The Fire Wish (2 page)

“Zayele—” Yashar pleaded.

“Don’t worry about me. It’ll be easy.” I moved away from the children. They had come to see what Destawan would dare me to do. Now they ran alongside me, saying stupid things like “Don’t do it, Zayele,” and “It’s just a dare.” I ignored them and fixed my hijab so the wind wouldn’t blow it off my head. Then I took off my shoes and carried them in one of my hands.

“Zayele,” Yashar whispered. “Help me.” He reached out for me, and I turned to take his hand, guiding him down to the bridge. We stepped over the broken rocks and the clumps of green grass. Everything was clean and bright today, glowing beneath gray clouds.

Down by the bridge, the water roared, crashing into the biggest of the boulders that stood in the middle of the river. The boulders dared the water to take them down.

Destawan laughed and jumped up on a giant brown rock that flanked the river. We stood there in the shadow of the gorge, watching water flow by. The bridge was only a few feet above the river, so it wasn’t the fall that would hurt. It was the rapids. Yashar gripped my hand and wouldn’t let go.

“It’s really not that bad,” I told him. “The wood’s almost
gone, but there’s so much rope. I could walk it blindfolded.” Bad choice of words, I realized.

“Are there any rotted bits on the rope? Does it look secure?” Yashar hadn’t always been such a worrier, but since he’d gone blind, things bothered him more than they used to. I patted his shoulder.

“It’s not that far, really. Just twenty or thirty feet.” I pulled my hand out of his and set down my shoes. Then I smiled at Destawan. “If I fall in the river, be sure to tell my father it was all your idea.” His eyes narrowed, which only spurred me on.

Each of the ropes that had been the railing was tied to a boulder on the riverbank. The ropes were made from woven grass, as thick as my arm, and they were heavy and wet from last night’s rain.

I’d have to trust that whoever had woven the ropes had done a good job.

I grabbed one of them with both hands and walked sideways. I didn’t want to get spread out if the middle ties broke apart. Step by step, I moved along the rope. My ankles clicked together each time I finished two steps. Within a few feet, I was out over the water.

My toes were turning blue in the cold, and beneath them was the white water. It was impossibly fast. I could swim, but not in that.

I had to keep moving. The wind was stronger here, coming down the gorge, and my hands were getting stiff. After a while, I looked up to see how much farther I had to go. I was midway over the river.

“Zayele!” the children screamed. I couldn’t tell if they were
cheering for me or warning me, but I didn’t want to look back. I didn’t want to see their faces.

One more step. Then another. And another, with the water rushing, rushing past. Where did it all go?

I didn’t want to think of how cold it was. I only thought of movement, of the other side. And then, finally, my left hand touched something hard and unmoving. It was the wooden post on the far side.

Behind me, everyone cheered. I was shaking a little, but I turned around anyway and lifted a fist into the air. Then I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted, “Your turn, Destawan!”

He shook his head and everyone laughed. Then he pointed at the village, and we all turned to see six horses trotting into the village center. We rarely had visitors this time of year, because the mountains were still frozen and no one had any crops yet.

I ran down to the other bridge, where I could cross over and get a closer look. Our village pushed up against a cliff, a little above the riverbank, and the horses and riders lined the street along the river. One of the horsemen carried the black banner of the Vizier of Baghdad. The vizier hadn’t been to our village since the night my uncle and his wife were murdered by jinn, and something in me turned cold.

I WAS THE last one to return from the surface and found everyone standing on the wool rug in Faisal’s artifact room. The other students were all holding flowers or leaves, just like I was. I was the only student training directly under Faisal full-time, but everyone had to take the transporting class, even if they weren’t training for the Eyes of Iblis Corps. It looked as if they’d all passed and would move on to their other teachers. It would just be me now.

Atish made his way over, holding a red poppy blossom in front of his dark, intense eyes. I was used to his handsome face, but now it looked strange in contrast with the young man I’d just seen on the surface. Before we’d all left for our test, Atish had promised he’d find me something pretty up there and I had laughed it off, brushing aside the feeling I got whenever it seemed he was trying to shift from longtime friend to something more. I hadn’t wanted him to think of me, especially while we were each on our first mission. Now the poppy he held was as red as the drops
of blood on my fingertips, and I hesitated before taking it from him.

“For you,” he said. I nodded in thanks and wiped the blood against the petals, where no one would notice.

“Najwa, where did you get that?” Faisal’s deep voice rumbled across the room.

“The red flower or the pink one?” I asked. I held each one up, gingerly holding the rose. So pretty, but so sharp!

Faisal motioned for me to bring the flowers to him, and as I made my way past the other students, I saw Shirin. She was sniffing her flower, which looked like a thistle. Her nose touched the tip, and she pulled back and rubbed at the spot where it had poked her.

When I got to Faisal, he held out his hand and I gave him the two flowers. He returned the red poppy, ignoring it. Then he pulled the rose petals apart, studying the stamen. “Where did you get this?”

Faisal was never this sour-faced. He was my affectionate, and often eccentric, uncle, who didn’t bother with flowers and such things most of the time.

“I got it from a rosebush.”

With a frustrated sigh, he strode on his short legs to his bookcase, then thumbed the spines. It was such a curious thing to see him so stricken that the whole class fell silent. When he found the book he was looking for, he pulled it off the shelf and flipped through its pages.

Then he looked up at the class. “You passed. What are you still doing here?” This was strange behavior, even for Faisal, but they took leave without asking any questions.

I leaned in as close as I dared and saw he was looking through a journal, with drawings of arches and flowers, Arabic calligraphy, and a few building layouts. He stopped at an illustration that matched the ombré rose I’d brought back.

“Najwa,” Faisal said. He cleared his throat and held the book out to me. “This flower comes from only one garden.” He tilted his chin down and frowned.

Faisal’s gaze hadn’t left mine. It was like he was studying me, trying to find out if I matched something in one of his books. I shifted on my feet, feeling my face flush.

“Which garden?” I asked.

“Janna’s garden,” Faisal said. He snapped the book shut and sniffed the flower. “The former caliph’s dead wife.”

That meant I’d been to the palace in Baghdad. No one could wish herself into the palace. Strong jinni wards, put up after the start of the war, kept us from getting in. But I had been there. The flower proved it.

I had gotten past the wards. No one, not even the Corps, had done that!

“I was in the palace?” I couldn’t hide the surprise in my voice.

“You penetrated the wards, Najwa.” He sounded disappointed, which was strange. It wasn’t as if we were forbidden to go there. It was just impossible to get in.

“Come with me,” he said. Then he turned and left the artifact room, still holding the rose.

I followed him down the hall and into his small office. It was plush like human homes, with overlapped rugs covering the stone floor and oil lamps casting golden halos of light along the walls.

Faisal was a magus, which meant he had the sort of wishpower that came to only a few in a generation. He was also Master of the Eyes of Iblis Corps and in charge of training any magi and those entering the Corps. I wasn’t a magus, but I was the only one in my year training for the Corps. Once, when I was lamenting the fact that I wasn’t a magus, Faisal said it was his love of humans, and not his wishpower, that made him a good observer in the Corps. He knew the way human minds worked, and how their hearts beat. He understood their stories, their faith, and their superstitions. Most of all, he knew why they kept trying to get into our tunnels. They wanted safety, just like any jinni, but for humans, that meant wealth and power. They wanted our jewels, and they wanted our wishes.

Faisal sat down cross-legged on a rug and bid me to sit before him. I obeyed, folding up my skirt beneath my knees. The floor felt miles away. No matter how hard I pressed my finger into the rug, I couldn’t feel the stone.

“My little Najwa,” he said with a sigh. I winced. I wasn’t that little anymore. “I knew that if anyone was going to get past the wards, it’d be you. It’s one of the reasons I’m training you for the Corps. What wish did you make in order to get in?”

“I don’t know,” I began. I brushed at the rug again, over a pair of birds woven into a yellow tree. The trees above hadn’t been so pale. They had glowed, more real than emeralds. “I didn’t mean to go there. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not upset with you. What words did you use?”

“I wished to go to the most beautiful garden.” I couldn’t look at him, so I dug at a green spot on the rug.

He chuckled. “Was that it?”

“I—I don’t know. I wanted to make an impression, but I didn’t put that into any words.”

Faisal’s face cracked into a smile. “You made an impression, all right. This flower is proof that the human citadel is not impenetrable. We can get in.”

“I don’t know if I could do it again.”

He waved at the air. “I’ll have someone else try the same wish. Maybe wanting to make an impression is the key,” he said, winking.

I sighed. “So I passed?”

He nodded, and then leaned forward, drawing his eyebrows together. “What happened up there? I haven’t been there since … since I was about your age.”

I told him everything. When I was finished, he sent for a messenger by blowing into the flame of one of his lamps. I got up to leave, but he stopped me.

“Who do you think that young man was?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. A scientist?”

“Think about it for a minute. How old was he?”

“About my age.”

“Yes. And he was playing an oud? In a laboratory?”

I didn’t see where he was heading. “Well, it could have been a room where they stored rocks, I guess.”

“Najwa, use your training. Put everything together. Who would play music wherever he liked? Who would feel comfortable doing that in a laboratory, of all places?”

I stared at the flame he had blown on, thinking. What did I know about the palace? Nothing more than what Faisal had
told me. There was the House of Wisdom, where jinn had once studied alongside humans. It was full of books. There was the Grand Mosque, the harem full of women and children, and the rooms for the royal family and all the people who worked for them. There were stables for horses, and warehouses for food and other riches.

The royal family was large, but the only people older than ten were the caliph, his harem ladies, and his two sons. One of his sons was a warrior, and he had been seen in some other city recently. The other one hadn’t been seen outside the walls in a while. He was reported to be in the House of Wisdom often, so maybe he was a scholar. And worked in laboratories.

“The prince? The younger one, I think.”

Faisal nodded. “In the clothes you described, near Janna’s rose garden, and in a laboratory. I think there can only be one person such as this.”

“I can’t believe I was in the palace.” The young man’s face reappeared in my memory, smiling a little while he played his oud. “And I saw a prince.”

“Prince Kamal,” Faisal said, smiling. “He was quite the inquisitive toddler when I last saw him.”

There was a knock at the door, and the messenger came in. Faisal stood to greet him, so I took that moment to leave, my mind buzzing. I’d been to the palace. I’d seen the prince.