This was all real, though, and it had never been meant to happen. I wasn’t supposed to run off to the surface. I wasn’t that sort of person. I had always obeyed, even if I didn’t want to. I had always waited for permission, always done whatever was asked of me, always tried to be my best. But the one time—the first time—I did something wrong, I was caught by Zayele.
I knew I should hate her for what she did, but I couldn’t. Something in me felt a bit of sympathy. She had clearly been afraid of coming here.
But I still needed to get home. I still needed to break through her wish. I had broken through the jinni wards and found myself in the palace. Surely I could get myself out of a human girl’s desperate wish.
Bracing myself for another bout of pain, I made a wish to go home.
Pain. Horrible, twisting, shredding pain rushed into me the moment I said the word. I couldn’t breathe; I couldn’t even speak.
I tried again, mouthing the wish.
Fire. A fire raged from the tip of my tongue, down my throat, and to the deepest reaches of my lungs. It burned all the air inside me, and I was hollow. Burning, choking, drowning, and hollow.
I crumpled, convulsing beneath the tree. It was no use. I could not tear myself away from Zayele’s wish. All I could do was burn.
Smoke seeped out my mouth, curled in the air, and smudged the brightness of the stars.
Someone was talking, and I managed to crack my eyes open. Rahela was bent over me, saying something, but her words were muffled. Then many hands lifted me in the air, and Rahela was there, squeezing my hand, right over my mark.
“Did she faint?” someone asked.
“Yes,” Rahela said.
I knew then that I’d never leave. I’d never be able to fight Zayele’s wish if it used fire against me.
22
Zayele
The jinni soldier brought me to a building that stood apart from all the others. It was made of black glass and guarded by two jinn who looked like they could eat babies. I shuffled behind my escort and slipped through the doors into a small waiting area.
A shriveled female jinni sitting behind a desk looked me up and down.
“Najwa.” She said the name like it tasted bad, then pulled a copper disk out of a box and put it on a peg on the wall behind her. My escort cleared his throat.
“He is waiting for you in the briefing room,” he said. Then he backed out of the building, leaving me alone with the old woman. She was filing some metal points that hung from the ends of her hair. Clearly, she didn’t want to deal with me anymore.
There was no turning back now, so I walked forward and ended up in a circular room with an unlit, larger-than-life lamp on a pedestal. On the other side was a dark hall, and somehow I knew that was the way I had to go.
My stomach got tighter with each step. What would the Master want? What did it mean to be a Master of the Corps? Would he know I wasn’t Najwa?
Finally, I came to an open door. Inside, a group of jinn stood in half a ring facing a wall of milky glass.
“Oh, Najwa,” a familiar voice said. The half circle parted and Faisal walked forward, beckoning me in. “Caspar must have run to get you. Now that we’re all here, we can get started.”
I was entering a secret circle, and even though it terrified me, my body buzzed with excitement. This was the most interesting moment of my life. And the most dangerous.
The door closed behind me, and the room was dark but for the wall of white glass. Everyone but Faisal turned to face it, so I did too.
“You all know that our newest member managed to get into the palace and capture some images. We’ve just learned from our analysts that the selenite orb Prince Kamal was carrying is most likely a new form of weaponry.” He paused, letting the thought sink in. “Najwa, if you hadn’t been there, we might never have known. We wouldn’t have had any chance to be prepared. As it is, we are trying to figure out what this orb is meant to do. All we know is that it’s meant to harm us.”
The woman standing beside Faisal went to the glass wall and pulled part of it out. I nearly fell backward in shock as the wall blinked to a giant image of a white ball on a cushion.
“This is the orb,” the woman said. “We need to get this before the humans can use it against us, and we need to ensure it will be a long time before they can make another. Najwa,” she said, smiling at me, “we need you to go back.”
Someone asked her a question, but my ears were roaring too loud to hear. Everything in me was sinking toward the floor, and I grabbed the table behind me.
How would I ever get into the palace? And I had already lost everything to stay away from Baghdad. I couldn’t wish myself there. I couldn’t spy. I was a human.
The jinni’s question had been answered, and now everyone was looking at me. If I didn’t tread carefully, I’d be found out. And I was in the middle of their nest.
“Sure,” I said, forcing myself to look as confident as I could. “When do you want me to go?”
Faisal beamed. “As soon as possible.”
“I was wondering,” I said, trying to think of something quickly, “aren’t there any alternative ways to enter the palace? I mean, in case they’ve figured out we’ve been there? What about a tunnel? The wards might be blocking us from going in with our wishes, but maybe they won’t work if we just walk in.”
The woman’s face scrunched up in disbelief. “Why would you want to go any other way? Transporting is untraceable. And safest.”
One of the other jinn snickered, but I continued. I needed an alternative route.
“I know, but what if I get stuck?”
Faisal shook his head and came closer. “The wards prevent us from entering in all the ways, including on foot, and the tunnels would take too long. By the time you made it to the city, barring any mishap with directions, the humans would be ready. In fact, they may be ready to use the orb at any moment, so time is of the essence.”
“And discretion also,” the woman added.
“You want me to go now?” I said. My voice was little more than a squeak.
“In an hour. We may have you do something else while you’re there, but we need to discuss it. Please wait outside, by the Lamp. I will fetch you in a little while.”
I nodded, trying not to show how much I was shaking, and trotted out to the circular room. I couldn’t do what they wanted me to do. I couldn’t just dissolve into smoke and appear in the palace. I couldn’t stay here.
There were tunnels connecting the Cavern with the surface. I had seen them. All I had to do was find one. I didn’t care where it ended, as long as there were humans. Somehow, I would get out of the Cavern and find my way home. I would find Yashar again.
I told the woman at the desk I would be right back, and then I ran.
23
Najwa
It took me an hour to convince Rahela I would never try that again. But I had to do something, anything, to get information back to Faisal. So after she had fallen asleep, I stayed awake and watched the curtain billowing in from the patio. Lit by a lantern’s geometric pattern of light and shadow, it glowed like a wandering spirit, dancing in the open door.
I peeled the blanket off my legs and stepped off the couch, setting my bare feet on the cool marble. Without taking a breath, I tiptoed to the courtyard door and pulled it open. It slid quietly into the wall and I stepped through, checking first to see if anyone was still lounging by the pool. The courtyard was deserted, except for a family of peafowl huddling beside the fountain. I’d discovered that their high-pitched call, like that of a marauding cat, could wake a rock. If only I could get past them without their seeing me.
Perhaps, just perhaps, I could still make wishes. Just as long as I wasn’t trying to leave the palace. Carefully, I whispered the easiest wish, the one we were taught on the very first day.
“Shahtabi.”
>
Instead of burning me, the wish spread, cool and lacy, across my skin. I could still do it. I had to pretend to be human, but I was still a jinni. Hope and relief filled me and I smiled, despite the darkness, despite the pain I’d felt before.
Invisible now, I passed the fountain and made it to the entrance. In the moonlight, the leaves were silver. The world was asleep, but still it changed its colors. Nothing stayed the same here. I pulled the door open and peeked into the hall. It was darker than it had been before, but dusty oil sconces glowed along the way. The hall was deserted but for a pair of guards facing away from the door. We were guarded at night? Was it to keep us safe, or keep us in?
I shut the door before they had a chance to see it was open and slipped between them. It was only my third shahtabi amongst humans, and I was doing rather well. I padded down the cold marble hall to another, and found the Lamp. Servants bustled past it, barely giving it a glance.
At night, the surrounding lamps lit its bronze sides, showing its curvature and grace. I rubbed the metal, imagining how brightly it would have shone when it was lit. It would have illuminated the whole area.
Behind the Lamp lurked a darker hall, guarded by four men, each with a sword as long as my arm. Whatever was down it was twice as important as all the women in the harem. Quietly, I walked around the guards.
Two sconces lit the hall: one where the guards stood and one beside a set of heavy double doors. I slid open the door slightly and saw that the entire room was glowing. Lamps clung to the walls every few feet, and some hung from brass chains suspended from the ceiling. Every one of the four walls was lined with waist-high shelves, which held stacks of paper and bound books, as well as baskets brimming with stones and jars of powder. A young man in a yellow robe, with a head of thick curls, bent over a table, reading from a sheaf of paper and sliding the beads on an abacus. A cat lay curled on the table, stretching over the other half of the man’s papers and pawing at a selenite sphere, which was far too heavy for the cat to move. It was identical to the one Kamal had shown his father. The man’s quill scratched at the paper while I slid the door open just wide enough to slip in, then shut it again.
The door slapped closed, the man turned around, and I saw it was Kamal, without a turban. He looked at the door, confused, and then wiped his brow with a sleeve and returned to the paper. My heart was beating loud enough that I was sure he could hear it if he stopped scribbling. The cat looked up at me, narrowed his yellow eyes, and then went back to flipping his tail. Kamal shrugged and swept his hand along the cat’s back.
This was not the same laboratory he had been in that morning. This one was larger and colder, and didn’t have the fragrance from the garden wafting in.
I tiptoed over to the table, across from Kamal, and watched him. He tapped his quill against the paper and rubbed the space between his eyebrows while he reviewed the numbers and circles he had drawn and the red beads of the abacus. A circle had been cut into the sphere, and the removed piece lay beside it. I bent over and peered inside the sphere, careful not to touch anything.
The sphere was empty, but the inside was not completely hollow. A metal bowl half the size of the sphere lay suspended within, and it had a faint dusting of white powder. What was this meant for? With a glance at Kamal, I reached in and wiped gently at the dust. The sphere was heavy enough that it didn’t roll when I touched it. He could have used anything, so why selenite?
I rubbed my fingers together. My mind flashed with a series of images Faisal had shown us of all the human creations, and I’d never seen anything like this. Kamal moved two beads on his abacus and an expression of relief came over his face. The crease between his eyebrows disappeared and he leaned back and sighed. Lamplight flickered on his lashes and a lock of hair that had fallen down—it illuminated his skin so that it shone. And through it all, his green eyes stared at the selenite ball.
Whatever he had been working on was done, and he pushed back the chair. It scraped against the floor, and the cat stood up on the desk, arching his back.
“All done,” Kamal said to the cat. “I wish I hadn’t said I’d do this. If I’m wrong, everyone will know. They’ll laugh at me.” The cat rubbed his nose against Kamal’s hand. “At least you don’t expect me to save the caliphate, Hamza.”
The cat meowed, and Kamal smiled. Then he paced back and forth across the room. I made sure to back up against the wall. The cat could see me, and he tracked me lazily. For some reason, he didn’t care that I was there.
“I keep thinking about the princess,” he told the cat. My body flushed. “She’s pretty. But there’s something there, deeper than that.”
Hamza jumped off the desk and sauntered toward me. I froze, hoping he wouldn’t come any closer. Just then, the door opened and Hashim strode in, flashing his long robes. The cat ran off and disappeared in the darkness of the hallway.
“Kamal,” Hashim said. “Have you solved it yet?”
Kamal shook his head. “No.” Was he lying? He had just told the cat he was done.
“We got a report that your brother is in the middle of a battle near Basra. He won’t be able to leave until it’s over. Apparently, we’ve taken some losses.” Hashim waved a sheet of parchment in the air. “We need good news, Kamal. Surely you have something to tell me?” Hashim strode to the table and ran his fingers over the paper. He picked up the ball and closed the lid, then rolled it between his hands. “If we want the element of surprise, we need to be ready when it’s time to send it through the Lamp.” The Lamp? But no human could light it. Hashim must have known that, and I studied him, wondering.
Kamal sighed and rubbed his temples. “I’m just not sure if it’s a good idea.”
“Of course it’s a good idea!” Hashim snapped. “You have to put doubt aside and do what you know in your heart to be the best action for all of us. For the caliphate. For Allah.”
Kamal sighed and went to the door. “Maybe, but I still don’t feel good about it.” He was preparing to leave, and I didn’t want to be left in the room alone with Hashim. It was too dark, too late. I raced on my toes to the door and stood behind Kamal. He still smelled like cinnamon.
Hashim dropped the ball on the table, letting it fall with a thud, and whipped around. “Doubt is an emotion, Kamal, and you must not let it make you blind.”
“Good night, Vizier,” Kamal said. He walked through the door, and I followed. Hashim left the room and slammed the door shut behind him. He barreled down the hall, and without thinking, I followed Kamal. The guards at the end of the hall snapped to attention, and he marched through without any acknowledgment.
He went in the direction of the harem, but he passed it, stopping at a white door painted in gold birds and leaves. He paused, and then opened the door and shut it quickly behind him.
I leaned my ear against the door but could hear nothing, and after a minute passed, I went back to the harem. Inside, I went past the peafowl, who hadn’t budged, and slipped into my room.
The moonlight was gone. I felt my way to my couch, let myself become visible again, and crawled between the sheets of a princess’s bed. It was another hour before my heart settled.
24
Zayele
I thought I was going to vomit. I ran out of the Corps building, past the fountain, and spun around. Somewhere in this Cavern were tunnels that led to the surface. I needed to find one. Now.
I took a breath and decided to run into the city, which was on the other side of the canal. Beyond the city, the wall was darker. It could just indicate darkened crystal buildings, or maybe there were tunnels. I took off, not caring now what anyone thought. I had to move fast. I had to get out of sight before the Corps realized I was gone.
I dashed over a stone bridge that went across the canal, and almost ran into a pair of cane sticks that had moved out in front of me. I skidded, grabbed a lamppost, and looked up the sticks to see that a man was stan
ding on the top. His feet were tied to the ends, making the canes an extension of his legs.
He reached up to the top of the lamppost and lifted off a glass cloche, whispered to the flame, and put it back on. Then he looked down and saw me.
“Sorry if I scared you there,” he called down. “It was almost out. Had to wish it back.” I nodded knowingly, noticing now how some of the lamps weren’t lit. So they had to wish their fires into existence. Some of them anyway. And the wishes weren’t permanent. I was about to move on, then hesitated.
“Sir? Do you know where an unguarded tunnel might be?”
“What do you need to know that for?” he asked, scratching his forehead.
“I’m supposed to do a study. For the Corps. Just got a little lost.”
“Well, I do think there’s a tunnel behind the waterfall. It goes up to a place that’s hidden from humans. Or so they tell us. Maybe it’s just to keep us happy,” he said. He shrugged.
“Oh!” I smiled widely. “That’s right.”
“Glad to help the Corps,” he said, then pointed to the next lamp, indicating he had to get on with his work. I looked behind to see if anyone had come out to follow me, but the guards were standing in place. The Corps building was halfway across the Cavern now.
I exhaled in relief and ran along the canal toward the waterfall, passing a group of small children and their mothers. When I reached the waterfall, I paused. It fell from a split in the crystal wall and poured into a pool, where it stirred up blue-green foam. There was a space behind the waterfall just wide enough for a person. I snuck behind, careful not to slip on the wet stone.
There was no one there. It was like being on the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley at home—only I was hidden and saw nothing but clear water and stone. There was a break in the waterfall only a few inches wide, where the water split, cascading down two sides of a crystal that poked out ten feet above me. Through the break, I could see a strip of the jinn’s city. Jeweled homes studded the land beyond and along the canal that led to the lake.
The Fire Wish Page 12
