Circle of Jinn (12 page)

She pushes her long blond hair off her neck, and I notice she's not wearing her infinity necklace. I clutch my
A
. Neither am I, though if I had known there was even a chance of seeing her, I would be. On my sixteenth birthday, Laila gave me and the rest of our Zar sisters matching silver chains, each bearing a pendant in the shape of a figure eight on its side—the symbol for “never ending.”

And I thanked her for her generosity by not fessing up about stealing the locket with the photograph of her father inside.

Samara shoves Henry and Yasmin up the stairs. “You have plenty of choices, Laila, dear. Let's start hoping you make the right ones. Both of you.”

I catch Laila glancing my way, and when our eyes meet, she turns away, conjures a square pink pouf, and flops down on it. “Subtle as brain freeze from an ice cream cone.”

She crosses her newly longer legs, and I can't stop staring. She's still the Laila I grew up with. But she's different too. She's finally the genie she always wanted to be. She's been the one distancing herself from me instead of the other way around. And while she's my oldest friend, she's no longer my only friend. But that doesn't mean I don't need her—desperately.

I conjure a matching though intentionally subpar lumpy pink pouf and sit across from her. “You're actually moving in here? Across the street?”

“Apparently.” Her hand travels the length of her body. “
This
means I can no longer attend my school.”

Does that mean she's going to be coming to mine? My heart flutters for an instant before it sinks. Because my happiness is at the expense of hers, which I vowed to never let be the case again.

“I'm sorry, Laila. I know how much you didn't want that to happen. I also know from personal experience how much your friends are going to miss you.”

Her eyes meet mine, lingering longer this time. Gold replaced their former blue and being Jinn replaced their innocence. With the most minimal of movements, she nods to me and her face softens.

This new Laila seems a lot more like me. We'd get along well. No, we
will
get along well. It's just too bad I can't read Jinn minds like my Afrit family can. If I could, then maybe I'd know the right thing to say to Laila. I tread slowly, starting with the simple, “How has it been, living with Yasmin?”

“Sad.” Laila adds fringe to the side of her pouf, and my heart balloons with pride at her skill. “She's Yasmin, so she's not exactly open to many heart-to-hearts. But I know she's hurting.”

An understatement, but the right words to describe what Yasmin must be feeling don't seem to exist. Her mother, Raina, was removed from our world and thrown, presumably, in tortura cavea for having a role in the burgeoning uprising against the Afrit.

While both my mother and I were hoping Zak would know more about Raina, it seems to be just me who was hoping he'd know more about the uprising and just how burgeoning it is. Unfortunately, he's out of the loop on both counts.

As much as there might be to gain from a successful coup against the Afrit, there's a lot we can all lose. Especially us active Jinn. Because unlike with retired Jinn, the Afrit don't just punish the perpetrator of the crime against them. They punish what the perpetrator loves. If I screw up again, the path that leads to my cozy jail cell with my greatest fear for a roommate won't be a straight line like Raina's.

The Afrit need Jinn to continue granting wishes for humans. It is this act of using our magic for the “greater good” that maintains our side of the bargain with the natural world and allows us to keep our magic. Since the Afrit can't afford to lose me and my wish-granting skills, they'll punish me by hurting the ones I love—my mother, her Zar sisters, and the humans I've grown close to. Henry and Nate and who knows who else. I always knew attachments to humans were discouraged, but I didn't know why.

It's one thing to make a personal sacrifice, like Raina did (though one look at Yasmin would challenge the definition of “personal”), but it's another to put the innocent at risk. The Afrit have us by our
couilles
(though Henry and I both take French with Mrs. Olsen, I learned that's the word for “balls” from him).

“Wonderful idea your mother had, isn't it?” Samara's bubbly voice floats down the stairs a moment before her voluptuous self follows. “Our house is being fumed, this lovely home was in need of bodies, so here we are!”

This was my mother's idea?

“Mom's as subtle as Samara's cleavage,” I whisper.

Laila lets herself grin.

I've now got a smile that makes my cheeks ache as I turn to Samara. “I think it's ‘fumigated,' Lalla Sam.”

“Really?” She and Laila cock their heads the exact same way. “Well,” Samara then says, “regardless, it's a temporary situation. So whenever your family wants to shoo us out the door and move back in, just let us know, Henry.”

Guilt must be chomping away at my mother like a flesh-eating virus. She's not only brought Laila here to help heal the rift between us, she's making sure Henry's family can return home easily, without having to worry about tenants whose lease they couldn't break.

I guess her lying to me about Zak my entire life trumps anything I've done lately.

“Tomorrow's your last night here, Henry?” Samara asks.

Still looking like a deer caught in the headlights, he nods. “But if you need to move in tonight, I can go—”

“Nonsense. The fumes don't start gating for a few days.” She sweeps her hand over the luggage, pausing to smile at our two pink poufs. “We just wanted to drop off a few things.”

One of those things poking out the side of a leopard-print suitcase just happens to be Mr. Gemp, the gold genie lantern with the long spout and curved handle that Yasmin originally found and that's made the rounds to each of my Zar sisters on their sixteenth birthdays, including me. I was the last one to have it. I deposited it on Laila's doorstep after she turned sixteen. It's a good sign she didn't toss it in the trash; it's an even better sign that it's among the first things to be brought to her new home.

Samara leans against the doorway to the kitchen, eyeing each of us and tapping her foot. Suddenly, excitement flashes through her eyes. “Azra, your mother and I are having a ladies' night out on the town tomorrow.” She raises an eyebrow. “So if anyone wanted to throw a certain someone a going-away something, and invite anyone's cousins, who haven't all been together in quite a while, there would be no eyes a-prying.”

Subtle as a Jinn's love of sweets.

Yasmin plops down on the pouf next to Laila. The sadness in her eyes somehow adds to her beauty. It softens her.

“Just don't set anything on fire,” Samara adds.

Unlike my mother, whose after-prom party was so smokin' Samara had to learn to conjure water. If I invite Yasmin, Laila, and the rest of our “cousins,” my party will be smokin' in an entirely different way.

Laila plays with the fringe on her pouf. “It
would
be nice to meet
people
before school starts…”

“People” clearly means Zak. Still, the flutter in my chest returns. “You'll come?”

She nods, and so that's it.

I'm throwing a party.

 

13

I've never thrown a party.

But I know someone who has.

While Laila moving in takes some of the sting out of both Henry and Zak leaving, I'm still not exactly in the mood for blowing up balloons. But that wouldn't be fair to Henry. He deserves a good-bye party. Something I should have thought of myself.

I leave Henry with Samara, who's asking instructions on how to use the gas stove (which, with her history, she shouldn't touch—ever), and dial as I walk across the street.

Mina answers on the first ring.

“I'm thinking upscale campfire,” she says, “in honor of Henry's new home state.”

“How did you—”

“Oh, babycakes, Laila texted me ages ago.”

Ages?

“So Evites, obviously,” she continues, her voice full of her signature bubbliness. “I already texted Farrah.” Of course. The two of them are as close as canned sardines. “And she's getting a list of names from her albino beach boy.”

“He's not albino. He's just pale.”

“I thought so too. But we were just at your little beach and that boy's as transparent as he was at the start of the summer. Mr. Cellophane's got some hot friends though.” Mina's innocent baby face hides the truth of her very guilty party-girl self.

“I don't want this to get too big,” I say, regretting making this call.

Silence.

“One-fifty?” Mina says.

“Are you crazy? Henry doesn't know a hundred and fifty people.”

“You mean
you
don't know a hundred and fifty people.”

Snarky? Really? Well then … “Ten.”

Clunk!

I pull my phone away from my ear, unsure if Mina hung up on me or dropped her phone.

Muffled sounds precede Mina's “
Ten?
”

Dropped, it seems.

“But we're seven with all of us and your cute boy!”

Nate? Oh, she must mean Henry. Nate and Henry. Together again. And don't forget Chelsea. Hey, at least I can return her earring.

I do not want to be picturing what I'm currently picturing.

Instead I picture my five magnetic, quirky, hypnotizingly beautiful Zar sisters mingling with half the incoming—
human
—juniors and seniors of my high school. What could go wrong?

By the time I make it back to my room, we've settled on forty of Henry's nearest and dearest, I've negotiated her K-pop band inside and minimalist techno band outside down to Farrah playing iPod DJ, and left Mina to decide what booze needs conjuring.

Though she needs a good editor, Mina sure is saving my Jinn butt. After what happened with Laila, I wasn't sure how my Zar sisters might treat me. I know Laila told Hana that I stole her locket. Maybe Mina's being so helpful because she and Farrah don't know?

“Hey, Mina, can I ask you something?”

“Hmm … hold on, I'm almost … Wait … Okay … okay … there we go.”

Sounds of sniffing. Then swallowing. Then spitting.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“
Ack
 … paint thinner. Whatever I just conjured tastes like lemon-flavored paint thinner.”

“What were you trying for?”

“Limoncello.”

“I'm assuming that's not a type of string instrument?”

“Azra, we have to get you out more.” Another swallow, another
ack
. “Maybe Yasmin can do better. She drank enough of it on the Amalfi.”

“Amalfi? As in coast? As in Italy?”

Silence. Again. “Some of us might have spent the past couple of weeks on holiday.”

“Some?”

“Just me and Farrah and Hana and Yasmin and Laila.”

“So all, then.” My Zar sisters went on vacation together. Without me. I thought we were past this. I thought Laila was on the verge of forgiving me.
Stop, Azra. Don't start inventing problems.
That's what my mother always tells me. I was bound by the circulus curse. I couldn't have gone even if they'd asked.
But they could have waited …

“It wasn't a twenty-four/seven party or anything,” Mina says slowly. “We were trying to help Yasmin. Not that she'd let us. Sun, Chianti, Italian men, baby-butt-smooth leather purses … Did I mention Italian men? And we barely got her onto the balcony. I mean, it's not like I expect her to forget or not be sad, but she's just so … angry.”

As I would be. Yasmin and I have more in common than either of us cares to admit.

“And Laila?” I ask tentatively. “Was … Is she angry too?”

Mina sighs. “Listen, I'm not the black-robe-wearing, gavel-slamming type, Azra. This is between you two. But for what it's worth, a pair of front-row concert tickets and backstage passes helped smooth things over after my little indiscretion with Farrah's Italian stallion.”

“Mina!”

“I said it was little.” Mina laughs, and I can just see her twirling a lock of her chestnut hair. “Get it?
Ba-dum-bump.
”

“Please, don't. Besides, I don't think that's going to work with Laila.”

“Then figure out what will. Find something she loves and give it to her.”

Something she loves … I haven't been around her enough lately to know what that might be. I am the worst friend. No, I
was
the worst friend. Admitting is the first step, right?

“She's super psyched about the party,” Mina says. “If that dude from the mall just happens to be there, you're golden.”

If only the dude from the mall could be there.

“The party's an awesome idea,” Mina continues. “Lalla Sam's a genius. Your mom too.”

“So you know Laila's moving in across the street?”

“And Yasmin. Don't forget Yasmin. Maybe you'll have better luck with her than we did. She's mopey, bitter … you know, more like you.”

“Hey!”

“Fine, the old you.” The smack of her delicate pink lips hurts my eardrum. “Now you call that perky blonde who was throwing herself at your Henry all summer, and we'll be set.”

Chelsea
was
throwing herself at him, wasn't she? Not that Henry minded donning a baseball mitt. Doesn't matter. I have my hunky lifeguard.
Right?

“Azra, it's time.” My mother's tall body appears slight as she stands next to Zak. The red lining her gold eyes and the wounded smile on her face match his.

And I wish Henry and his mitt were here.

*   *   *