Circle of Jinn (34 page)

That's not true. That's not why I'm with—that's not why I
was
with Nate.

My lips part, and I start to shake my head.

He lets go of the rope. “That's not necessarily a bad thing. It doesn't make our feelings any less real. And I care about Chelsea. A lot. I'm just explaining why … trying to explain why … Oh, forget it.”

He slumps down into the raft, and I jerk upright.

“No way,” I say. “You can't start this and not end it.”

His forehead creases. “That's it, actually.”

“‘It' what?”

“What I was afraid of.” His eyes flick to mine for a second before he takes his glasses off so he can no longer see me clearly. “Starting something you wouldn't want to end. Even though you should.” He stops and fiddles with the rope again. “It's just … it makes me the conceited one. Too presumptuous, but … well … I didn't want anything to happen between us because I always knew you were destined for more and I didn't want to hold you back.”

“Hold me back? From what?”

He goes to tuck the arm of his glasses into his shirt, forgetting he's not wearing one. “Anything. Everything.” He drops his glasses into his lap. “Being with a stud like Nate, granting wishes around the world, whatever. I didn't want you to not live the life you were supposed to live because of me.”

“
Because
of you?” The life I was supposed to live …
Is that how I've made him feel?
The thought that I have—even unintentionally—twists my stomach into knots.

I scoot forward, and the end of the raft lifts out of the water, but I don't care if we capsize. “Don't you see?” I grab his hands. Because I do. I see. I've always seen it. I've just been too scared of it being taken away to let myself admit it. “You're the reason I have anything. You're the reason I have
everything
. The life I'm supposed to live is any life that includes you.”

I always thought of his green eyes as Jenny's eyes. But as they look at me now, brimming with tears, they are no longer Jenny's.

They are his.

I tuck my legs behind me, kneeling in front of him. And this is when I realize what he actually means. He doesn't just mean
he'd
be holding me back. He means
my feelings for him
would make me hold myself back. Back from living the life I'm supposed to live. Back from being a Jinn. Henry knowing about me makes our relationship as complicated as mine with Nate, just in a different way.

And I have been holding myself back, but back from everything. From being Jinn, from Nate, from Henry. Trying to have a little of everything but all of nothing. I never gave myself over to anything, not completely. Though now's not the time to start with Henry, I can't help gently squeezing his hands and pulling him toward me until we almost bump noses.

“Azra, no,” he says, hanging his head. “If you do, there's no way I'm letting you go. To Janna, to Cambridge … hell, to the bathroom without me.”

He then slips his hands from mine and stares into his lap. “There's something I need you to know. Something I need to apologize for.” He clears his throat. “The whole Chelsea … thing … I never meant to hurt you. But that night, Zak told me how important you were to the uprising. When he did, every fiber of my being screamed for me to muzzle you, strap you on my back, and run away to … to … to Maine, Alaska, Canada … but how could I be that selfish?” He pauses, trying to stop the quiver in his voice. “It wasn't planned or anything. But when you started to read my mind and you saw that and got so mad, I figured … well, you'd have to move on. So I didn't correct you.”

Correct me?

He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand but still refuses to look at me. “But we … we didn't.”

They didn't?

“If you'd hung around even another few seconds, you'd have seen. We got close. Real close. But we … I couldn't.”

He
didn't.

“I really like Chelsea, but it wouldn't have been fair to her. Same way it wasn't fair to stay with her anymore. Earlier, before she left, I … I broke up with her.”

My pulse is racing and my mind is swirling, and though my heart still aches from letting Nate go, it swells as I hear this and I don't know what he expects me to say or what I want to say, so I simply bend my head and rest my forehead against his.

“I always knew I'd have to give you up,” he says. “Maybe not right away, but one day. You have so many more important things to do than be with me.”

Now my heart sinks because as wrong as he is, as wrong as I want him to be, he's not. He's right. I've always known it. Which is why I could never give myself over to him or to Nate. Not the way they have.

I press my forehead deeper into his. I wasn't supposed to grow attached to humans. But I did. And just to prove that it's me who's the selfish one, I'm glad I did. But I can't let my selfishness be at Henry's expense. I'll make sure it's not. Just not tonight.

“I ended things with Nate too,” I say.

Though hope flashes in his eyes, he wouldn't be Henry if he didn't say he was sorry, if he didn't ask if I was okay. But he thinks something different.

Impeccable timing. We're both free of “other things,” but “other things” have been replaced by “other other things.”

“I'm sorry,” I say weakly. “I wish things were different. I wish I could stay. But I have to do whatever I can to keep everyone safe. I have to do whatever I can to protect the ones I love.”

At my “love,” the tears he's been unsuccessfully fighting fall to the bottom of the raft, where they mix with mine.

As his breaths slow, I swallow past the lump in my throat and tug his hand. “So, seriously? Maine, Alaska, Canada? You wouldn't kidnap me and take me somewhere warm?”

He tugs back. “I'd keep you warm.”

I pull my forehead away from his. I press my thumb under his chin so that I can look into his eyes. The eyes of my best friend. Always.

And it is at that moment that my heart is torn from my chest. Followed by Laila's, Hana's, Mina's, and Farrah's. We all feel what Yasmin is feeling. And what Yasmin is feeling is the worst thing I can imagine.

“Raina's dead,” I whisper.

 

33

Laila, Hana, Mina, and Farrah apport to the backyard, and their collective signatures knock me flat against the back of the raft. Since tapping into the magic of other Jinn, all my senses are heightened.

“Azra?” Henry reaches his hand across the raft. “Are you okay?”

No. No, no, no, no, no.

“Yes,” I say. I sit up, and the world spins. Immediately, I tumble back.

“Azra!” Henry crawls in front of me.

I wave my hand. “I'm just a little dizzy.” My body starts to shake.

“And cold,” he says.

My clothes are still wet, and the air's cooler than the pool, but it's Yasmin's shudders that I'm feeling.

The magic of one of my Zar sisters pulls the raft to the stairs in the shallow end. Henry helps me climb out. All in pajamas, Laila, Hana, Mina, and Farrah kneel on the ground, surrounding me. They're all upset. They're all feeling Yasmin. But I'm feeling her the most. Must be our Afrit blood.

Laila wraps an arm around my shoulder.

“We need to go to her,” I say.

Hana dries my clothes. “All of us? That might be too much for Yasmin.”

Laila and Mina nod in agreement.

We look at one another, all wanting to be the one to go as much as we don't want to be the one to go. Surprisingly, it's Farrah who says, “Let me.” She conjures a black headband that she uses to pull her long bangs out of her eyes.

Before we can stop her, she disappears, but the sensation of the soft flick of a bunny's tail hits us less than a minute later when she returns. Her headband flashes like a strobe light as it changes color after color. “I—I—I saw Lalla Raina … She … I just didn't expect…”

Mina rises to her feet. “It's okay.” She links arms with Farrah, and despite the fear in her eyes, says, “Come, we'll go together.”

The instant they leave, Zak flies out the door of the screened-in porch.

“Laila, where did you go?” he calls, his hair flattened in the back in traditional bedhead style. He comes to a halt when he sees us huddled on the ground.

Laila answers, “It's Raina.”

Zak's eyes find mine. It doesn't matter that he didn't know Raina well; his heart aches for her, for Yasmin, for both my Zar and my mother's, and for the reality that this could happen to any one of us.

I conjure Henry a shirt that he slips over his head, but otherwise, we stay as we are. We're all dazed, unsure what to do. We still haven't moved when a loud clank makes us all jump. We turn our heads toward the front of the yard, where the fence gate has just slammed shut.

“Matin!” Zak says. “Where have you been?”

Looking disheveled and distracted as he walks toward us, Matin simply shrugs. A leaf clings to the back of his long white tunic.

Zak pries another from his hair. “And why are you wearing that?”

Matin shrugs again. “It's comfortable?”

Hana pops up and grabs her brother by his elbows. “Have you been drinking? How could you, with all that's going on?”

“All that's going on is why I should have been drinking, but alas, I was not.”

She's furious. “What's wrong with you? Did it ever occur to you that Yasmin might need you? Or me?”

“Aye, Sister, it did. It does.” Matin strokes his scruffy beard. “That's why this is so hard.”

“Hard?” Hana slaps his arm. “This is hard for you? What's wrong with you?”

“Me?” He massages his forearm. “What's wrong with
you
?”

Zak pulls him away from Hana. “Do you not know?”

“More Jinn secrets,” Matin grumbles. “Secrets are poison,
habib
.”

“Enough!” I launch myself at Matin. “How can you be this selfish? Yasmin's mother is dead. Dead, Matin.” I poke his chest. “Raina's dead. Your
girlfriend's
mother.” I poke him again. “Do you care? Did you ever care about Yasmin?” I give one final jab that causes the pen clipped to the V of his neckline—his favorite, special pen—to fall to the decking.

It spins in a circle, landing at Henry's feet.

“Dead?” Matin wobbles and then claps one hand on top of his head. “She can't be. This … this wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't supposed to be like this.” He begins rubbing so hard, his scalp turns redder than the short stubble of his hair. “They lied.” He kneads his skin. “They lied …
they lied
.”

Now I feel like a jerk. Of course he didn't know. Still, he hasn't exactly been top-shelf boyfriend—or brother—material since all this started.

Henry tugs on my arm. “Hey, Azra.” He's holding the pen between two fingers like it's covered in rat droppings.

I'm staring at it and him when suddenly Matin cries, “No!” and crashes into me to grab the pen himself.

He then sprints across the yard toward the fire pit.

“What was that all about?” Laila asks.

Henry's tense face means he knows. “Azra. The pen. It's like … it's the same as—”

“Farouk's,” I say. The pen is the same as Farouk's. Farouk's enchanted pen that lets him communicate with my father.
In Janna.
What would Matin be doing with something like that? And why would he keep it a secret?

I plant my hands on my hips and shake my head. That's when I notice the two leaves on the ground that were stuck to Matin when he arrived. Leaves like the ones in the woods where Raina appeared and where Matin and Zak first arrived—from Janna. That's where Matin's been. He was waiting for someone to take him back to Janna … or waiting to bring someone from Janna here.

No, this is Matin. Hana's brother. Zak's best friend. He wouldn't have done something to put us all in danger.

I crunch the leaves under my feet.

But he did.

“Inside!” I grab Henry by his belt loop and shove him into Hana. “Take him away. Now!” I spin around to Laila. “Get your mother!”

“Azra, what's—” Laila starts.

“Just do it,” Henry says.

I look him straight in the eye and project my thoughts into his head.
You're a genius. I love you, Henry.

His eyes widen right before Hana whisks him away.

I don't wait for the others to go. I latch onto Zak and app us both to the fire pit. Matin's hunched over, squatting, furiously writing on a wrinkled piece of paper with his pen. His magical pen. Because when I snatch the thick parchment from his hand, it's blank. The message doesn't appear here. It appears in Janna. The question is, in front of who?

“Give it back,” Matin pleads.

My entire body seethes with anger. “You can't be serious.”

“Azra, please, you do not understand,” he says.

“I understand plenty.” I pass the paper to Zak. “Perhaps a little late, but then, you are an excellent liar, Matin. Do they have theater in Janna? You're a natural.”

Zak flips the paper over and over. “What is this?”

With the speed of a cheetah, Matin leaps at Zak, attempting to yank the paper from his hand.

“Don't give it to him!” I shout.

Zak obeys but grits his teeth. “What's going on, Azra?”

I answer my brother while staring at his best friend. “He's communicating with someone in Janna. Farouk used the same method. Seems like pretty high-level magic. Not something every Jinn would have. But every Afrit…”

Matin slumps to the ground. “But you don't understand. I had to.”