The Fire Wish

by The Fire Wish (ARC) (epub)

I came up for air, grabbing at it as if it were a solid thing that would save me, and then sank back down. The water tasted of tears, thousands of tears. Again, I pulled myself up to the air, churning the water over and over again, grasping for anything.

  My fingers scraped against something rough. Rock. Wide, flat, and at the water’s edge. I pinched my nails into it, pulled myself out of the water, and collapsed on the stone. I breathed in the blindness, not caring that it was cold. Too cold.

  “So dark,” I gasped. I had spoken into nothingness and the echoes returned, one by one, to tease me. “I wish it wasn’t so dark.”

  A strange feeling spread from the center of my spine, up and out of my arms. I blinked, amazed. My skin was glowing. The light spread, and with it came exhaustion. I curled up on my side and watched the rim of the water, that bit of darkness lapping the rock. Besides the rock and the water, I could see the bruises spreading across my ankle in the light from my skin.

  Something wasn’t right, but I was too tired to do anything. I pressed my cheek into my hand and let my aching body shut down, starting with my eyes.

  27

  Najwa

  A bird with gossamer blue wings trailed behind us while we followed the lady across the harem. Rahela walked at my side, ever my shadow. We wound through the roses, under an arbor, and to a gazebo against the wall of the palace. The lady motioned for us to enter and then disappeared through a set of white doors. The bird, disappointed that we didn’t have any seeds, flew off.

  A rectangular window, set with a lattice, opened between the gazebo and the palace’s interior. I sat beneath it on a bench and leaned my head against the lattice, feeling a soft breeze flowing between the two spaces.

  A voice whispered in my ear, “Hello again.” I jumped and turned to find Kamal on the other side of the window. He was smiling and pressing his face into the lattice.

  “Hello,” I said, leaning away from the wall. I felt my face grow hot.

  “Should I leave you?” Rahela asked. She stood up from the bench.

  “No. Please stay,” I said, trying to cover the desperation in my voice. I needed her there with me.

  “Yes. I’m sure they would insist,” Kamal said. Then he pulled off his turban and ran his fingers through his thick hair. I stared, remembering how he had done that in the night, when he didn’t know I was watching.

  “But you did want to talk to me?” I asked.

  “Yes.” He frowned. “I am supposed to ask what you thought of your journey, but I’m sure it was long and boring. Am I right?” I nodded. “And Hashim wanted me to ask if you were feeling homesick, or sick in any way. I was surprised he cared. What I really want to know is what you are like. Do you enjoy art?”

  I glanced at Rahela, but her face was blank. “A little,” I said. What I’d seen of human art was interesting, but it didn’t speak to me. It was the stories that drew me in.

  “What about jewels?”

  “I—uh—yes. I like them.” He was so close. My field of vision held nothing but the white of the lattice and the green and gold of his eyes. I blinked and looked away, along the palace wall. A vine climbed up the stones and I focused on that. “But I also like gardens,” I said. “And I like stories. Finding out why people do things.”

  “What kind of stories?”

  “Human stories.” I said it before I thought about it. “I mean—” I had met his gaze but now looked away again while a flush spread across my cheeks.

  “Stories that show what people are like? Not what they pretend to be?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, recovering. “But also, the choices they make when strange things happen.” Such as, what would a human girl do in this situation? And what should a jinni girl do?

  He laughed and reached his fingers through the lattice, curling them over the edges. “Nothing strange should happen to you here. If anything, the hard part will be keeping yourself from getting bored. For a girl used to the mountains, the walls might make this feel more like a cave than a palace.”

  I smiled. “I doubt that.” I glanced at Rahela, who was grinning like the devil.

  “Zayele,” he said, testing the name, “after I saw you yesterday, I …” His head dropped, and I saw he was flustered.

  “Yes?”

  “Here.” He pushed a tiny linen bag through one of the holes in the lattice. “It’s for you.”

  “Thank you.” Our fingertips touched as I took the bag, and a jolt shot through my arm. His hand shook, as if he had felt it too. Quickly, I opened the linen bag. Inside lay a small pendant strung on a leather cord.

  “I made it for you last night.”

  The pendant was silver, with an arched arabesque window holding a teardrop-shaped crystal. It was as iridescent as the moon, which had given this stone its name.

  “Moonstone,” I whispered. Jinn lived surrounded by rocks, but never moonstone. It leeched wishes and life right out of our veins. My hand was shaking, and I wrapped my fingers around it, trying to show I wasn’t afraid. The stone was cold, and froze the skin of my palm where it lay.

  “I work with it so much that sometimes I forget it’s not …” He swallowed and then said with effort, “You reminded me it can also be beautiful.”

  I had made him think such a stone was beautiful? I opened my hand again, now that my nerves had settled. It hadn’t killed me, and I didn’t feel anything other than the biting-cold thing lying there. Maybe the moonstone had to be swallowed first.

  “Do you like it?” His voice was whispery again. He pressed his fingers into the lattice. “If you don’t, I can get you something else.”

  “No, don’t do that. I like it very much.” And it didn’t feel like a lie. The pendant shone, a drop of milk and silver on my hand, and I held it against my chest and tied it around my neck.

  Within seconds, the spot of skin beneath the pendant was tingling and cold.

  Concern rose in his voice. “Are you sure you like it?”

  “Yes,” I said. My voice had cracked.

  “It looks good with your gown,” Rahela said. She plucked a red hibiscus blossom off the bush beside her and sniffed it, hiding half of her face.

  “I’m sorry I don’t have anything—”

  “No, don’t be. Besides, your father is sending men for the army, so my father will be pleased when he wakes up. Everything is ready and we will just wait for him.” He was blushing now, fidgeting behind the wall.

  “May I ask you a question?” I asked. He nodded. “Why moonstone? Why do you work with it so much?”

  He shook his head. “That, Princess, is a secret. Besides, it wouldn’t interest you anyway.”

  “It wouldn’t? Let me guess.” His mouth twitched, and I continued, choosing my words carefully. “There isn’t enough to give to everyone in the army, so …”

  He chuckled in surprise. “If I’d ever doubted you were the vizier’s cousin, I don’t now. You sound like him. Logical and curious. But I still can’t answer you. It’s a secret that isn’t mine to share.”

  I’d nearly gone too far already, so I smiled as sweetly as I could and nodded, trying not to think too much about the vizier. I was not like that man. Rahela still hid her face behind her flower, and I wanted to cast knives at her.

  “Then what else do you do?”

  He flashed me a grin and I forgot all about the vizier. “Do you like pomegranates?”

  “Yes.” I had seen one opened once. The seeds looked like tiny red rocks, and I couldn’t imagine what they tasted like.

  “Then I will bring you some, if I can convince Hashim to let me out of the palace for a while. He’s been keeping me here. In fact, I must go. I told him I’d meet with him after breakfast. I wanted to give you that first.” With a nod at my necklace, he smiled and was gone, disappearing into the palace’s shadows.

  I watched after him until Rahela spoke
.

  “I wasn’t expecting any of this,” she said. “He is romantic, even if he gave you poison.”

  I stood up. I would not let her sour the moment. “Can we go back to our room?”

  “What about your garden?” We had found a small garden behind our patio but hadn’t been in it yet.

  I’d forgotten all about it. “Yes. Let’s go. And it’s not mine. Nothing here is truly mine.”

  “I know.” She tossed the hibiscus onto the bench and led the way.

  28

  Zayele

  Someone was squeezing my shoulder. I tried to lift my eyelids, but they were swollen and heavy. I was only able to peek. Atish was holding a lamp, and he was frowning.

  “Are you hurt?” Was I? Yes, my foot had been stuck in the rocks. It ached and ached.

  “My ankle,” I croaked. I pulled it to my chest and gasped when I touched the side.

  “We can get a physician to look at it. What were you doing here, Najwa?” I’d forgotten I was Najwa now. “Everyone is looking for you.”

  My head was going to fall in on itself. It hurt nearly as bad as my ankle. “Can’t you wish my ankle fixed?”

  He frowned. “Only physicians should do that. It’s good I found you. Why were you here?” He pulled me up onto his lap, and I rested my throbbing head against his chest.

  “I was trying to get to the surface, like Faisal wanted me to.”

  “But this tunnel opens into the sea.”

  “How do you know?”

  He sighed. “You have lost your mind. Come on. I’ll help you.”

  “I can do it,” I said. I tried to stand, but pain shot up through my leg and I fell back down, moaning. Atish huffed, hooked an arm under my left one, and guided me up. The climb was difficult, but not as bad as I’d feared. Beside the wet stone was a path, smooth and dry. Of course I had completely missed that on my way down.

  “How did you end up in the water?” he asked.

  I was hopping on one foot. Each time I landed, the pain grew more unbearable, and hopping only increased the throbbing in my head. “It was dark,” I grunted. “I fell in.”

  “What happened to your lamp?”

  “I dropped it.”

  “What about wishing for some light?” So, a jinni would never get lost in the dark. How was I supposed to know that?

  “I was having some problems,” I mumbled.

  “Something is going on, Najwa. You can’t just run away. We’ve been scouring every shadow and alcove looking for you. They were ready to start looking in the lake! And you can’t—shards, Najwa!” He pinched the bridge of his nose, like Rahela did when she was frustrated.

  “I—”

  His jaw twitched. “I thought something had happened to you. I didn’t know what it could have been—maybe some new weaponry that could snatch us from the Cavern—but no. You were just sneaking away.” He paused, stopping mid-stride, and brought the lantern up higher, so that his features were sharper. “Today, I thought you’d finally opened up to me. You were more spontaneous. I thought you were that part of me I’d always felt was missing. And then, when we kissed …” He stopped and picked up my hand. “But none of that is worth anything if you walk away from the horrors we face. We’re in a war, Najwa. You can’t just run off whenever you feel like it.”

  I glared at him. “You don’t know what I’ve been going through.” My throat was thick and tasted like copper. He didn’t know. He could fight his enemy, and everyone would cheer him on for doing so. But my enemy wasn’t so clear. I wasn’t even sure what it was.

  His arm dropped, and when he lowered the lantern, shadows shifted and stretched along the tunnel. “Then tell me. How can I help if you keep secrets? You’ve got to trust me or we’ve got nothing.”

  “It’s just … I’m sorry. This was my own fault. I should have been more careful.”

  He tightened his grip on me. “You don’t need to do everything alone, Najwa. No matter what the reason is.” He shook his head, then froze. He was staring at my hand, confused. I slid it behind my back, but he had seen. His eyes narrowed. “Hold out your hand,” he commanded. When I hesitated, he grabbed it and held it up to the lamp. “Where in Iblis’s name is your mark? Gal said Faisal had marked you, but I don’t see it.”

  I pulled my hand free. The henna had worn off a bit in the water, leaving the design looking like shredded embroidery. “I don’t know. It faded.”

  “Marks don’t fade.” Atish’s skin turned to gold and lit up, the light rippling like a raging current across his arms and face. His eyes shone like coals, and they were huge, and I pulled, scrambling to get away. This must be what the Shaitan looked like in battle. “I can tell you’re lying, Najwa.”

  His skin burned, brighter than the lamp, and I stepped back, shielding my face. The tunnel walls were bare in the brightness, with only the cracks and rough patches holding on to the darkness. The cracks were too small, and my ankle was too weak. There was nowhere to go, and I could not outrun a Shaitan.

  “I’m not Najwa.” There was no point in hiding anymore. Not in this light.

  His fists tightened and released, slowly. “What are you talking about?”

  “My name is Zayele.” In this tunnel, in the land of jinn, the word sounded more like an echo of someone else, not my name.

  He blinked in confusion. “If you’re not Najwa, then where is she?” The lamp was inches from my eyes, but I didn’t dare turn away. I stared back at him, as defiant as I could pretend to be.

  “She’s in Baghdad. In the palace.”

  His jaw twitched. “Jinn can’t get into the palace.”

  “Apparently, she can, because Faisal just ordered me—her—to go back. She’s been there before.”

  “What? Who are you? Are you even from the Cavern?”

  He still didn’t know? I thought about making up a story about being from a different group of jinn, but he looked so concerned, and the brightness was fading into a glow now. I couldn’t lie to him anymore.

  “I’m not from … here. I traded places with Najwa.”

  He swore, cursing the tunnel, the Cavern, and everyone in it. “You’re not jinni?”

  “No, but I wasn’t going to hurt anyone!” I said. “I just want to go home.”

  “When did you trade places with her?” He leaned closer. His irises were golden-brown again, as if the anger had consumed itself. I couldn’t look away from them, remembering how only this morning he’d looked at me with hunger. Realizing the difference was like finding a knife in my chest.

  “Yesterday,” I said. “I caught her, and made a wish.”

  “You wished on her? What did you think, that you could just change places? That her life was easier?” He rubbed at the back of his neck and then peeled away from me.

  “I didn’t want her life,” I said, hobbling closer to him. “I only wanted to go home. And I’d never seen a jinni before. I didn’t even know you were people. I thought jinn were …”

  “Soulless? Mindless demons, alive just to give humans whatever they want?” He swung the lamp away and dropped it by his side. “You’re right. We’re people, and we have lives. Lives that humans are so quick to take.”

  “I didn’t know I was taking a life! I was just trying to get home. It’s all I want.”

  His lips curled up in a sour smile. “So this was your plan? Kiss me and then run off to the tunnels?”

  “I … no.” My ankle hurt more than anything I’d felt before, but I couldn’t let him see the pain. If he tried to help—if he touched me—I’d melt into him again. And the thought that he wouldn’t help was more than I wanted to face now. “You weren’t part of any plan.”

  He shook his head and sighed. “I can’t believe my first kiss was with a human.”

  Najwa hadn’t kissed him before? A blush spread across my face and I turned to the wall
to hide it. I wanted him to know I’d never kissed anyone either, but anything I could say would sound childish or desperate.

  Besides, he knew who I was now. He could bring me to the Shaitan, and they’d kill me on the spot.

  “So now what? Are you going to take me back or kill me right here?”

  The lamp began to waver, and when he whispered, it flashed back into life.

  “I don’t know what to do with you,” he muttered. He stared at me for a long time.

  The wall was cool against my cheek, and I welcomed it because it was solid, and real, and just as I’d expect. Everything else in my life had been turned upside down. There wasn’t anything I could do to help myself now. I couldn’t talk my way out of it. I couldn’t even walk.

  “I kissed you. A human.”

  “You had never kissed Najwa before?”

  “No,” he said. His face was a mixture of curiosity and frustration, which probably mirrored my own. “I never really wanted to.”

  “And you’re a jinni. In the Shaitan, even,” I said. My heart was pounding in my chest. All of a sudden, I didn’t want him to leave me. Not only because I was stuck in a tunnel. I wanted him to forget I was human. I brushed my fingers over my lips, remembering.

  He was staring at my fingers, at my lips, before he curled his hands into fists. “I can’t—I have to go.” He thrust the lamp into my hands, careful not to touch my skin, and ran down the tunnel until he was nothing but shadow.

  I was alone with nothing but the bubble of light he’d left behind. I sank to the floor, set the lamp beside me, and cried into my knees. The world hadn’t wronged me this time. Everything—all of it, even Atish—had been my fault. I had ruined someone’s life to avoid a marriage. Even still, I didn’t want to go to Baghdad.

  It didn’t matter anymore. I was unable to walk, and the flame would go out eventually. I would die here, in the coming darkness.

  29

  Najwa

  It wasn’t difficult slipping out of the harem. When Rahela decided to take a nap, I turned myself invisible, ducked behind the curtains that shielded the door, then skipped past the guards. Because it was midafternoon, they were barely paying attention to the harem door anyway.