“I—I can’t go yet. I have business to finish here.”
His gaze flickers to the princess. “With her?”
I know then that he didn’t overhear our conversation and that he still doesn’t know about Aladdin. I turn slightly to whisper to Caspida, “Princess, I know you don’t trust me, but you must believe me when I tell you this jinni will kill you. You have to make a wish. It’s the only way I can protect you. Take us back to the palace before—”
“What’s wrong with you?” interrupts Zhian, baring his teeth. He steps closer. “Zahra, this is the moment you’ve been waiting for. If you won’t come willingly, I’ll make you come. Give me the lamp, human!”
He makes a move toward Caspida, and the princess sucks in a breath and steps back, drawing her small blade. This only makes Zhian grin.
“And what will you do with that?” he says. “Prick me? I will crunch your bones and cast you to the ghuls for their sport.”
“No,” I murmur, stepping between them. “You won’t touch her, or the lamp.”
Zhian stiffens, his eyes flashing angrily. He looks from me to the princess, calculating, until at last a dark fury descends on his features.
“The boy,” he murmurs. “The boy who had the lamp, the boy you argued with the night you found me in that jar.”
He rushes forward suddenly and grabs my wrist, twisting my arm savagely. I grit my teeth and hiss at him but don’t cry out. “Didn’t you learn your lesson? Or will my father have to make you kill this one too?”
He wraps a hand around my jaw, lowering his face until his breath is hot on my cheeks. “You little fool. You could have been free, you could have been with me, but instead you betray your own nature for another human. How many of them will you destroy with these whims of yours? How many cities must burn? I recall the last human you thought to call friend, and I recall how my father had you strike her down.” I feel Caspida gasp beside me as Zhian continues. “Yet you would commit the same crime again?”
I shift to smoke, and his hand closes on nothing, as I swirl around him and take shape again when I am out of reach. He turns away from Caspida. She still holds the lamp, and I throw her a pleading look. Come on, Caspida. You must make a wish!
“Do you realize what you’ll lose,” Zhian says, “if you do this?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
Zhian holds out a hand, suddenly quiet. “Forget this boy, Zahra, and come with me. All will be made right. This doesn’t have to end like last time.”
Swallowing, I shut my eyes, my skin clammy. A part of me yearns to take his hand, to give in to him, to finally, finally seize my freedom. I can almost picture it, the greatest prize, the deepest desire of my phantom heart. It tempts me more than anything ever could.
I think of all the places I could go, the things I could do, with no one to command me. No one to shut me up in my lamp. What it would feel like to finally be in control of my own power.
To grant my own wishes.
“Would you really trade an eternity of freedom,” Zhian says, and I open my eyes to meet his, “for a moment with this boy?”
If I choose Aladdin, the consequences will be disastrous. I’ve been down this road before. I haunted the ruins of your city, Habiba, for five hundred years, with the ghosts of those I condemned to die—all because I was stupid enough, arrogant enough, to believe I could love. Perhaps it would be better to go with Zhian now, for the sake of everyone in Parthenia.
The horizon burns like molten gold, and somewhere, Aladdin is being dragged from a cell. What must he be thinking? That I have abandoned him? And suddenly I realize: I never told him I love him. He must have said it to me a dozen times, but I was always too afraid to speak the words. I feared the consequences, wanted to postpone the inevitable—but now the moment has come, and I must choose. Love or freedom? A month ago I would have laughed to think I would feel such agony at the choice. But that was before Aladdin. That was before I knew the kind of freedom I felt just being with him.
“If you’re not free to love,” I whisper, “you’re not free at all.”
And suddenly I know.
I’ve known for days. Since I kissed Aladdin. Since we danced, our breaths held and our eyes locked. Since we lay in the grass, laughing in the sunlight at my miserable attempts at thievery. Every glance, every touch, every whisper between us has been a pebble added to the scales, tipping me toward a new direction. I don’t know the exact moment I fell in love with Aladdin, but I know I am still falling.
And I never want to stop.
“I’m not going to Ambadya with you, Zhian,” I say. “I’m staying here.”
Zhian lets out a long, slow breath, his pupils dilating until his eyes are entirely black. His form changes, growing and sharpening, horns sprouting from his head and his feet hardening into hooves. His skin takes on a reddish tint, and smoke gathers around him. He is part man, part bull, part smoke.
Caspida gasps, and the sound catches Zhian’s ear. He turns toward her, his eyes settling on the lamp.
“If you won’t come by choice, sister,” he growls, “then you will be dragged to the Shaitan’s feet!”
“No!” I shout, springing and shifting all at once. With my abilities limited by the lamp, I can’t take a shape to match his in strength, but I have to do something. I take tiger form, bounding across the grass and leaping to intercept him before he can strike Caspida. The princess bravely holds up her blade, ready to meet him, but it will hardly save her. Zhian is twice her size now and much, much deadlier.
I strike him in the chest, just enough to throw him off balance and block his blow.
“Caspida!” I growl. “I can’t hold him off much longer!”
Zhian clouts me hard in the ribs, and I fly through the air and land hard on the grass, digging in my claws to spring back at him. Dirt flies everywhere as I bound toward the jinni, a snarl baring my fangs. He’s ready when I spring, and he steps aside, batting me hard into the earth. I roll wildly toward the cliff’s edge, barely saving myself from toppling over it. Zhian holds out a hand, a flame flickering to life above his palm. In moments, the flame swells into a writhing knot of fire.
This he hurls at me, and I throw myself wide as the flames explode where I’d been standing.
“Caspida!” I cry, shifting again, back into my human form. This time, I’m dressed in leather leggings and a cropped bandeau, my hands each gripping a long, curved sword. I run toward Zhian, and when he swings at me, I drop to my knees, skidding across the grass as I slice at his legs. He roars when one of the blades cuts his thigh. Smoke pours from the wound, which closes immediately.
He manifests a sword of his own, and I stagger in the attempt to block his strike. I parry once, twice, thrice, before his superior strength knocks both my swords from my hands and they dissolve into smoke. He lets his own evaporate, and he lunges for me, wrapping a massive hand around my throat and lifting me high, my feet dangling.