I grin. “You’re just glad I didn’t turn out to be an old hag after all.”
He laughs. “There is that,” he admits.
“We should return to the city,” I sigh, thinking of the fight at the palace. “Caspida needs our help.”
“Can’t you just magic us there?” He waves his fingers as if casting a spell, and I laugh a little and nod.
Such a small thing, moving us from here to there, but less than an hour ago it would have been impossible without a wish. I draw in a long breath, reaching for my magic.
But nothing happens.
No tingle. No rush of magic.
Because there is no magic. Or if there is, I cannot find it. Panicking, I reach deeper, shutting my eyes, trying to probe with my sixth sense—only to find that it, too, is cut off.
With a gasp, I open my eyes and lean against the doorway, staring without seeing.
“Zahra, what’s wrong?”
“It’s gone,” I gasp.
“What is?” He looks me up and down. “Are you hurt?”
“I . . .” Thinking back to the moment when I trapped Nardukha, I remember the snap I felt deep, deep within. “I stretched too far,” I whisper. “I have heard of this happening before, when a jinni goes too deep, attempts magic too big. Something breaks.”
He looks alarmed. “But . . . you’ll get better?”
I keep reaching inward, trying everything I can, but already I know the truth. I’m still jinn, but manipulating time drained every drop of magic in me. Even my shapeshifting is gone, I realize with a sinking spirit. What am I now? Less than jinn, more than human. Still a creature of smoke and fire, but that fire is smaller now. Without magic to sustain me, I’m practically mortal. In Ambadya, I would be an outcast, ridiculed and despised, turned into a worthless slave. But here in the human world, I’m almost . . . normal.
“Zahra . . .”
“No, it’s all right.” I manage a smile and grasp his hand. “I’m here, I’m alive. I’m free.” If losing my magic is the price for saving Aladdin, then I would lose it a thousand and one times.
I rise onto my toes and kiss him, and he responds at once, pulling me closer, his hands pressing against my back. Around us, ashes flutter like rose petals, covering the ground and our hair. I barely notice. Never has he felt so real, so warm, so possible. The emptiness inside me, where magic once welled and sparked, now floods with all the hope I never dared to hope before. Always, I’ve held a part of me back, afraid to fully trust myself.
But now, for the first time, I do.
My magic is gone, but this seems to leave room for everything else to deepen: the taste of his lips, the texture of his cloak, the feel of my own true face. This is the first time I have kissed him with my own lips and held him with my own hands. I could go on like this forever.
But time is no longer at my command, and I reluctantly pull away. Aladdin tries to find my lips again, but I laugh softly and press my fingers to his.
“We have a long way to walk,” I say. “And who knows what we will find when we reach the city?”
He groans a little, but nods. “Are you sure you’re up for it?”
I want to shift into a hawk and show him just how up for it I am, but of course nothing happens. “Just you try to keep up,” I say instead.
• • •
The battle is over by the time we reach the palace, hours later. Priestesses move among the wounded, and soldiers sit in little defeated groups, watched over by angry citizens. But the fight seems to have gone out of everyone. The jinn attack was brief but disastrous, and I see signs of the Ambadyan horde all over: scorch marks, smashed buildings, ripples of magic still curling through the air.
We find Caspida and the Watchmaidens at the top of the steps leading to the palace’s main doors. The princess looks exhausted, and she wears a bandage around her shoulder, her clothes ripped and bloody. The other girls look no better.
“Aladdin!” She rises stiffly to greet us. “And . . .” She stares at me, uncertain.
“I’m still Zahra,” I assure her. “Just with a new face. It’s a . . . jinn thing.”
She doesn’t look entirely convinced, but she shrugs wearily. “What happened?”
“We met the Shaitan, and he fell.”
She spreads her hands. “Is that all? We had jinn dropping from the sky! The wards are broken, and the Eristrati are under guard until they swear allegiance to me, so we can’t possibly—”
“They are gone,” I cut in. “And the alomb is destroyed. They will have to use one of the others to enter this world, but it will be many years before that happens. Princess, it is over. We won.”
She stares at me for a long moment, as if afraid to believe it, but then she shuts her eyes and lets out a sigh.
“Gods be praised,” she whispers. “It is over.”
“What about Sulifer?” asks Aladdin. “And Darian?”
“Darian is imprisoned until we can hold a proper trial. And my uncle . . .” She winces and glances behind us.
We turn and see a stake driven into the ground, a severed head atop it. My stomach turns over, and I look away.
“He should have been tried as well,” Caspida says. “But the people got to him first.”
“So it really is over,” Aladdin murmurs. He seems tired rather than pleased to see his lifelong enemy dead. I take his hand and squeeze it, and he gives me a little smile.
“What do we do now?” asks Ensi, looking around at the destruction.
“We mourn what has been lost,” Caspida replies. “And tomorrow, we rise.”
Chapter Thirty-One
I SENSE THE BOY the moment he sets foot in the garden.
I am lying on the fresh grass, holding a rose to my face and inhaling its sweet scent, and at the sound of his footsteps on the gravel path, I sit up.
“Zahra?” He looks around, his eyes brightening when he sees me. He walks over and sits, removing his turban and setting it beside him. “It’s almost time for the coronation. What are you doing out here by yourself?”
“Hiding from Caspida’s tailors. You’re looking princely,” I say, smiling at Aladdin and reaching out to run my hand along his fine red coat.
He grins and pulls me closer, into a deep kiss. In the weeks since the Invasion, as the Parthenians have come to call their clash with the jinn, we have hardly been out of each other’s sight. Though no one regards him as a prince anymore, Aladdin is a regular visitor to the palace, where he has been named Queen’s Liaison to the Southern District. He helps with the rebuilding efforts, which have paradoxically included a good deal of destroying as well as building, since the walls between the districts have been brought down for good in an attempt to unify the people.