Circle of Jinn (22 page)

An even better lead-in, though far from how we planned it upstairs.

Samara stands, but Yasmin waves her off. “No, Lalla Sam. I know you tried. I want the rest of these
traitors
to say something.”

But the only one who says something is me. And it's not so much a word as it is a guttural scream. What starts as claws piercing my skin ends as the jaws of life clenching my insides.

In my mind, the cause flashes so fast I think I'm imagining it. A hallucination. It must be. Everything that's happening here's influencing my delusions. Or it's a bad mussel. After the hospital visit, Nate, Megan, and I had a late lunch at the Pearl. That's all this is. A mussel I shouldn't have drenched in butter and let slide down my throat.

Another flash—stronger—and I stumble back.

But how?

Again.

It doesn't matter how. It's not a hallucination.

Again. And again.

It's real.

I double over.

And act on instinct.

“Zak!” The decking tilts underneath me, and I'm reaching out not to fall. “Zak! Come … down … n-n-now…”

And he does. My brother. He holds me to his chest and grounds me.

“Th-the woods,” I stammer out, oblivious to the circle of Jinn around us. Save for one.

Right before Zak apps us away, I find Yasmin in the crowd.

“She's here.”

 

23

The gasps of all the Jinn I've known my entire life clamor in my ears for half a second, but it's the hope on Yasmin's face that remains, that I still see, as Zak apps me to the woods behind Nate's house.

She's there. Just as I knew she would be.

Raina.

Lying in a torn gray kaftan on the ground where the stick
X
used to be. I rush to her side and clasp her hand in mine. The same thin scratches that run down her palm also line her face. Her waist-length black hair splays around her in a mess of knots and clumps.

“Lalla Raina?” I touch her forehead, then her chest.
She's breathing. Thank Janna, she's breathing.
I find her pulse and cling to it, letting myself recover from the pain of the vise on my internal organs. That it's ebbing to a dull simmer of Pop Rocks and Coke lets me know my father's responsible. I turn to Zak. “Water, a glass of water.”

He conjures a small cup, and together we lift it to Raina's mouth. She doesn't swallow, and the water spills down her chin. Her almond-shaped gold eyes haven't blinked and remain fixed on Hana's fuzzy green scarf, which we left entwined in the branches above us.

“Let's take her back,” I say. “Mom can heal her.”

Zak kneels beside Raina and delicately slides his hands underneath her body. Suddenly her arm flies out and she grabs me by the end of my sheer scarf. The strength in her grip forces me to sink my hand into the mud above her shoulder so I don't tumble on top of her.

“Azra.” Her voice is raspy, like she's been dining on thorns. “Your father lost. They know. They know everything.”

Her words shoot a spear clean through my heart, but it's Zak who cries out. He rips his arms out from under Raina, and her scream swallows his. I hold her down by her shoulders, scanning her body for the source of her injury, but there are no obvious signs. No bleeding, no broken bones jutting through skin, not even a bruise. All I see are hairline scratches and abrasions whose redness indicates they are recent, but they couldn't be causing her this much pain, could they?

Zak has fallen back on his heels, and his breathing is rapid and shallow. I whip off my scarf and bunch it to make a pillow for Raina's head before circling around to Zak.

“Deep breaths, Zak,” I say, rubbing his back, which arches at my touch. I continue my long, gentle strokes, muttering reassuring words that are always said in times like these, and yet their emptiness makes even me recoil.

Raina's strength and voice leave her at the same time, and she collapses in on herself, her body curling into a ball. I have to get her to my mother, but I'm not sure if I can lift her and hold her in my arms. If I app her like this, letting her dangle beside me, I'm afraid I'll hurt her even more.

I need Zak. And so I say the truth, the only thing we know for sure. “We can't do anything for Xavier right now. But we have a chance to help Raina.”

He stares down at her as if remembering she's here. He blinks and roughly rubs his face before nodding. Together, we then roll Raina into his arms, and he rises to his feet. In the instant before he apports, Raina's head turns and her eyes meet mine.

“Tell Yasmin I'm sorry,” she says.

*   *   *

We arrive in the backyard, but the deck is empty. Everyone's moved inside.

Still in Zak's strong arms, Lalla Raina's eyes jolt open. I can tell she's trying not to cry out from the pain of apporting.

“Take her to your room,” I say quickly, grateful for the soundproofing spell that will mask any noise Raina makes. I need to prepare them, especially Yasmin.

As I enter the kitchen, snippets of conversations greet me. Samara, hurt that my mother didn't tell her Zak was here. Hana, hurt and humiliated that Matin didn't tell her who he was. Nadia, hurt and astounded to see Matin and desperate for her children to stop fighting so she can hold her son. Mina and Farrah, hurt and confused and feeling increasingly left out as Jada and Isa explain all the things that have been kept from them.

The only ones sitting quietly are Yasmin and Laila. Laila is holding both of Yasmin's hands. Samara's inclination to support an uprising explains why she and Laila were the only ones exempt from Yasmin's anger and blame.

In the kitchen doorway, I feel Zak apport upstairs. The only other Jinn focused enough to feel the same is Yasmin.

But I can't let her go up there, not without bracing her for what she's going to see. As she stands, I push past everyone else to reach her, including Matin, whose eyes grow as round as saucers as he takes in me in my genie costume.

“Is she really here?” Yasmin asks.

Her voice comes out so faint and the rest of the voices ring so loud, I can barely hear her. But somehow, every Jinn in the room does. It's grown so silent that I can hear my own heartbeat echo in my ears.

I nod. “In Zak's room. But she's hurt. She's going to need—”

My mother, Samara, Nadia, Isa, and Jada apport upstairs before I take my next breath.

But the only part of Yasmin that moves are her eyelids, which flutter shut. I stare at the heavy layer of blue shadow, trying to remain focused on her, on Raina, trying to prevent my mind from imagining myself in Yasmin's shoes, about to look at the aftereffects of what the Afrit may very well be in the process of doing to my father.

Above our heads, a flurry of footsteps pad the ceiling. A burst of patter traveling from Zak's bedroom to my mother's to the bathroom and back again.

“What are they doing?” Mina asks.

Farrah laughs nervously. “Healing her, duh. And I'm the goofy one?”

Matin rubs his stubbled head. “Doesn't sound like it's going well.”

Hana slaps his arm, and I shoot him a harsh look. He rounds his shoulders and I realize he didn't mean it the way it sounded.

“Aye, sorry, love.” He then worms his way through the pileup of Zar sisters to slip an arm around Yasmin's waist. His voice trembles as he says, “Shall we go on up, then?”

“Let's all go,” Hana says.

Yasmin pries Matin's hand off of her. “No, just Azra.”

Just me. Because I'm the only one here who knows everything—aside from Matin. But now is not the time to introduce mother and boyfriend. I stand beside Yasmin, but she doesn't take a step, so I link my arm through hers. She doesn't fight me and simply moves her body with mine as I climb the stairs.

“But what should we do?” Mina asks.

Being Jinn has always been full of secrets and lies.

I've used them my whole life to pretend I'm something I'm not. I think of Nate and Henry. I'm using them now still.

Our mothers have used them too. To protect us and to protect one another. They've used them as a way to focus on the good and forget the bad. But the line between good and bad is being erased.

If we are to stop pretending, if we are to protect one another, if we are to save Raina and my father, if we are to help our fellow Jinn, we must stop hiding behind the lies.

Like Jenny once said, “Best friends share secrets.” And these are not just my sisters, they are my best friends, or at least they should be.

“Why don't you start a pot of coffee?” I say. “This is going to be a long night.”

 

24

I know my words are true the moment Yasmin and I cross the threshold into Zak's bedroom and the sounds of Raina's anguish fill our ears.

Yasmin rushes to the bed and takes her mother's hand. Seething, she spins her head around and eyes all the mothers in the room, lingering longest on mine, who is poised on the other side of Raina.

“Why aren't you helping her?” Yasmin says.

My mother wets her lips. “We're trying, but—”

“Try harder,” Yasmin spits out.

At the sound of her daughter's voice, Raina opens her eyes and stifles her cries. She even attempts to sit up, but the pain that comes with the motion makes her bite her own lip with such force that she draws blood. “Yasmin,” she says. “You must … be … prepared.” Each word sounds like sandpaper scraping her throat.

Yasmin squeezes Raina's hand and scowls at my mother. “Can't you do something for the pain?”

At that, Lalla Nadia enters the room with a bowl of water and a washcloth. She kneels beside the bed and dabs at Raina's forehead. “Your mother wouldn't let us, Yasmin. She needed to tell us something first.”

“What could possibly be so important?” Yasmin asks, but of course, I already know.

I move next to Zak, who's using the wall in the far corner of the room for support, and let Samara take my place beside Yasmin. She gently caresses Yasmin's back before setting a chair in front of her and beginning to summarize what Raina has gathered enough strength to relay.

Though held by the Afrit, Raina was spared a cell in tortura cavea. Xavier had been protecting her. But he can't anymore. The Chemharouch election has been held, and he lost to Qasim, another Afrit on the council.

At his name, my mother bristles. She and Samara understood what this meant without Raina needing to say anything further. This particular Afrit is the most conservative on the council. Not only will Xavier be unable to reverse the restrictions, more will likely come.

Apparently Xavier had begun to fear the outcome of the election and that he was being watched. He couldn't risk lowering the shield to allow Zak to return. Now that the election has not gone his way but to Qasim, the Jinn in Janna are outraged, Raina said. As worried as Xavier is about what Qasim may do in the future, right now, he's more scared of the harm that would come to Jinn if they acted rashly and protested the election results. And so Xavier moved swiftly to try to stave off those in favor of inciting an uprising. But the meeting he held with the Jinn leading the underground rebellion in Janna was not as clandestine as he hoped, and his true allegiances were discovered.

As Samara confirms that Xavier has been outed as a traitor, my mother's shoulders remain squared, her body stiff, her eyes focused on her tightly clasped hands. What she's feared most since the day he left has happened. That she's not only standing on two feet but trying to heal Raina makes her not just a model Jinn but a model, period. I only hope I inherited half her strength.

For Zak's sake even more than my own. I reach for his hand and find it cold and trembling. I try not to imagine the worst as Samara explains how Raina escaped to warn us, but that Xavier didn't have enough time to properly lower the shield that blocks apporting. Raina's injuries—the ones yet to be healed, the ones our mothers cannot figure out how to heal—are a result of traveling through in human rather than animal form.

At this, Yasmin lashes out at my mother. “All of this is your fault.” Though she's shouting, thanks to her own soundproofing spell, none of our Zar sisters downstairs can hear her. “My mother was taken because you refused to help her, and now she's … she's…” Samara tries to calm her, but Yasmin only gets louder. “No, Sam. I'm sick of the Nadiras being more important than everyone else. Why is my mother expendable? Tossed through like a piece of meat to be flambéed just so she could tell us poor Xavier might get a slap on the wrist? Why is his life worth more than hers?”

Zak drops my hand and in two long strides crosses to the bed. “It won't be a slap on the wrist.” His clipped voice fuels Yasmin's anger.

I've seen these two fight before, and, especially since the tension seems to be increasing Raina's pain, I hurry to Lalla Isa and Lalla Jada and suggest they take Yasmin elsewhere. They have to forcibly remove her from the room.

Nadia, who has remained at Raina's side, once again begins muttering healing incantations.

My mother says over her, “It's time, Sam. Raina's told us enough. I'm doing the spell.”

“No,” Raina croaks. “Wait. Xavier had a message for you, Kalyssa.”

Nadia stops speaking and helps Raina sip water from a straw. Then, with slow measured breaths in between her words, Raina says, “There is a portal, a weakness in the shield we can use to enter Janna without shape-shifting. To enter and support the uprising.”

Samara's mouth falls open. She leans over Raina. “Where?”

“There was no way for me to get there and leave through it, so we agreed he wouldn't tell me in case I was intercepted. But Kalyssa knows.”

We all stare at my mother, whose entire body shakes, denying it. “I—I—I don't.”

Samara's lips thin. “I know you're against this, Kal, but are you really going to be so selfish as to hold out on us? Look what they did to her!”