The Fire Wish (22 page)

THAT AFTERNOON, WHILE Rahela was in the harem’s garden, I pulled out the Memory Crystal I had hidden beneath my mattress. I untied the twine and lifted the crystal up to the sunlight that streamed in from the garden. It was just as deeply green as it had been in the House of Wisdom. The darker the crystal, the higher the rank of the jinni whose memory it contained. This must have been the memory of someone very high. I’d never held one so dark.

Inside the crystal, the memory swirled like incense smoke, ever bending and twirling over itself. The crystal kept it safe and unaltered. All I had to do was hold it before me and concentrate, urging my mind to go inside. I’d done it many times in my studies with Faisal, and just as before, I held it out and stared, waiting for it to pull me in.

A moment later, I was looking through the eyes of someone grimacing at a bowl of slime-covered water. A foot kicked out and turned it over, and the water spread across sandstone
bricks and seeped into the mortar. The person whose memory I was experiencing tried to move his arms, but they were tied to an iron bar in the wall.

I was feeling the memory now as though it were my own, and in it, I was wearing nothing but a loincloth in a room with one iron door and no windows. I was leaning against the wall, feeling the chill and damp seep into my bones. My wrists burned.

“That was all you were going to get today, so I hope you’re truly sorry,” a man said from the other side of the small cell. I looked at him, taking in his immaculately white turban, his jewels, and his golden robe, then spat in his direction. “You are mine now, Melchior, and I expect all my jinn to behave. You will do as I
wish
,” the man said with a sneer.

“I will do nothing,” I said. My voice was deep and resonated off the walls.

The man snapped his fingers, and two men in military uniform stepped through the door. They pressed knives against the twine while the man in the turban touched my forearm with the tip of his finger.

“When they release the twine, you will have your powers back. However, I am touching you. My guards will be holding you perfectly still, so you will not be able to shake yourself free of my touch.” The man nodded at his guards, who slit the twine around my wrists. As the pieces fell, I saw they were braided with long strips of paper inscribed with intricate calligraphy. Whatever was written on those strips of paper was keeping me from wishing myself free.

“My other jinn are wasted,” the man continued. “They
cannot grant wishes greater than a small bead of gold at a time. But you are fresh and strong. It’s fortunate we caught you.” He pushed his finger hard into my arm until his nail bit into my skin. “I wish for ten pounds of gold.”

“No,” my heavy voice said.

The man smiled, revealing a line of polished, crooked teeth. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll change your mind. You jinn always do. It’s in your blood. You cannot resist a human wish, especially mine.”

I felt the wish spread outward in my rib cage, like a tumor. It stole my breath, squeezing my lungs tight. My lungs felt as if they were being twisted, and I understood then why a human’s wish was impossible to refuse. I had imagined it to be painful, but I’d never
known.
My lungs wouldn’t release until I breathed out the wish.

I would rather suffocate than grant this man his wish.

I was not going to give in. I was a trained member of the Corps. I
ran
the Corps. I couldn’t disappoint them.

But it hurt. It burned. Great Crystals, it burned like fire, like the lava of the deep. My lungs were peeling apart, layer by layer. It burned. It burned. It burned.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it.

I looked the man in the eye and mouthed, “Granted.” The wish unwound itself from my lungs, ripping itself out like a serrated splinter. Pain, mixed with sweet air, pulsed through me, and I felt the wish take form, pulling the energy it needed from me.

I slumped in the guards’ arms just as something golden flashed behind the man.

It had taken everything to resist, and even so, it had not been enough.

I looked at the man, whose face gleamed. “It’s always the hardest the first time, because you try to resist. But as you now know, you are mine to control. I, Caliph Mohammed al-Mahdi, thank you for your service to the caliphate.”

It had taken too much to fight his wish, and darkness pooled in. A darkness I couldn’t shake.

I dropped the Memory Crystal on the floor and rubbed my eyes, trying to get the image out of my mind. I knew who Melchior was. He had been the Master of the Corps before Faisal. And now he was one of the last magi left. In the memory, though, he was a slave! He was being controlled by the caliph, but humans hadn’t had jinni slaves since the treaty had been signed twenty years ago. How long ago was this memory from?

The pain he felt was horrible, but it was nothing to what I’d felt when trying to break away from Zayele’s wish. The wish commanded by the caliph had seared this jinni’s lungs, but it hadn’t filled them with fire.

I couldn’t shake away the burning memory in my own lungs, and I ran to the small garden behind my room to breathe in the fragrant air. It was more of a courtyard than a garden, surrounded by a high stone wall, but it had a bench, a small fountain, and a trellis covered with white jasmine. A shape matching my new silver-and-moonstone pendant was cut into the wall at the opposite end, the hole barely big enough to fit my hand through. When I looked in, I saw a mirror image of my garden, down to the simple fountain bubbling in the
middle. Whose garden was that? Whose room would back onto mine?

But it didn’t matter. I had just been in the mind of someone who was trapped in far worse conditions than my own. I breathed in deeply while a lark landed on the bench beside me. It sang at me, its tone demanding and sharp, as if to say there was more to see.

It was just a bird, but maybe it was right. Maybe I needed to see more.

Reluctantly, I retrieved the crystal and brought it outside, where the fresh air would continue to soothe me. Then I looked into the swirling smoke within it, letting myself be pulled in.

I was Melchior again, in the same stone room. Another man was shoving liquefied food down my throat in swift, forceful moves. I gagged, but it stayed down. After a minute or two, when the man was convinced I wouldn’t throw it up, he released me. I pulled at the twine, wincing as it dug into my shredded wrists.

The man knocked on the door. It opened and the caliph stepped in, this time in a sapphire turban and matching robe. He clapped his hands in one loud burst, and the guard behind me began to untie my bindings. He was rough, not caring how it chafed my skin, or that my blood oozed around the twine.

“I see you’re ready for the next wish,” the caliph said. He strode over to me and gripped my chin. I tried to turn my head but he held firm. “I’ll be quick. This time, I’m not asking you for gold or riches. I need something no one else can give me. My wife Janna wishes for a special kind of flower, one my
gardeners have not been able to produce. She has painted the blossom for you to see. Oh, you didn’t realize my wives would know of your existence? All of Baghdad knows, my jinni. And they clamor for more.” He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a sheet of paper with a rose blossom painted across it. The rose was pale pink, with white chevrons sprouting from the yellow center. “See it? This is what she wants. Exactly this. I wish for you to make me a garden of roses such as these.”

He wanted roses. He was keeping me as his personal slave, keeping me apart from my own wife and daughter, to build himself a garden.

“Bastard,” I managed, before the wish flew out of my throat and I fell into the darkness.

I was still Melchior, waking to someone shaking my shoulder. Because he hadn’t brought a lamp, I couldn’t see who had come to wake me. It wasn’t the physician to check if I’d revived, and it wasn’t a guard to see that my wrists were securely bound.

“Don’t move,” a young man whispered in my ear. He had a different dialect, from the north. “I have taken a great risk to come to you. I have an offer to make.”

“What is it?” I asked. If he was here just to get a wish from the caliph’s personal jinni, I was going to kill him. With my knees if I had to.

“I will set you free if you grant me a wish.” When I said nothing, he added, “Please. I beg you. My parents are dying. There’s a drought, and my family is starving. If my father dies, my entire tribe will suffer. I need you to save them.”

I grunted. I wasn’t going to save this young man’s human family. Humans had caught me, imprisoned me for months, kept me from my own family, and forced me to live with both a physical and an emotional pain that were reawakened every day. I had been granting the caliph enough gold for everyone in the caliphate. Why would any of his subjects be starving? I had done enough for them.

But this young man was going to let me go. He didn’t need to know I had only enough energy now for one wish. One wish that would take me home.

“I will do this,” I lied. I was gruff, but the young man didn’t seem to care.

“Thank you,” he said. “My tribe, the al-Rahman of Zab, thank you a thousand times over. And we will pray for your soul.”

After months serving the caliph, I wasn’t sure I had a soul left to pray for.

The man pulled out a knife and sliced my bonds. Then he did the foolish thing I was counting on: he stepped back and bowed in thanks.

I didn’t wait. I wished myself home.

The crystal turned cold, and I set it down on my lap. Melchior had gotten free. He had tricked the man who released him. Even though I was relieved for him, I felt a pang of guilt, as if I were responsible for what he had done. The human had clearly risked something to sneak in and free a jinni, and he got nothing in return. His parents might have died. His whole tribe, from Zab—I gasped.

Al-Rahman. Zab. That was Zayele’s tribe. But who would have been here before the time of the treaty? Who would have known how to sneak into the palace’s prisons? Who would have dared to free the caliph’s most treasured jinni?

My blood turned cold, and I knew. It had to have been Hashim. He was from Zayele’s tribe. He had been here in the dark days before the treaty. And he had been invited, years later, by someone in the Corps to serve as the first, and last, human ambassador to the Cavern.

The jinni he’d set free had repaid him, but it must have been too late.

Suddenly the sound of laughter came to me from the other side of the wall, through the cutout. Another person laughed in response, although his tone was lower.

Slowly, I moved to the hole and peeked in, then felt a rush flood my body when I saw who was on the other side. Quickly, I whispered, “
Shahtabi.
” I couldn’t let them see me.

Kamal and another young man had entered the garden. The other man was wearing a green robe, like the ones I’d seen the palace scholars wearing. He was tall but thin, and moved quickly to a bench, where he flopped down.

Kamal’s room backed onto mine. It had to have been planned. The harem’s private gardens must back onto those of the caliph and his sons. I looked more closely at the wall and noticed a faint arched line, where it looked as if someone had filled in an opening. There had been a door here once, and the cutout was all that was left open between our spaces. Would they break it open once we were married?

“I don’t want to imagine it, Ahmed,” Kamal said. He stood
with his arms crossed, glowering. “I mean, what would he do, really?”

Ahmed leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His voice was bright and full of laughter. “First, the House of Wisdom would be turned into a martial arts hall, and all the books would be used as targets.”

Kamal groaned, but he was smiling. “It’s awful, but that’s not even a joke. Ibrahim
would
do that.”

“You know what else your brother would do as the caliph?” The other boy grinned. “He’d get rid of the black-market wine. Oh, and he’d make it mandatory that everyone go for a ‘light run’ first thing after morning prayers. Followed by two hours of sword practice.”

The stone was pressing into my cheeks while I strained against it, watching them. I’d never seen young human men joking before. It wasn’t that different from how jinni men were, except one of these men had given me a necklace. And I was supposed to marry him. And he was human.

“The women would have to run too,” Kamal added. “And they wouldn’t be allowed to cover their hair.”

“Or their chests,” Ahmed said, laughing. Kamal looked at Ahmed, who added, “Well, maybe not that.”

“No, that’s what
you’d
do.” Kamal walked around the fountain, dragging his fingers in the water. “Ibrahim would want her, you know.”

“Who? Your wife?”

“She’s not my wife,”
he hissed.

Ahmed’s eyebrows rose, and he leaned backward, away from Kamal.

“Not yet anyway,” Kamal said.

“I was just trying to—”

“I know. For a moment, I did forget about what happened to my father.” He flicked the water off his fingertips and sat down beside his friend.

“So what do you think of her?” Ahmed asked.

Kamal shrugged. “I don’t know yet. But it doesn’t matter what I think, does it?”

“You must feel something, or you wouldn’t be afraid of Ibrahim taking her.”

Kamal rubbed at his face. “I don’t want him to take her, but I don’t know why. I mean, it never bothered me before when he married other girls. But it doesn’t matter, because right now I’m too busy. Hashim wants me to do something—no, don’t ask—and my father is out of commission. Ibrahim is coming back, and there’s a girl here who—” He shook his head. “Never mind. Let’s go. I have to get out of here.”

Ahmed nodded. “To the stables, then?”

“To the stables,” Kamal said. He stood and ushered Ahmed out of the garden. Before he left, he looked back at the fountain, then up at the cutout in the wall. He stared at it, then sighed before turning back to his room.

He hadn’t seen me. I was sure of that.