Exquisite Captive (24 page)

“Jordif said the humans sit in the metal birds because they can’t evanesce,” he said. “Can you imagine being chained to the earth like that?”

Zanari shook her head. “Remember when Papa took us to the temple on Qaf Zhiqui?”

“Yes,” he said softly. He could almost feel the mountaintop’s freezing gales of wind.
“If you can evanesce home from here, you’re truly a man, my son.”

He tried to imitate their father’s gravelly voice and Zanari laughed. “And then—”

He groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

But Zanari was laughing so hard tears were streaming down her cheeks. “The look on your face when you evanesced and then appeared on the mountain next to us!”

Raif smiled at the memory. His father hadn’t shamed him, as so many fathers would have done. Instead, Dthar Djan’Urbi had laughed his great belly laugh and promised Raif a piece of honeycomb when they returned to their overlord’s property, after the day’s work was done. This was before his father had begun performing the unbindings on Arjinna’s serfs, an exhausting ritual he’d had to repeat several times a day. There was no way to break binds en masse and, though the Djan’Urbi family shared their knowledge, only a few serfs were ever able to master the complex magic. That was why it had taken so long to build the resistance in the first place—it was no simple matter, releasing slaves from their chains. Though Raif’s grandfather had been the one to perfect the spell, his father had waited to use it until he was sure he had a resistance in place. Once a free child, Raif often longed for those days on the overlord’s farm—not because he wanted to be a slave, but because his father still belonged to him.

Now, Dthar Djan’Urbi was becoming a thing of legend, even though he’d only been dead a few years. The resistance had painted his memory in the dark colors of war: red, black, the rusty brown of dried blood. But the truth was quite different. His father was the kindest jinni Raif had ever known.

I’ll never be able to lead as he did,
Raif thought. He was already learning that it took far more than strategic insight and passion to command thousands of jinn.

“You’re doing the best you can, Raif.” Zanari’s voice was soft, a caress. He pushed it aside.

Was it that obvious that he was in way over his head?

“I know.” His voice had a defensive edge. “
What?
Stop looking at me like that.”

“I’m just worried about you, okay? You’ve got that I’ll-never-be-as-great-as-my-father look. Imagine what Papa was like when he was nineteen! Just trying to make Mama fall in love with him, not worrying about revolution and sigils.” She squeezed his hand. “You’ve defeated countless Ifrit, shaken up the whole realm—”

He frowned. “It’s not enough.” Raif took another long sip of his drink. “I think Jordif’s helping the Ifrit,” he said.

He’d been thinking about it ever since his conversation the night before with his magnanimous host. The growth of the dark caravan—that there was even a dark caravan at all—didn’t make sense. And how had Haran made it through the portal without so much as a peep from Jordif’s guards? If they’d been killed, Raif could believe that Haran had fought his way through. But no, it was all a big mystery.

“Hundreds of jinn are being brought through for the caravan,” he said, “and nobody knows how? I don’t buy it.”

Zanari nodded. “I agree, it’s not adding up. But why would Jordif be involved with the dark caravan? What’s in it for him?”

“I don’t know. I mean, he seems to genuinely care about the refugees. You’ve seen him—he works like a dog for them, never resting. But he’s not telling us the truth, not by a long shot.”

“I agree.” Zanari took a sip of her drink and wrinkled her nose in disgust before swallowing. “Do you think we should stay somewhere else?”

Raif shook his head. “Where would we go? It’d just make him suspicious and we can only fight so many enemies at once. For now, all we can do is look sharp.”

Zanari took a breath. “We have a bigger problem, anyway.” Raif tensed beside her, waiting. “My readings of Haran are . . . confusing. Really confusing. I’ve never experienced anything like it. That’s what I came up here to tell you.”

“What’d you see?” he asked quietly.

“We’re definitely right about the birthmark thing. When I focus on Haran there’s always a jinni with a birthmark on her face. But I never see
Haran
.” She ran a hand through her short hair and it stuck up like little pieces of grass, giving her the appearance of a water sprite, one of the trickster Marid jinn that lived in lakes and wells.

“Yeah, but that’s not unusual. I mean, you don’t always see your target.”

Zanari frowned. “I guess. But something doesn’t feel right.”

“Well, he’s a sadistic
skag
—of course it doesn’t
feel
right.”

Skag
—similar to
salfit
, but applicable to any and all jinn.

“Whatever he’s doing, he changes location a lot, so I know he must be getting closer because there are only so many places that jinn congregate on Earth. Clubs like Habibi tend to be in big cities. It’s only a matter of time before he comes here. Do you think he has a dark power?”

Raif shrugged. “He’s a top-ranking Ifrit. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“What did Nalia say when you told her about the birthmarks last night?”

“She won’t cover her mark.”

“What?”

“She evanesced before I could explain that Haran’s attacking other jinn with marks, but I don’t think that would have changed her mind. She’s worried about offending the gods—you know the type.”

“Fire and blood,” she cursed. “I’m sure in this case the gods would understand.”

Raif rubbed his eyes, weary. “I don’t think the gods care one way or the other.”

It wasn’t that Raif didn’t honor the deities of his realm; he just wasn’t sure they were all that concerned about the day-to-day affairs of the jinn. He’d always imagined them as distant figures who watched Arjinna from a great height. He kept a small shrine to Tirgan, the god of Earth, in his home, of course. He prayed on occasion, especially when he thought he might die. And he always thanked the gods for his power when he replenished his
chiaan
. But he suspected that wasn’t enough for Nalia. The Ghan Aisouri were known for their devotion to the gods who controlled the land. In breaking her vow to protect the sigil, Nalia believed she had committed a grave offense. Asking her to hide the mark of a god’s favor was suggesting the height of sacrilege.

“Zan, honestly, even if she glamoured her mark, all he’d have to do is ask around. It’s not like every jinni she knows in LA is going to suddenly forget she’s had a mark the past three years. I shielded her house with a
bisahm
, and that’s pretty much all we can do until he arrives. Let’s just hope that by the time Haran gets here, Nalia has already stolen the bottle and we’re on our way to getting the sigil.”

“What if she needs more time?” Zan asked quietly.

Raif stood and paced the length of the roof. “I guess we try to fend him off.”

“Two Djan against one of the most powerful Ifrit that ever lived? He’ll kill us in a second.”

“Doesn’t really matter, if we don’t have the sigil. He’ll kill us here or back in Arjinna. We can’t keep things going much longer, you know that. Especially not now that the Ifrit have launched a new offensive.”

Zanari sighed. “I’m not going to let you go off on some crazy suicide mission. She’s the only jinni on Earth capable of defeating Haran, and you know it. If you try to help her fight him, you’re just going to get yourself killed. And then where will we be?”

“Pretty much where we’ll be if she dies, Zan. The gods aren’t gonna swoop down and save us from the Ifrit.”

She shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Like what?”

Zanari arched an eyebrow. “Like you being kind of sweet on a Ghan Aisouri. If you fight Haran you’re just playing
Rahim
to her
Jandessa
.”

“What? I’m not—”

“Uh-huh.”

Raif turned away, his face warm in the darkness. “Like I have time for that,” he muttered.

His sister was losing her godsdamned mind. How could he feel anything but hatred for a Ghan Aisouri? It was absurd, what Zanari was suggesting. As though he were anything like that fool Rahim.

As the story went, Rahim was a young jinni in ancient days who was in love with his overlord’s daughter, Jandessa. But she, being a Shaitan, did not consider a Djan serf worthy of her affection. In order to win her heart, Rahim undertook daring exploits to prove his love: hunting monsters in the depths of the Arjinnan Sea, battling dragons in the Qaf Mountains, venturing beyond the Skywall in Arjinna’s southernmost tip to bring back the head of a ghoul from its deadly desert. Jandessa saw that his love was true and begged her father to let her marry Rahim. But her father, a cruel jinni, had Rahim cut up into little pieces and scattered across the sky. But the gods, taking pity, transformed what was left of Rahim into the green stars that dot Arjinna’s celestial sphere. Jandessa ran away to the Forest of Sighs, where she cried so much that her tears became a sweet, rushing river. It was a story Raif often thought about—the river Sorrow was now the resistance’s main water source. He had always thought it fitting, that his fighters nourished their bodies with tears from a broken heart.

“Is she gonna be able to pull this off?” he said, still not looking at his sister.

When she was silent too long, he turned to face her. “Zan? The entire revolution depends on this, you know that.”

Zanari chewed her lower lip, a nervous habit she’d had for years. “I’ve been watching her a bit, but she’s hard to read from a distance. I think the Ghan Aisouri must have trained themselves to permanently shield their minds, so I get general things about her, but nothing personal. I’m not exactly sure what her plan is for getting the bottle, but I keep seeing water. I hear the word
hayati
a lot. Do you know what it means?”

“No.”

“There’re a few other images I’ve gotten that make me feel like . . . I mean, it’s nothing certain, but—well, I don’t envy Nalia, is all I’m saying. I think getting the bottle from her master might be, you know, harder than you think.”

“What? Why?”

Zanari shook her head. “It’s not my place to say. She’ll tell you if she wants.”

“Fire and blood!” Raif cursed. “Does she think she has
time
? Like we can just sit back and relax while she tries to get a
necklace
from a
human
?”

“Raif.”

“What?” he snapped.

“You’re missing a sensitivity chip.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s a human expression Jordif taught me. Look it up in their word book.”

Raif was silent a moment. “It’s not a good thing, missing this sensitivity chip, is it?”

“No, little brother, I’m afraid it’s not.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

“I LOVE YOUR SHOES! I DIDN’T KNOW LOUBOUTINS CAME
in that color.”

Nalia turned away from the Renoir she’d been looking at and tried to smile at the woman who’d come to stand beside her.

“Neither did I,” Nalia said.

The shoes had been sitting on her bed when she evanesced home from the beach, dripping salt water all over Malek’s waxed floors. They perfectly matched the Dior dress that she’d found hanging from her bedpost, a gown the color of gardenias with opals sewn all over the shimmering fabric.

“Did you buy them in Paris? I was there just last weekend, but I didn’t have time to get to the boutique.”

Nalia guessed the woman was around thirty summers old, the picture of a rich Angelino with perfect just-got-out-of-bed hair and sun-kissed skin. Like everyone at the Getty Museum tonight, she glittered with jewels and walked around in a fog of expensive perfume.

Nalia gave an apologetic shrug. “My . . . boyfriend bought them for me.” The word brought equal parts fear and nausea. Is that what Malek was, now that things had changed? She knew he’d be pleased she’d used the term. Maybe it would get back to him somehow.

“Honestly,” she continued, “I have no idea where he found them. I came home and they were just sitting on my bed.”

She hated being dolled up for these parties, and it annoyed Nalia that Malek thought he was somehow making up for last night by forcing her into small talk with a bunch of humans she couldn’t stand to be around.

“I should have your guy talk to mine—give him some pointers. New shoes are my little reward for coming to boring stuff like this, too, but I have to buy them myself.”

Nalia laughed politely. She couldn’t believe she was standing here talking about shoes while a highly trained killer prowled Earth’s streets for her.

“Let me guess: you got dragged here by the FPA, right?”

The Future Patrons of the Arts was a group that had been invited to the event—high school seniors who were eligible for prestigious scholarships.

Nalia shook her head. “No, I’m . . . not in school anymore. My boyfriend wanted to come.”

The woman raised her eyebrows. “Seriously? I can’t believe people your age would actually
want
to be here on a Friday night. This place bores me to tears. I’m about two seconds away from ditching my date and going to the Standard.”

The trendy hotel was one of the places Nalia frequently went to grant wishes. Its bar was very see-and-be-seen, not Nalia’s kind of place at all.

The woman gestured to the small crowd that mingled among the Greek and Roman statues around the room. “Which one’s yours?”

Nalia pointed to where Malek stood in a corner of the museum, deep in conversation with the young CEO of a social networking enterprise. Her master wore an impeccably tailored suit and leaned against a pillar with casual elegance, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a tumbler of vodka. His eyes slid over to Nalia and he gave her a wink, then went back to pretending to listen to the man across from him.

Nalia stiffened, forgetting for a moment that on Earth, a wink was a friendly gesture. In Arjinna, it was a death threat.