“No!” Najwa screamed. The jar flew through the air, trailing a cloud of white behind it, and hit Faisal squarely in the chest. The rest of the jar cracked apart and dropped to the floor. Faisal looked down at the bits of glass embedded in his chest. He stood frozen like a moonbeam, then fell onto his hands and knees, heaving and coughing. His hands slipped out from beneath him and he fell to the floor.
Everything was still and silent. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t breathe. Quickly, Hashim leaped over Faisal’s body, broke through the energy wall, and grabbed Najwa. His grimace was wild, and he snarled at Kamal, who had been too slow to move. “One less magus,” he said. He pinched Najwa’s chin between his fingers and turned on Kamal. “If you follow us, I will kill her.” He reached out with an opened hand. “The sphere, please, dear prince.” Kamal hesitated, and handed the white sphere to Hashim. Then Hashim dragged Najwa toward the front door. She struggled, tears pouring down her face, and when he pulled her over Faisal’s body, she shuddered, whispering something to Hashim that I couldn’t hear.
Hashim paused at the door, with Najwa in one arm and the sphere in the other hand. “Kamal, explain to the others what will happen if any of you follow me.” Then, with a kick, the door slammed shut.
Shirin ran to Faisal, but it was too late. “No, sir!” she sobbed. “You can’t go. You can’t.”
47
Najwa
I couldn’t breathe without hiccupping, but it didn’t matter. Faisal was gone, and the emptiness he left was greater than my entire soul. He had been my only father, my only teacher. He was the only person I had ever wanted to make proud. And Hashim had killed him.
I struggled, but Hashim’s grip was too tight. “You can’t get away, jinni.” I was half dragged, half carried down the corridor, and I screamed the entire way, letting loose all the fear, all the pain, all the longing I’d been harboring since I’d come to Baghdad. The people we passed backed away, bowing at Hashim. Finally, he thrust me forward, into stone.
“At last something goes better than I’d planned. They’ve already relit the flame,” he said. We were standing in front of the stone plinth that held up the Lamp. But unlike before, it was bursting with a long golden flame. Faisal must have lit it, and again, I choked on a sob.
There was a clashing of swords down one of the halls, and I looked up, hoping someone was fighting their way to me. But Hashim jerked my arm, knocking me into the plinth.
“I need you to send the sphere to the Cavern.”
He was going to destroy the entire Cavern—the waterfall, the Lake of Fire, the houses of sparkling colors, and all the people. I thought of the children running along the wall, flying streamers in the air. I thought of my mother, at her loom. I thought of Faisal, and I pressed my lips together and shook my head in defiance.
“You will do this, because I will wish it. You cannot resist a human’s wish.”
That might have been true before, but I would not send the sphere down into the Cavern and cover everyone in exploding moonstone powder.
“I have been planning this moment for years,” he went on. “Don’t look so surprised. I knew your mother. I was there when she died, and your human father too.”
I looked him in the eye then, not quite believing what I’d just heard. “My father was a jinni,” I said.
“So you’re the one who grew up in the Cavern, then,” he said. “Let me begin our lifelong relationship of master and slave by saying that I killed your true parents. Your sister grew up in Zab, believing herself to be a daughter of Zab. I brought her here, just for this moment. I don’t care how you switched places, but you both carry the same blood in your veins. And I’ve been meaning to catch a jinni with this particular blood for half my life.”
“You’re lying!” I said, and I snapped my teeth at him. He leaned back, still not letting go of me, and laughed.
“I swear on the Prophet that I am not. Now let’s not waste time. This needs to happen before the Shaitan take care of my pitiful men.” He smiled, like he was just going to ask me to behave nicely. “I wish for you to send this sphere to the Cavern.”
I shook my head, but I could feel the wish pressing in on me. Like the jinni’s in the memory, my lungs felt like they were twisting around barbs. I pulled against Hashim, but he wouldn’t let go, and as the moments passed, the pain increased. My eyes stung, and my nostrils burned for air, but I would not open my mouth. I bit my lips closed, and screamed inside my mouth. I could not let the wish out. I would not let the wish out.
There is a point at which a person will break. I knew at which point the jinni from the Memory Crystal had reached it, and I held on, past the shredding of the lungs, past the sensation of fire flooding throughout my limbs.
But it was too great, and I reached my breaking point. I opened my mouth, gasping for air, and let the wish pour out. My hand grabbed the sphere from Hashim, all on its own, while tears, hotter than they were a moment ago, streamed off my cheeks. Then I croaked, “Granted.”
I held the sphere over the flame, and let go.
48
Zayele
Atish was the one who brought us back to the moment. Shirin and I had been kneeling over Faisal, crying, while Kamal stood frowning beside Rahela, until Atish ran into the room from the front door.
“What happened?” he asked. When his gaze landed on Faisal, his eyes widened. He ran to Faisal, knelt down and stroked his forehead with his thumb, and then stood back up. “We cannot stay here. Have you found Najwa yet?”
“Who are you?” Kamal asked.
“A friend of Najwa’s.”
“You’re Shaitan,” Kamal said, gesturing at Atish’s mark.
Atish nodded at Kamal and turned to me. “Have you found Najwa?”
“Hashim just took her down the corridor,” I said, wiping my face and climbing up off the floor. “But we can’t follow her or he will kill her.”
“He will kill her no matter what,” Atish said. “That’s the sort of man he is. Najwa knows that.”
There wasn’t anything we could do. She was trapped behind Hashim’s dagger, and she was there because of me. All of us were. If I didn’t do something, Hashim would kill everyone in the Cavern. Everything beautiful about the place my mother was from would be destroyed.
I ran to Rahela then, took her hands, and brought them to my lips. “I’m sorry for everything,” I said, choking on my words. Then I looked at Atish, at his deep, shadowed eyes.
“I wish we’d had more time,” I said. His face darkened as he realized what I meant.
“No, Zayele!” he shouted. He ran toward me, pushing the table out of the way, but I was faster.
I closed my eyes. If I thought any more about Atish, I might not be able to do it.
“Umnisha-la narush,” I shouted into the broken room.
They were the words Faisal had taught me to say once I saw Najwa again. They would free her from the Fire Wish and send me to my rightful place.
The wish unraveled faster than I expected. I blinked and dissolved, feeling the energy sucked out of me. When I opened my eyes again, I was behind Hashim’s blade, pressed against his chest. The sphere was in the air, falling into the flame, and I hit it away. It flew sideways, smacked against the wall, and broke open onto the floor. A cloud of white powder puffed up into the air and fell all around us. We were as white as angels, and I almost laughed. We weren’t anything like angels.
“No!” Hashim cried. “You demon!” Then the blade sliced against my throat. I tried to scream, but my words gurgled out, red and slick. I fell over, and as the light dimmed, I watched Hashim try to put the pieces of the sphere back together.
Everything was lost, and I was so tired. But it didn’t matter. I had realized what I cared about most. And I had a home, even if I would never see it again. I thought of the Cavern and the way the gypsum shards sparkled from the ceiling, as real as
stars but closer. I thought of Yashar, and how he would have loved to see that. I imagined I was there with him, but as I rowed him out onto the Lake of Fire, I was so tired. So very tired.
It was so very, very dark.
49
Najwa
In a flash of light and a twist of smoke, I was in the laboratory. Zayele had switched us back! With a flicker of hope, I grabbed Kamal’s hand and pulled him with me.
“She’s at the Lamp!” I yelled, gesturing at the others. We ran out the door and down the corridor, but when we reached them, my stomach lurched.
Zayele lay on the floor with her hair fanned out in a puddle of blood, covered in powder, and Hashim was on his knees, staring in disbelief at the cracked sphere.
“What have you done?” I cried to Hashim. He looked up at Kamal.
“I did it for us,” he whispered. “They can’t take over, Kamal. Don’t let them take over.”
Someone cried in anguish and rushed at Hashim. It was Atish, and his eyes were on fire. Before I could stop him from running into the moonstone powder, he pulled out his dagger and plunged it into Hashim’s chest. Hashim gasped and opened his mouth to say something, but Atish shook his blade free and pushed the man onto his face.
“Don’t ever speak again,” he said. Hashim lay in the pool of Zayele’s blood, and soon it was impossible to tell whose was whose.
It was over, but it didn’t feel like a victory. Hashim was dead, the man who had murdered my parents and started a war, and all it had taken was the flick of a dagger. And a girl I hardly knew had died for me.
“Kamal,” I said, broken and empty, “the moonstone powder.”
He shook his head. “It’s not moonstone. When Faisal and Hashim were fighting, I emptied the orb and put talcum in instead. It’s not going to kill your friends.” I fell onto him, unable to cry anymore, even in relief.
“Thank you.”
Atish knelt beside Zayele, and although he wasn’t going to die of the powder anymore, something was cracking apart inside him. His jawline was tight and fierce, and in that moment I knew why he had killed Hashim. It hadn’t been for Faisal. It wasn’t to protect any of us. It was for her. He cradled Zayele’s head and wrapped her veil around her neck, but it kept bleeding. He pressed on it and stared at the blood that seeped through his fingers.
Her face was my face, but soft in sleep. Her hair was my hair, but wet with blood. Atish looked up to let me in and together we held her.
Rahela sobbed behind me. “She can’t be dead.” But Zayele’s body was as still as Hashim’s. I closed my eyes. A wish couldn’t bring someone back to life, but what if she wasn’t dead yet? I looked over to Shirin, who sucked in her breath and then jumped over to my side. Together, we breathed in and out, pressing our hands onto her bloodied neck. I imagined her whole again. I remembered her voice, desperate and pleading, when I had first met her. Her neck had been smooth and whole. Her movements had been swift and sure.
Shirin squeezed my hand and said, “Shushfa.”
The wish flowed slowly, like the first trickle of water across a dry and dusty stone. Then Atish put his hand over ours and the energy rushed forward, spreading our wishpower faster, deeper into Zayele.
It was like breaking open a dam. All our energy poured into Zayele, flooding her with shushfa, with health and strength. We gritted our teeth, shaking with exhaustion. I felt it shudder through my bones, and I thought they’d turn to powder.
Then it was done. The wish was complete.
For a long time, nothing happened. Then she trembled. It was such a slight tremor, I could have imagined it. Atish’s eyes widened. Then it happened again. Shirin started crying freely, sobbing in relief.
I looked over to Kamal then, and saw him watching us in silence. His gaze drifted away, to Hashim.
Her body began to shake in great, wide waves, and her eyelids fluttered. She heaved a sigh and blinked. I shrieked and cried, squeezing her hands. She opened her eyes and melted into Atish’s arms.
“It’s all right, Zayele. It’s over,” he said. Then he grinned. “But don’t do anything like that ever again.”
She wiped at her neck and the blood slipped away, revealing a pink scar. Rahela wiped the remaining blood off her neck and hugged her fiercely.
“How is she alive?” Rahela asked.
“It was the healing wish. She must not have been dead yet.”
“I don’t know,” Zayele said. Her voice was thick and scratchy. “It felt like I was dead. It hurt like you wouldn’t believe.”
“But it didn’t kill you,” I said.
Zayele wrapped her arms around herself and cried. “I was afraid,” she croaked, “that I’d be too late. That I wouldn’t be able to fix it. I’m so sorry about the Fire Wish, Najwa. I shouldn’t have taken your life from you.”
She had made a Fire Wish, and suddenly I understood why I could only do certain wishes, but not any that would negate her wish. I understood why I’d been stuck in the palace.
She had risked her life to undo the wish, and she was still apologizing. I shushed her.
“It’s over.”
50
Zayele
We took Faisal’s body home, wrapped in one of Najwa’s veils. All of us, including Kamal and Rahela, held on to a part of him and placed our fingers in the Lamp’s golden flame. As we whirled into the air, I noticed Najwa’s eyes on me. They were dark with sadness, and then they were only bits of fire like the rest of us.
When we were whole again and standing in the Cavern, I helped set Faisal on the ground. Najwa explained to Kamal and Rahela what was going to happen, and then she knelt beside Faisal and cried over his body.
Kamal and Rahela looked around the Cavern, at the shards of gypsum and the waterfall pouring out of the wall. This time, I saw it for what it really was: my home. My real mother had come from all this, the blue canal, the lake with the dancing flames, and the homes that changed as their occupants wished. I could change them now, thanks to Faisal. He had saved my sister, and I was sure he had kept Hashim from killing me. I had hardly known him, but he had been a part of my life since I was born.
The two men who guarded the school left their posts and stood by Faisal’s body. Delia, dressed all in red, came forward and bowed her head. The whole Cavern lit up. Not just the lamps, but each crystal that hung from the ceiling glowed a rich emerald green, lighting every building, every person, every wave on the lake. Delia had wished, and the Cavern turned into a living jewel.
Rahela gasped, and I took her hand. “Do you like it?” I asked.
“Yes, but it’s sad light. Mourning light.” She went to Najwa and helped her off Faisal’s body so the men could carry him away. They nodded at Najwa as if she had been Faisal’s daughter, and in a way, she was.
They carried him across a narrow bridge over the canal, to a golden dome. There, dozens of jinn gathered, waiting. They wore robes of emerald-and-black silk, and the women wore black scarves. They began singing a song that carried over the city and echoed off the crystal walls.
Najwa walked behind the guards—alongside Laira, her adoptive mother and Faisal’s sister—and we kept behind them. Laira no longer wore the glowworm shawl, but something as airy and dark as a cobweb in the night. The remaining jinn followed us into the golden dome. Rahela and I held hands, and Atish and Kamal walked stiffly behind. Together, we went down a flight of steps into the dark, and the song drifted away.
The stairs carried us a hundred feet below the Cavern to a field of crushed volcanic rock. Gypsum, amethyst, and topaz monoliths sprouted from the gravel, creating a garden of jewels as far as we could see. Scattered lamps hung from the granite ceiling, casting jewel-toned shadows across the black rocks. Each monolith was engraved in the jinni alphabet. Were the inscriptions names?
The guards took Faisal to a granite table ringed by rounded white stones. They laid him dow
n, and a man with a long sapphire beard stepped forward. He pressed his palm onto a clear crystal protruding from the table and bowed his head. The crystal lit up, and a beam of light spread across the ceiling, projecting images of Faisal. They moved so quickly, I could barely catch any of them, but I could see Faisal, younger, wearing a bathing suit and diving into the lake.
“What are they doing?” Kamal asked.
Atish whispered, “He’s saving his memories of Faisal. We put our memories into the crystals, and then whenever you want to remember a loved one, you can come here and touch their stones.”
Each monolith held memories? I looked at the field—the graveyard—and thought of the thousands of memories it contained, going as far back as the first jinni, Iblis. The shard of crystal Faisal had shown me before had been like these, but smaller. Maybe he had only preserved a few memories. Maybe Mariam didn’t have a funeral like this one because she’d died so far from home. The thought made me feel lonely, and I pushed it away, forcing myself to think of Faisal instead.
When the man was done, he gestured for Najwa to come to the table. She walked slowly and placed her hands on the crystal. Then we all saw what Faisal had meant to her. He was in a boat on the lake, teaching her how to sail between the flames. He was walking through the courtyard, telling her to stop splashing in the fountain. He was giving her trinkets from the human world, wooden dolls and woven baskets. But most of all, he was in his artifact room, cataloging everything that was brought in, fingering each object with love and admiration.
I wiped away my tears and watched the others do the same. Yashar would have loved all this, even the funeral. How would I explain the beauty of it to him if he had never seen a crystal? How could I help him see what a wonderful world existed down here?
He needed to see again.
A rush went through me. I could give him sight. I could wish it for him, and then I would bring him here. I would show him what jinn were really like.
The Fire Wish Page 23
