I re-form into human shape on the spot where Caspida nearly dropped me from the cliff not long ago, my back to the sea. Nardukha lands in front of me and conjures a pack of shadow wolves. They snarl and snap and salivate, and I shudder. Of all animals on the earth, wolves I hate most, as all jinn do. Wolves thirst for our flesh and take particular savage joy in hunting us. How Nardukha can even conjure them I do not know.
Nardukha’s wolves leap forward at an impossible speed, fangs bared and eyes glowing. Fear courses through me, immobilizing me. Nardukha’s eyes flash with triumph. I can’t look away. Can’t think. Can’t—
No. I am a slave to fear no more.
I spread my feet and hands and call to the one thing I fear more than wolves: the sea. For a moment, nothing happens.
The wolves are a breath away. They jump high, stretching their jaws wide, revealing far more teeth than any wolf should have. Their eyes burn red in their black shadow forms, and my body seizes as I turn my face away, eyes squeezing shut, knowing this is the end.
And then the sea answers.
It rises behind me in a mighty wave, deep gray coursed with rippling veins of blue, frothing and foaming, blocking out the sun. The wolves drop to the earth and cringe, tails between their legs. I stand, arms uplifted, holding up the sea. Then, thrusting my hands forward, I send the wall of water gushing over my head, dashing the wolves away. They dissolve into puffs of smoke as the wave washes over the cliff top and pours back down, leaving several fish and one green turtle floundering on the grass. I lift them with a thought and gently drop them back into the water.
Breathing hard, Nardukha and I stare at each other for a moment. He is drenched with seawater, but it turns quickly to steam on his hot skin. His wings droop to the ground, leaving him standing tall as two humans, more coal than fire after the drenching I gave him.
“You are not the first jinni to break free of my rule. Do you wonder why you have never heard of the free jinn? Because none of them survived more than a few days. I will not allow it.”
I want to reply, but I can only pant, sore and exhausted.
His wings and hands begin to glow red. He pauses, just for a moment, to say, “You could have been a queen of Ambadya. Now look at you. I will finish you, jinni. I will crush you by crushing that damnable boy.”
With that, he rises and streams toward the mountain, and I race to catch up.
Sacrificing subterfuge for speed, I rise high into the sky before driving northward at a blinding pace. The sky is dark despite its being afternoon, and it is impossible to tell jinn from clouds. But they are there, flying to and fro, dropping into the city like hawks hunting mice. I dodge columns of black smoke rising from the city and race up the lava bubbling down the mountainside, its heat stifling. It has reached the city and begun to engulf the palace’s north wall. As I fly, I conjure a rash of frost across the slope, and at its touch, the lava begins to cool and harden.
Nardukha has almost reached the alomb when I catch up to him. I spring on him from above, bringing us both crashing onto the obsidian floor by the Eye and nearly on top of Aladdin, who scrambles out of the way.
At once I leap up, conjuring a torrent of sand, then spread my hands wide. My sand separates and hardens into a line of shining glass warriors who advance on the Shaitan, brandishing glittering spears. Light refracts through their crystalline forms, making them seem to glow. Caught off guard by their sudden appearance, Nardukha shifts to smoke to avoid being impaled.
While Nardukha is distracted, I shift to sand and stream across the floor, re-forming behind him, conjuring a trio of tigers, one of light, one of water, one of sand.
Nardukha, snarling, is driven back by my barrage of conjurations. He is stronger than me, and I know that if I give him one moment to think, he will destroy me—for good, this time. So I don’t let up. I whirl and weave, teeth gritted, hair flying, crafting creatures of sand and fire, air and water, in a dizzyingly endless barrage. Scarlet and blue tigers, flaming eagles, a massive stone bear, warriors of water and smoke. They throw themselves at Nardukha, who furiously defends himself, shredding my weaves as quickly as I can conjure them.
He may be stronger, but I am more imaginative.
And after four thousand years of practice, I am fast.
I gather the elements and shape them in a blur, until the air in the alomb is thick with magic, flowing in ribbons of light and curls of smoke. I conjure as I have never conjured before, throwing everything I have at him. And he is losing ground. Framed by the fiery doorway, Nardukha is a dark shadow, wings spread, fangs bared.
Light flashes off the ring on my hand as I weave, and I glance at it.
My mind stumbles.
The symbols on the ring have been obliterated, probably by the fire blast that knocked me into the sea. I realize then that I’ve seen this scorched ring before, before even I forged it for Aladdin.
My eyes grow wide as the weight of this crashes over me like a tidal wave, but I hesitate too long.
The Shaitan tears through my last conjuration, a glittering dragon of glass and water. With a shriek it bursts into a thousand and one tiny flashing pieces, which fall like rain around the Shaitan.
And in that moment he attacks, throwing two powerful beams of blinding lightning—but I am not the target.