There had been a lot of that lately, what with the princess having to marry soon.
“The palace looks pretty amazing, huh?” Aladdin sighed.
“Oh…it’s…wonderful,” the girl said. But she didn’t walk over to look with him. Instead, she collapsed on the steps that led up to his sleeping pad, wearily resting her head on her hands.
“I wonder what it would be like to live there. Or in any mansion. I’m not picky,” Aladdin mused, trying to conceal his disappointment at her reaction. Well, maybe at least he could get her to finally open up about where she was from. “All those servants…and valets…”
“Oh, sure, people to tell you where to go and how to dress,” the girl said, rolling her eyes.
“It’s better than here, where you’re always scraping for food and ducking the guards,” he pointed out.
“You just said you and Abu come and go as you please. If you were born into a royal family, you’d have to do whatever they told you to. Whatever you’re expected to do. And you can’t go anywhere.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t go anywhere socially when you’re a Street Rat. Our upward mobility is strictly limited. Even if I wanted honest work, no one would hire me. For any job. Not even for a servant at an estate. And there’s no place else to go. Once you’re born in the Quarter of the Street Rats, you’re…”
“Trapped,” Jasmine finished.
Aladdin looked up at her, surprised. It was like she actually understood—like she felt the same way.
He went over and sat down next to her. She didn’t move to give him more room. Their legs touched.
He took a couple of apples out of his sash, handing one to her and the other to Abu. Abu rewarded him with happy, raucous chittering and then did exactly as Aladdin had hoped: he scampered up into the roof of the tower to enjoy the whole thing by himself.
The girl pulled a tiny silver dagger out of her clothes and neatly cut her apple into two halves, handing one to him. He grinned at her and toasted her with his half.
“So where are you from, anyway?” he finally dared to ask.
“What does it matter?” she growled. “I ran away and I am not going back.”
“Really? How come? What could be so awful that you never want to see your mother or your father again? Or sister, or whatever?”
The girl seemed to soften a little at that.
“I would love a sister. Or a brother. And my mother died when I was very young.”
Aladdin felt something in his heart break a little. What a terrible thing to have in common with a beautiful girl.
“And my father…is forcing me to get married.” Her eyes grew hard again. “How would you like it if someone told you that you have no choice about who you’re going to spend the rest of your life with?”
She balled her fists in anger. Aladdin found himself stepping back.
“He could be thirty years older than me. But rich,” she snapped at Aladdin, as if it was his idea. He pulled back in genuine fear. “He could be dumb. But rich! He could be arrogant. He could treat me like just another possession. I mean, that’s how my father is treating me, handing me over like that. He could be cruel. He could be…” She stopped herself from saying whatever was next, looking at Aladdin with a little embarrassment, like it was something too horrible to mention aloud. “He could stuff me full of babies, one every year. Not that there’s anything wrong with babies. Like, one or two. Eventually.
“All I know is that I haven’t even reached twenty years yet and my father has decided that my life, what little I have to choose of it, is over.”
Aladdin gulped. For some reason the Widow Gulbahar appeared in his head: she wasn’t bad at all, but if he was told he had to marry her? And spend the rest of his life with her? He also thought about Morgiana. She had a tiny dagger hidden on her, too, but it wasn’t silver, and it wasn’t for fruit. If anyone even tried to suggest her marrying anyone against her will—well, it would go badly for everyone involved. She would never let that happen.
“That’s awful,” he said with feeling. “I…I’m sorry I…”
Just then Abu leapt down from the ceiling. Aladdin watched with concern as the little monkey made a beeline for the girl’s half of the apple. Aladdin grabbed the little monkey out of the air and put him on his shoulder, whispering a reprimand.
“What’s wrong? What was he doing?” the girl asked. She began to relax again at Abu’s antics.
“Nothing,” Aladdin said, stroking the little monkey’s back.
The girl leaned over and tickled Abu’s chin.
“Abu was just…ah…just outraged at what a terrible thing your dad is doing to you.”
“Oh really?” the girl asked with a knowing smile. She pursed her lips in a moue of disbelief. Aladdin felt his chest go weak and his brain go stupid.
“Oh, yeah. He was just saying how outraged he was that men still control the lives of young women even in this modern, enlightened age,” Aladdin said. He was petting Abu, but looking at the girl. He wasn’t sure what he was saying, really. He would say anything, keep talking forever, if it kept her looking at him like that.
“Interesting. And does Abu have anything else to say?” she asked, leaning closer.
Cinnamon. Her breath smelled of cinnamon. He could even smell her skin at that distance. Though he wasn’t one normally prone to poetry, he could only think of a fresh desert breeze that carried a whisper of cypress and sandalwood.
“He wishes there was something he could do to help.…” That at least was honest. He wasn’t exactly sure how kissing would help her. He just knew it was going to happen or he was going to die.
“Tell him I just might take him up on that,” the girl said, closing her eyes and tilting her head.
Aladdin put his arm around her back and prepared for the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Which was, of course, when the guards showed up.
Rasoul wasn’t with them; his second-in-command led the attack. And how a man even larger than Rasoul, with five large guards, had managed to sneak up the stairway without Aladdin’s hearing was a mystery he would have to solve another day.
A better question, he realized instantly, was how they had known where he was.
“Finally, I’ve found you!” Rasoul’s second shouted.
“And again, really?” Aladdin said, leaping up. “All this for one loaf of bread?”
“How did you find me?” the girl shouted at the same time.
The two turned to look at each other.
“They’re after you?” he asked.
“What about bread?” she asked.
Rasoul’s second-in-command wasn’t the sort of person who would let confusion interrupt his orders.
“You cannot escape. Come now, lest it be worse for you!”
Aladdin leapt up onto the edge of the narrow stone balustrade that separated his sleeping nook from the city below. He held his hand out to the girl.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
The girl looked confused for a moment.
“Ye-es?” she said uncertainly.
That was enough for Aladdin.
“Then jump!”
He grabbed her too-slow-moving hand and yanked her up next to him. Then he leapt into the air, pulling her along.