I bend my head forward, allowing Laila to secure the new necklace. She then unwinds the sheer scarf draped around her neck. Underneath, an identical figure eight sparkles against her rosy skin.
She envelops me in a hug. “I know it’s not official yet, but you’ve always been my sister.”
Behind Laila, Yasmin downs another shot, her eyes clouding over. My own are brimming with tears and so I close them, ignore Yasmin, and squeeze Laila right back, kissing the top of her blond head.
Laila then hurries over to the other girls and places a box in each of their hands. “I know our Zar won’t be legit until I turn sixteen, but since that’s taking for-ev-er, I couldn’t wait.” Tears well in her eyes. “We’ll all match, which is perfect because there isn’t another group of Jinn I’d rather be bound to. Mina, Farrah, Hana, Yasmin, and Azra. My sisters.”
Squealing, Mina and Farrah almost knock Laila over as they embrace her.
Hana pulls me next to her, and I’m wondering how to apologize for not changing into the genie costume when Mina comes around my other side. “Love your tunic, Azra,” she says.
My thanks puts an enormous smile on her soft, round face, surprisingly not all that different from the one in the photograph despite the years and becoming Jinn in between.
Making human friends has always been a struggle. After Jenny was gone, these girls were all I had. But being friends with them meant I was like them—not just accepting of being a Jinn, but happy about being a Jinn.
Can I really dislike what I have to do without disliking them? I’m not sure, but I’ll admit that as I touch the infinity symbol around my neck and eye the matching ones topping off everyone else’s stripper-worthy ensembles, I find myself “oohing” a bit like Farrah. Okay, so only on the inside, but still.
Yasmin places her unopened box on the bar and instead reaches for the bottle of absinthe. Though I know better than to taunt a snake, my sudden urge to protect Laila causes me to echo Yasmin’s earlier words. “You’re going to just pour that? Like a human?”
Yasmin’s head snaps up, and she freezes. My only warning is the slight narrowing of her eyes, but it’s enough. When she hurls the bottle at the ground, my powers suspend it in midair. When she apps herself to the top step by the door to the kitchen, I immediately follow, knocking her to the bottom stair and into the wall of boxes as I reappear.
Fuming, Yasmin grabs Laila’s hand and apps them both to the driveway. Using my powers, I raise the garage door and stroll outside. Hana, Mina, and Farrah trail close behind.
At either end of the driveway, neither of us makes a move. Though it’s dark, any human who passed by could still see us. I may have a touch of an instigator inside me, but even I’m not going to do magic in plain sight on my first day. Yasmin, who’s been at this for almost a year, apparently feels differently. She smirks and disappears.
Stunned, no one utters a word.
8
When Yasmin returns to the driveway, it’s with a plump cat in her arms. And a red scratch on her cheek. She tentatively strokes the silver-and-black-striped fur, and I gasp. I recognize the cat. It’s strictly an inside cat, specifically, the Carwyns’ inside cat.
“Give it to me,” I say, rushing toward her.
Burying her nose in the cat’s fur, Yasmin turns away from me. “But he’s so cute. Just like his owner.”
The vicious hiss emanating from the animal causes Yasmin to jerk her head back.
Fear, astonishment, and anger mix with the alcohol to make my head spin. I turn to Laila. Somehow she puts the pieces together. “Did anyone see you? Did Henry see you?”
Hana, Mina, and Farrah each clasp a hand over their mouth at the same time.
“Too far,” Hana says, shaking her head.
With her back still facing me, Yasmin shrugs. Or maybe that was a wince. “My mother always says we shouldn’t have to hide who we are.”
Laila marches over to Yasmin and plucks the cat out of her arms. “But we do. This isn’t a game.”
The front door to Henry’s house bursts open. “Slinky? Here Slinky!” He races through the side yard, calling for the cat.
The six multicolored bangles Yasmin has stacked against her magical silver one clank against one another as she tries to hide the drop of blood springing from a fresh scratch on the back of her hand.
She pushes her shoulders back. “Oh, I don’t know about that. Seems pretty fun to me.”
Henry bolts across the front lawn to the other side of the house.
With a hiss for the cat and a wicked smile for me, Yasmin nabs Mina with one hand and Farrah with the other and heads for the garage.
Hana looks back and forth between me and Laila and the slowly closing garage door before rounding her shoulders. “You’ve … you’ve got this, right, Azra?”
Without waiting for an answer, she scurries behind the others and into the garage right before the door bangs shut.
The noise causes Henry to skid to a halt. He takes in Laila with Slinky in her arms and me standing awkwardly next to her.
“Slinky!” He runs barefoot across the street. “Man, do I owe you guys for finding her. Lisa’s bawling. She won’t go to sleep without this stupid cat by her side. One minute the thing was curled up on her pillow, and the next it was gone.”
Laila swallows hard. “Did she…? Did Lisa see anything?”
“No,” Henry says. “She got up to use the bathroom and by the time she came back, the cat had made a break for it. How I have no idea. The central air’s on, and my dad swears all the windows and doors were shut and locked.”
“Crazy,” I say just to have something to say. “Maybe … maybe…”
Laila tilts her head toward the Carwyns’ garage door, bugging her eyes at me. Finally, I understand. I concentrate and watch the scuffed “A+J” rise as the door lifts a few inches off the ground.
I point across the street. “Maybe the garage?”