At that, I laugh sourly. “In what? Imohel? The undergods?”
“Maybe,” he says. “For some. For others, faith in ourselves. Faith in the ones we love. Faith in tomorrow.”
“You sound like a bad poet.”
His eyes settle on me probingly. “What would it take to make you believe, Zahra?”
“I have lived too long to believe in happiness.”
“You’ve been in that lamp too long. It’s curdled your heart. I think you do believe. I think you just don’t want to get hurt. You’re afraid.”
I clench my hands into fists, turning my back to him and facing the storm.
He stands and walks to my side, firm in the wind that blows around him, ruffling his hair and making his black cloak lift and swirl. “You loved before, and she was taken from you. Ever since, you’ve been afraid to love again. You insist you’re a monster because you’re afraid of being human.”
I stand before him speechless, defenseless. What good is it, Habiba, to deny the truth? Your friendship woke something in me all those centuries ago, some dormant humanity that had lingered through the years, and after you died, it recoiled and hid again.
But Aladdin has woken it once more. With his sun-bright smile and his laughing eyes and his way of asking the hardest kind of questions. After you, I swore never to love again.
But I love him.
And so I must let him go.
Chapter Twenty
I TELL MYSELF TO BE PATIENT. It has only been a few hours since I released Zhian, and Ambadya is a vast world. It will take him some time to cross the red wastes and jagged mountains to Nardukha’s stronghold, where the Shaitan holds court. And who can say how long Nardukha will take to grant my freedom, or what manner in which he will do it. Time moves more slowly for the ageless; he may pass days as humans pass hours, and I could be stuck here for a while yet.
Strangely, the thought brings some comfort. As much as I long to be rid of Aladdin and the feelings he stirs in me, I also want never to leave his side. As soon as I do, he will be alone in this vipers’ nest of a court.
There is much to do in the hours before dawn, when the wedding will take place. Generally Amulen weddings take a week of preparation, with each day carefully parceled out into ceremony. But tradition must be sacrificed for speed, and so we tackle the bare minimum.
Most important, Aladdin needs a bath.
The ceremonial bathing the day before the wedding is one of the more sacred traditions. And so Aladdin, accompanied by a half dozen soldiers, is escorted to the palace baths. I follow in the form of a sparrow, flitting from here to there down the hall, a few steps behind. Before leaving his room, Aladdin made me promise to wait outside, but I perch on the top of the last guard’s peaked helmet and pass unnoticed inside the baths.
The room is dark except for thin rods of light that beam through small holes dotting the dome above. Six large, round pools are spaced evenly in a white tiled floor. White lotus and rose petals drift tranquilly on the turquoise water. The room is empty when we arrive, and Aladdin turns to the guards.
“You, um, wouldn’t mind waiting outside, would you?”
“We are under strict orders not to take our eyes off you,” replies a stoic man.
Aladdin rubs his face. “Yes, I know that. But look, I’m the only one here. If I need you, I’ll yell or something.”
The man simply stares blankly back at him.
With a groan of frustration, Aladdin adds, “You do realize that after tomorrow, I’ll be your king?”
The guards exchange uncertain looks, then acquiesce begrudgingly, streaming out through the door. I flit away and land on a ledge along the wall.
Aladdin sighs and disrobes down to a white cloth around his waist, careful not to set down the lamp. This he strings onto a chain around his neck, and then he sinks into the first pool. He vanishes beneath the surface, bubbles streaming around him, and does not emerge for several long seconds. I begin to worry that he won’t come back up at all, that he will go the same route as so many of my masters who came to regret their wishes—but then he bursts upward, shaking his head and sending water spraying. He glides across the pool and sits on the opposite side in a shaft of sunlight, stretching his arms along the tiled rim. His head falls back, and he shuts his eyes.
“I know you’re there,” he says. “You might as well come down.”
I fly to the edge of the pool and shift to human, dressed in a thin white kurta that comes to my knees. I dangle my legs in the water.
“For some kind of all-powerful jinni from the dawn of time,” says Aladdin, his eyes opening a crack to peer at me, “you’re damn predictable.”
I lift one foot from the water, splashing him. “You might want to dunk again. You still smell like you sleep with goats.”