The Forbidden Wish(88)

“Live, my old friend,” you say. “And remember: Time is the strongest magic.”

You vanish as the room begins to shake, just as it did the day Aladdin stole me away. I break into a sprint, dodging chunks of stone that fall from the ceiling. Sand pours in waterfalls all around, burying the glinting jewels. I reach the stairs and bound up them, throwing open the door—to find not a desert but a void.

The universe spins around me, stars glaring bright, galaxies pulsing bursts of color. Looking back, I see the garden collapsing into itself, getting smaller and smaller. Flame rushes toward me, and without another thought, I jump.

I fall backward and upward, feel the wind rush around me, and I lose all sense of weight and direction.

The universe unfolds around me in a dazzling dance of light and color, opening circle by circle, each curling into elaborate patterns: sun and rose, starfish and pupil, tiger’s mouth and elephant’s ear. I fall through their center.

Stars are born, grow old, and burst apart into new stars. Galaxies blossom like flowers, shooting out tendrils of light, teeming with life. Spinning planets circle a million bright suns, and I see it all.

I have spun out of time. I stand on the edge of eternity, looking in at all the brilliant worlds. They are strung on invisible threads in a vast tapestry, each pulling the others, everything connected by the finest of lines. As I watch, the threads quiver and hum. The universe sings a deep, eternal song, sound in waves, in deep sighs, in whispers, in swirling chords and rising, falling tones. The music of the worlds, weaving in a pattern that is both chaos and order, both beauty and terror, without beginning, without end. Tears run down my face, and I dare not blink.

I lift my eyes, above it all, and see the one weaving the stars. Imohel, the God of Gods. He smiles and pauses briefly to touch a finger to the center of my forehead, and at his touch, I fall.

Fall through the stars.

Through time.

Through light and wind and fire.

Through smoke and a sky gray like ashes.

? ? ?

Nardukha stands in the same spot, staring furiously at the fiery doorway. Less than a moment has passed since I threw myself into the fire, determined that I would not repeat the past, would not strike down Aladdin as I struck you down, Habiba. Determined that this, at the end, would be my choice. And somehow, it worked.

Somehow, I am still here.

It takes me a moment to find myself, to determine that I am standing in the doorway, in both worlds and neither. I turn around and see flames behind me. I myself am smokeless fire that burns red and blue, indistinguishable from the blaze that separates the mortal world from the immortal.

Turning back to the human world, I see Nardukha look down at Aladdin, who stares in disbelief at the doorway, unable to see me amid the flames, believing, no doubt, that I am dead. He doesn’t even struggle when Nardukha wraps a hand about his throat and lifts him into the air. But his eyes begin to widen, and he gasps with pain.

At once I step through the doorway, a girl of fire and fury, taking human form in a gown of black smoke that curls and trails behind me. Never have I burned so hot. Never have I felt so powerful, not even when granting the most incredible wishes. A new power rages through me now, something completely wild and untrammeled, and I realize what is missing: the invisible tether that bound me to my lamp. The bond has been broken.

Whether it was really you I saw, Habiba, or a ghost conjured by my mind, I know the words you spoke were true: In sacrificing my own life for Aladdin, I unwittingly triggered the Forbidden Wish. The bond between lamp and jinni is severed.

I am alive.

And I am free.





Chapter Twenty-Nine


“STOP,” I SAY.

Nardukha drops Aladdin, who crumples to the ground. I run toward the thief, dropping to my knees at his side. He groans and blinks.

“Who are you?” he whispers.

“It’s me,” I reply. “Lie still. You’re hurt.”

“Zahra?” He seems bewildered, and suddenly I understand why. I put my hands to my face and suck in a breath, for it is not the face of Roshana I wear.

It is the face of a young Gheddan queen. My face. It is rounder and softer, my hair thick with brown curls and my skin a shade darker. How strange it is to wear it again, after so many years disguising myself in other forms.

“You,” Nardukha rumbles, and I whirl to face him. There is a wariness in him that I have never seen before.

I realize I have lost something else in my strange journey through the Eye and back: my fear of him. For four thousand years even the thought of him made my soul tremble. Now I look at him, and it’s as if I see him for the first time and find him . . . lacking. What did I fear in him before? By what power did he enthrall me? Whatever it was, it is gone now, and I will never cower before him again.

“All this time,” I say, rising to my feet to stand between him and Aladdin, “you’ve been so desperate to keep me—to keep any of your jinn—from loving a human. You knew what could happen if a jinni ever loved a human, loved one enough to die for them. That’s why you went to war with Roshana—not because Roshana sought to make peace with the jinn, but because I loved her enough that I would have died for her. You couldn’t let that happen because you knew what I would become. You knew the Forbidden Wish could work both ways.”

“What you are,” he breathes, “is an abomination. A jinni without a master, without ties to Ambadya or the gods. The order exists for a reason. I do not love chaos for chaos’s sake. All things are held in balance, and you are a loose thread in the fabric of the universe. One wrong move and you could unravel everything.”