The Fire Wish

by The Fire Wish (ARC) (epub)

  “You’re a jinni,” one of the other men called back. “You’re not one of us!”

  How did they know?

  Then, in a flash of light and a great curling of smoke, jinn poured out of the Lamp, brandishing swords and daggers. Atish, his friends Cyril and Dabar, Rashid, and ten other Shaitan leaped into the guards, giving them no chance to unsheathe their weapons. Atish pushed through and grabbed hold of my arm.

  “Get back!” he shouted. He pushed me in the direction of the Lamp.

  The Shaitan forced the guards against the wall, but the clashing of blades had drawn others to our location. The Shaitan stood their ground against thirty or forty soldiers who jumped in, slashing at them when they made their strikes. The jinn turned invisible between attacks, and a few had time to send off flaming balls. There were some, though, who didn’t bother with invisibility. Atish was among them, as smooth and lethal as a leopard.

  He stood at the front. Cyril and Dabar held back the humans while Atish scanned the crowd, looking for his next target. Then, with a yell, he moved, stepping over the fallen soldiers.

  Faisal and Shirin appeared just as a soldier managed to catch Cyril off guard. Shirin yelped when Cyril fell, and she started to run over to him, but Faisal held her back.

  “We need to find Najwa,” Faisal said.

  “I need to help him,” Shirin said, pointing at Cyril. He had pushed himself up off the floor, but blood was falling freely from his left arm.

  “You’ll get yourself killed,” Faisal said. “Come.” He pulled Shirin and me away from the fighting, and I turned just long enough to see Atish standing over Cyril, protecting him against the soldier. The fearlessness in his eyes terrified me.

  We made ourselves invisible, slipped past the soldiers, and trotted down a corridor. Shirin grabbed my hand and squeezed.

  “Where are you taking us?” Shirin asked Faisal.

  “To the laboratory that Najwa discovered. She may be there,” Faisal said.

  We turned a corner and ran into a group of soldiers who were plowing their way toward the Lamp. Quickly, I leaped into them and wove between their swords and shields, careful not to touch anyone. I spun, ducked, and made it through, but they were followed by another group. This time, I was able to press myself against a potted tree.

  When it was over, I had lost Faisal and Shirin. They must have stayed back at the corner. I waited, my heart pounding in my chest, but I never heard them. Finally, I crept out and slunk back to the corner, hoping to find them. When I had waited several minutes and they still hadn’t called out for me, I decided I’d have to go for it myself. I didn’t know where the laboratory was, but I had the map.

  I was pressed against the wall, studying the map, when someone bumped into me. I gasped, then saw that it was a woman. She had been creeping along the wall too.

  It took a second to recognize her. Rahela had changed. She had lost some of the all-knowing look she had carried. Now her eyes were as wide as a startled deer’s.

  “Najwa!” she shrieked, then reached up to my face, as if to make sure she was clutching the correct invisible jinni. “They’re looking everywhere for you.” She grabbed my wrist and pulled me along the corridor, away from the Lamp.

  “Rahela, it’s me,” I said, rolling up the map. “Zayele.” I undid the shahtabi wish.

  She turned and looked, taking a step back. “Merciful Allah, Zayele! Is it really you? Why are you here? Why were you invisible?” I opened my mouth, but she held up a hand. “Never mind. Follow me.”

  She brought me to a door, pulled it open, and ushered me inside. It was filled with shelves of crockery, and we had to push a gigantic clay pot aside in order to fit. She shut the door and turned on me, her face red as a poppy.

  “Where have you been? I could slap you for what you did to me! To Najwa! Have you any idea what sort of trouble she’s in now?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, looking at my feet. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say but that. Just trust that I am trying as hard as I can to set everything right again.”

  She took my hands in hers, squeezing them. “Don’t you dare leave me again, Zayele, or I will hunt you down.”

  “I’m sorry I left you. With a jinni.”

  She nudged the pot with her toe. “I was scared of her at first. But she’s been trying to undo what you did, and it has nearly killed her. You have no idea what you did, Zayele,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Yes, I do,” I whispered. I told her, as quickly as possible, where I had been and what I had discovered.

  “Your mother isn’t a jinni!” she exclaimed.

  “Not Yadigar. My real mother, Mariam. The night Hashim said we were attacked by jinn—we weren’t. He attacked. He killed my parents and blamed it on a jinni.” The scene reentered my mind, and I clutched my stomach. I had to push it away. I couldn’t think of Mariam’s blood pooling in the tent. Not now.

  “No,” she said flatly. “I can believe Najwa is your sister. I can even believe that you’re half-jinni. But I cannot believe that Hashim lied about the attack.”

  “Rahela, you’ve got to believe me! Hashim knows I’m half-jinni—he knew my real mother, Mariam. He wanted me here for a reason.”

  Her nostrils flared. This was the Rahela I knew. “We need to find her.”

  “You don’t know where she is? What happened?”

  “Hashim brought us to the Court of Honor and told everyone that Zayele had been murdered by a jinni, and that the jinni had replaced her. Najwa panicked and ran off, turning invisible along the way. The court surrounded me, and I had to push some old men aside to get away. I’ve been running around looking for her ever since.”

  I unrolled the map and pointed at a section nearby. “One of the jinn said Najwa might have gone to a laboratory. Have you looked there?”

  “No.”

  I rolled up the map. “Let’s go.”

  45

  Najwa

  Kamal knelt down before me. His turban was gone, and his hair fell over his eyes, leaving them in shadow. I couldn’t see if he was angry or not, but he moved quickly to pull out the gag. “What is going on?” he asked. He pushed his hair off his face. “Give me a good reason why I should untie your wrists and let you go.”

  I swallowed back the saliva that had built up in my mouth. My jaw ached, as if I’d been trying to chew a rock. “Hashim was partly right,” I said. I couldn’t look him in the eye. “I’m not human. And I am a jinni. But I didn’t kill Zayele, and I don’t believe she is dead. If she was, I wouldn’t still be here.” He rocked back onto his heels, and I was afraid he’d leave me, still bound. “Please, I need to stop him! He is going to do something—I don’t even know what—but it’s not good. He is trying to make it look like I’ve done something horrible.”

  “Who are you?” he asked. His voice was low and cracked.

  “My name is Najwa. I was only here because Zayele caught me. She wished on me,” I said, and suddenly the heat of oncoming tears crept up my cheeks. “She wished for me to take her place, because she didn’t want to come to Baghdad.”

  “So this whole time, it was you and not Zayele?”

  I nodded, and the tears began to fall. “I don’t know where she is. Rahela has been so worried.”

  “Your friend knew you weren’t Zayele? And she didn’t tell us?”

  “She couldn’t have! It would have dishonored Zayele and the whole tribe. And so I had to pretend.”

  “Then why didn’t Hashim let us know when he saw you? He has seen Zayele. He was the one who brought her here.”

  “Rahela says we could easily pass for each other. But I don’t know. I only saw her for a moment. After she made her wish, she disappeared. I didn’t kill her, Kamal.”

  He smoldered, like charcoal that had been cold but suddenly flashed back to life. “Why would Hashim claim such a thing? A
nd why would he say you’re a jinni if he didn’t know what had happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But please. Untie me. I promise I will not hurt you, or anyone.”

  He reached to his belt and unsheathed his dagger while I held my wrists out to let him slit the binding. As he put his dagger away, I rubbed my hands and then touched the necklace he’d given me. The moonstone was smooth and hard. “Thank you,” I said.

  His eyes were on the necklace. Was he regretting that he had made something for me? Or was he regretting all of it, every moment he’d wasted with me? After a long moment of silence, he took the stone gently from my fingers. “Perhaps you should take that off.”

  My heart was like a pomegranate, with each ruby seed spilling onto the floor. He regretted all of it. The necklace, the nights of music, and the words we had shared. Because I had lied, because I hadn’t been Zayele, none of it mattered.

  I reached behind my neck for the clasp, but my hands were shaking and I couldn’t find it. “I can’t get it undone,” I said.

  “Here.” He reached up and wrapped his arms around my neck, then took the clasp from my fingers. His face was so close I could smell the soap he had washed with. “I don’t want it to hurt you.”

  Then he looked at me, just inches away. I couldn’t breathe, and it was like the moment we had shared the night before, beneath the stars. “It doesn’t hurt,” I whispered. “As long as I don’t hold it for too long.”

  His fingers fell to the back of my neck, and my skin erupted in goose bumps. “In that case,” he said, “keep it.”

  “But I’m—”

  “I know. But you’re still the same person I spoke with in the garden, aren’t you? You didn’t switch places with her this morning.”

  My heart beat a little faster. “It’s still me,” I said.

  He smiled. It was like the sun rising after an endless night. “Then it doesn’t matter what you are.” He pulled me closer, and I was melting in his eyes. They were like jasper, green and brown, and they drew me in. He closed them, then placed his lips on mine. He was warm and tasted like cinnamon.

  His kiss was like transporting to another world, and it was just as frightening and exciting as my first trip to the palace had been. Every vein in my body flushed, knowing that he didn’t care I was a jinni. I didn’t have to pretend I was a human, or a princess, anymore. He pulled away and a lopsided smile spread across his face.

  “I forgot what you said your name is.”

  “Najwa,” I breathed.

  “Najwa,” he said, then chuckled. “I never thought I’d learn the name of a woman after I kissed her.”

  “Since you have your hands on her,” Hashim said behind him, “you should make a wish.” We jumped to our feet, and Kamal whipped around. He held his arm out in front of me, pushing me behind him.

  “Hashim! What is going on?”

  Hashim frowned. “You should tell me, Prince Kamal. You know this woman is not human, and yet you’re—”

  “This isn’t about her. What have you been planning, Hashim?”

  “You mean, what have we been planning? You’re as much a part of this as I am.” Hashim’s grin was oily. “If you wait a moment, you’ll hear what we’ve been working on come to fruition.”

  “What did you do?” I shrieked, pushing my way past Kamal’s arm.

  “It’s what you did, Zayele. You have been running around the palace, wreaking havoc. In a second or two—”

  Boom!

  The walls shook as an explosion rocked the palace. Plaster rained down in the room behind Hashim, where it hit a vase, which crashed to the floor amidst chunks of broken ceiling and glass.

  “You’ve just blown apart the barracks.”

  “What?” Kamal ran at Hashim, but Hashim stopped him with a blow to his face.

  “Your weapon works, Kamal,” Hashim said. “You should be proud. You’ve done more damage in one blow than your brother ever dreamed of. Unfortunately, it was to your own people, but no one has to know it was your weapon.”

  “Let me go past!” Kamal yelled. He pushed at Hashim, who stood as still as a stone pillar.

  “I cannot. I apologize, I have to keep you here for the moment. At least until my men—the men her ‘father,’ Sergewaz, gave me—have replaced the caliph’s guards.”

  “She’s not Zayele,” Kamal said, gritting his teeth. “And you will let us pass.”

  “On the contrary,” Hashim said, and with a flick of his wrist, he pulled a dagger from his robes and pressed it against Kamal’s neck. “You’re coming with me.”

  46

  Zayele

  Rahela took us down the corridor, holding my hand tight. After pausing behind a screen, we dashed across an empty courtyard, went through a rose garden, and stopped behind a closed door. We had run the entire way and were catching our breath when we saw Faisal and Shirin. Both had lost their shahtabi, and Shirin kept glancing over her shoulder.

  “Who’s this?” Faisal asked, eyeing Rahela.

  “She’s my cousin,” I answered.

  Faisal nodded and snapped a rosebud off the nearest bush. “This is where Najwa got her rose,” he said to Shirin. He pointed at an archway cut into the palace’s wall. “The laboratory must be in there.”

  Rahela looked surprised. “How did you know?”

  “Najwa came here the first time she transported, and brought me back one of these blossoms.”

  “All right,” I said, putting my hand on the door. I didn’t have time for talk about flowers. “Let’s go in.”

  I pressed on the raised designs that covered the door, and it swung open. A jar of powder lay on its side by my feet. My eyes swept across the room and landed on three people. I froze, stricken. On the other side of a long wooden table were Hashim, Najwa, and a young man. Hashim stood behind the man, pressing a knife into his throat, while Najwa, tears dripping down her cheeks, was holding a spoonful of gray powder above a white sphere.

  She held the spoon in the air, then dropped it, scattering powder all over the table. The man behind Najwa gasped, but Hashim pressed the knife harder against his neck.

  “Both of you!” Hashim said incredulously. “Never in all my planning did I account for this. This is a boon.” He gestured for me to come closer, using his free hand.

  I didn’t move.

  “Come closer, or I kill the prince,” Hashim said. “Which one are you, then? Zayele or the other mutt?”

  I lifted my chin. “I’m not coming any closer until you release him,” I said.

  The others pressed me into the room. Hashim took one look at Faisal and nearly let go of the prince. His cheeks flushed above his beard, but his eyes darkened and narrowed. “You’ve returned. But it’s too late. Just like it was for Mariam. Just like it was for your dear brother. It’s always been too late.”

  Najwa wiped her face, staring openmouthed at Faisal. “How did you—”

  “Yes, how did you get into the palace?” Hashim asked. “The girls I can understand, since they’re only half-breeds, but you. You’re a full jinni.”

  Faisal walked toward them, not stopping until the prince winced in pain. “Zayele took down the wards. The Shaitan have come with us, Hashim. Let the boy go.”

  “Let him go like I let Mariam’s father go? And receive nothing in return but death and loss?” Hashim spat out the words. “Over my dead body. The weapon this girl is filling—don’t stop, dear—will end all of it. Yes, fill it to the brim. I don’t care that your army is here. My army is more than strong enough. Thanks to this young prince here, we’ve found a way to protect ourselves. We now have the upper hand. And on top of all that, I’ve got a jinni of my very own,” he said, pointing at Najwa’s back. “And it looks like I might get her sister too.”

  Najwa almost dropped the spoon again, and looked at me with wonder. Clearly, she was putting
the pieces of our puzzle together.

  “Don’t do it, Najwa,” Kamal croaked. “I couldn’t live with myself.”

  Najwa sniffed, but shook her head. “Faisal, help me” was all she said. Hashim sneered at her, taking his eyes off Faisal for the first time since he’d entered the laboratory.

  Faisal leaped over the table and landed on top of Hashim. Kamal rolled out from between them, jumping up just in time before Hashim shoved Faisal to the side. Both of the older men jumped to their feet and faced off, dagger to dagger.

  “You can’t fight me fairly, Hashim.” Faisal’s dagger glowed red-hot.

  “You’re right, I can’t,” Hashim said, and he pulled another dagger from his belt and launched it at Najwa. Faisal turned and, in a split second, shouted out a wish. A wave of energy shook across the space in front of Najwa and Kamal, stopping the dagger in midair. It stayed there, stuck in a wavering, translucent wall that stretched the width of the laboratory, leaving Faisal and Hashim on the opposite side.

  “Faisal!” Najwa screamed, pounding at the wall. But Faisal didn’t have time to respond. Hashim had pounced on him, and he lurched backward, holding Hashim’s dagger back with his own.

  “Gah!” Faisal growled, pushing Hashim back. Hashim stumbled, then caught his footing. They danced, circling each other, while their blades flashed.

  “I think my dagger is sharper,” Hashim said. “It’s funny. I was thinking about Mariam this morning.” He twisted the blade till it reflected the sunlight into Faisal’s eyes. Then he slashed, narrowly missing Faisal.

  Faisal growled again, slicing at the air, but Hashim dipped down and moved to the side like a spider. Then Faisal plunged and cut into Hashim’s robes. Hashim twisted and landed safely beside Faisal, his indigo robes spinning behind him.

  “That’s Mariam’s blade,” Faisal said. He sent a ball of fire straight at Hashim. It glanced off his shoulder and sent him careening into the shelves of jars. They exploded, raining white powder down over Hashim, who picked up one of the cracked jars and threw it at Faisal.