“All those years ago,” he growls, “when my father was purging the Shaitan, eliminating all his rivals, I begged for your life. You would have been killed like all the others, but I told him you were different. I saved you, and this is how you repay me?”
I can’t reply. He’s crushing my throat. I start to shift, but he shakes me hard, making my head ring until I can’t even think what to shift to. My vision turns dark, and I realize he isn’t going to stop. He intends to kill me here and now.
But then a sudden prickle of energy races across my skin, and words penetrate the raging pain in my head, like soft feathers drifting through a storm.
“I wish for my Watchmaidens to be brought safely to me.”
Caspida has made a wish. Not the wish I’d wanted to hear, but it’s enough to grant me a thousand and one times more strength than I have on my own. I burst into smoke, swelling in a plume above Zhian’s head. He snarls and whirls to Caspida, but she is not alone. Raz, Ensi, Nessa, and Khavar all stand around her, staggering a bit, their eyes wide with confusion and horror at the sight of the jinn prince. I pour onto the grass, back into human shape, and run to Caspida.
“What’s going on?” cries Ensi, her hands in her powder pouches. “What by Imohel is that?”
Zhian draws himself up, his dark gaze fixed on me. “You know what happens next.”
I nod.
“I will tell Nardukha of your treachery, and he will come. He will rouse from the depths of Ambadya and bring with him all his jinn, and we will destroy you, this boy, and this entire city.”
“Go, then,” says Caspida suddenly, stepping forward. She spits at the jinn prince. “Damn you, and damn all your kind. I am Queen Caspida of the Amulens, and I do not fear you. Bring your worst, because I will be waiting.”
I touch her arm. “Princess, you don’t have to—”
She shrugs me away and raises her sword toward Zhian. “This war between our people has gone on far too long. Let it end today. Aladdin and Zahra are my citizens, and I will defend them to my last breath.”
He snarls, tensing as if to spring at us, but Caspida whirls and cries, “Now, Nessa!”
As Zhian lunges, the jinn charmer pulls out her flute and begins to play, the music stopping him dead. I conjure a thick turban for myself, covering my ears and blocking the sound. Her music holds Zhian enthralled, his mouth slack and his eyes dull. Her hands tremble, but she doesn’t miss a note.
“Caspida, dawn will break at any moment,” I say.
She tears her eyes from Zhian and stares at me as if she hasn’t heard.
“They’ll kill Aladdin. Please—”
“All right,” she mouths, her words muffled through my turban. “I believe you, Zahra. You aren’t responsible for Roshana’s death. The Shaitan is. And you truly love the thief. You would even surrender your freedom for his sake.”
“Don’t let it be in vain,” I plead.
She nods and looks around at her girls, who still look shocked at their sudden change in circumstances. But they meet her gaze solemnly, staunchly loyal.
Turning back to me, Caspida reaches out and grasps my hand, as if the monstrous son of the Shaitan were not looming over us, his mind enchanted by the notes coiling around us. The princess’s eyes catch and hold the fires of dawn as she speaks.
“I wish to save Aladdin’s life.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
THE SIX OF US VANISH from the cliffs in a swirl of smoke, and Nessa’s playing ceases. I just have time to glimpse Zhian shifting to smoke and racing toward Mount Tissia and the alomb atop it, to return to Ambadya.
We do not have much time.
The crest of the sun rises from the sea just as the girls and I appear on the steps leading up to the palace. At the top, Aladdin is on his knees, struggling against the guards who are shoving his head down, one of them lifting a sword. The sight sends a spasm of horror racketing through me, and as Caspida and the Watchmaidens stumble, disoriented, I spring into motion. The power of the princess’s wish still courses through me, silver-bright as the moon, and I shape it instinctively. I stride quickly up the steps toward the executioners, throwing out a hand.
Tigers of smoke and wind materialize behind the soldiers around Aladdin. The men cry out in shock and terror as the phantom beasts spring, tackling them to the ground and dragging them away from the thief. Swords and lances clatter on the stones. When their job is done, the tigers evaporate into the air. With a snap, I release the rest of the remaining magic, and thick vines burst from the ground and tether the soldiers down, pinning their arms at their sides.
There is no longer any point in hiding what I am. And so I ascend the stair in a gown of red smoke and silk, long and fluttering and coiling, driven by a singleness of purpose and a clarity of thought that I have not felt in a very long time. I have lost my last and only chance at freedom, and I regret nothing. The ring I made for Aladdin disappears from my pocket and reforms on my finger, glinting in the dawn.
Aladdin rises, using a fallen sword to cut the rope binding his wrists. His eyes widen, and when I reach him, I don’t hesitate.
I throw my arms around him and kiss him deeply, pouring all the fear, despair, and hope of the last day into that touch. He responds at once, one hand on my back, pressing me to him, the other in my hair. His lips are urgent and intense, and I feel his own fear and relief, the adrenaline coursing through him.
When we break apart, he rests his forehead against mine and laughs hoarsely.
“If I am dead,” he murmurs, “then let them kill me a thousand times, just so I can be greeted like that on the other side.”
“I thought I’d lost you.”
“Thought I’d lost me too. But you came.”
“I had help.” Pulling reluctantly away, I look to Caspida and the Watchmaidens, who are running up the steps.
“Trouble!” Ensi warns, pointing behind us, and we turn to see more soldiers gathering outside the palace.
Caspida curses. “They know we’re here.”
The soldiers are getting closer, their spears flashing in the dawn light. The Watchmaidens brace themselves, looking small and delicate in the wave of men rushing toward them, until a barrage of arrows is suddenly loosed from a row of archers to the left. We retreat down the steps and behind a low stone wall as the arrows clatter on the stair where we’d been standing. The sound of shouting and clanging weapons gets louder as the men draw nearer. Raz leans around the wall, firing arrows and holding the soldiers at bay for a few moments.
“Sulifer has the entire army and the Eristrati under his control,” says Nessa. “We won’t even make it to the doors!”