Circle of Jinn (41 page)

Pulses shoot through me like electric shocks. With every word, with every mention of the Jinn who gave themselves up to save the ones they loved, my powers increase, inflating inside me so intensely that it's like I've swallowed a water balloon with a hose still attached.

Qasim adjusts his cloak to prevent it from puddling on the ground. “That's what I was trying to get Raina to understand. But she repaid me by keeping the knowledge of my daughter from me. Tell me, Azra, is Yasmin as strong as you?”

The water balloon billows. “We have a deal. My Zar sisters are left out of this.”

“But she's my daughter. Your cousin. That takes precedence over her being your Zar sister.”

“This is why I have trust issues.” I drive my feet into the ground and pop the water balloon. I zero in on his mind.

He stands and tries to block me, physically and mentally, but all the strength of this place courses through me, and I knock him back against the stone wall.

Sacrifice. That's why the portal, the weakness in the shield, was created here. Sacrifice. That's what fuels my strength. That's why, here, my mind, my powers, have continually turned to Raina.

I move closer to Qasim, who's crouched on the ground, fighting me. As I attempt to control his thoughts, the taut pull of muck creeps up my feet, sucks me down to my ankles, and I'm afraid, that's it, the quicksand is dragging me down, and I won't be able to overpower him, I won't be able to erase his mind like I hoped, I won't be able to put an end to all this.

I have to put an end to all this.

I trip on my way to him, uncovering a rock of Granny Smith green, the color of nothing else in this monochromatic tan place. But it's a color I know. It's a color I love. It's the green of Jenny's eyes. The green of Henry's eyes.

And that's when it hits me. What I did to Henry—what I want to do to Qasim—erasing his mind, erasing his heart, may end this. But there's a better way. Henry showed me that. Nate too. Megan, Chelsea, my Zar sisters. All of them have shown me that letting someone in is the way to change. That's the way to a power that doesn't destroy. That's the way to a power that builds.

Not knowing if it'll even work or if I'll be cursed or if I'll waste this surge of energy, I recite the circulus incantation my mother helped me to memorize. I stare at Qasim's yellow eyes and connect with his anima the way my mother taught me to do.

I hurl myself in, invested in every way, and dive down through layer upon layer: the thirst for power; the need to be better than his brother; the cravings for his father's affections; the betrayal by Raina when he realized she kept Yasmin's existence from him; the inferiority that rocked him to his core when he learned he was Raina's second choice: that she actually loved my father.

But there's one more thing. There's the event that turned Qasim into the Afrit he is: the moment he learned his mother died trying to save a human. Humans who commit atrocious crimes against loved ones and strangers alike; humans who start wars against one another, century after century, decade after decade; humans who concoct weapons to destroy one another, weapons with the power to destroy all that inhabit their world; humans who, if they ultimately succeed in what seems to be a battle to eradicate their kind from this earth, will take the Jinn right along with them.

We'll cease to exist. Because of humans.

I can't let that happen
is the last thought in Qasim's mind. His deepest desire rises to the surface. His truest wish is to protect the Jinn species. To ensure our survival.

His heart is in the exact right place. It's just his mind that's got it wrong.

How can I make him see that?

Our connection begins to falter; the sludge reaches my waist as Qasim struggles against me. He doesn't want to see it. He is afraid of what will happen when he does. What he'll regret. What he's done that he'll have to live with.

Just when I think the quicksand will drown me comes the vibration of a stereo, the tickle of a feather, the soft flick of a bunny's tail, the trail of pins and needles down my spine, the sting of a wasp, the feel of a breeze rustling a pile of fallen leaves—Hana, Samara, Farrah, Zak, Yasmin, and my mother. Their apporting signatures followed by those of all the other members of my mother's Zar and then the signatures of half a dozen, a dozen, two dozen, and more Jinn I've never met.

Through the portal comes a monsoon of Jinn willing to sacrifice themselves to change the Jinn world.

I told you I'd come back for you.
My father's thought fills my head. I turn to see him latched onto my mother, whose gold eyes are full of the warmth she directs solely at those she loves.

It is with their strength and their willingness to sacrifice themselves for me that I project that love into Qasim. That I show him what he's been missing. That I show him what he could have if only he'd open himself to it. And trust. Trust the humans. Trust the Jinn. Trust what he cannot see but what he can only feel.

The yellow of his eyes flickers a deep gold as I feel Yasmin behind me. She bends down next to me, facing her father. She doesn't mean to. I know she doesn't understand. But it is the hatred that she unleashes on Qasim that closes him off from all I've tried to open him to.

Right before our eyes, his ears sharpen to points, his cloak turns to fur, his nails grow into claws, and he shape-shifts into a wolf. A stunning gray-and-white wolf that lifts its snout to my father, turns its sad eyes on Yasmin, and lowers its tail to me. A wolf that doesn't need the portal to transition out of Janna.

He leaps over the stone wall.

And then he's gone.

 

40

Silence. Never in the span of history have so many Jinn been in one place and it been this quiet, of that I am sure.

“We must hurry.” My father's insistent but strained voice breaks the silence. “The council chamber. Kalyssa, Samara, Azra, we must get to them before Qasim does.”

Beside me, at the sound of her father's name, Yasmin's body caves in on itself. Her chin burrows into her chest, her back rounds, and her bent knees drive into the stone underneath us. “He killed her. He killed my mother.” She lifts her head and her wide-set gold eyes, a match for her father's, plead with me. “He can't get away, Azra.”

No, he can't. Because then all this will have been for nothing. And I can't have that.

“He won't.” I curl a hand under each of her elbows and bring her to her feet. “You'll come with me?”

She doesn't ask where. Or why. She just will. The Zar connection has never been as strong as it is here in this place that should be our home—that we will make into our home.

Hand in hand, we walk down the stone steps. I know where Qasim is. In his mind, one image that would not leave lets me know where he is. We just have to move fast, because I don't know how long he'll stay.

I let one more beat pass before I tell everyone, because in that beat, my family surrounds me. My whole family. My mother rushes forward and crashes into me, squeezing with a strength I've always known she possessed. Behind me, my father closes in, stroking my long braid. And next to me, Zak, my brother.

Laila
, I project into his head.

Mina is with her.

The antidote?
I ask.

Zak hangs his head and closes his eyes. He didn't stay long enough to find out if it's working. He came here, to me. As did Hana and Farrah and Samara and Isa and even Jada, who never wanted any of this, as did all these other Jinn I've never even met. And more. My mother releases me, and I step back to see more Jinn flow through the open portal. Including … is that …
Tayma
?

Her long sapphire-blue cloak, her ash-brown hair gathered into a perfect bun, her scarf, expertly draped around her neck in the way only Parisians can do. Yes, it's her. I turn to Yasmin and tip my head toward Tayma, the Jinn we both met long ago on an unauthorized excursion. Of course she's here. Her Zar was broken too. I didn't know what that meant then. I didn't know how it felt—and I hope the antidote for Laila means I won't ever know.

Tayma winks at me and her whiskerlike eyelashes flutter. How many of these Jinn belong to broken Zars? How many have sisters, brothers, parents, children in tortura cavea? They're here so that their families can be whole too.

“I know where he is,” I say to my mother and father. “You go to the council. I'll return as soon as I can, but—”

“Qasim must come first,” my father finishes.

I break the circle around me to reach for Yasmin.

“Azra, wait,” my mother says, grabbing my wrist and encircling it with her hand the same way my bangle used to do.

I try to shake her off. “Mom, don't. I have to go. I'm the only one who has a chance to stop him. I was so close. This time, I know what to do.” I pull away, but she doesn't let go. “Please, Mom. I have to do this.”

She tugs even harder and draws me to her. “I know, kiddo.” She pries open my clenched fist and presses something into my hand, and in that moment my mind flashes back to Laila on the day after my sixteenth birthday, pushing the piece of silver tinsel into my palm for luck at my very first wish granting.

But this isn't tinsel. And I'm betting it's not for luck.

“This,” my mother says, “will help you. If you can tie it around his wrist, it will block his powers.” She holds a folded slip of paper between two fingers. “With this spell, he will be bound to you. I expect with his strength, neither will last indefinitely, but it should be long enough for you to bring him to us.”

I open my hand to reveal a thin black leather cord, as unlike our large, gaudy bangles as can be. But a shackle nonetheless. Simple but, I hope, effective. Guess that theory, like so much else, is something I learned from her.

“Farouk's cantamen?” I ask.

My mother nods, but Samara cuts in. “And
her
talent.” She hooks her arm through my mother's and gives me a tight smile. I don't need to read her mind to see right through it to the scream she's holding back because of what's happened to Laila. But she's here for her Zar sisters. The connection is strong.

I reach for Yasmin. Mine better be just as strong. Stronger.

A curt nod to my family is all I allow myself. Any more and I won't go. And so, with that, I app Yasmin to the portal and then … home.

My home.

Yasmin swivels her head, taking in my backyard. “Here? He's here?”

“I think so.” I quell my thumping heart, I tune my ears to the blue jay that lives in the trees above us, I inhale the scent of the sea and lilacs, and I focus. “I know so.”

“But why?”

“I think you know.”

She tilts her head back to look up at the second floor of the house where I grew up. At the room where her mother lies in the peace we gave her. “Because of her? He wants to see my … my mother?”

I take her hand in mine. “He still loves her, Yasmin.”

Denial flashes through her eyes. Her thin nostrils flare, and quick as that, she moves into anger. “He can't. He doesn't deserve to.”

“He's bad,” I say. “I won't lie to you. But he's not all bad. I saw it in him. I also saw that, in his own way, he loves you too. Even when he was angry with your mother, he never stopped loving either of you. That's why he's here. He knew from Matin that Raina would be here.” I suck in a deep breath and force myself to say the next part. “We can use that to our advantage.”

I am an Afrit. And sometimes, I have to act like one. No matter how smarmy it feels.

I dangle the black cord in front of her. “He won't let me get close enough.”

Does she feel it too? The taint of our Afrit blood? Maybe. But we are the next generation. Change will come from us. Right after we trick her father.

*   *   *

He's kneeling at Raina's bedside when we appear in the doorway. In his brief moment of surprise, Yasmin rushes into the room. Her sable-black hair that's a match for his flies out behind her.

She stops at the end of the bed where her mother still lies, and her grief courses through me. But she pushes through it.

“Father?” she says. “Is it really true?”

Qasim's gold cloak spills around him. If our eyes dripped tears to match their gold color, it'd look exactly like the pool of fabric he's sitting in. Not that he's actually crying. But the way his hooked nose twitches, it's as close as I imagine he's been in years. Maybe since his mother—our grandmother—died.

“Yasmin?” His stringy black hair sweeps across his eyes as he stands. He wants to go to her. I can tell. And yet, still, he's an Afrit. He's maybe
the
Afrit. An ability to trust is not in his nature. His right ear lengthens into a point and a tuft of hair curls down the edge. He's about to shape-shift and flee.

“Don't let her take me!” Yasmin cries in an ad lib.

With a swish of her hand, she sends one of the soft chairs I conjured earlier into my stomach. Another ad lib, one completely and totally in character.

I gasp and double over in very real pain. Better to sell it, I suppose.

She inches back, away from me and closer to her father. She's butting up against him, directly even with her mother's wrist. With the bangle we freed her from. And that's when Yasmin does the thing that will sell it completely. She lifts her mother's wrist and snaps the bangle shut around it.

Her eyes pool with tears as she looks up at her father. “She was wrong to keep you from me.”

She means this to her core. It's written in her stance, the way she thrusts her shoulders back; it's written in her lips, the way she tightens them into the whisper of a line; it's written in her eyes, the way she trains them on the long braids that lie alongside her mother. Which is perhaps why Qasim lets down his guard and allows Yasmin to take his hand.