The Fire Wish (32 page)

“So you’re the one who grew up in the Cavern, then,” he said. “Let me begin our lifelong relationship of master and slave by saying that I killed your true parents. Your sister grew up in Zab, believing herself to be a daughter of Zab. I brought her here, just for this moment. I don’t care how you switched places, but you both carry the same blood in your veins. And I’ve been meaning to catch a jinni with this particular blood for half my life.”

“You’re lying!” I said, and I snapped my teeth at him. He leaned back, still not letting go of me, and laughed.

“I swear on the Prophet that I am not. Now let’s not waste time. This needs to happen before the Shaitan take care of my pitiful men.” He smiled, like he was just going to ask me to behave nicely. “I wish for you to send this sphere to the Cavern.”

I shook my head, but I could feel the wish pressing in on me. Like the jinni’s in the memory, my lungs felt like they were twisting around barbs. I pulled against Hashim, but he wouldn’t let go, and as the moments passed, the pain increased. My eyes stung, and my nostrils burned for air, but I would not open my mouth. I bit my lips closed, and screamed inside my mouth. I could not let the wish out. I would not let the wish out.

There is a point at which a person will break. I knew at which point the jinni from the Memory Crystal had reached it, and I held on, past the shredding of the lungs, past the sensation of fire flooding throughout my limbs.

But it was too great, and I reached my breaking point. I opened my mouth, gasping for air, and let the wish pour out. My hand grabbed the sphere from Hashim, all on its own, while tears, hotter than they were a moment ago, streamed off my cheeks. Then I croaked, “Granted.”

I held the sphere over the flame, and let go.

ATISH WAS THE one who brought us back to the moment. Shirin and I had been kneeling over Faisal, crying, while Kamal stood frowning beside Rahela, until Atish ran into the room from the front door.

“What happened?” he asked. When his gaze landed on Faisal, his eyes widened. He ran to Faisal, knelt down and stroked his forehead with his thumb, and then stood back up. “We cannot stay here. Have you found Najwa yet?”

“Who are you?” Kamal asked.

“A friend of Najwa’s.”

“You’re Shaitan,” Kamal said, gesturing at Atish’s mark.

Atish nodded at Kamal and turned to me. “Have you found Najwa?”

“Hashim just took her down the corridor,” I said, wiping my face and climbing up off the floor. “But we can’t follow her or he will kill her.”

“He will kill her no matter what,” Atish said. “That’s the sort of man he is. Najwa knows that.”

There wasn’t anything we could do. She was trapped behind Hashim’s dagger, and she was there because of me. All of us were. If I didn’t do something, Hashim would kill everyone in the Cavern. Everything beautiful about the place my mother was from would be destroyed.

I ran to Rahela then, took her hands, and brought them to my lips. “I’m sorry for everything,” I said, choking on my words. Then I looked at Atish, at his deep, shadowed eyes.

“I wish we’d had more time,” I said. His face darkened as he realized what I meant.

“No, Zayele!” he shouted. He ran toward me, pushing the table out of the way, but I was faster.

I closed my eyes. If I thought any more about Atish, I might not be able to do it.

“Umnisha-la narush,”
I shouted into the broken room.

They were the words Faisal had taught me to say once I saw Najwa again. They would free her from the Fire Wish and send me to my rightful place.

The wish unraveled faster than I expected. I blinked and dissolved, feeling the energy sucked out of me. When I opened my eyes again, I was behind Hashim’s blade, pressed against his chest. The sphere was in the air, falling into the flame, and I hit it away. It flew sideways, smacked against the wall, and broke open onto the floor. A cloud of white powder puffed up into the air and fell all around us. We were as white as angels, and I almost laughed. We weren’t anything like angels.

“No!” Hashim cried. “You demon!” Then the blade sliced against my throat. I tried to scream, but my words gurgled out,
red and slick. I fell over, and as the light dimmed, I watched Hashim try to put the pieces of the sphere back together.

Everything was lost, and I was so tired. But it didn’t matter. I had realized what I cared about most. And I had a home, even if I would never see it again. I thought of the Cavern and the way the gypsum shards sparkled from the ceiling, as real as stars but closer. I thought of Yashar, and how he would have loved to see that. I imagined I was there with him, but as I rowed him out onto the Lake of Fire, I was so tired. So very tired.

It was so very, very dark.

IN A FLASH of light and a twist of smoke, I was in the laboratory. Zayele had switched us back! With a flicker of hope, I grabbed Kamal’s hand and pulled him with me.

“She’s at the Lamp!” I yelled, gesturing at the others. We ran out the door and down the corridor, but when we reached them, my stomach lurched.

Zayele lay on the floor with her hair fanned out in a puddle of blood, covered in powder, and Hashim was on his knees, staring in disbelief at the cracked sphere.

“What have you done?” I cried to Hashim. He looked up at Kamal.

“I did it for us,” he whispered. “They can’t take over, Kamal. Don’t let them take over.”

Someone cried in anguish and rushed at Hashim. It was Atish, and his eyes were on fire. Before I could stop him from running into the moonstone powder, he pulled out his dagger and plunged it into Hashim’s chest. Hashim gasped and
opened his mouth to say something, but Atish shook his blade free and pushed the man onto his face.

“Don’t
ever
speak again,” he said. Hashim lay in the pool of Zayele’s blood, and soon it was impossible to tell whose was whose.

It was over, but it didn’t feel like a victory. Hashim was dead, the man who had murdered my parents and started a war, and all it had taken was the flick of a dagger. And a girl I hardly knew had died for me.

“Kamal,” I said, broken and empty, “the moonstone powder.”

He shook his head. “It’s not moonstone. When Faisal and Hashim were fighting, I emptied the orb and put talcum in instead. It’s not going to kill your friends.” I fell onto him, unable to cry anymore, even in relief.

“Thank you.”

Atish knelt beside Zayele, and although he wasn’t going to die of the powder anymore, something was cracking apart inside him. His jawline was tight and fierce, and in that moment I knew why he had killed Hashim. It hadn’t been for Faisal. It wasn’t to protect any of us. It was for her. He cradled Zayele’s head and wrapped her veil around her neck, but it kept bleeding. He pressed on it and stared at the blood that seeped through his fingers.

Her face was my face, but soft in sleep. Her hair was my hair, but wet with blood. Atish looked up to let me in and together we held her.

Rahela sobbed behind me. “She can’t be dead.” But
Zayele’s body was as still as Hashim’s. I closed my eyes. A wish couldn’t bring someone back to life, but what if she wasn’t dead yet? I looked over to Shirin, who sucked in her breath and then jumped over to my side. Together, we breathed in and out, pressing our hands onto her bloodied neck. I imagined her whole again. I remembered her voice, desperate and pleading, when I had first met her. Her neck had been smooth and whole. Her movements had been swift and sure.

Shirin squeezed my hand and said,
“Shushfa.”

The wish flowed slowly, like the first trickle of water across a dry and dusty stone. Then Atish put his hand over ours and the energy rushed forward, spreading our wishpower faster, deeper into Zayele.

It was like breaking open a dam. All our energy poured into Zayele, flooding her with
shushfa
, with health and strength. We gritted our teeth, shaking with exhaustion. I felt it shudder through my bones, and I thought they’d turn to powder.

Then it was done. The wish was complete.

For a long time, nothing happened. Then she trembled. It was such a slight tremor, I could have imagined it. Atish’s eyes widened. Then it happened again. Shirin started crying freely, sobbing in relief.

I looked over to Kamal then, and saw him watching us in silence. His gaze drifted away, to Hashim.

Her body began to shake in great, wide waves, and her eyelids fluttered. She heaved a sigh and blinked. I shrieked and cried, squeezing her hands. She opened her eyes and melted into Atish’s arms.

“It’s all right, Zayele. It’s over,” he said. Then he grinned. “But don’t do anything like that ever again.”

She wiped at her neck and the blood slipped away, revealing a pink scar. Rahela wiped the remaining blood off her neck and hugged her fiercely.

“How is she alive?” Rahela asked.

“It was the healing wish. She must not have been dead yet.”

“I don’t know,” Zayele said. Her voice was thick and scratchy. “It felt like I was dead. It hurt like you wouldn’t believe.”

“But it didn’t kill you,” I said.

Zayele wrapped her arms around herself and cried. “I was afraid,” she croaked, “that I’d be too late. That I wouldn’t be able to fix it. I’m so sorry about the Fire Wish, Najwa. I shouldn’t have taken your life from you.”

She had made a Fire Wish. Suddenly I understood why I could do certain wishes, but not any that would alter her wish. I understood why I’d been stuck in the palace.

She had risked her life to undo the wish, and she was still apologizing. I shushed her.

“It’s over.”

WE TOOK FAISAL’S body home, wrapped in one of Najwa’s veils. All of us, including Kamal and Rahela, held on to a part of him and placed our fingers in the Lamp’s golden flame. As we whirled into the air, I noticed Najwa’s eyes on me. They were dark with sadness, and then they were only bits of fire like the rest of us.

When we were whole again and standing in the Cavern, I helped set Faisal on the ground. Najwa explained to Kamal and Rahela what was going to happen, and then she knelt beside Faisal and cried over his body.

Kamal and Rahela looked around the Cavern, at the shards of gypsum and the waterfall pouring out of the wall. This time, I saw it for what it really was: my home. My real mother had come from all this, the blue canal, the lake with the dancing flames, and the homes that changed as their occupants wished. I could change them now, thanks to Faisal. He had saved my sister, and I was sure he had kept Hashim from killing me. I
had hardly known him, but he had been a part of my life since I was born.

The two men who guarded the school left their posts and stood by Faisal’s body. Delia, dressed all in red, came forward and bowed her head. The whole Cavern lit up. Not just the lamps, but each crystal that hung from the ceiling glowed a rich emerald green, lighting every building, every person, every wave on the lake. Delia had wished, and the Cavern turned into a living jewel.

Rahela gasped, and I took her hand. “Do you like it?” I asked.

“Yes, but it’s sad light. Mourning light.” She went to Najwa and helped her off Faisal’s body so the men could carry him away. They nodded at Najwa as if she had been Faisal’s daughter, and in a way, she was.