Circle of Jinn (18 page)

The curtains are open, and the window has a perfect view of the backyard pool, where I can just make out Laila and Chelsea sitting side by side with their feet dangling in the water.

I'm jarred back inside by the bass from a blast of music that makes the bed shake. It's coming from next door and is quickly followed by a groan.
Or is that a moan?

“Whatever in Janna is going on?” Matin says, jumping up from his pouf.

“It's a high school party.” Yasmin lifts her chin in the air. “Filled with humans. What do you think they're doing? They're like savages.”

Matin furrows his brow. It takes a moment for Yasmin's meaning to click. When it does, his eyes grow wide and his lips morph into a rare, full-on smile. “Hmm … I wonder … seeing as how I'm simply a, shall we say, ‘tagalong,' my presence here does not appear to be entirely necessary.”

“Pouf,” Zak says, pointing.

Matin freezes. He then looks around, cautiously. “Aye, so that's not some sort of spell,
habib
?”

Yasmin taps her toe against the pink pillow seat and laughs. A short, quick, and clearly unexpected—even to her—burst.

As Matin sits back down, he scoops a framed photograph of Raina and Yasmin off the shelf beside him. “Your mother, I presume?” He peers at the picture and scratches his stubbly chin. “Aye … exquisite, certainly, but … intense.”

I draw in a breath. No one speaks to Yasmin so bluntly.

She leans forward and takes the photo from his hand. “Perceptive.”

And with that one word, Yasmin gives more insight into how she's truly been feeling about her mother's absence than I'm guessing she gave our Zar sisters in their entire two weeks in Italy.

Unfortunately, this does nothing to dull the daggers her eyes are sending my way. She sets the frame facedown on the floor and says with contempt, “As
grateful
as I am to your brother for finally filling me in, it should have been you, Azra. We are sisters, after all. Whether we like it or not.”

My hands twitch, and I have to fight the reflex to ball them into fists. She sure doesn't make it easy to feel sorry for her. I shift my gaze back outside where I see the now-laughing Laila and Chelsea interrupted by Henry, who hops into the blue-and-yellow inflatable raft I spent half the summer in. He paddles to the side, extends a hand, and draws Chelsea into the boat.

“I mean,” Yasmin says with a huff, “self-centered is one thing, but this is just cruel.”

Cruel? Not telling her about Zak and Matin is cruel?

“Though what did I expect?” Her upper lip curls. “Like mother, like daughter.”

“My mother has nothing to do with this,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Exactly. Your mother has
never
had anything to do with this. Even when my mother asked her to.” Yasmin pushes herself off the chaise. “Your mom abandoned mine. Let the Afrit sweep her away like dust under those fancy throw rugs she loves so much.”

“That's not true,” I say. “It's killing her that your mother was taken.”

“And yet my mother's the one who's actually in danger of being killed.” Yasmin stands directly in front of Zak and me. “Or maybe she's having tiny fish nibble the calluses off her feet. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing. I have no contacts in Janna. Unlike you.” She says this to me but glares at Zak.

Oh.
She thinks we have news about Raina. That Zak does. That's what this is about. That's why she thinks I should have told her who Zak and Matin were right away.

“Yasmin,” I say, forcing myself to stand and look her in the eye. “I didn't think—”

“No, you didn't. But hey, you've been having a happy little family reunion, that's all that matters.”

Now Zak understands too. “Allow me to apologize, Yasmin. I'm the one who forced Azra to stay silent about who Matin and I really are. If I had details about your mother or the uprising, I promise I would have come to you.”

“
The
uprising?” Yasmin flips her long black hair off her shoulders. “If only ‘the' was the correct article. Instead of ‘an.' Then maybe she'd still be here.”

“The … an … some kind of uprising?” Matin nervously rubs his stubbled head. “Like a revolt? It's truly happening?”

“Not really.” Yasmin raises her voice to be heard over the blaring music from next door.

“Wait,” I say, confused. “But isn't her involvement in the uprising why your mother was taken?”

“
Her
involvement.” Yasmin drills her eyes into mine. “And your mother's
lack
of involvement. Or do you not know that she reached out to your mom and Samara?”

So the conversations I overheard between my mother and Sam about responsibilities and risks
were
about this, which means my mother does know more than she's let on. “That's why you believe if our mother had gotten involved, your mother wouldn't have been taken?”

Yasmin shrugs and the
thump thump thump
of the music from next door fills the silence here inside.

Outside, Henry leans against the back of the raft. Chelsea nestles into his arms.

Inside, Matin reaches into his pocket. He clears his throat, but before he can speak, Yasmin says, “It's not like it matters. Hell, your mother's probably the smart one. Like I told your sister, Zak, you can't win a fight against the Afrit. Unless you know something I don't, there's no use in trying.”

Though it's lightning fast, she catches the look that passes between me and Zak.

“What am I missing?” she says. “Do you have a way to help my mother?”

Neither one of us answers. I avert my eyes, looking past her and, unintentionally, directly at Henry and Chelsea.

Suddenly, Yasmin grabs my arm at the same time as Henry grabs Chelsea. Henry spins Chelsea around, lifts her small body onto his lap, and kisses her. Hard. A kiss full of passion. Full of desire. Full of everything the kiss between us lacked.

Because we are friends. That's all we are, all we should be, all we want to be.

But my heart's thudding in time to the fast beat of the music still pounding through the wall and I try to wrench my arm free of Yasmin but she squeezes even tighter and I push her away and she pulls me back and her other hand flies out, seizing me by my bangle, and I wrest myself free but a sharp pain tears through my arm and I pivot around and fall to the floor and … and she stands over me with my bangle in her hand.

My bangle that's not supposed to come off—ever.

“But how…?” she says.

In the sixteen years I've known her, Yasmin's never shown fear. Until now.

Matin crosses to the center of the room. “Perhaps it has something to do with this?” He holds between two fingers the spell I wedged into my push-up bra. I curse the fact that there's not enough padding, real or fake, to keep things in place.

Still holding my bangle in one hand, Yasmin gingerly takes the spell with her other. “What's this?” She begins to recite the words, but Zak uses the advantage of his height to extend his long reach and snatch the paper from her fingers.

Yasmin lets loose a string of expletives, and Matin returns to his pouf, legs crossed, watching like it's a game. But none of this is fun. Not Yasmin's nasal cursing, not Zak's attempts to calm her down, not Henry and Chelsea, whose own little game has capsized their boat.

The music, the talking over one another, the smirk on Matin's face. I can't take it anymore.

“Enough!” I cry.

I draw the curtains closed, whirl around, and set the spell Yasmin's struggling to free from Zak's hand on fire.

It's only when all the jaws in front of me hit the floor that I realize I did all of that using my magic. But my bangle's still in Yasmin's hand.

My secret is out.

 

19

When Matin's mouth closes, it predictably turns up into a smirk. “That'll win a Jinn argument anytime. Excellent work, Azra.”

It's like Yasmin's trying to balance on one leg. On top of a moving train. “But I—I—I don't understand. How could that…? Did I do…? Has it always…? What does this mean?”

Reaching up and unhooking the silver necklace that gives him his powers, Zak says, “It means we have a chance against them. Thanks to this spell from Father. It frees us.” He stands still, staring at a candle. He then shifts and stares at a pillow. Then the door. Then the curtains. “Why can't I use magic? Azra, how did you?”

I flop down on the chaise. Henry and Chelsea are no longer in the pool. “I don't know.”

Yasmin swoops in next to me. “You must have never been injected. Maybe because your dad's such a head honcho—”

I stiffen. “Zak, you told her?”

“I had to. How else could I explain being sent here?”

Yasmin waves me off. “So you're related to the scourge of Jinn-kind. Not the point. What I was saying—”

Lifting my hair off the back of my neck, I point to my tiny round scar. “I know what you were starting to say, but you're wrong. I was injected with whatever voodoo the Afrit—”

“
Your family
,” she says.

I bite my lip literally so I can bite my tongue metaphorically. “As a baby, I received the injection of the compound that's supposed to block our magic like everyone else.” I shrug. “I guess it didn't work.”

“Who knows?” she asks.

“My mother,” I say. “And my father. And now you three.”

“That's it?” Zak asks, crossing his arms.

“I said—”

“No, I mean, that's it? There's nothing else you haven't told me? I didn't realize when you demanded that I no longer keep secrets from you that I had to make a formal request to be treated equally.”

Matin clucks his tongue. “Interesting, very interesting.”

“Shut up!” I say at the same time as Zak says, “
Khallas!
”

“Definitely related,” Matin mutters.

My shoulders hunch and I drop my head into my hands. “Please, Zak, this has been a hard enough day, a hard enough few days. I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything.”

He slowly uncrosses his arms but looks at me intently. “So this is Father's backup plan. You.”

“
Her?
” Yasmin says.

Now I actually sink my front teeth into my tongue.

“When did you discover this?” Zak asks.

I rub my sore tongue along the roof of my mouth before saying, “When I was on probation.” I explain how I inadvertently apported, which I shouldn't have been able to do since I was wearing the bronze bangle that restricts the use of personal magic. I then describe how I put the pieces together and realized I've always had my magical powers. And that my mother hid this fact from me. “If I hadn't screwed up, I probably would have never known.”

Yasmin narrows her eyes. “It's almost like that number change on your note card was purposeful. If you hadn't rushed into granting the wish, you wouldn't have made a mistake.” She snickers. “At least that time.”

While I can ignore the second part, the first is something I've always suspected. I ask Zak, “Was it? Did Xavier purposely—”

“I don't think he could have done that from Janna,” Zak says. “And even if he could have, I cannot imagine him intentionally exposing you to that kind of danger.”

“But considering the spell, he probably wanted me to know.” I try to cover the panic this ignites inside me. “What does he expect me to do? And when?”

Matin raises his hand.

Ignoring him, Zak asks Yasmin, “Your mother never told you more about the uprising? About what she was trying to do?”

Yasmin shakes her head. “Just that she was warned that things in Janna were changing. It wasn't until I turned sixteen that she picked up this little crusade. Some birthday that was. ‘Here's your magic, Yasmin, and by the way, the Afrit are worse than a swarm of locusts and you need to help, but you better keep it a secret to protect your Zar sisters.' Except you, Azra. She wanted you to know. She was determined to force your mother to tell you everything.”

Force my mother?
Does that mean Lalla Raina knows about my abilities? Does Samara? Or has my mother truly kept this from her Zar sisters?

Yasmin continues, “She had me working on some spells.” She flicks her hand to draw our attention to the large gemstone signet ring she's wearing. It's her mother's talisman, which I first noticed on her hand on my birthday. “But just to practice. All she ever really said was that the Jinn here needed to be stronger than we are. That we needed to be ready to support the Jinn in Janna. That there may not be another way to keep us safe.”

Matin shoots his hand higher in the air.

“Oh, for Janna's sake,” Zak says. “What is it, Matin?”

He pouts. “Just for that, I should leave you all in the dark as your parents have done.”

Zak puffs out his chest, marches toward Matin, and picks him up by his collar. “I swear, Matin, I will stuff you in a bottle and toss you in the ocean—”

I really hope that's just another one of his euphemisms.

“Fine, fine,” Matin says, prying himself from Zak's large hands and adjusting his pen, which was about to tumble out of his shirt pocket. “Just don't ask me how I know what I know.” Before Zak or anyone else says anything, Matin tosses his hands in the air. “
Rahmah!
Fine, I'll tell you, but no getting all judgy.”

He settles himself on his pouf, faces Yasmin and me, and gestures for Zak to sit beside us.

When he does, Matin starts. “Excellent. See, it was a couple of days before we were scheduled to leave Janna.”

“You were never scheduled to leave Janna,” Zak says.