“You’re beautiful,” he says. “I mean, you were beautiful before, of course, but knowing that this is the real you . . . I didn’t think I could love you more, but I do.”
I grin. “You’re just glad I didn’t turn out to be an old hag after all.”
He laughs. “There is that,” he admits.
“We should return to the city,” I sigh, thinking of the fight at the palace. “Caspida needs our help.”
“Can’t you just magic us there?” He waves his fingers as if casting a spell, and I laugh a little and nod.
Such a small thing, moving us from here to there, but less than an hour ago it would have been impossible without a wish. I draw in a long breath, reaching for my magic.
But nothing happens.
No tingle. No rush of magic.
Because there is no magic. Or if there is, I cannot find it. Panicking, I reach deeper, shutting my eyes, trying to probe with my sixth sense—only to find that it, too, is cut off.
With a gasp, I open my eyes and lean against the doorway, staring without seeing.
“Zahra, what’s wrong?”
“It’s gone,” I gasp.
“What is?” He looks me up and down. “Are you hurt?”
“I . . .” Thinking back to the moment when I trapped Nardukha, I remember the snap I felt deep, deep within. “I stretched too far,” I whisper. “I have heard of this happening before, when a jinni goes too deep, attempts magic too big. Something breaks.”
He looks alarmed. “But . . . you’ll get better?”
I keep reaching inward, trying everything I can, but already I know the truth. I’m still jinn, but manipulating time drained every drop of magic in me. Even my shapeshifting is gone, I realize with a sinking spirit. What am I now? Less than jinn, more than human. Still a creature of smoke and fire, but that fire is smaller now. Without magic to sustain me, I’m practically mortal. In Ambadya, I would be an outcast, ridiculed and despised, turned into a worthless slave. But here in the human world, I’m almost . . . normal.
“Zahra . . .”
“No, it’s all right.” I manage a smile and grasp his hand. “I’m here, I’m alive. I’m free.” If losing my magic is the price for saving Aladdin, then I would lose it a thousand and one times.
I rise onto my toes and kiss him, and he responds at once, pulling me closer, his hands pressing against my back. Around us, ashes flutter like rose petals, covering the ground and our hair. I barely notice. Never has he felt so real, so warm, so possible. The emptiness inside me, where magic once welled and sparked, now floods with all the hope I never dared to hope before. Always, I’ve held a part of me back, afraid to fully trust myself.
But now, for the first time, I do.
My magic is gone, but this seems to leave room for everything else to deepen: the taste of his lips, the texture of his cloak, the feel of my own true face. This is the first time I have kissed him with my own lips and held him with my own hands. I could go on like this forever.
But time is no longer at my command, and I reluctantly pull away. Aladdin tries to find my lips again, but I laugh softly and press my fingers to his.
“We have a long way to walk,” I say. “And who knows what we will find when we reach the city?”
He groans a little, but nods. “Are you sure you’re up for it?”
I want to shift into a hawk and show him just how up for it I am, but of course nothing happens. “Just you try to keep up,” I say instead.
• • •
The battle is over by the time we reach the palace, hours later. Priestesses move among the wounded, and soldiers sit in little defeated groups, watched over by angry citizens. But the fight seems to have gone out of everyone. The jinn attack was brief but disastrous, and I see signs of the Ambadyan horde all over: scorch marks, smashed buildings, ripples of magic still curling through the air.
We find Caspida and the Watchmaidens at the top of the steps leading to the palace’s main doors. The princess looks exhausted, and she wears a bandage around her shoulder, her clothes ripped and bloody. The other girls look no better.
“Aladdin!” She rises stiffly to greet us. “And . . .” She stares at me, uncertain.
“I’m still Zahra,” I assure her. “Just with a new face. It’s a . . . jinn thing.”
She doesn’t look entirely convinced, but she shrugs wearily. “What happened?”
“We met the Shaitan, and he fell.”
She spreads her hands. “Is that all? We had jinn dropping from the sky! The wards are broken, and the Eristrati are under guard until they swear allegiance to me, so we can’t possibly—”
“They are gone,” I cut in. “And the alomb is destroyed. They will have to use one of the others to enter this world, but it will be many years before that happens. Princess, it is over. We won.”
She stares at me for a long moment, as if afraid to believe it, but then she shuts her eyes and lets out a sigh.
“Gods be praised,” she whispers. “It is over.”
“What about Sulifer?” asks Aladdin. “And Darian?”
“Darian is imprisoned until we can hold a proper trial. And my uncle . . .” She winces and glances behind us.
We turn and see a stake driven into the ground, a severed head atop it. My stomach turns over, and I look away.
“He should have been tried as well,” Caspida says. “But the people got to him first.”
“So it really is over,” Aladdin murmurs. He seems tired rather than pleased to see his lifelong enemy dead. I take his hand and squeeze it, and he gives me a little smile.
“What do we do now?” asks Ensi, looking around at the destruction.
“We mourn what has been lost,” Caspida replies. “And tomorrow, we rise.”
Chapter Thirty-One
I SENSE THE BOY the moment he sets foot in the garden.
I am lying on the fresh grass, holding a rose to my face and inhaling its sweet scent, and at the sound of his footsteps on the gravel path, I sit up.
“Zahra?” He looks around, his eyes brightening when he sees me. He walks over and sits, removing his turban and setting it beside him. “It’s almost time for the coronation. What are you doing out here by yourself?”
“Hiding from Caspida’s tailors. You’re looking princely,” I say, smiling at Aladdin and reaching out to run my hand along his fine red coat.
He grins and pulls me closer, into a deep kiss. In the weeks since the Invasion, as the Parthenians have come to call their clash with the jinn, we have hardly been out of each other’s sight. Though no one regards him as a prince anymore, Aladdin is a regular visitor to the palace, where he has been named Queen’s Liaison to the Southern District. He helps with the rebuilding efforts, which have paradoxically included a good deal of destroying as well as building, since the walls between the districts have been brought down for good in an attempt to unify the people.
I lay on my back, and Aladdin leans over me, his lips exploring the line of my jaw. I shut my eyes, wishing we could stay out here all afternoon, while the garden is deliciously deserted. But Caspida wants us both standing by her during the coronation, and we promised to be there.
“We should go,” I murmur.
“Just a few more minutes. I feel like we’re never alone anymore. There’s always the queen or someone from the palace or . . .” His voice trails off, and he bites my earlobe playfully.
Laughing, I shove him away and sit up. “We promised.”
He groans and drops his turban over his face.
“Aladdin.” Pushing the turban aside, I run my fingers through his hair and lightly kiss his forehead.
“Have I told you I love you?” he whispers.
I smile. “Not since this morning.”
“Unforgivable. I will tell you every hour of every day.”
“D
o not the poets say, the man who catches a fish every time he casts his line will soon tire of fishing? Now get up.”
I stand and pull him to his feet. He comes reluctantly, wrapping an arm around my waist. We stroll into the palace to find a panicking Nessa.
“There you are!” She rushes toward us. “I’ve been looking everywhere!” Stopping short, she takes in our flushed faces and rolls her eyes. “You’ve been kissing in the bushes again.”
Aladdin plucks a book from the satchel over her shoulder. “And you’ve been reading again. We all have our vices, Nessa.”
She snatches the book back. “Hurry! They’re about to start!”
• • •
It’s well past midnight when I’m summoned to the queen’s side. Aladdin is asleep in his old chambers, which are kept for him as a part of his new office, and when he stays at the palace I often join him. But though many of my jinn attributes are gone, I still do not sleep. Often I wander, through the palace and the city, marveling at how far I can go without worrying about the lamp pulling me back. Tonight, though, when Khavar comes to tell me Caspida wants to talk, I am sitting against one of the columns by the courtyard, feeding bits of bread to a stray goose that wandered into the yard a week ago and has since lain eggs beneath one of the fig trees.
Khavar is quiet as we walk through the palace, which has finally gone to bed after a long night of feasting in celebration of Caspida’s coronation—a ceremony long overdue, but in which she refused to indulge until the city’s restoration was complete. “What precedent does it set for my reign,” she had put it, “if I put my desire for the crown before the needs of my people?” So though she became a queen in everyone’s minds the day of the Invasion, tonight it was official, and the name of Caspida the First was inked into the great annals of the Amulen monarchy, the same annals where your name was written so long ago, Habiba.
The queen kept her old rooms. Whatever Malek’s chambers are now used for, I don’t know. Perhaps she auctioned them off to the clamoring nobles. Perhaps they were sealed off, as Sulifer’s rooms were. A search of the former vizier’s chambers brought to light many secrets into his dark magic, including various symbols of power carved into the walls and floor. He was greedy for magic, exploring dangerous arts that should never be touched, even attempting to summon jinn. Caspida, after a brief look, had ordered the entire set of rooms walled off completely. Darian’s rooms were spared and given to a new occupant, since the prince left the city weeks ago, after choosing exile over imprisonment. Where he went, no one knows, but few regretted his departure.
Khavar steps out again after I am inside the queen’s chamber. A single lantern burns by the bed, but the queen is nowhere to be seen. I walk through the rooms until I come to the courtyard, and she is where I expected her to be: on the grassy island at the center of the shallow pool, standing beside your statue, Habiba, where we first talked weeks ago.
Leaving my shoes behind, I wade through the water and onto the grass. The queen watches me approach, one hand resting on the base of the statue. When I stand in front of it, one stone wing blocks the full moon, making the sculpture seem to glow around the edges.
“Your Majesty.” I bow. “What can I do for you?”
“Good evening, Zahra.” Caspida looks up at the statue and runs a finger down your stone foot. “You know, Aladdin told me who you were, before you were turned into a jinni.” She turns and regards me with a hint of fascination in her eyes. “You ruled one of the greatest cities in history. A queen in your own right.”
I meet her gaze steadily and say nothing; that part of my past will always hold a measure of pain.
“I will be brief. I know the hour is late, but I won’t put this off any longer.” She looks at me directly. “I’ve asked you here because I want to invite you to join the Watchmaidens. I want you at my side. I want your counsel as you counseled Roshana. You have seen so much of the world, lived through so much history—I need you.”
“No,” I reply. “You don’t.”
She blinks. “What?”
“Caspida, you don’t need me. You were ready to marry Aladdin to secure your throne. You probably would have married Darian for the same reason. All your life, people have told you that you can’t do it on your own, that you need this person or that person to support you. But I have seen you rule. I have seen you battle for your people and rebuild their homes.” I take her hands in mine and look her in the eye. “You don’t need anyone to give you permission. Stop thinking like a princess and be a queen.”
She stares for a long moment, and even without my sixth sense, I can see something giving way in her eyes.
“Thank you, Zahra,” she whispers, embracing me. “You are truly a friend.” She pulls away and clears her throat. “Well, I’m glad we understand one another. But you will be one of my Watchmaidens? I talked it over with the other girls, and they all want you. Even Khavar.”
“Even Khavar?” I suppress a laugh. “Thank you, Caspida, but no. For four thousand years, my existence has revolved around granting the wishes of my masters. My identity has always been built on the desires of others.”
She smiles and accedes with a nod. “And now you want to grant your own wishes.”
I shrug. “I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
“Then I will not try to persuade you further. You’ve earned it, Habiba.”
Startled, I suck in air sharply. “What did you call me?”
Her brow wrinkles. “Habiba. It’s an old word that means dear friend.”
“I—I know. Sorry, I just . . . Anyway. Yes, I’d like to make a few wishes of my own.”
“Starting with?” She leans in curiously.
“I want . . . it’s silly.”
“I promise I won’t laugh.”
I sigh. “I want to go to the vineyards in Ashori and eat grapes.”
“Oh.” She squints a bit. “Well, that sounds nice.”
“There’s nothing in the world sweeter than an Ashori grape. If the vineyards are still there. If Ashori is still there. It might have sunk into the sea or been burned by pirates or—”
“Zahra.” Caspida puts her hands on my shoulders and smiles. “Go to Ashori. Take Aladdin with you. Gods know he hates being a bureaucrat. He’s been getting twitchy in the meetings, making everyone edgy.”
I nod slowly. “I will.”
“I’ll give you everything you need for your journey. You have my blessing and my thanks. Oh, and I nearly forgot.” She fishes in her pocket a moment, then pulls something out. “We found this when we cleaned out Sulifer’s rooms. I think you should have it.”
It’s the ring, the one Aladdin used to find me in the cave. I take it and gaze silently at the scorch marks on the surface, and the symbols blurred by time and fire. A ring forged with love and Ambadyan flame, impressed with symbols forever uniting two souls, no matter what centuries came between them. I wonder who found it on that mountaintop, lying beside your cold body, and placed it in the Watchmaidens’ vault, where it sat five hundred years, waiting for a certain thief.
“Nardukha told Sulifer that the ring would lead to me,” I say. “But how did the Shaitan know?”
Caspida raises her eyebrows. “The ring has its own legend, you know. The Amulen scholars studied it and found that it was imbued with jinn magic. The Watchmaidens took it into safekeeping, trying to hide its existence, but stories of the ring leaked out. Some believed it was the handle of the lamp, that it had broken off during the battle. Others believed Roshana had it made for the jinni, or vice versa. Through the centuries, the ring has always been linked to the queen’s jinni—to you, I should say. But no one knew how it worked.”
I slide the ring onto my finger, and it fits as perfectly as it ever did. Half-truths and lies guided it through the years, somehow bringing Aladdin to me. It is not just jinn magic that hums in the gold, but something deeper
and older.
“Thank you, Caspida.”
She nods. “You will always be welcome here, Zahra of the Lamp. Imohel guide you.”
“And you, O Queen.” I turn to go, but Caspida stops me with a brush of her fingers. When I turn back, her eyes are solemn.
“You’ve ruled before,” she says. “So tell me, does it get easier?”
“No,” I reply. “But you get stronger.”
• • •
“I’m so happy,” says Aladdin, “I could kiss you. In fact, I think I will.”
“Not now, you fool, the queen is waving.”
He sighs and genially leans over the ship rail to wave. The crowd is small, but everyone there matters: Caspida and the Watchmaidens, Captain Pasha and several Eristrati, and various nobles and bureaucrats. Even Dal and a few of Aladdin’s old friends from the Rings.
It isn’t long before we pull around the head of the cliffs and into the open sea, leaving them all behind in the misty morning gloom. The salty sea spray and pitching of the deck make me uneasy, and I hold tightly to Aladdin.
He’s laughing, of course. “It’s just like our old voyaging days, eh?”
“I’m surprised you remember much of them,” I reply. “You spent most of the time leaning over the rail.”
“I did? Ha. You’re hilarious. Come and kiss me.”
I do, and the now-familiar warmth of his lips steadies me. He tastes of salt and the wine we shared with the others at our small farewell party.
Aladdin pulls away first and lifts one of my hands to his lips, kissing the delicate henna patterns on my skin, then turning my arm over to kiss the inside of my wrist. The ship’s crew makes themselves busy on the other side of the ship, giving us privacy.
“You’re the most beautiful girl in the world,” Aladdin murmurs. “Have I ever told you that?”
“Enough to make me wonder if your father was a parrot.”
He laughs. “Look, we can see the sunrise from the stern.”
Taking my hand tightly in his, he leads me at a run across the deck, both of us wobbling and stumbling from the roll of the waves. We are laughing and out of breath when we reach the stern, just as the sun begins to peek over the far horizon. The mist on the water catches the light and begins to glow soft and gold, until it seems we are sailing across a sea of clouds.