“I know you’re there,” he says. “You might as well come down.”
I fly to the edge of the pool and shift to human, dressed in a thin white kurta that comes to my knees. I dangle my legs in the water.
“For some kind of all-powerful jinni from the dawn of time,” says Aladdin, his eyes opening a crack to peer at me, “you’re damn predictable.”
I lift one foot from the water, splashing him. “You might want to dunk again. You still smell like you sleep with goats.”
He swipes a hand across the water, dousing me, and I shriek and tumble into the water, where I drench him with a series of splashes. He sputters and holds up his hands defensively, then with a roar, launches off the side of the pool and catches me around the waist, dragging me under the surface.
For a moment we are weightless, eyes open and locked underwater, flowers drawn down with us, swirling around us in a current of white bubbles. My hair floats around us both like black silk. His hands are still around my waist, mine pressed against his bare chest. My lamp drifts between us.
Aladdin plants his feet against the bottom of the pool and kicks off, pushing us upward to burst through the surface. He gasps in air and shakes the wet hair from his eyes. Without pulling away, we float in silence, and I cannot take my gaze from him. Water runs down his cheeks and lips, dripping from his jaw. A lock of his hair is stuck to his forehead, and I gently lift it away, curling it around my finger before letting it go.
“What are we doing?” he whispers, pulling me closer.
I cannot reply. I don’t trust my own voice. He brings his forehead down to rest against mine, and everything outside this pool and this moment ceases to exist. All that matters is the gentle sound of our breathing, our reflections on the water, the feel of his hands around me.
He is the sun, and I am the moon. We must stay apart or the world will be thrown out of balance. But what I must admit is that I do understand the insanity that drives humans to chase happiness they will never grasp. Because I feel it too, Habiba. Every time I try to pull away, I find myself drawn back to him. Even now, on the eve of his wedding, I cannot let go, no matter how many times I tell myself that I must.
It will all be over tomorrow, I think. He will marry Caspida, and surely by then, Nardukha will have set me free.
I rest my head on his shoulder, feeling his heart beating against me. I wish I could gather time around us, slowing the minutes, making them last a lifetime.
“I was born on the island kingdom of Ghedda,” I whisper. This is a story I never told even to you, Habiba. I tell it now only because I cannot bear to leave him without the truth, knowing only half of me. I raise my head and meet his eyes. “That was more than four thousand years ago. I was the eldest daughter of a wise and generous king.”
Aladdin stares at me, his eyes soft and curious, encouraging me to go on.
“When I was seventeen, I became queen of Ghedda. In those days, the jinn were greater in number, and the Shaitan held greater sway over the realms of men. He demanded we offer him twenty maidens and twenty warriors in sacrifice, in return for fair seas and lucrative trade. I was young and proud and desired, above all else, to be a fair ruler. I would not bow to his wishes, so he shook our island until it began to fall into the sea.”
I shudder, and Aladdin draws me closer.
“I climbed to the alomb at the top of the Mountain of Tongues, and there offered myself to the Shaitan, if he would only save my city from the sea.” My voice falls to a whisper, little more than a ripple on the water. “So he took me and made me jinn and put me in the lamp. And then he caused the Mountain of Tongues to erupt, and Ghedda was lost to fire. For he had sworn only to save my people from the sea, not from flame.”
Falling silent, I wait to see what Aladdin will do. Call me naïve for trusting the word of the Shaitan? Tell me I should have bowed to Nardukha’s wishes in the first place?
But Aladdin says nothing.
Instead, he lowers his face and softly kisses the side of my neck, his mouth trailing up to the skin behind my ear. Goose bumps break across my skin, and I turn my face to meet his lips with mine. This kiss is gentler than our last, long and slow and restrained. It is a kiss of longing. A kiss of farewell. His hands tighten around my waist, pulling me against him. We drift in a slow circle, sending out ripples that make the floating flowers bob and dip.
“You keep so many secrets,” he murmurs. “I could spend the rest of my life discovering you.” He tucks my hair behind my ear, his eyes devouring my face. “Of course you were a queen. Of course you sacrificed yourself for your people. You did all you could, Zahra. You can’t blame yourself for what the Shaitan did. He would have done it anyway.”
“I should have died with my people.”
“If you had, I would have never met you.” He kisses me again, more deeply, his hands twining in my hair. I let his touch wash away the past.
It is Aladdin who pulls away first, with a soft, husky laugh.
“This is crazy. I’m getting married tomorrow,” he says.
I nod and lay my head on his shoulder.
“It’s not too late,” he says. “Zahra, I—”
“Sh.” I lay a finger across his lips. “Don’t say it. You will marry Caspida, and you will learn to love each other. You will live a happy life, long after my lamp has passed to new hands.”
“I won’t make my third wish,” he says. “That’s the answer! If I don’t make the wish, you can stay here in the palace for as long as you want. You’ll never have to go back to your lamp. We can fight off anyone who tries to take you from me.”
“Even if that were true, you would grow old and die. Or more likely, someone would discover my existence and kill you for my lamp. Or most likely, Caspida would learn that you’re a fake and that I am one of the jinn she so deeply hates, and she would destroy you and me both.”
“She’d understand.”
“Would she?”
He winces. “Fine. I won’t marry her.”
“And what of your vengeance? Will you let Sulifer win that easily?”
He lowers his gaze. “Everything I’ve lived for will have been in vain. Sulifer will win. He will force Caspida to marry Darian. She’ll become their puppet, if they even let her live long at all. And no one will be left to oppose him. He’ll get away with everything.”
I nod. “It would be our fault.”
He looks up, his forehead creasing. “Why do you care what happens to her? I thought we humans were vapors to you, here today and gone tomorrow.”
“Caspida is . . . different. She reminds me of someone, someone I’d give my life for if I could.”
“The queen?” he asks. “The one who died?”
“Roshana. My dear Ro.” My voice is soft as a ripple on the water. “She once ruled the Amulens, and Caspida is her descendant. She has Roshana’s strength of spirit, and I cannot look at her without thinking of my old friend. If she were to come to harm on my account . . . I could not bear that through the centuries.” I already carry a mountain of shame, a constant reminder of that day on Mount Tissia.
Aladdin lifts a hand and brushes the hair back from my face. “You truly are remarkable, Zahra of the Lamp.”
“Don’t,” I say, pushing his hand aside. I swim away to the edge of the pool. “You understand why you must go through with this marriage.”
“You say you couldn’t live with yourself if anything happened to Caspida. Yet you ask me to live with myself, knowing I sentenced you to this!” He holds up the lamp. “What’s the difference?”
I look away angrily. “The difference is that this is my choice, Aladdin.”
“Well, it’s a stupid choice!”
I stand up. “Promise me you’ll go through with it.”
He shuts his eyes.
“Promise me! Please!”
He opens his eyes
then, and they are filled with pain. But he nods.
“I have to hear you say it.”
“I promise.”
Refusing to look at me, he sinks under the water again, until he is just a shadowy blur below. I go sit against the wall, curled up, and try to still the emotions roiling inside. What was I thinking, kissing him again? Am I doomed to make the same mistakes over and over? Falling for humans, getting too close, too involved, watching as they destroy themselves for me.
I taste salt and realize I’m crying. Angrily I rub my eyes. Soon I will get what I always wanted: my freedom. And none of this will matter. Didn’t I tell myself a month ago, when this all began, that I would do anything for freedom? Losing Aladdin may be the hardest thing I have to do, but I must do it.
A door opens and shuts at the far end of the room, and I look up, startled.
It is Darian, and four boys are with him.
I shift at once, before they can see me, into airy smoke. I drift upward and hover on the ceiling, barely visible.
The boys circle around the bath and stare down at Aladdin, who is just coming up for air. His eyes are shut, and he wipes his hair back and runs his hands down his face before opening them and seeing Darian standing over him.
Aladdin goes still.
“Prince Rahzad,” says Darian.
“I appreciate the thought,” says Aladdin, watching him warily. “But wedding gifts can be left at my rooms.”
“This one must be delivered in person.”
“How did you get past my guards?”
“They’re not all your guards. At least, not anymore.” He smirks. “It’s amazing what a few gold coins can buy, and the three guarding the back door happen to be greedier than most.”
Darian begins peeling off his clothes. The other boys do the same. Aladdin stays in the center of the pool, floating nonchalantly, but his eyes are alert to every movement. He lazily turns until he’s facing me, and his eyes explore until he spots me, hovering against the ceiling.
The lamp.
Terror strikes me like lightning on a cloudless day. Aladdin has the lamp around his neck. If the boys see it . . . I catch sight of Aladdin’s hands beneath the water, moving the lamp so that it’s hidden behind his back.
Darian eases into the water. His body is lean, not powerful like Aladdin’s, but lithe and muscular. The other boys are more solidly built, and they slide into the pool around Aladdin, hemming him in. Aladdin treads water, and the muscles in his shoulders and neck grow tense.
“If you think this game you and Cas are playing is going to work,” says Darian calmly, “then you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought.”
“Careful,” says Aladdin. “I’d hate to have to uninvite you to the wedding.”
“She is mine, and has been since the day she was born. We were meant for each other.”
“Funny, she doesn’t seem convinced of that.”
“Her mind has been poisoned. She spends too much time reading false histories of mythical queens and fancies herself one of them. Her arrogance and delusions are regrettable, but nothing the firm hand of a husband can’t fix.”
“You animal,” says Aladdin, dropping all pretense of amicability. “You speak as if she were your property. As if she were a horse or a dog to be trained.”
Darian shrugs one shoulder. “Horses. Dogs. Women. They all have their place, and when they try to upset the order, things fall into chaos. If we let queens rule the world, we’d all stay holed up in our palaces embroidering and gossiping.”
Aladdin raises a brow. “And . . . running around beheading people is somehow more civilized?”
“If Parthenia is going to become the power it once was, we need a strong leader. Someone the people look up to. Someone they’ve admired and respected for years. Not some weak prince from some far-off kingdom nobody has even heard of. These people will never follow you.”
“I don’t need anyone to follow me. They will follow her.”
“You don’t get it!” Darian snarls. He moves forward, until only an arm’s length separates him and Aladdin. “She belongs to me! She is my birthright!”
“The only birthright you have is your bloated arrogance,” says Aladdin. “At least that your father could rightfully give you.”
“Don’t you dare insult my father.”
“Your father,” says Aladdin, smiling and swimming closer, “is a self-important, conniving bag of pus.”
Darian turns red. “My father is the bravest man in Parthenia. While the king wasted away over a simmon pipe, my father has held the jinn at bay.”
“Your father,” Aladdin continues, “murders the innocent. He beheads anyone who disagrees with him. Tell me, Prince, how did the king really die? I wonder if he wasn’t pushed into the godlands.”
With a snarl, Darian lunges forward, tackling Aladdin and thrusting him under the water. Aladdin thrashes, plunging upward again and gasping in air, but the other boys join in, grabbing his shoulders and head and pushing him under. He struggles, legs kicking, making the bath froth and overspill. Darian’s face is grim, his lips curled in a tight smile, and he doesn’t flinch.
I shift into wind and gust across the room, forcefully blowing open the door behind which the still-loyal guards are stationed. They look in, see the struggle, and shout out. Darian looks up, his face twisting with rage, and he and his cohorts scramble out and grab their clothes. They run from the room, pursued by the guards.
In the corridor outside, I shift to a girl and run into the baths, jumping into the pool and grabbing Aladdin, who has sunk to the bottom. I drag him up and onto the tile, the lamp clanging on the floor.
“He’s not breathing!” I cry, but there is no one to hear. The guards have chased Darian and the others and are too far away. I begin pumping Aladdin’s chest with my palms.
“Come on, come on,” I say. I should have done something sooner. I was too worried they would find the lamp. I should have changed into a lion and devoured them all.
Aladdin coughs, water spilling from his mouth. I lift him up and turn him on his side so he can empty his lungs.
His eyes, wide and panicked, find me, and he tries to speak.
“Shush,” I say. “You’re fine. You’re fine. Just breathe.”
He gasps in and out, a raspy, watery sound, and coughs up more water. His hand pushes the lamp beneath him, hiding it from view. The guards return now, looking stricken. I toss Aladdin’s shirt over the lamp.
“Did you catch him?” I ask.
They shake their heads.
I turn back to Aladdin, who is beginning to breathe more evenly. He covers the lamp further with his arm, hiding it from the guards’ view.
“I could have taken them,” he says hoarsely. “I was getting around to it.”
I long to hold his head to my chest, so relieved am I that he is alive. But I can’t, not with the guards looking on. So I let him go and stand up, then hand him his clothes. He refuses help from the guards and rises to his feet, taking care to cover the lamp, but doesn’t argue when they insist on returning to his rooms. Two of the guards want to tell Captain Pasha and Caspida what happened, but Aladdin convinces them to let it lie.
“We can deal with him later,” he says. “He isn’t worth hunting down.”
When we are alone again, Aladdin is quiet, and I can tell he’s holding back his anger at being attacked.
I, however, let mine run freely, and I rage around the room in the form of a tiger, snarling and clawing at the floor, my hackles raised.
“Would you stop that?” he says sharply. “You’re setting me on edge.”
“You’re not already on edge?” I growl. “He tried to kill you!”
“He’s done it before,” says Aladdin. “And I have a way of staying alive.”
“Because I’m there to save your skin!”
“Exactly!” He grins sunnily. “Which is why I can’t lose you. Who else will watch my back?”
With a snarl I shift into human, my gown patterned with tiger stripes. “Aladdin, you promised.”
His smile drops. “I know, I know.”
“You promised.”
“What do you want me to do? Swear on my mother’s soul? Cut my hand open and sign my name in blood?”
“It wouldn’t hurt,” I mutter.
Aladdin sighs and starts to reply, but a knock at the door interrupts. I open it to find a tailor and his two apprentices standing there with bolts of cloth and sewing boxes.
“We’re here to fit the prince for his wedding clothes,” says the tailor. He’s a small, clean-shaven man with a turban wound high to make up for his height.
I tell him to return in five minutes, which gives Aladdin time to hide the lamp in his room. I reluctantly return to it, loath to leave him unguarded for even an hour. I reach out with my sixth sense throughout the fitting, wary as a caged cat, but all goes smoothly, and once the tailor and his assistants are gone, Aladdin quickly releases me again. There follows an endless procession of servants knocking at the door, bearing food, wine, gifts from Caspida—all the traditional items that should have been parceled out over a series of days, now crammed into the few hours left.
It is well after midnight when Aladdin, exhausted, tumbles into bed. I sit in the midst of his gifts: daggers and gold, clothing and carved chests, mirrors and candlesticks. It reminds me of your first betrothed, Habiba: handsome and bold Elikum of Miniivos, and of the elaborate preparations we made for your wedding. Of course, your wedding week ended with the groom being poisoned by a traitor on the eve of the ceremony. We held a funeral instead, and you did not weep until three weeks later. You always claimed you did not love him, but I never believed you.
I can only hope this wedding will end on a better note. To be sure, I stay on watch all night, guarding Aladdin’s door as if the whole host of Ambadya might try to storm in.
• • •
Two hours before dawn, I wake him with a soft knock. He stumbles out, his eyes red from lack of sleep.