“Everything!” I lift my head and burst to my feet. “You don’t understand. This can’t happen!”
“I’m sorry.” He rises to his knees, hands spread. “I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Please—”
“Leave me alone!” I run through the door and slam it behind me, then sag against it, half panting, half sobbing, in the empty hallway. How did I let this happen? How could I have been so weak?
“Zahra?” He stands on the other side of the door, his voice muffled. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not what you think it is,” I tell him. “You don’t feel anything for me. You’re just drawn to my power, to the wishes I’ve granted you.”
“No...” But his voice is uncertain.
Feeling the worst kind of traitor, I say, “I’ve been a fool to walk in this form around you. I’m not human, Aladdin. Nothing about me is right for you.” I open the door and there he is, his hair mussed and his chest glistening with sweat, standing with that lamb-in-the-rain look that cuts through all my defenses. But I stand firm.
“This,” I say, gesturing at myself, “this isn’t me. This isn’t what I look like. This body you see belonged to someone else, long, long ago, and like the monster I am, I stole it. It is a mask. A lie.”
“I don’t care what you look like.”
“You say that, but youdo. Would you have kissed me if I looked like this?” With a burst of smoke, I shift to a wrinkled crone. Aladdin swallows but doesn’t look away. “Or like this?” I shift into a scarred, ugly man with warts on my face. Aladdin blanches.
Shifting back to my girl form, I sigh deeply and tug at my clothes. “This is just a shape. You’re not seeingme.”
“Then show yourself to me,” he pleads. “I want to see you, Zahra. I want to know who you really are.”
I stare at him, then, without a word, slowly shift into a whirling column of red smoke glowing with red light.
“I have no form,” I say, my voice shifting and multiplying, a dozen voices speaking at once. “I have no name. I am the Slave of the Lamp, and your will is my will. Your wishes are my commands.”
He shakes his head stubbornly but takes a step backward. I swell and advance, driving him deeper into the room, flashing from within like a thundercloud. I grow and fill the air, driving him choking and coughing to his knees. I press my smoky hands against the walls, curl around the columns, overwhelm him.
“Zahra, stop!” he cries. “Please!”
At once I shift and stand before him as a girl once more. Cautiously he looks up, his eyes wide with pain.
“Do you see now?” I ask tonelessly.
He’s breathing heavily, his bare chest beaded with sweat. “Just answer me one question. Do you feel anything for me? Is there even a chance—”
“No.” Gods, how the lie burns my tongue.
He hesitates, then nods once. His eyes flood with confusion and hurt, and he rises and turns away from me, his shoulders hunched.
Bowed beneath the weight of shame, I turn and go to the door. I pause before stepping through to say, “I never wanted it to come to this. I’m sorry.”
Then I flee down the corridor, bumping into a smoldering brazier. It rocks precariously, lit embers raining to the floor and bursting around my feet like tiny exploding stars. I lean against the wall, my face in my hands, for several long minutes. I’ve never so felt out of control before, my body making decisions before my mind cancatch up. I’m still shaking, and I breathe in and out through my mouth, trying to calm myself.
I shouldn’t have kissed him, Habiba. But I didn’t know what else to do. The words were there, rising in his throat, words of freedom, words of death. Better to kiss him and leave him than to let him make the Forbidden Wish.
I must find a way out of the city, to set Zhian free and then get as far from here as possible before I become any more entangled with this human boy.
Dimly, I realize someone nearby is shouting, and I pull myself out of my fog. Something is happening at the other end of the palace. A servant runs past me, laden with scrolls. I call to him, but he ignores me and hurries on. I follow swiftly, and the shouting grows louder. Then, over the sound, cuts a sharp and chilling wail.
“The king!” cries the voice. “The king is dying!”
Chapter Eighteen
“ZAHRA!”
I’m running through the palace when I hear Nessa’s shout, and I turn to see her hurrying down the corridor. I wait for her to catch up. She’s breathless and wild-eyed, her dreadlocks slipping free of the knot they’d been bound in.
