“How could you let me go?” My anger flares. “How could you let me do an assignment if you knew I hadn’t prepared? If you knew my success with Mrs. Pucher was just a fluke?”
The screech of her chair against the floor precedes my mother standing over me. “How could I let you go? I, who had no idea you were embarking on this today? I, who would have never let you go if I did? I, who saw your very real finesse with Mrs. Pucher but still stressed the importance of research. Of fully linking with the human’s psyche? Both of which you ignored?”
“But I didn’t have time for research.” I pull the folded note card out of my pocket and toss it on the table. I flatten it with my hand. When I lift my palm, staring up at me is a 7.
A 7?
My mother taps the paper. “You had six more days. What you mean is you didn’t have time for research because you couldn’t wait to show Henry your powers in action, isn’t that right?”
“No, I…” My voice trembles. Did my nerves make me see things that weren’t there? No, no, no. It was a 1. I know it was. I could try to explain, but she’s never going to believe me. I whack my bangle against the table. “This … this … sucks.” The anger gone from my voice, all that remains is the fear.
“Yes, it does, for all of us. This doesn’t just affect you.” My mother bends so that her arms fall around my neck and her cheek rests next to mine. She whispers in my ear, “Scared?”
I nod as tears obscure my vision. I’m mourning the loss of my powers but also of my ability to be in denial. This bronze bangle makes the Afrit and their punishments, including tortura cavea, more than a tale my mother told me to make me behave. The Afrit are real. My need to stop behaving like a selfish jerk is real.
“Good,” she says. “Because if this were them finding out about Henry rather than a mishandled wish, you’d be gone. No probation. No second chance.” She swallows. “So don’t forget how this feels—ever.” She kisses my wet cheek. “And if it seems like you are, I’ll remind you because no matter how hard I may want to, I’ll never be able to forget.”
She stays that way, her body protectively wrapped around mine, until my shaking subsides.
Samara conjures a tissue and hands it to me. “Don’t worry, Azra. They don’t know about Henry, so you’re still a blunder or two away from your date with the guillotine.”
I blow my nose, laugh, and wince all at the same time.
With a wink, Samara says, “Too soon?”
“Way too soon,” my mother says despite her weak smile. She rubs her tired eyes. “Tell me, Azra, you haven’t let anyone else in on our little secret, have you?”
I assure her I haven’t.
After she and Samara study each other, my mother asks Sam, “You’re positive they don’t know?”
Samara lifts the note that was on our refrigerator out of the pocket of her conjured shirt.
My mother reads it, and her eyes flutter shut. She holds it against her heart. She then locks eyes with Samara. “We could try to make him forget.”
Panic sets my heart racing. She’s going to take Henry from me. She’s going to use her spell to make him forget. Or … no, she’s going to make me make him forget.
I roughly shake my head. “I won’t do it. I won’t use mind control on him.”
At my mention of mind control, both my mother and Samara unconsciously touch their foreheads. My mother then says, “No, no, of course not. I told you not to do it again, I’d never ask you to. Not that you can now, anyway.”
Right. I forgot. Funny how second nature using magic has become to me.
Leaning over the table, Samara evaluates me. Her lips curl up slightly. “You could though, right? If you weren’t wearing that thing? You could do mind control?”
“Sam, maybe it’s time for you to go. Azra and I still have a lot to talk about.”
Samara frowns at my mother. “Hold on, Kalyssa. Making Azra’s candidate forget an afternoon is one thing. But we both know using a spell to make a human forget something this big won’t be easy. It’s not designed for that. Isn’t that why Isa never tried it with Larry?”
Larry? A memory comes back to me. A pair of fur-covered hands pinching my cheeks, a gravely voice singing “Azra-cadabra!”
“Hairy Larry?” I ask. “Lalla Isa’s old boyfriend?”
The fling Farrah’s mom had with Hairy Larry lasted longer than any other relationship I know of between one of my mother’s Zar sisters and a human. From when I was probably seven until just a couple of years ago.
My mother starts to speak, but Samara cuts her off. “Lalla Isa’s old human boyfriend who knew about her.” She places her hands on her voluptuous hips. “And us.”
The ball of fear in the pit of my stomach begins to unravel. Relief mixes with a sense of betrayal for what’s been drilled into me my entire life. “But what about the whole ‘telling a human being is the worst thing a Jinn can do’ thing?”
“It is,” they both say.
“If the Afrit find out, that’s it, Azra,” my mother says.
“It really is a life sentence,” Samara adds, the two of them playing off each other like a perfectly timed duet.
“It’s reckless,” my mother says. “It puts us all in jeopardy. Which is why the punishment is so severe.”
“And why it’s a risk few take,” Samara says. As she stands and faces my mother, the dynamics of the conversation seem to shift. Less between them and me and more between the two of them. “Still, Jinn slip, purposely and not. It’s happened before, and it’s bound to happen again.”
My mother purses her lips as she leans against the counter behind her. “Sam’s right about the spell. Making someone forget requires a delicate touch.”
Samara keeps her eyes focused on my mother. “And it’s dangerous. It doesn’t even appear in the majority of cantamens. Of the Jinn who do have the spell, most won’t ever use it.”
“Shouldn’t,” my mother says.