Suddenly she rises on her toes and brushes her lips against his, awkward and hesitant. His brows lift in surprise, and his eyes dart briefly to me. Envy flares in me, but I stamp it down ruthlessly.
All I wanted was for Caspida to accept the marriage proposal, and here she is, not a moment too soon. Usually I am the first to dismiss the idea of destiny, but perhaps in this case I would make an exception. Aladdin got his princess after all. Perhaps this once, a wish won’t end in misery and loss—at least, not for the humans. The prospect should make me glad. But I am a selfish spirit, and it doesn’t.
Caspida rushes away as quickly as she’d arrived, leaving Aladdin dazed in the grass. He stands there for a moment, his shoulders drawn tight as a bow. Then he walks inside, takes a clay jug from behind a pillow, and drinks long and deep. When he lowers the jug, he totters toward me and collapses on the cushions.
“Well.” He lifts the jug to his lips, his eyes wide and unfocused. “I guess I win after all.”
With a ripple of smoke, I shift and am human once more. I sit by him and stare at the floor, trying to feel a sense of relief.
“Congratulations,” I say.
“So now what?” He drinks again, hurtling toward intoxication. “I wish for an army?”
“It would seem so.”
Maybe I should just tell Aladdin the truth about Zhian and the deal I made with the jinn. But can I bear the disappointment in his eyes when I confess that I’ve been manipulating him all along, tricking him into a marriage he doesn’t want, just to serve my own ends?
“Zahra, what happens to you when I make my last wish?”
“When your third wish is granted, you will cease to be my master. You may possess the lamp, but you cannot call me. I will return to it and await the next Lampholder.”
Abruptly he stands and walks across the room. When he reaches the wall, he turns and stares down at me. “So to win my revenge, I must lose you.”
“It would seem so.” And I must find a way to free Zhian before that happens, or we will all be lost. Nardukha is watching closely, and my time shrinks with the moon. There are jinn gathering in the hills.
“Zahra!” In three steps he runs to me, grabs my shoulders, and searches my eyes. “Don’t just stare like that! Say something!”
“What do you want me to say? What do you want me to do, Aladdin? Beg you not to make a wish? Insist that there is another way? There isn’t.”
He turns away. His shoulders are drawn up, stiff with tension. He is like a caged lion, pacing back and forth, brooding.
“Stop it,” I snap. “I always knew it would end like this. It always does. There’s no point in fighting it, Aladdin. It is simply the way of things.”
“I can’t accept that.”
“You must.”
“How can you just give up? How can you say that?” His eyes light up, and he takes the lamp from his sash and grips it so tightly his knuckles whiten. “Earlier, before you kissed me, I was about to wish for your freedom.”
I leap to my feet. “Aladdin, you must not do that. You must never even think it!”
“Why is that so bad? You’d be free.”
“It’s called the Forbidden Wish for a reason!”
“By whom? Nardukha? Let him come. I have a few things I’d like to say to him.”
“I forbid it. Aladdin. If anything we have done together means anything to you, please, please trust me now. Don’t make that wish. It is the worst wish you can make. It is—it will break my heart.”
“What is it?” he asks softly. “What is it you’re not telling me? What happens if I wish for your freedom?”
I stand trembling, the words clawing at my throat, until I can hold them back no more.
“Like all wishes, the Forbidden Wish comes at a price. My freedom must be bought with a death, a life paid in sacrifice. And I will not let you make that sacrifice, not for me.”
I shut my eyes, unable to bear the shock and pain in his expression. He sits in silence for a long while, staring at nothing. Then at last he rises and goes to his bedchamber.
I spend the rest of the night hunched in a corner, thinking of you, Habiba, and that moment on the mountaintop when you saw that all was lost, that we were defeated. You turned to me and said you wanted to make the Forbidden Wish, that you wanted to offer your life for mine. I remember so sharply the horror I felt . . . and to my eternal shame, the flicker of hope. Hope that I would at last be free of the lamp. Even now I flush with self-loathing. But despite that hope, I couldn’t let you give yourself for me. Though as it turned out, I didn’t have to stop you.
Nardukha did.