An insult and yet not an insult. That’s always been Yasmin’s specialty. I trace my fingertip along the lace front. But maybe this should be her new one. “You conjured this?”
Yasmin nods. “Hana’s the only one crazy enough to use a needle and thread. If you like it, I can do more. Not that you can’t. I’m sure you can.”
How predictable. A world of things to conjure, and I started with a chisel.
Yasmin squeezes my forearm, and the signet ring that covers three knuckles on her right hand digs into my skin. I recognize it. “Isn’t that your mom’s?”
The light reflects off the gemstones as she draws back her hand. She nods hesitantly. “It’s her talisman. I know it’s a bit early for doing spells, but she’s letting me work on a few. Please don’t tell anyone. She doesn’t want word to get out until I’m perfect.” The gemstones sparkle again as she waves her hand dismissively. “You know my mother.”
Actually, I’m realizing I don’t know Lalla Raina all that well. My mother may want me to take this seriously, but she’s not half the controlling stage mom Raina appears to be.
“Oh, for the love of Janna!” Laila’s cry from the bathroom makes me jump.
“Huh.” Yasmin’s tongue pokes her cheek as she plays with the mint in her mouth. “Invoking the name of the Afrit’s world is usually reserved for the throes of passion.” She raises an eyebrow.
“Stop, don’t even go there.” I bite my mint in two and start gnawing off the sharp edges. Paradise … that may be what “Janna” means but something makes me think the Afrit’s subterranean realm fails to live up to its name.
“Who used all the freakin’ hot water?”
I forget about my head and laugh loudly. “Torture. Now that’s more like it.”
“A little help, please!”
Yasmin stands and pushes down her skirt. “Heating up her water is the least I can do.”
“Azra, come on! I need your super-duper skills. Like. Right. Now!”
Yasmin stops halfway between my bed and the bathroom door. Her back arches as if she’s taking a deep breath. Turning, she rolls her hand at me. “Your talent has been requested.”
The abrupt end to our “relating” has nothing to do with me, but that doesn’t stop me from cringing inside. I hold up my hand. “I’m sure you’d be better. Faster. Go ahead.”
“Azra!”
Yasmin’s body stiffens. Spotting the pillow Hana embroidered with my and Jenny’s initials, she clenches her jaw and the edge in her voice returns. “Just go before she hyperventilates.”
Pushing back my comforter, I climb out of bed and slink past Yasmin, keeping my eyes on the floor as I hurry to prevent Laila from getting frostbite.
When I reenter my bedroom, Yasmin is gone. All that remains is a splash of red that pops like a bloodstain against my white comforter. I bury the bra and thong in my top dresser drawer, trying not to think about what I buried in my nightstand.
But not only do I think about it, I reach for it. My insides go as cold as Laila’s shower as I pull out the worst thing I’ve ever done to the best soul—human or Jinn—I know. Attached to the gold chain I hid earlier is the antique locket with the infinity symbol etched on the front and the inscription to Samara on the back.
The locket I stole from Laila.
I sink into my bed and sit with my legs crossed and my back against a pillow. I swing the locket back and forth like a pendulum before prying it open and staring once again at the photograph inside. It is the first male Jinn I’ve ever seen. It is the first Jinn father I’ve ever seen. Laila’s father. Gold eyes, but blond. An anomaly, just like her.
How could I steal from Laila? I’ve never stolen anything else in my life. And yet this, something so incredibly precious to Laila, somehow becomes the thing to make my fingers sticky? It was an impulse. A stupid impulse. When she brought me to her room six months ago at the end of the last Zar reunion, she had been so excited. She gushed with pride and honor and love. I really did want to share in her happiness.
Samara had kept the photograph hidden from Laila until then because such feelings go against the way our world functions. I don’t know if it’s so much forbidden as just impossible, seeing as how we live here and the male Jinn live in Janna.
The way my mother has always shrugged off my questions about my own father made me think she didn’t care about him, doesn’t miss him. Laila showing me the locket was like having my finger jammed in an electrical socket.
Some of our Jinn mothers and Jinn fathers might have actually loved one another? Might have wanted to live together as a family?
Some, but not my mother. My mother was the model Jinn, the most Afrit-abiding genie of her circle, maybe of her generation. She wouldn’t think of wanting something the Afrit told her she couldn’t have. And before I was born, the Afrit said she couldn’t have my father.
Which meant neither could I.
I stroke the locket the same way I did that night when I snuck into Laila’s room. In that moment, after an entire weekend of my Zar “sisters” making in-jokes and rehashing events I (admittedly, voluntarily) wasn’t a part of, more than wanting to share in Laila’s happiness, I wanted—needed—to feel her happiness.
Laila had been keeping the necklace wrapped in tissue paper in her nightstand, stealing a peek now and again to remind her that her father existed, somewhere.
In my nightstand, it did the same thing for me, even though the father in the picture was not my own.
Laila’s frantic call when she discovered the locket missing should have prompted me to return it on the spot. Instead, I allowed her conspiracy theories that the Afrit had somehow found out and taken it away to continue. I may have even encouraged her, once or twice, just a little.
I meant to return it. I was … I am going to return it.