The Fire Wish (30 page)

He sneered at me. “Of course you’re Zayele. But they don’t know that, now do they? All they care about is that you’re a jinni. I wasn’t sure how I was going to convince the prince—”

“But I’m not—”

“Oh, but your disappearing act settled it. Everyone knows you’re a jinni now. And to keep you from making that wish again, I’ve brought this.” He held up a ball of silk and stuffed it into my mouth before I could protest.

I screamed and tried to twist away, but he held me in place while he made sure I couldn’t push the gag out. It hurt, and
I almost vomited into the cloth. He dropped his hand and shoved me into the guards. “Come,” he growled to the guards, “we’re taking her to my rooms.”

They dragged me out of the laboratory and down the corridor, with one of the guards ahead of us clearing the way. I knew I should kick, or pull away, but it wouldn’t have changed anything. I was powerless against them, and now I couldn’t even make the simplest of wishes, so I fell limp in their arms. They had to carry me every step of the way.

After a single turn, Hashim threw open the door to a room, and I was carried inside and tossed onto the floor. I hit the ground, which was padded by layers of overlapping carpets, and stayed there. The wool pile dug into my cheek. I’d been discovered. It didn’t matter that Hashim had his facts mixed up. He was right about the most important one.

I was a jinni. And I was trussed up like a sacrifice, lying in the middle of the vizier’s rug.

Hashim said something to the men, and they left the room. Then he knelt beside my face. He was so close I could see the perspiration falling into his eyebrows. “Well, Zayele, it’s time for you to pay for all the years you lived as a human.”

My blood turned cold and slowed in my veins, as if it were afraid of offending the man before me, the man with all the power. Why did he still think I was Zayele? What was he going to do to me?

I tried to talk, but all the sounds I made came out as moans.

“Now that the entire palace knows a jinni is running free, they’re expecting her to do something. Therefore, I leave you here. I must ensure they’re not disappointed.”

He stood up, hoisted me over his shoulder, and carried me to the back of the room. Something slid to the side, and I was tossed onto the floor inside a small, stone-walled room. I hit my head, so the last remaining light, from the main room, sparkled until the door slid shut and left me in utter darkness.

Behind the door, I heard Hashim’s voice: “It won’t be long now.” I didn’t know if he was talking to me or to himself. He sounded like he was rummaging through something, but then he stopped. “What are you doing here?” he asked someone.

“I’m looking for Zayele.” It was Kamal! “Or whatever her name is.”

“I haven’t seen her,” Hashim lied. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go search for her. Those invisibility spells don’t last long, so I’m sure someone will see her soon.”

A door closed, and then I heard the rummaging sound again. Hashim must have left to do whatever it was he had planned, which meant Kamal was looking for something in Hashim’s room.

I scrambled to the door and kicked it as hard as I could. Silence. I kicked it again.

Lamplight poured in through a crack as Kamal slid open the door.

A MAN WITH sour breath grabbed hold of me and turned me around.

“I caught you!” he growled. Then I was surrounded by a handful of guards, all wearing the colors of my tribe.

“Let go of me!” I shouted. “I’m Zayele! I’m from Zab too!”

“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 amongst 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.”

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? And 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.