“The moon was flat and white as a witch’s face.”

Teta leaned forward, her black eyes bright as she told her story.

“I could hear the hooves of the desert raiders as they crossed the sands. All the others slept soundly in their tents. I was all alone, twelve years old—the only one who knew they were coming!”

“Wasn’t your mother there? Why didn’t you wake her?” Sami whispered.

Teta threw out her arms dramatically: light glinted on her silver necklace and Sami caught a glimpse of one of the Bedouin tattoos that scrolled up her grandmother’s arms. “I tried! But we’d led our caravan all the way to Wadi Rum that day. Miles and miles over burning sand. Everyone was exhausted and sound asleep. And these were no ordinary bandits—the raiders were horrible brutes. I knew they would take everything—every horse and goat. And worse. I’d heard the whispers that they stole children, sold them into slavery. I shook my mother. I cried out, ‘The bandits are coming!’ All she did was mutter and roll back to sleep. Oh, it was awful—I was so scared.”

Sami leaned back on her grandmother’s soft silk carpet. The smell of jasmine and wild thyme faintly reached her from the shelves that lined the bedroom. “What did you do?” Even though she’d heard the story many times before, she still felt breathless.

For a moment, Teta’s lined face looked years younger, the light having shifted so her hair seemed to regain its black luster and the gray faded; she sat straighter, her neck lifting. She adjusted her sapphire ring. “I felt her.”

“Ashrafieh?” Sami whispered.

“My double.” Teta nodded slowly. “I’d always known she existed. My great-uncle had told me of her for years. But this was the first time I’d felt her—deep in my center.”

“What did she feel like?”

“Like courage. And cunning. A powerful current rising up from my center.” Teta placed one hand on her solar plexus and Sami touched her own chest, somehow feeling that same hidden something. “And a voice. Like it came from my own smartest self. Speaking from deep inside a hidden world. She said to me: Remember your training, Serafina. Call for an enchantment!”

“An enchantment—from the spell book, you mean?” Sami asked eagerly. “When can I see it?”

“Are you twelve yet?” Teta’s eyes widened.

“Practically! It’s just a few weeks—”

“When you’re twelve,” Teta cut in. “There are so many wonderful adventures ahead of you. As well as many…challenges,” she added. There was the briefest hesitation in her voice, then she waved her hand. “Let’s not rush into things.”

“But I’m ready now. I’ve been ready for ages,” Sami moaned.

“And you’re interrupting the story.” Teta shook her head. “Listen! I pushed back the tent flap—it was heavy, made of goat hair—very good for keeping out dust and noise. I always preferred sleeping under the night sky, but my mother wouldn’t let me. I stood—the raiders were coming so near I could see the smoke of the horses’ breath, the foam on their muzzles. I lifted my hands straight up to the stars. I was shaking, scared as a little chicken, but I’d heard my mother and great-uncle use the enchantment spell many times and I knew it by heart. I’d never spoken it out loud before, though, and I didn’t know if it would work for me—the magical ordering of words and sound. Still, I shouted it out with all my might.”

“And the bandits stopped,” Sami said, grinning.

Teta nodded. “Maybe twenty meters away. The ones who were jumping off their horses just flopped to the ground. Others fell asleep while they were still up on their horses. Their headscarves unwinding, all their gold teeth showing. They were dreadful, these monsters with their daggers drawn.”

“And their horses fell asleep too.”

“Yes,” Teta said with a wide smile. “I hadn’t learned my own magicking strength yet. I didn’t know how to control my spell casting. By then my great-uncle Kashmir had risen—he was still wrapping his headscarf over his hair. He ran out, looked at the fallen raiders, and said, ‘Ya Allah, child, you have the touch of the Ifrit!”

The Ifrit. Sami shivered with delight. Ifrit were magical sprites—sometimes called fairies, mermaids, angels, genies—that Teta said you could summon through dreams and visions and spells. They were creatures from the Other Worlds—places that Teta hinted at and promised to tell her about…someday. Always another day. “Did you tell him? Did he know about your guide, Ashrafieh?” Sami rolled forward onto her knees, the question urgent.

“Ashrafieh was a Flicker, not an Ifrit,” Teta reminded Sami.

“What’s the difference again?”

“Oh, the Ifrit serve no one, and they create as many problems as they solve! But a Flicker? Well now…”

But before Teta could say another word, the bedroom door swung open.