Nate’s bloodshot eyes float around the room, and he sees me. He kisses the top of his sister’s head before rushing to me. I meet him halfway, holding him, I hope, at least half as well as Henry held me.
My condolences don’t need to be verbalized. I’m reading Nate’s mind, and without me having to say anything, he knows how sorry I am, how much I’m hurting for him, how much everyone in this room is hurting for him. And that’s becoming a problem.
They all mean well, but I can’t face them. Not yet. I need …
Ending our embrace, I take Nate’s hand. “Want to go outside? Get some fresh air? Just for a minute?”
Nate glances at his grandmother, tilts his head toward the exit, and raises a shaky finger in the air. Once she nods to him, Nate allows me to guide him through the well-meaning but rubbernecking friends and strangers. Though he’s beginning to cut off the circulation in my hand, I let him squeeze as hard as he wants, as hard as he needs to, until we pass through the front doors of the ER.
“Is there anything I can do?” I ask the question to which there is no answer because I have to say something.
That was … seeing her … seeing my mom … and Grandma … she went to see him … I … I couldn’t … I—
Even Nate’s mind can’t finish this nightmarish thought. He wipes his tear-dampened cheeks with his free hand. “Just … just walk with me.”
And so we travel through the parking lot, hand in hand, up and down the rows of cars. Unlike the beach, the moonlight barely shines here, drowned out by all the harsh lights.
“You’d think this would make me feel better,” Nate says, running a finger along the back window of a hatchback, leaving a clean, straight line in the dust. “That most of these cars probably belong to someone who’s hurting. Someone whose loved one is in the middle of surgery or being treated for cancer or just … just … I can’t even say it.”
He stops and rests against the end of a pickup truck. “What now, Azra? What will we do now, without … without … my dad. And my mom … all those machines and wires.” He bends, placing his hands on his thighs, staring at the concrete. “This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.”
But it is. And I can’t do anything about it. Because there are some things even our magic can’t do.
We can’t heal humans.
We can’t bring people back from the dead.
We can’t grant a wish for a candidate not assigned to us by the Afrit.
But Nate was assigned. To me.
“He was going to help me get a scholarship,” Nate says. “He and Megan already signed up for that sailing competition. He and my mom were going to go to Italy, move back to Boston once Megan graduated, become grandparents. And now, now, I just wish … I wish…”
I’m momentarily paralyzed. There’s so much Nate might wish for that I can’t give him. Doing the ritual now is risky. The last thing I want to do is have to employ a genie trick.
No, that’s not right. The last thing I want to do is nothing—to stand here and do nothing when I have a chance to help Nate.
I move in front of him. “What, Nate? What do you wish for? Is there something, anything, that would make this even a little bit easier?”
Nate nods as tears return and spill down his cheeks. I grab his hand and pull him farther down the row until we are camouflaged between the pickup and the SUV next to it.
I focus on the bronze bangle but nothing in or on it changes as I begin the wish-granting ritual. After clearly enunciating all the incantations, I fix my gaze on Nate. The hurt in his eyes locks my heart in a vise. I force myself to continue, to fully connect with Nate’s anima, to give his soul a home in mine.
The weight and the lightness of nature somehow course through my veins at the same time. It’s … calming … peaceful. I am right where I’m supposed to be. Doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. It is the first time since becoming Jinn I have felt this way.
“I am now ready to grant you one wish.” I say the line that is required before adding more of my own. I need to do this right, for myself, for my mother, but mostly, for Nate. “Think before you answer. Search your heart and your mind for your deepest desire, the one thing you wish beyond all else, the one thing you need above all else to make your life better. Now, Nathan Reese, what is your one wish?”
The answer in the depths of his soul I feel in my own. He doesn’t need to verbalize it but he does. In the trance-like state I’ve put him in, he says slowly, “I wish to be able to take care of Megan.”
Nate the protector. Of course this is his wish. He wants his father back. He wants his mother to get better. But he can’t live without knowing his sister will be okay. And he needs to be the one to make that happen. Which means, I need to be the one to make that happen.
I’m about to begin the concluding incantations when Nate continues to speak.
“And I wish Azra will always be with me. She makes the hurt less.”
He’s already made his one wish. So this second wish I cannot use magic to grant. Fortunately, this second wish I do not need to use magic to grant.
*
Thinking the day could not get any more surreal, I find myself sandwiched between Chelsea and Henry in the backseat being driven home from the hospital by one of Nate’s lifeguard buddies. Nate’s residual anima has me numb, figuratively and literally. I’m grateful for the warm bodies on either side of me.
The car stops in front of my house. Solemn nods are exchanged between those in the front seats and those in the back. Henry leans across me, smiles weakly at Chelsea, and steps out onto the curb.
I slide across the seat and reach for Henry’s extended hand. Chelsea catches me by the elbow and breaks the silence that clung to the darkened interior for the duration of the ride.
“We should do something,” she says.