The Genius of Jinn (3 page)

“Good, then I can tell her why you’re really here.”

“You have no idea why I’m really here.”

“Don’t I?”

“No, you don’t. Because if you did, you’d be quiet.”

I add more cream to my drink and stir.

Yasmin leans over the table. “That’s it? You’re done?”

“You told me to be quiet.”

Her nostrils flare, but a bit of a smile creeps onto her lips. Which makes her wince again. She must have really done some damage.

“Fine,” I say. “Go ahead and tell me why you need a spell book when you don’t have powers yet.”

“For learning. For studying. For practicing. For when we get those powers.”

I sigh. “Why are you so eager to use magic?”

“Why aren’t you?”

I pour more chocolate into my mug and change the subject. “How do you even know Tayma?”

Yasmin spoons just the whipped cream into her mouth, and her eyes widen at its deliciousness. And its temperature. The cold must feel good against her burns. She then says, “She visited my mom a couple of months ago. She was in town granting some wish for some bigwig computer guy, and she dropped by. Apparently we’re related. Through my father’s side. Not that my mother or Tayma will tell me how.”

“Course not.”

“Ridiculous, right?” Yasmin and I are in total agreement. For once. We are both freaked out by this.

“Anyway,” she says, “I was talking to Tayma alone, and she mentioned she had found this old spell book at one of those stalls on the Seine. Like three-hundred-years-old old. Not a cantamen, just a book of spells. She figured it was a fraud, but she did a few spells and they were real. I told her I wanted it for my mom, because I figured she’d never just give it to me. I didn’t know she was going to pop by today at Farrah’s. Surprised me as much as you.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Well, not
as
much,” she says.

“Sounds like something that could get us in trouble. If not with the Afrit council, then with our moms.”

Yasmin grins. “That’s what makes it fun.”

“Fun?” Tayma says, swooping in with her cloak dripping off her arm and flowing in the breeze beside her.

I don’t realize she’s actually using it to camouflage her conjuring of an extra chair until she’s seated in it at the table. Not only does no one notice, but the chair is a perfect replica. Tayma must be older than I thought with more advanced magic than I realized.

She sets a small book with a worn, grayish-yellow cloth cover next to our hot chocolates. “I will tell you what is fun.” She nods to the book. “The love spell in here.”

“Love spell?” I say. “One that actually works?”

“Oui.”
Tayma dips a finger in Yasmin’s whipped cream. “Christophe and I have been together for a year thanks to this love spell.”

Looking at Tayma, I can’t imagine she’d need a spell to entice anyone to fall in love with her.

“It is most successful when the object of your affection has interest already. But perhaps just needs
un peu
push.”

Yasmin scoffs. “Who wants a love spell when all it can do is entice a human anyway?”

Unlike my mother and me, Lalla Raina’s and Yasmin’s tolerance for humans is lower than a Jinn’s tolerance for cold. And Jinn hate the cold.

Hate.

It.

Tayma flashes a smile, and the birthmark on her cheek bounces. “You will understand one day, Yasmin.”

“Whatever,” she says.

I’m still staring at the book as Yasmin draws it into her clutches.

Tayma sees me watching and laughs. “Heh, it seems your sister already understands.”

I jolt back in my chair and crash into the cigarette-smoking Frenchman behind me, who grumbles something I don’t need to know French to know is an insult.

I mumble a “pardon” to him, but to Tayma I spit out, “No, I wasn’t … I don’t need…”

She pats my hand. “It is good, Azra. Humans are good. So long as we are careful.”

Yasmin purses her lips but doesn’t say anything.

“Speaking of,” Tayma says, “your mother would not want me giving you this yet, so you both must be careful with it, yes?”

I sip my hot chocolate, leaving Yasmin to try to convince Tayma the book is for her mother. But Tayma’s too clever for that. Just like all Jinn.

“
S’il vous plaît,
just keep it hidden,” Tayma finally says. “That’s why I keep it here, in my Christophe’s café. He thinks I have an obsession with witches. How gauche.” She then says with a wistful look in her eye, “Ah, well, I should return you to your home. I should not have kept you away this long. It is just that … I miss having…” She lowers her voice. “…Jinn to talk to.”

“Where are your Ji—sisters?” I say.

Her eyes glaze over with a film of sadness. “My Zar, it is broken. Do not let it happen to yours. It is the most important part of becoming Jinn.”

“See, Azra,” Yasmin says. She doesn’t realize how much it is what she says and the way she says it that makes—that has always made—that so hard for me to believe.

Just as Tayma leaves a few euros on the table, a short, nearly bald man in a black apron pokes his head out the café door. Though I can’t understand his French, his hands that fly in the air and mime an explosion give me a bit of a clue.

“Un moment, mon amour,”
Tayma says to him. “Kitchen mishap,” she says to us.

“Wait,” Yasmin says. “
That’s
Christophe?”

I kick her under the table.

“Oui.”
Tayma sighs and places her hand over her heart. “Precious, no?”

“Uh, n—”

I kick Yasmin harder.

She kicks me right back and scowls.

“Wait for me here,” Tayma says to us as she hops up from the table. “I will return in a moment. More
chocolat chaud?
How about a
macaron?
”

“That would be nice,” I say. “Thank you.”

“But of course,” she says as she hurries to Christophe.

He pecks her on the cheek and she kisses the top of his head.

“Pfft,”
Yasmin says, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

My whole life I’ve let Yasmin get away with this. Being rude, insensitive. A bully. I’ve had it. “You really are a piece of work, Yasmin,” I say. “Why can’t you just let others be happy?”

Her head jerks back, but then … she smiles. “Well, look who grew a spine.”

She settles into her chair and begins to flip through the spell book.

That’s what it takes to impress her? Acting like, well, like her? I don’t want to be her. I’d take a human over her any day.

And that’s the sentiment that will always keep us apart.

The waitress brings over another hot chocolate and a plate of cookies in every color of the rainbow. I pick up a yellow one and bite into it. It’s like eating a cloud. A light, airy, delicious lemon cloud. I pull the plate closer to me. These are the times I want magic. I want to be able to conjure a bag to take every last one of these home.

Tayma’s green tote sits at my feet. I push her cloak aside, searching for something to carry the macarons, when all of a sudden Yasmin cries out.

“Oh my Janna!” She rams the big spell book onto the table, opens it wide, and ducks her head behind it.

I look up just in time to see what she’s seen. “Is that—”

“Your mother! In here, Azra, now!” She yanks me by my hair and forces me behind the book.

“Ouch!”

“Shh!” She starts flipping pages. “She must have done some kind of locator spell on you. This is all your fault.”

“My fault? Pretty sure I was kidnapped. Which means you’re the one in trouble, not me.”

“That’s your story.”

My story?
“You wouldn’t.”

Her black eyes grow wide with innocence.
“I swear, Lalla Kalyssa, I had no idea what Azra was up to. I was just enjoying the afternoon with my Zar sisters when all of a sudden, she forced me into the bathroom.”

“My mother would never believe you.”

“Maybe not, but what about the rest of them? Who’s the one who ran away last, Azra? Sure as Janna wasn’t me.”

The last time was during one of our Zar reunions. Everyone was there. Magic this and magic that and I … I just needed to breathe. I was only across the street in my neighbor’s backyard. But my mom couldn’t find me, and she freaked. I was grounded for three weeks. Not that I go anywhere much. But I did miss the opening of that ghost movie, and all the kids at school spoiled the ending.

“Come on,” I say, starting to push my chair back, “let’s get inside and hide.”

“I have a better way,” Yasmin says. She taps her finger against the book. “Concealment spell.”

“But you don’t have magic.”

“Oh, Azra, always a step or two behind.” Yasmin pulls a gemstone signet ring big enough to cover half of the fingers on her hand out of her pocket. “My mother’s talisman.”

“You stole it?”

“Borrowed.”

“Yeah, right. Doesn’t matter. They don’t work without Jinn powers.”

“And you’re sure of that?”

“You think … no, no way.”

“A talisman is made of magic,” she says. “If these spells in here are real spells, well, who knows what does or doesn’t work.”

“That’s why you wanted the book now. You think you’ll be able to do magic before you get your powers?”

“Powers we shouldn’t have to wait for,” Yasmin says.

She slips the ring on her finger and begins to recite the spell.

I peek above the book. My mother’s closer. And this time she’s not alone. A man is with her. Tall, dark hair, as dark as mine and Yasmin’s. My mother’s gesturing frantically. The man takes her by both elbows, trying to calm her.

Is he a policeman?

She wouldn’t go to the police.
Would she?

The man pulls her into his arms like he’s about to hug—

“Hey!” I cry.

My
A
necklace is in Yasmin’s hand. She yanked it straight off.

“What are you doing?” I feel naked without it against my skin. More than naked … unsettled, disturbed, freaked out. I can’t remember the last time it left my neck.

“It was your grandmother’s, wasn’t it?” She squeezes it in her hand, and all I want to do is smash her fist open and take it back. “It’s probably a talisman. We need all the magic we can get.”

She begins to mutter the spell under her breath, and I reach across the table and take her hand in mine. Her hold on my necklace is strong. I can’t unclench her fist.

“Help me,” she says.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Come on. Say it with me.”

She’s got some nerve, I’ll give her that.

I peer around the book once more. We’re running out of options. My mother’s crossing the street. And so against my every brain cell, I lean across the table and recite the spell with Yasmin.

When we finish, a shudder runs through us both, and Yasmin drops the book.

My mother is on the sidewalk. Directly across from us.

I suck in a breath.

She looks right at me.

No, not at.
Through.

She doesn’t see me. She doesn’t see us.
How can she not see us?

“It’s working,” Yasmin whispers in disbelief.

I move to release her hand and she clutches me. Won’t let me go.

The man my mother was with waves to her from farther down the street. My mother pauses, her eyes searching the café, her body frozen in place. And then, she shakes her head, turns, and walks the other way.

My heart hammers in my chest, and I struggle for air. “I can’t believe it worked.”

Smugness replaces Yasmin’s momentary lack of confidence. “Told you. Boy, is this going to be fun.” She hugs the book to her chest and pushes my necklace across the table.

I pull my
A
pendant over my head and press it against my skin. My heartbeat begins to slow and air fills my lungs.

“Don’t ever do that again,” I say in a tone that wipes some of the smug clean off Yasmin’s face.

She softens the tiniest bit. “Can’t you see it at all?”

“What?”

“What Tayma said is true. Our strength comes from each other. You’re going to need me, Azra, whether you like it or not.”

The answer is not, but something in my gut won’t let me say it. Still, the world will know I’m a Jinn before the day comes that I need Yasmin for anything.

I shove a pink macaron in my mouth and enjoy the explosion of raspberry. Finally, Tayma appears. She wipes flour off her cheek and waves us toward her.

Yasmin tucks the spell book under her arm and I bite into one last cookie—caramel. We walk single file into the tiny café, which somehow is smaller inside than it was outside.

The three of us cram into the single bathroom. Here, the toilet isn’t funny shaped because it’s nonexistent. Just a hole in the floor. And Americans are the uncivilized ones?

Yasmin holds the book against her chest as Tayma wraps one arm around her waist and the other around mine. “
Au revoir,
Paris!” she cries.

Which is followed by a mini tornado in my stomach.

Which is followed by Tayma’s
“Voila!”

We are back in Farrah’s bathroom. The instant we arrive, the door magically swings open, and piled into the tiny alcove are my four Zar sisters and their mothers.

Tayma’s cheeks flush pink as she slinks past Hana and her mom, Lalla Nadia; Mina and her mom, Lalla Jada; Farrah and her mother, Lalla Isa; and, finally, Laila and Lalla Samara, my mother’s best friend.

Not that he’d fit in the alcove, but Hairy Larry’s not here. And neither is my mother or Lalla Raina.

Nadia places her hands on her hips. Her red hair, a shade deeper than Hana’s, swings as she shakes her head. “Do you know how worried you made Raina? And poor Kalyssa? Azra’s mom’s doing a locator spell on you both. What were you thinking, Tayma? You’re twenty. You’ve been doing this long enough. You also know what’s at stake here. You know better.”

Tayma hangs her head.

Lalla Samara protectively steps between Nadia and Tayma. “You know it’s hard on her, Nadia,” Samara says. “Her Zar is broken.”

“Broken?” Farrah says. “What does that mean?”

There’s no further explanation, but Nadia’s eyes and voice soften as she says, “It means she has to be careful. Same as you girls once you get your powers. You know the Afrit are watching.”