“Damn it,” he mutters, then laughs huskily. “This is so embarrassing . . .”
He faints, his hand falling into the water, his cheek planted on the wet sand. His skin is ashen and hot to the touch.
With a sigh, I look around at the empty landscape. The dunes of the Mahali are far behind us; here the land is rocky and stubbled with wild olive trees and twisting cedars. Somewhere in the underbrush, a jackal barks twice. Moonlight filtering through the trees turns the river into flowing silver.
The lamp is still hanging on his belt—a stroke of luck. If he’d dropped it when he fainted, I’d have been sucked inside until he awoke or someone else picked me up and set me loose again. As long as it remains on Aladdin’s person, and as long as he remains alive, I am bound only by the invisible perimeter that surrounds the lamp. One hundred forty-nine paces. I have measured it many, many times.
I turn Aladdin onto his back and tug off his tunic and cloak, until he’s wearing only his loose trousers and leather boots. His shoulder is crusted with blood, and the skin around his wound is sticky. I dip his cloak in the water and gently dab at his skin, my eyes wandering over his chest and stomach, looking for any other injuries.
Warmth rushes to my cheeks as my fingers come delicately to rest on his bare skin, and I chide myself for my foolishness. I have seen a thousand and one boys, Habiba, many in less clothing than this, but I have never been so foolish as to blush.
Aladdin groans softly, and I snap my eyes back to his face, but he remains unconscious. After cleaning his shoulder, I grimace and plunge my fingers into the wound, locating the arrow tip and drawing it out. Aladdin’s eyelashes flutter, but he doesn’t wake.
I stanch the wound with a piece of cloth torn from his cloak, then rip off the hem to bind it. The arrow didn’t go deep, and if he can keep the area clear of infection, it should heal well. The cut on his neck, though wide, is shallow and already clotting. I wipe it clean and press a cloth to it. He doesn’t stir again, and I sit back, my legs folded.
Just as the sun begins to rise, I hear a rustle in the rocks behind us, and a prickle runs up the back of my neck. I stand and turn, staring at the hillside, but see nothing. A wind, sharp with salt off the sea, rattles the branches of the olive trees. I watch for a long moment, fearing wolves or jackals roaming the night. Few are the beasts I have cause to fear, but wolves and all their cousins are no friend to jinn. They hunt us ruthlessly, bearing a hatred we return in equal measure, and they have been known to bring down ghuls in their prime. I hear no feet padding along the ground, no howls cutting the night, and relax a little.
But when I turn around again, I freeze, my stomach clenching.
A little girl stands directly in front of me, her hair long and tangled, her eyes milky white. She wears a tattered gray tunic and nothing else. Sores and cuts mar her tiny bare feet. I would feel sorry for her—if she were in fact a little girl. But one look at those sightless eyes, and I know that though she may once have been human, her soul is long gone.
“Ghul,” I whisper.
The girl bares her teeth in a smile that comes across as more of a grimace. When she speaks, it is in the tongue of the jinn, which no human can hear: Jinni.
The ghul hisses, her breath hot and reeking like decayed flesh. I reach out with my sixth sense and feel her reaching back, her thoughts probing like tentacles. At once I retreat, sealing my mind to it, but that quick mental glance was all I needed to recognize her. We jinn know one another by the patterns of our thoughts, the way humans use facial features. Our names are like the meaning behind names, sensations and images rather than words, communicated by thought and not voice. I recognize the ghul as Serpent-Scale, Water-Drips-in-Darkness, Echoes-in-the-Cave. A high-ranking jinni . . . and also one of those present the day you and I fell, Habiba. Before then, she used to haunt the mountains in the north, gobbling up stray children. The northerners called her Shaza—“toothed one.”
We see you know who we are, O Curl-of-the-Tiger’s-Tail, Smoke-on-the-Wind, Girl-Who-Gives-the-Stars-Away.
“What do you want?” I ask, shivering a little at the feel of my own jinn name.
So this is the fool who found your lamp. The ghul steps aside to peer down at Aladdin, her lip curling. He looks tasty. I would not mind wearing his form for a time. Tell us, jinni, will you destroy him like you did your last human?
I turn cold. “You know what really happened that day.”
Oh yes, we saw, saw it all. She giggles and bends down to twist a lock of Aladdin’s hair around her finger. Such a pretty human, this one.
Bristling, I move between her and Aladdin. “Why are you here?”
She bites her nail. We came to deliver a message from our lord.
My stomach drops, and I sway on my feet. “And what does Nardukha have to say to me?”
He sends us to tell you that he knows you escaped the ruins where we left you to rot, for it is no coincidence the humans learned of the ring.
Unease ripples through me, like waters stirred by a slinking crocodile. If the Shaitan is behind all of this, it can mean nothing good. Nardukha did not become the King of the Jinn for no reason. I can still recall the days when he hunted down all the other Shaitan, my kindred, slaughtering them one by one to secure his own power. He is ruthless and cunning, older than the earth, stronger than any creature in existence. “But why? I thought he was content to let me rot.”
She shuffles, her nose wrinkling. He offers you a deal.
“I made a deal with Nardukha once before, and paid a terrible price for it.” I narrow my eyes and take a step toward her, my hands curling into fists. “Why should I trust him again?”
Her head whips up, her teeth flashing. The humans with their cursed charms have trapped and bottled one of our own, holding him deep in their warded city. No jinn may enter, for their protection is strong, and to pass through their gates or fly over their walls is death to us. But not to you—not to Curl-of-the-Tiger’s-Tail, Smoke-on-the-Wind, Girl-Who-Gives-the-Stars-Away. As Shaitan, you alone may be able to pass through the wards and get inside the city.
“So he wants me to rescue this jinni,” I say doubtfully. “But I know Nardukha. No jinni is worth that much trouble to him, none but—” I pause and swallow.
The ghul laughs humorlessly. The jinni they hold is no mere burning ifreet or dripping maarid, but our Lord’s own son.
I can picture him at once, though I have not seen him in more than a thousand years. We last parted with angry words, as we always did. Sun-Burns-Bright, Scale-of-the-Red-Dragon, He-Who-Makes-the-Earth-to-Shake. To me, he has always been Zhian, the name given him by the Akbanu people when they worshiped him, thousands of years ago. He always did love parading around like a god, demanding offerings and temples from the humans he terrorized.
“The humans have captured Zhian?” I ask, laughing until Aladdin stirs fitfully. “He must be utterly humiliated. The great jinn prince—bottled up like a common maarid. How did the humans do it?”