For love or fear, they’d fight no more.
The princess is heavy in my thoughts. After you died, Habiba, someone must have spirited your infant daughter out of Neruby before the jinn destroyed the city. Your line lived on, and your spirit too, it seems; this Caspida is a fiery one, just like you were. What would she think of me if she knew who I was? My old guilt lurks deep within, like a wolf in a cave, and I look up toward the palace in the north district, shining like a pearl beneath the stars.
Now she fights the jinn. She even has her own jinn charmer at her side. I don’t know if Nessa is the same charmer who bottled Zhian, but charmers are rare, and there can’t be many others in the city. So it seems the best place to start my search is the royal palace. Even if he’s not being held there, perhaps I can find a clue there as to his whereabouts.
But first, I need a way into the palace.
I study my master thoughtfully.
Aladdin stirs at last, turning to glance at me over his shoulder, his fingers dancing on the lamp.
“The Phoenix is the princess,” he murmurs. “And I’m talking to a jinni. Gods, this night just keeps getting stranger.”
He starts forward, walking down the dark street as if in a fog. We pass other storehouses and closed carpentry and shipwrights’ shops. A dog scrambles out of Aladdin’s way, raising its hackles and growling at me, not fooled by my human disguise. We pass the city gates, shut against the night. They are washed in the orange light of massive braziers suspended from above, and guards stand watch on the wall beside them. Aladdin skirts around them, staying concealed in the shadows.
Eventually we reach the center of the city, where the river runs in a channel of cut stone. The water flows deep and fast and dark, its banks edged with low walls of rectangular bricks. From grates set into the channel, runoff from the gutters and houses pours into the river, joining the mad rush to the sea.
Aladdin stops at the center of an arching bridge, its railings smooth wood supported by statues carved in the likenesses of the undergods. At the foot of each carving, little offerings have been left. Candles, flowers, dolls made of straw, each representing a prayer. At the foot of Nykora are ten times as many offerings as the others, and so many candles are lit before her that she seems to shine. The railing above her flutters with ribbons and strings of beads. Nykora is the undergoddess of the oppressed and poor, and her sigil is the phoenix.
Aladdin pauses before her statue for several long moments, his hands deep in his pockets. His face is softened by the candlelight. His cloak, tattered and patched, rustles in the breeze that sweeps upriver.
“She really is the Phoenix. And they love her.” He lifts his face and stares at me. “I can’t remember the last time they loved anyone at all. Even my father was hated by many for stirring up trouble.”
Along the opposite railing grow vines thick with white moonflowers. I lean over and look down at the river rushing below, hastening on to the cliffs, where it pours into the waiting sea, like a lovelorn bride running to meet her groom. Aladdin turns away from the little shrine and joins me, his shoulders hunched pensively.
“When I was a boy,” he says softly, “I used to stand on this bridge with my father. We made little wooden boats, and he sewed sails for them. We dropped them into the water, then raced along the bank to see whose left the city first. Once I slipped and fell in, and my father jumped in to save me. He couldn’t even swim. I don’t know how he did it. Later he told me that the goddess Nykora must have pulled us out of the river.” He turns and looks at the shrine. “We left a little boat right there as an offering of thanks. But I never believed in Nykora. People remember my father as a hero who set fires and led marches. I remembered him as a hero because of that day in the river.”
Turning to me, he says, “I’m not a hero, Zahra. I’m not my father.” He turns away and pulls something from his sleeve. It is one of the princess’s daggers, its hilt carved into delicate lilies. How he managed to steal it off her, I can’t imagine. “The night I snuck into the palace to steal the ring, I carried a dagger like this. Much plainer, of course, but the same length and weight.” He balances it on his finger. “After stealing the ring, I snuck into Sulifer’s rooms. I stood over the vizier as he slept and held that blade, trying to work up the nerve to cut his throat.”
Aladdin sighs and drives the dagger into the rail. The hilt quivers. “Maybe I’m a coward. But I couldn’t avenge them. When the ring started pulling at me, I knew it must be enchanted. I thought, if it’s so valuable to the prince that he would keep it locked in his own room, then perhaps I could get my revenge by stealing whatever it led to. When that turned out to be you, I thought, well, here’s my chance. I can just wish for revenge. But as it turns out, I’m too cowardly even for that.”