WITH MUCH BOWING and exchanged pleasantries, we are left in a set of rooms somewhere near the eastern rear of the palace. There are three chambers—one for lounging and receiving visitors, one bedchamber for Aladdin, and a small servant’s room for me. The chambers open to a small, grassy courtyard populated with white lilies and a fig tree heavy with fruit. I pick a few and pop them in my mouth as I walk around the chambers, taking it all in. The floor, made of smooth black and white clay tiles, is spread with rich carpets, and the open arches leading to the courtyard are covered with gauzy curtains. Aladdin wanders into the bedchamber and flops onto the bed, letting out a long sigh.
“Oh, gods,” he sighs. “They can chop off my head or quarter me or whatever it is they do to impostors, as long as I get one night to sleep in this bed. Then it’ll all be worth it. I might even thank them.”
“Thank them?”
He rolls onto his stomach and peers through the doorway at me, grinning. “Oh, right. It was me who made the wish, wasn’t it? I guess I get all the credit.”
A well-aimed fig hits him square in the forehead and bursts. He splutters and licks the juice that drips down his cheek.
“Point taken. Thank you, Zahra.” He rises and leans in the doorway, his arms crossed, and watches me as I pace the room. “To be honest, though, it all makes me kind of sick. To think so many of us grow up sleeping in gutters, like rats, when all this space is given to one man just because he has an extra word in front of his name.” He pauses, his face darkening. “Did you see him? Standing up there like a king, thinking himself untouchable. The great vizier of Parthenia.” A small, dry smile twists his lips. “And here I am, right under his nose.”
A knock sounds on the door, and then a pair of servants—a girl and a boy—enters with fresh clothes for us.
“Your Highness, my name is Esam,” says the boy, “and this is Chara. We will be at your service for as long as you are here. Please allow me to assist you in dressing for the evening meal.”
Aladdin turns a bit red and stammers, “Ah, I don’t think—”
“It is customary in our homeland for princes to dress themselves,” I insert, a bit hastily. It won’t do to have anyone seeing the lamp hidden under Aladdin’s clothes. “It is a tradition going back many generations. Here, I’ll take those. I’m sure you’re needed elsewhere, right?” I crowd them to the door and then shut it, smiling, in their faces.
? ? ?
“So if I meet a noble who is older than me, but of lower station . . .” Aladdin stands in the grassy courtyard and scrubs wearily at his hair. “I bow like this?”
He leans over and throws out an arm.
“Gods, no.” I’m sitting in front of him, enjoying a fresh pomegranate and attempting to cram as much etiquette into him as I can before dinner. “That one is for a minister who has held his office for more than ten years, or who has a personal fleet of ships.”
“Are you sure? I thought that one was like this.” He attempts another awkward bow. “Why am I listening to you, anyway? You’ve been living in a lamp for the past five hundred years!”
I flick a seed at him. “I still know my way around a court, which is more than can be said for you! Now try the proper greeting for a man who is related to the king, but with no possible claim to the throne.”
He thinks for a moment, then puts his hands together and hesitantly leans forward, before cocking a hopeful eyebrow at me.
“I give up!” I groan, tossing the rind of the pomegranate aside. “You’re hopeless. Just stick with a basic bow at the waist, and let them credit your appalling social graces to your foreignness. People are always more lenient with foreigners.”
With a sigh, Aladdin collapses into the grass. “This is exhausting. There has got to be an easier way to bring Sulifer down—a way that doesn’t involve bowing to him.”
It has been a week and two days since we arrived at the Parthenian palace, and still I have found no sign of Zhian. I wish I had the power to freeze time, but time is the one element no jinni can control, not even the Shaitan.
At night, when Aladdin sleeps, I slip into the hallway, shift into a cat, and explore the palace. But my invisible chain does not reach far, and though I have covered every inch I can, most of the palace is out of my reach. I hope I didn’t make a mistake in bringing us here, only to find that Zhian’s somewhere else entirely.