The Fire Wish (33 page)

They carried him across a narrow bridge over the canal, to a golden dome. There, dozens of jinn gathered, waiting. They wore robes of emerald-and-black silk, and the women wore black scarves. They began singing a song that carried over the city and echoed off the crystal walls.

Najwa walked behind the guards—alongside Laira, her adoptive mother and Faisal’s sister—and we kept behind them. Laira no longer wore the glowworm shawl, but something as airy and dark as a cobweb in the night. The remaining jinn followed us into the golden dome. Rahela and I held hands, and Atish and Kamal walked stiffly behind. Together, we went down a flight of steps into the dark, and the song drifted away.

The stairs carried us a hundred feet below the Cavern to a field of crushed volcanic rock. Gypsum, amethyst, and topaz monoliths sprouted from the gravel, creating a garden of jewels as far as we could see. Scattered lamps hung from the granite ceiling, casting jewel-toned shadows across the black rocks. Each monolith was engraved with letters of the jinni alphabet. Were the inscriptions names?

The guards took Faisal to a granite table ringed by rounded white stones. They laid him down, and a man with a long sapphire beard stepped forward. He pressed his palm onto a clear crystal protruding from the table and bowed his head. The crystal lit up, and a beam of light spread across the ceiling, projecting images of Faisal. They moved so quickly I could barely catch any of them, but I could see Faisal, younger, wearing a bathing suit and diving into the lake.

“What are they doing?” Kamal asked.

Atish whispered, “He’s saving his memories of Faisal. We put our memories into the crystals, and then whenever you want to remember a loved one, you can come here and touch their stones.”

Each monolith held memories? I looked at the field—the graveyard—and thought of the thousands of memories it contained, going as far back as the first jinni, Iblis. The shard of crystal Faisal had shown me before had been like these, but smaller. Maybe he had only preserved a few memories. Maybe Mariam didn’t have a funeral like this one because she’d died so far from home. The thought made me feel lonely, and I pushed it away, forcing myself to think of Faisal instead.

When the man was done, he gestured for Najwa to come
to the table. She walked slowly and placed her hands on the crystal. Then we all saw what Faisal had meant to her. He was in a boat on the lake, teaching her how to sail between the flames. He was walking through the courtyard, telling her to stop splashing in the fountain. He was giving her trinkets from the human world, wooden dolls and woven baskets. But most of all, he was in his artifact room, cataloging everything that was brought in, fingering each object with love and admiration.

I wiped away my tears and watched the others do the same. Yashar would have loved all this, even the funeral. How would I explain the beauty of it to him if he had never seen a crystal? How could I help him see what a wonderful world existed down here?

He needed to see again.

A rush went through me. I could give him sight. I could wish it for him, and then I would bring him here. I would show him what jinn were really like.

Najwa came over to me. Her cheeks were dry now, but the loss was like an echo in the way she held her lips together. We looked past Faisal’s body at the thousands of monoliths. Our ancestors were out there.

“Najwa,” I said, “Faisal showed me a crystal like these. With a bit of our mother—Mariam—in it.”

She looked startled. “Where is it?”

I told her quickly, and described what I had seen in it.

“Could there be more of her? A bigger one, here?” I asked.

The tears returned and she smiled, mirroring what I felt. And how I looked. I took her hands in mine and stared at her tiny owl-eye tattoo.

“We’ll have to come back and look for her sometime,” she said.

The other jinn deposited their memories, which took a long time. Each memory added a bit of color to the crystal, and in the end it was filled with an ocher smoke. Faisal’s spirit, his memory, was now a glowing emerald shard. It took two men to lift the monolith. Then it was wished into place beside a pale yellow monolith that looked like it was filled with lemon juice.

SAVING MY MEMORIES of Faisal gave me a sense of peace. I wouldn’t forget him, and no one else would either. People would talk of the man who had loved the humans, and if I wanted, I could show them what he was like.

After the funeral, we went out to the lake wall. Zayele had wanted to show Rahela the Cavern, so she and the others took off toward the canal. I stayed behind with Kamal and was leaning against the wall, watching the flames flicker on the water, when he got very close.

“I need to get back,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to think I was killed by a jinni. The war is still going on up there.”

I nodded, but everything in me wanted to shout out in protest. I didn’t want him to go back. Here, I could be with him. I could protect him, stay with him. But in Baghdad, he was a prince. He had duties. And one of them was to marry a princess.

I swallowed back the agony I felt. “What’s going to happen?”

He smiled and wrapped his arm around me. “I’m bringing you with me.”

“What will your father say?” The words were out of my mouth before I remembered that the caliph was unconscious. “I mean—”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not letting you go.”

Our races were still at war, even if the battle had ended. Everyone knew I was a jinni. I shook my head. “They won’t let us be together.”

A flame erupted just on the other side of the wall, shooting into the air beside us, and Kamal reached out to grab it. It flowed over his hand before flitting off, blown away by the motion.

“Can I see the necklace?”

I felt at my throat and lifted it up to him. He took the bit of moonstone between his fingers and yanked it from where it hung below the silver window.

“What did you—”

“I’ll give you sapphire when we get home. It won’t be quite so toxic.” Then he bent down and kissed me. Our lips were still pressed together when the thought came to me. I had an idea that would change everything between jinn and humans. It would frustrate half the Shaitan. But it would give us a chance, and I could not ignore it.

I reached into his hair, held him tight against me, and transferred us out of the Cavern.

It took just a moment. When the kiss was over, we were in a room I hadn’t seen before. On a platform, draped in linens, lay a man asleep. His beard was trimmed into a point, resting
on his collarbone. White smoke billowed out from a burner beside his bed, filling the room with frankincense.

“Father!” Kamal said. He let go of me, knelt beside the caliph, and looked up at me. “Are you—”

“Shh,” I said. I couldn’t go back to the Cavern and live like I had before. Half of me would always be here, in the land where feathered birds called down from tree branches and princes sang songs that haunted my dreams. I had to protect both places, and to do that, I needed to speak to a man who could change things. So I knelt over the caliph, and I
wished.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

WITH HEARTFELT THANKS to Emma Kress, who is there on every page but is hiding behind a very strong
shahtabi
wish. Without you, this story wouldn’t have had Zayele. I cannot express enough how grateful I am to have you with me on this journey. Faisal would have wanted you to pick up where he left off.

Much thanks goes to Scott Kaple, English teacher extraordinaire. You wrote things like “Touché!” in the margins of my essays, which spurred me on.

Gratitude, respect, and love go to my critique friends, both past and present: MJ Auch, Suzanne Bloom, Bruce Coville, Kirsten Kinney, Mark McDonough, Cindy Pon, Tudy Woolf, and Ellen Yeomans. Your warmth, support, and yes, even your show tunes have made all of this more fun.

Stephanie Gaither, Anna Dahlstein, and Hardik Panjawani were wonderful beta readers at a time when I needed them greatly. Thank you!

To the RockSugarBeets and The Fourteenery: thank you for holding me up against the solitude. Writing friends FTW!

Thanks to Verity Cast, my first-ever writing friend. I think we were writing fan fiction before there
was
“fan fiction.”

Love and thanks to Diane Miller, Bee Messenger, Kendra
Harper, Mary Piron, and Hope Kuniholm. You told me it was okay to pursue my dream
and
be a mother. For this, and for helping raise my children, I cannot thank you enough.

Sincere gratitude goes to my editor, Diane Landolf, for truly understanding Najwa and Zayele’s story. I could not have
wished
for a better editor.

Laura Rennert, you are the best agent in the world. Thank you for believing in me at the beginning and never giving up.
!

An entire lifetime of thanks goes to my parents, who understood my love of adventure and showed me the world. Mom, thank you for the musicals, the love of reading, and every single handmade Halloween costume. Dad, thank you for all the stories, especially those with shadows against the wall. You shared your love of magic and other worlds, and reminded me to hold on to a sense of wonder. I love you both.

Grandma Janis, thank you for telling me in second grade that I was
already
a writer. I wish I could have gotten this to you in time.

Hazel, I could not have written about sisters without having one, and I am thankful you are mine. (No, really. I am.)

Elizabeth and Henry, thank you for being good sports and for all the snowflakes you made out of my printer paper. I love watching you both fall in love with stories and words.

And last but not least, to my husband, Jim: thank you for the thousands of little things and the many big things. Without your trust and constant support, I wouldn’t have had this story to share. I love you with all my heart.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

AMBER LOUGH lives in Syracuse, New York, with her husband, their two kids, and their cat, Popcorn. She spent much of her childhood in Japan and Bahrain—an island nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia. Later, she returned to the Middle East as an Air Force intelligence officer and spent eight months in Baghdad, where the ancient sands still echo the voices lost to wind and time. For a pronunciation guide, character guide, and more, please visit
amberlough.com
.