Caspida frowns. “It’s not that simple, Rahzad. The vizier has the loyalty of the army as well as much of the court. Locking him up will only turn them against us.”
“But you’re the queen. Can’t you do whatever you want?”
“I don’t know how your Istaryan kings and queens behave,” she returns, a bit sharply, “but in Parthenia, our power relies on the good will of the aristocracy and military. If I did ‘whatever I wanted,’ I’d have riots breaking out on every corner.”
Aladdin gives me a frustrated glance, but there is nothing I can do. He must learn that Caspida is right. His vengeance will have to wait a while yet.
“Rahzad, I do not mean to be sharp with you,” Caspida says more softly. “How patient you have been, while I have dragged you about like a goat on a leash. I wish we had time to do this properly. To send gifts to one another’s kingdoms, to discuss terms of our alliance. I have not met your family, and I know so little of your people.”
Aladdin winces. “There’s really not much to know.”
“When this is over, we will retrace our steps and begin anew. I cannot leave my city until the jinn have been dealt with, but when the time is right, I will journey with you to Istarya and see your land for myself.”
He smiles a bit weakly and glances at me, his eyes bright with panic. I feel a bit ill as I return his look, knowing I won’t be around to help him. Knowing it’s my fault he’s in this mess. The consequences of my recent actions seem to be piling up, and I feel like a spider that has spun too thin a web.
Caspida makes us wait until Captain Pasha arrives with a contingent of Eristrati before leaving with her handmaidens. Aladdin and I, surrounded by a dozen guards, exit after her.
Back at Aladdin’s rooms, he insists the guards wait outside, which they do only after thoroughly searching the chambers for assassins, poison, or other plots.
Alone at last, Aladdin slumps onto the cushions and lets out a long, groaning sigh. Outside, the storm winds rip at the silk curtains hung between the arches, and rain patters on the courtyard. Though it is midday, it is dark enough to be midnight.
“It’s all happening so fast,” he says. “I didn’t think . . . I’m marrying the princess in a matter of hours.”
“And yet you look as if you’ve swallowed broken glass.”
He slowly runs his hand through his hair, his eyes fixed on the floor. “She doesn’t love me.”
I go stand in one of the arches and let the rain dampen my face as the curtains billow around me. The smoke roiling and pulsing inside me echoes the wildness of the storm. I watch the sky for any sign of jinn, the bond with my lamp chafing like a rope around my core. Where is Zhian? Where is Nardukha? Why do they delay? I long to fly away from here, to outrun Aladdin’s gaze and hide myself in the clouds.
“Love is a path lined with roses,” I say bitterly. “But it leads to a cliff’s edge, and all who follow it tumble to their doom. You will not find your happiness there.”
“Then what does bring happiness, Zahra?” he asks harshly, rising to his feet. “Tell me. In four thousand years, have you unlocked that secret?”
There is a challenge in his tone that makes me flinch. Drawing my eyes from the sky, I turn to him. “No. I have not. Which can mean only one thing: There is no secret to happiness. Because happiness itself is a mythical construct, a dream you humans tell yourselves to get you through each day. It is the moon, and you, like the sun, pursue it relentlessly, chasing it around and around, getting nowhere. And yet it never occurs to you that your quest is in vain. Why?” I step forward, eyes intent. “Tell me, Aladdin—why? What drives you into this insanity?”
His eyes thoughtfully stare into the rain, and he says, “Faith.”
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.