Saalim shook his head, looked at me, then shook his head again.
“What happened?” I asked. “Are you all right?”
He was changed. The way he looked at me, the way he spoke to me. The way he wouldn’t look at me.
“All of it is there,” he stammered. “I see it all.” His head hung between his knees.
“All of it?” I said, hopeful. Did he see us?
“Yes.” He looked at me briefly, turning away like there was something foul. What about the past was so appalling?
Then, it struck me like a hand. My past with the muhamis, my life as an ahira. He knew about it before, but now, he saw it all with sickening clarity. I had not considered that possibility when giving him the vial.
“Me,” I said, willing myself to hold my head high.
Saalim did not look at me.
The rejection spread like venom. He had seen our past together, and he wanted none of it. So this was it. My future with Saalim gone as quickly as it came. The utter joy there only moments before, stripped in a rush, and I was left stinging. I reeled.
“The guilt,” Saalim groaned, rubbing his brow. “It is unbearable.” I followed his gaze. The stars were bright, the moon—a sharp sliver peaking in through the window—the brightest among them. “I am a man made insane. To have these memories, this understanding that no one else can have. Of two lives lived separately.” He turned to me. “But this is how it has been for you this entire time.”
“I do not quite have two lives, but I have grown used to having a past no one knows.” I held myself away from him, terrified of what he would say next.
“It explains everything. All of these thoughts I had, this confusion and unexplained confidence about . . .” He looked at his hands. “Then there’s Nassar . . . Zahar . . . Omar.” He looked at me, disgusted. I recoiled. “And Almulihi.” He almost whimpered when he said the last word. “And then there was you.”
I held my breath, chest aching. I waited.
“You were the shortest part of my impossibly long life as a jinni.” He stumbled on those words, picking up a golden cuff, then the vessel. He looked at them with a new understanding. “But the memories with you are so vivid, so real compared to others.” He set the vessel down. “I need to step outside. Please, come with me.”
Warily, I followed him onto the balcony. He did not take my hand, he did not look at me. He went to the edge, leaned against the rail. Just as I had found him not long ago. My insides gnawed themselves to pulp as I waited for an explanation.
Finally, he said, “I can barely look at you without seeing everything I have done.” He folded his arms across his chest, staring at the ground far below. “Your entire life—all the suffering—was because of me.”
That was unexpected. “You’re not making sense.”
He shook his head in the darkness. “I was greedy—”
“Greedy?”
“What if I had let the first suitor who wanted to wed you do so? Years ago, you would have been free of Alfaar’s court.” He pushed away and paced. “All the suitors, the years trapped in that tent . . . your father’s savagery, the parties . . .”
The pain in his voice nearly convinced me that he was right, that my life had been worse because of what he had done. But when I looked around me, I knew he was wrong.
“Saalim, look at what you have given me. The sea, Madinat Almulihi, a whole world I would not have had otherwise. The beauty here, this life . . . it is unparalleled.”
He scoffed.
“You have read the Litab Almuq?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“Eiqab apologizes to Wahir for drying his pools. Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“Wahir tells him that without Eiqab’s sun, he would not have made pools. If Eiqab had not dried the pools, Wahir would not have learned to make them deep and plentiful.
“Though you feel like you took my choices from me, pulled me from what seemed the obvious path of my life, you did no such thing. You allowed me my choice, Saalim.
“That girl who escaped the palace again and again? That was me searching for a path I could choose, desperate to forge a life that I had some control over. By taking the suitors from me, you took from me my father’s control.
“If I had not wanted you, I could have turned you away while I was imprisoned. You remember that now, don’t you?”
“I do.” He glanced at my back, then back to the city below.
How odd it was to have memories we shared again. Memories of that life. I took his hand, pressing it to mine. I no longer tiptoed around a past none could know of except me.
Saalim said, “I thought it was the strangest answer, you know, when I asked you about the scars.”
I remembered that night on the balcony. Dazed from being so high off the ground, still baffled by differences between Madinat Almulihi and my home, stunned from the isolation of my memories. The man I loved stood before me and asked me about wounds he had healed with his own hands.
“‘He is,’ you said, when I asked you if they were worth it.”
We were silent, watching each other.
“You are,” I said finally. “No matter what you feel like you’ve done or caused.” I reached for his hand. “You are.”
He did not let go.
Turning to him, I held our hands in front of us. “This,” I said, “is worth everything to me. So stop your guilt, Saalim.”
He jerked his head up at my insistence. Taking my hand between both of his, he brushed his lips across my knuckles.
He said, “You’re perilously close to the edge, you know.” He raised his eyebrows, smirking. His tone had changed. He sounded almost happy.
“I trust you,” I said, though I edged away from the railing. He did not miss my movement.
“I don’t think you do.” Then, in one swift movement his arms were wrapped around my waist and my feet were lifted off the ground. I squealed. He ran into the bedroom and tossed me onto the bed.
This was the Saalim I longed for. The one who was carefree, who smiled and played and laughed. Beaming at him, I said, “So, you have not changed your mind then?”
He leaned forward. “My mind has been made up for a long time; I just couldn’t see clearly before.” Crawling over me, he said, “Sons, how I have longed to have you in my bed. Since the moment I saw you, in this life and the last.”
Wrapping my fingers around his neck, I pulled him toward me. No more talking, no more remembering. I wanted to just have him as I did before. Have him like I always dreamed: freely, no secrets.
Our mouths met in furious need. He lowered himself onto me, pressing me into the soft bed as he had pressed me into the soft sand. Everything was surreal, and I simultaneously wanted to stop time so that I might grasp every detail, hold onto every moment, and rush forward to have it all.
“There is a bath . . . Mariam prepared,” I whispered as he kissed my temple, my cheek, my neck. “Last time we never . . . But perhaps . . . it is unnecessary . . .”
He laughed quietly into my neck, breathing me in. Dragging his lips down my skin, he said, “A bath sounds nice.”
He pulled his tunic over his head and led me to the bath. Mariam had the enormous basin filled and warmed every evening, and each night I lounged in it, soaking in the luxury. The water inside was impossibly warm, the low fire beneath having only just recently waned. Steam rose from the water’s surface, blowing with each cool gust of wind. The stone was cold against my feet, so I stepped onto the large pelt beside the basin.
“It’s no oasis pool,” Saalim said as if it were somehow disappointing.
“You have high expectations, eh?” I dipped my fingers into the warm water, wondering which oasis pool he was remembering.
Suddenly Saalim’s hands were on my sides, and he was pulling the fustan over my head.
With a new understanding, he peered at the scars on my back. “Do you wish they were gone?” he asked.
“I don’t wish for anything,” I said, turning to him.
His gaze dropped to my chest, to the smudge of gold on my skin.
“Now that I know to look for it, I see it there,” he said quietly. “Still bright after all this time.”
“It will be that way forever, I think.”
We lowered ourselves into the bath.
Saalim pulled me to him, and I curled into him. Saying nothing, he wrapped his arms around me. My head lay against his chest, his heart a tabla drumming in my ear. His body was tense, his arms tight around me as if he was worried this moment was fleeting.
There was just the sound of the ocean wind outside, the crackle of burning wood in the fire, and the soft splash of water licking up the sides of the basin.
“I hope,” Saalim said, his voice vibrating through me. “That this will be forever, too.”
My face turned up to his. His eyes were soft with pleasure, the muted gold of being human.
Once more, our mouths met, and like waves to a shore, we fell into each other. We were a tangle of limbs, a sharing of life.
Home. Finally, I was home.
“Where were you last night, when I first came looking for you?” Saalim asked the next morning. The sun had barely risen, and Saalim had risen with it. I would have been mad that he woke me, too, but his lips against my skin snuffed the irritation like sand on flame.
The fire had long ago died, and it was cold in the room. I pulled the blankets up to my chin and curled into Saalim.
“To see Zahar.”
He stiffened. “In the prison? Why?” He pulled away, immediately suspicious.
“There was more I needed to understand.”
“And you understand now?”
I nodded. I was not sure how I would tell him what I had learned from my conversation with the healer, but he had dragged her into bed with us, so now I felt as if I must say everything. “Do you know who she is?”
“Zahar?” He looked beyond me at the gray dawn, the gulls that dove down to the fish-strewn docks.
My mouth struggled to form the right words. Finally, I said, “Your birth mother was her sister.”
Saalim’s eyes shot to mine. “That cannot be.”
I told him everything. His hands on my skin were like stone.
“I suppose it is sad,” I said after a long silence. “That someone could loathe themselves so much that they would destroy everyone around them. Sabra was like that. I hated her for it, at first. But now that she is dead, I realize that everything I despised about her, she despised even more.”
“I wish I could say the same for Kassim.” Saalim’s fist curled against my hip. “It does not matter. About Kassim, nor about Zahar.”
“How quickly your anger is gone,” I said.
He nodded. “Zahar does not realize that had she left me alone to rule in my father’s absence, I would have ruined Almulihi on my own. But by making me a jinni, she taught me much—the ache of a slave, the perception of a tyrant, the pervasiveness of weakness.” He looked at me. “I will be a better ruler from my time as jinni. I will be a better ruler with you at my side.”
I stroked his wrist with my fingers, remembering how warm the cuff was that had once been fastened there.
Finally, Saalim asked, “What do we do with Zahar?”
“If Edala was correct, Zahar is the only one who remains to join us to Masira. I think there is little choice in what happens to Zahar. Magic serves no good.”
“I agree. She must be destroyed.”
I told him my plan.
“I will talk to Nassar, and we will arrange it.” Pressing his lips to my brow, he rose from bed, dressed himself, and made me promise to find him for midday meal. “I will tell them about us.”
Moths fluttered. Us.
Though the city was unchanged, everything felt different. I walked through the streets seeing the people, the homes, the shops anew. Soon, I would look after them as Saalim did. Soon, I would be their queen.
For now, I enjoyed the anonymity and the freedom that came with it.
The baytahira appeared remarkably untouched after Kassim’s fire and Edala’s flooding. Aside from smudges left from the flames and a few remaining piles of sodden furniture, it looked the same. Edala mended much before she died.
I found the jalsa tadhat as I expected it to be: quiet and empty. When I nudged the door open, I was surprised to see the front room was swept clean, a table with chairs in the place of sand, fire, and cushions. The many people seated at the table turned to me at my entrance.
Odham scooted back from the table and approached. “We are closed.”
He did not appear to recognize me, and for that I was grateful. “I am looking for Firoz.”
Odham moved to the side, pointing behind him.
“Emel,” a nearly unrecognizable man said, rising from the table.
“Firoz?” I could not believe it. His hair was covered by a turban, his face was clean, beard groomed. He looked rested and sounded clearheaded. This was not the same Firoz I had seen in the street, blinking away the fog of magic and drink, not long ago.
“What is this?” I plucked at his soft tunic. “Your mother would have nothing to complain about!”
His eyes softened and he laughed, excusing us as he led me upstairs. He did not take me to his room, as I expected. Instead, he took me to the roof.
“You’ve been up here?” he sounded surprised. When I told him of the time Rashid brought me up there, he confessed he did not remember.
“After that arwah,” he said, “nothing has been the same. We tried, you know, having more. It’s good coin, of course. But there was no . . .” He wiggled his fingers in the air. “There was nothing from the spirits. None of us could tell if it was because we all felt a bit funny from it all, or if it was because something had changed.”
Above us, a trio of gulls swarmed greedily, thinking we might have an easy meal. I wondered if it was the loss of the jinni or of the si’la that had left the jalsa tadhat quiet.
Firoz said, “I realized you were right.”
I coiled my hair around my fingers, trying not to gloat when he was already offering me as much of an apology as I suspected I would get.
He set his palm against my knee. When I went to place my hand on his, I startled.
“Firoz! What happened?” Pale, shining burns arced across his hands and disappeared up his sleeve. “The fire?” Saalim had not told me he was injured.
“I heard about plans to burn the palace the night of the Falsa Mawk, to make it seem as though it was the healer’s errant flame,” he continued. “I worried about you.” Firoz told me how he went to the palace, prepared to beg a soldier to post at the healer’s, but found the palace unguarded completely. “I walked right in.” It certainly had been Kassim’s magic that sent the guards away.
“Saalim told me you saved my life.” I took his scarred hand and leaned against him. “I didn’t realize what harm had come to you in doing so.”
“The king?”
I nodded. “I owe you so much. Especially after how I’ve treated you . . .”
Embarrassed, he shrugged me away. “What is it between you two? He seemed very worried.”
Finally, I did not have to lie. “He and I will be wed.”
“Emel?” Firoz gasped. He had the most disbelieving look on his face, I was nearly offended. “You, a queen?!” Then he settled and seemed to consider it. “It would be you. You have always been able to make something of nothing, to find salt in the sand.”
Warmth touched my cheeks. “You, too, Firoz. Look at what you’ve found here.” I did not elaborate, unsure of what exactly he’d found. I watched the sun rise behind low clouds, the sky settling into blue with each breath that passed.
He shook his head. “I thought I needed to leave my family, to be out of the settlement, but I was wrong.”
I tore my gaze away from the man who swept outside his shop. The same one who hadn’t so much as blinked at Firoz’s unconscious form on the street.
“I have come here and experienced everything I wanted to. But Rashid and I have both realized that what we have gained living here—all the freedom and extravagance and wealth of the city—has not been worth what we lost by leaving behind our friends and our family. And now that the Salt King is dead.” He cringed at the word. “Sorry . . .”
“It’s all right,” I said. “He deserved his fate.”
“Now that there is a new leader, I wonder if I wouldn’t be happier there.”
“What are you saying?”
“As soon as I have the coin, I am going to go home.”
The confession did not hurt like I would have suspected. “This is why . . .” I pointed at his clothes, his turban.
He nodded. “I miss Mama, my brother and sisters. I want to go home to them, and to be a brother they can be proud of. I lost myself in all of this, and I didn’t like it.”
“Back to the marketplace, eh?”
He smiled and nodded.
“And Rashid will go?”
“He will.”
“Then I am happy.”
His shoulders dropped. “That is a relief.”
“You won’t leave without goodbye?”
“I promise.”
I took his hand in mine, our fingers interlocking. With my head against his shoulder, we watched the morning turn to day.
“Queen Emel,” Firoz whispered. “I hope this Saalim knows the extent you’ve been trained to sway muhami. He has no chance!”
Laughing loudly, I confessed Saalim had some idea.
“Tell me one thing,” Firoz said, lowering his voice. I looked him expectantly, waiting. “Is his snake long?”
With the widest smile on my face, I nearly pushed him from the roof.
Tavi would not stop hugging me. Well, she would stop to wipe her face, but then she would grab me again, mumbling between cries that she was so happy for me.
“I can’t believe my sister will be a queen!” She held my face with her hands, stroking my cheeks with her thumbs like our mother used to.
“And you can come live in the palace!” I said excitedly, seeing a future where we stole bread from the kitchens, kicked each other under the table at fancy dinners. I imagined nights in front of the fire in the guest tower—Tavi’s tower—telling each other stories of our former life, each story more unbelievable. “Can you believe we used to bathe only once or twice a moon?” The two of us living in a palace of stone as free as birds. It was nearly as exciting as wedding Saalim.
Tavi’s brightness was gone like a cloud covering the sun. “Oh,” was all she said.
“You wouldn’t want to come? Live in the palace?” I was hurt. I knew that she had found a life that satisfied her with Saira, but surely she wouldn’t want to live with them forever?
Tavi shook her head. “It isn’t that. It’s just—” She looked at the boat drifting by, and when she saw who passed, she waved. “I think someday soon I might go to live with Yakub. Marry him.”
“But you hardly know him!” It was a pathetic argument, but the idea that she might marry someone I did not know scared me.
“I’ve known him as long as you’ve known the king,” she said.
I held my tongue and looked down at our sandaled feet, hanging over the edge of the canal like two children. I could not dislike Yakub because she would not live in the palace with me. Because she would choose him over her family.
After all, I had done the same.
I finally said, “When?”
Tavi kicked her feet through the air. “I don’t know, but Saira has asked little questions here and there about how I feel for Yakub and what I think of that part of the city.” Flicking a small leaf into the water, she said, “I think he is going to ask me to wed him, and Saira and Josef are the only ones he can ask for permission since, well . . .”
“We don’t have a mother and father.”
“Right. Josef loves him. Saira seems happier than I’ve ever seen her.”
Standing, I said, “Come, show me where he lives. I might not be your mother, but I am your sister and want to approve of this myself.”
Tavi clucked her tongue just like Hadiyah used to, and led me along the canal toward his home. It was warm now that it was nearing midday. I would need to return to Saalim soon. The idea excited me, making it easy to find happiness for Tavi. Return home.
“You can still have me to the palace as often as you want, you know,” Tavi said as we walked.
“Oh, I can?” I raised my eyebrows and folded my arms.
She hummed a confirmation, explaining, “I have heard that at each meal, the food is piled so high it’s taller than me. And if you’re any indication, I would bet those rumors are true.” She pinched my midsection, and I pushed her away, giggling.
“Let me tell you, the food is piled even higher.”
“Praise the Sons for that!” She grew serious. “But you will be inviting me for meals, won’t you? At least one a day, or I might reconsider this.” She gestured between us, like our being sisters was some sort of choice.
“I knew you only cared about me for the food.”
She pushed her braid over her shoulder and sauntered away, leaving me to trot after her.
We crept by Yakub’s home, snorting with delight at our attempts to be quiet.
“He can’t know I suspect!” she hissed, and we cackled even louder.
We said goodbye, and I floated on a river of glee back to the palace.