a hand waved her forward.
    “When Mara gave you those needles to repair your clothes, what did you do with them?”
    “I stuck them into the leather of my skirt where they wouldn’t get lost.” Hala couldn’t think why Jalia was asking about that of all things.
    “Quick, give me the smallest. Come on girl, hurry.”
    Hala obediently tried to get the needle out of her skirt but it wouldn’t budge.
    “Take off your skirt and give it to me,” Jalia demanded, as Hala’s efforts were taking far too long.
    Hala reluctantly removed her skirt before Jalia could rip it off her.
    “Now go back to the cabin and wait.”
    Jalia closed the door to the suite, leaving Hala standing in the corridor in her knickers and jerkin.
    Hala almost made it back to her cabin without being seen. Unfortunately for her, Nin waited outside its door.
    “Well, well. Running around in our undies now, I see,” Nin said, his eyes lingering on Hala’s body. Hala put her hands in front of her, trying to cover her knickers as best she could.
    “I don’t think I’m going to be thinking about Jalia tonight. Not now I’ve seen you like that,” Nin said in an impressed tone of voice.
    “You are such a… boy!” Hala said somewhat irrationally. She pushed past him and unlocked the door.
    As she fled inside and slammed the door, Nin stared at the door in confusion.
    “What that supposed to be an insult?”
     
    Jalia finished her sewing, using the same holes in the cloth she had earlier unstitched. She put the bed back exactly as it had been. As she turned to leave, she spotted a single duck feather