The Fire Wish (13 page)

“BOW YOUR HEAD, Zayele,” Rahela said, almost too quietly to hear. I was no longer Najwa. The cloak of Zayele’s name tightened around my shoulders, and I bowed both in obedience and to breathe. “That’s the vizier,” she added.

I looked through the window again in alarm. His gray beard reached his chest, where it met a cloisonné pendant heavy with gold and emeralds. The man had eyes as blue and cold as aquamarine, and they were staring into me. I tried to look away and instead felt myself drawn in.

This was Hashim, the caliph’s vizier. He was the second most powerful man in the caliphate, the first and only ambassador to the Cavern, and the one who had started the war. He had hunted jinn ever since, and had been the army’s foremost informant on our weaknesses. I knew all this from Faisal, who had never been able to say Hashim’s name without spitting afterward.

Hashim handed a key to a servant, who unlocked the door. There was a hint of anticipation in Hashim’s face, but it
disappeared when he said “Welcome to Baghdad” and stood back to let the servant pull open the door.

Rahela and I climbed out onto the deck. My hands were shaking when I grabbed the railing, and he saw. “You’re right to be anxious,” he said, frowning. “Your life will change a great deal here. In more ways than you expect.”

We followed him off the barge’s plank, over the blue-green water, and stepped onto smooth stone. The rain had fallen here too, and the ground was slick and shimmering. Stretched out around us were fifty or so men, all dressed in fine linen. They lined both sides of a white-tiled path and called out their loyalty to the caliph.

Someone shouted, “Allah save the caliph!”

Another said, “Yes, Allah will save him!”

A third man said, “Welcome, Vizier Hashim.”

Hashim nodded at them all, raising his arms in salute. Then he picked up his pace and headed toward a looming arched gate with a double door covered in scrolling arabesques of leaves and birds. We stood in the gate’s shadow while a pair of guards pulled the doors open.

Hashim studied me curiously while we walked through the gate. It was almost as though he was watching for something, so I forced myself to look confident. I didn’t want my first steps into the palace to betray me to this man who knew much about jinn.

We entered a courtyard so immense, it reminded me of the training fields in the Cavern. A long reflecting pool shimmered in the center, flanked by narrower strips of water. Palms, as tall as the courtyard’s walls, lined the pools. And
everywhere, as if to remind the people of who had built this city, was the caliph’s family name:
al-Mansur.
It was hammered into the copper basins holding fruit trees. It was molded into the border, repeating a hundred times around the courtyard.

Benches sat scattered throughout, and the vizier stopped at the first one.

“I have business to attend to,” he said. “We will meet again this evening.” Then he walked away, leaving us with half a dozen servants who stood like statues behind us.

Rahela perched, rather than sat, on the bench. “This isn’t right,” she said.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

We weren’t alone, but the nearest people who were not servants were at the other end of the courtyard. They were men, and they were speaking in harsh words and making abrupt gestures. I would have liked to be invisible just then.

“We should have been taken directly to the harem. And given refreshments,” she said, keeping her voice low enough that it wouldn’t echo. “Not kept here waiting like dogs.”

I scanned the courtyard, looking for any sign that someone might have noticed me. Although I might have looked like a human, all covered in wire and beads, I felt like a jinni. But no one paid us any attention. We were just girls who had been dropped off on a bench.

Finally, a woman slipped out of one of the many arches in the courtyard wall and marched toward us. She wore a gown of flowing white silk. The men fell silent and watched her out of the sides of their eyes. She stopped three paces from the bench and motioned for us to rise, so we did.

“Welcome, Princess Zayele.” Her face was barely perceptible beneath her sheer scarf, but the hollow sound in her voice came through clearly enough. “I’m Aaliyah, one of the caliph’s wives. I have been asked to welcome you to the palace. Unfortunately, I am also the bearer of sad news.”

Rahela’s body tightened beside mine, but she nodded, urging me to do the same. We followed the caliph’s wife out of the courtyard and into a small room that reminded me of Faisal’s office. Richly colored carpets and cushions blanketed the floor. Silks of every color draped down from the central lamp in the ceiling. Somehow, none of them caught fire.

She ushered us onto the floor, where we knelt, facing each other. I brushed the carpet with my fingertips like I always did in Faisal’s office. But this wasn’t the Cavern. There wasn’t a bare stone in sight, and the carpet was velvety and bent under my fingernails like moss.

She didn’t see that I was a jinni.

“This is my meeting room,” Aaliyah said. “We use it to inspect the women who are brought into the harem, but I am in no state to perform such duties today. You may remove your veils.” She pulled hers off, showing deep lines between her eyebrows and a small scar on her chin, but it was the redness spreading across her face that startled me. I took off the beaded headpiece and veil and held them in my lap. Aaliyah’s lips wavered while she surveyed me. “You will have to excuse us all today. The palace’s peace has been disturbed.”

“Disturbed?” I repeated.

She dabbed her eyes with the hem of her sleeve. “Our caliph was injured a few hours ago.” She began crying openly
now, pressing both hands to her face. Rahela coughed into her hand, catching my attention. I was supposed to say something.

“I am very sorry,” I said. If the caliph was injured, Faisal needed to know
right now.
I looked down at where my mark was hidden by the henna dye. How could they get to me now, even if I sent them images? I should have let them know before, on the river. I should have sent an image the moment I realized Zayele’s wish had imprisoned me. Now it was too late for help, and I couldn’t even let them know what I’d just learned.

“The situation is grave,” she continued, swallowing back tears and allowing one of her servants to bring her some water. She drank the whole cup and then turned back to us. “He was on a hunt, and somehow he fell.…”

A servant girl came forward from her spot in the corner. “Lady, I can take these women to the harem. Would you like to go to the baths? They will refresh you.”

Aaliyah picked at a golden bird embroidered onto her dress. “Take them,” she said, and shook her head as if shaking away a thought. Her face reddened more, and I rose quickly, eager to leave the room before more tears came. Rahela was right beside me, joining the servant girl at the door, when the woman looked up. “I will see you tomorrow. There will be no wedding until Harun’s condition improves.”

The servant girl took us out of the room then. Both she and Rahela were stone-faced, and I instinctively wrapped my arms around myself. While the girl went to speak to a male servant who had been posted outside the room, Rahela leaned in to whisper, “This gives us some time.”

The male servant led us along a labyrinth of halls, his
sandals clipping against the tiles. He didn’t look at or speak to us. Rahela had let me carry the beaded headpiece and wear only the veil, but the headpiece jingled, telling anyone we passed that I was the princess who was
not
going to marry the prince tonight.

Eventually, after another turn, we reached a joining of two hallways. A malachite plinth stood in the center, holding up a golden lamp.
The
Lamp. I grabbed at my mark and pinched, hoping against hope that this would somehow get sent to the Eye.

The Lamp sat there, as big as a lion. I wanted to run my fingers through its flame, but like its twin in the Cavern, it hadn’t been lit since the war began. It was only a statue now—a cold reminder of what had been. An Arabic prayer twisted down the plinth and disappeared into the floor, joining the palace with the earth below. When the Lamp had been lit, this was how the jinn most often transferred into the palace. I reached out to trace the carved words and felt the hair on the back of my neck rise. I looked up.

Prince Kamal was standing across the hall, watching me.

WHEN THE OTHER boat had left the pier, Atish called out to them, “Devil’s Island?”

“Yes!” Dabar said.

“Won’t it be crowded?” Shirin asked. She was sitting behind Atish, but he had his back to her while he rowed. He was facing me, and I tried not to look at him while he pulled at the oars.

“Hope not,” Atish said.

A gigantic palace loomed over the lake at the end of the wall. It was all edges and points. I didn’t want anything to do with it, and was relieved to see it wasn’t on an island. We were headed for a bit of land floating out in the middle, surrounded by boats.

Irina’s boat pulled up next to ours, and the boys shouted out at each other. Atish winked at me and then pulled, faster. Our boat lurched and soon was ahead of the other one.

Just then, a flicker of flame sprouted from the water ahead, grew like a weed, and flew off into the air. If it hadn’t been terrifying, it would have been pretty.

“You should have told me we were going to Devil’s Island,” Shirin told Atish. “I would have planned something for Irina.” A wicked smile spread across her face.

“Like what?” I asked.

“She’s always talking down to me. And to you.”

“What would you have done to her?” I asked. “Wished her into one of those glowworms?”

“Shards, no!” she laughed. “I just meant I might wish her seams to tighten a little.”

“You could still wish
that
,” I said, forcing myself to grin. For some reason, I liked the idea that this girl could make Irina just a little more uncomfortable, without her noticing.

“Just stop it, will you?” Atish said. “No one is doing anything to anyone.”

I looked behind us to Irina, in her boat. She sat on the backseat, lost in thought.

“My mother wouldn’t shut up about her last night,” I mumbled.

“I bet,” Shirin said.

Before long, Atish had rowed us to the island. It was just a dot of stone rising a few inches above the water, no bigger than a tent. Or a barge.

He pulled the boat along the side and tied it to a piece of rock that jutted from the island. Then he helped us both out onto Devil’s Island. It took me a moment to get my bearings. We stood on this small bit of land, in the middle of the Lake of Fire, like a dream that had gone horribly awry. After the other boat arrived, there was barely any room to sit.

“All right,” Shirin said. “I’m going in.
Krashish.
” Her gown
changed to a long suit of purple cloth that covered her but didn’t weigh her down. She spun around to let me see it, and then stopped when Irina snickered.

“Krashish,”
Irina said. Her gown transformed into something tighter, shorter, and black.

Shirin ignored Irina and her suit, and then jumped into the water. She came back up and floated on her back. “It’s cold,” she gasped.

Atish was taking off his vest, like Cyril and Dabar, and raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you going to change?” he asked. I had been staring at him, and I looked away quickly.

“I’d like to see what she comes up with,” sneered Irina.

I hadn’t swum without a hijab around my hair since I was a child, but I pulled it off and stared Irina down. I might not be able to change my clothes with a wish, but I’d grown up swimming in gowns. In a river. Even with the flames licking the surface, this water was more still than a river. I knelt and tested the water by dipping my hand in. It was cooler than I’d expected, and when my skin didn’t burn, I decided it was probably safe.

“I’ll just swim in this,” I said. I shook off my shoes and sucked in a deep breath. Then I dove into the water headfirst.

The water wrapped around me like the hands of winter. It ran through my uncovered hair, down my arms and back, and between my toes. I kicked and brought myself to the surface.

Irina was toeing the water and reaching for Atish, but he was looking at me, grinning. When she pawed the air and got
nothing, she gave a sharp sigh and slunk into the water. Then she looked over to me.

“Watch out for that,” she said.

A bubble rose beside me. When it breached the surface and spat out a stream of fire, I paddled backward. The movement pulled the flame along with me. It rolled over me, and I shrieked.

The flame passed by, warming me for half a second, and flew up into the air. A moment later, it was gone. The experience had been like passing a finger through a flame. Sheepish now, I looked over at Shirin. She was laughing, and so were the others.

“I haven’t seen you jump like that in years,” she said. She swam over to me. “You’re always so level. And watchful.”

“Yes, well, that surprised me,” I said.

Irina said, “Why, Najwa, I thought you were never ‘surprised.’ ” She swam like a snake. “Isn’t it a requirement for the Corps to always be alert?”