by Samira Ahmed
After machete-chopping some giant weeds, I come to a screeching halt. Hamza is pinned to a tree trunk by its branches. He’s writhing and trying to pull them off him, reaching for the dagger in his belt. But that’s not even the real problem. The real problem is standing with its back to me—a giant purple-spotted, two-headed dev. A monster with a gray rhino-horn sprouting from each of its foreheads. I freeze, a sour taste rising in my throat. The dev draws a sword and begins to lift it.
Do something, Amira.
I step forward with my sword, but a branch reaches out and wraps itself around the blade and lets out an awful screech. A branch? Screeching? A screeching branch! Then all the other trees start shrieking, and the sound doesn’t only ring in my ears, it echoes inside my brain, making me dizzy.
I release the hilt of the sword, and the screaming branch flings it behind me down the path. Without thinking, without realizing what I’m doing, I grab my bow and an emerald-tipped arrow from my quiver. I hurry to pull and load my arrow, trying to get my elbow aligned properly, the way Maqbool showed me. Shifting my body so I’m perpendicular to the terrifying, sword-wielding purple dev, I imagine a straight line from the tip of my arrow to its heart. I shout, “Hey! Purple-horned thingy!”
It twists its right head and sees me. It shouts or grunts something. I can’t quite make it out, because when I’m scared, sounds muffle in my ears.
Hold on, one more second.
The dev is so huge it has to shift its feet awkwardly to fully swing around to face me. It raises its sword above its heads.
Now!
I let the arrow fly, and it hits the dev squarely in the solar plexus.
Its mouths drop in shock. So does mine. I actually hit my target!
The dev’s feet start turning to ash, and it twists and coils into a tiny tornado. Right before its faces become dust and whirl away, it shouts, “Why are there two of you?”
I run to grab my sword from where the tree threw it. (The tree threw it?!) Then I race back to Hamza, who is struggling against the branches. They don’t seem to be moving anymore or tightening around him, but they’re not loosening, either.
“Get me out of here!” Hamza yells.
“Stop squirming. I don’t want to cut you.” I carefully begin hacking at the branches that have pinned Hamza’s arms. He has cuts all over his skin and a lash on his face that’s bleeding.
Shouts come from behind me, and I whip around as I see trees being hacked at. I suck in my breath. Maqbool emerges from the thick woods, followed by Abdul Rahman and Aasman Peri. They hurry to our side, Maqbool freeing one of Hamza’s legs and Abdul Rahman the other.
Hamza stumbles forward into my arms. There are small cuts and scrapes on his ankles as well. I ease him to the ground and crouch next to him to inspect his wounds.
“Pour the water on them,” Aasman Peri says.
“Water? No, we need a disinfectant or antibiotic cream; water could have bacteria in it and—”
“The Zam Zam water. Didn’t you fill the flask? These wounds aren’t that bad. It should work.”
“Oh!” I grab the flask and pour out some water on the deepest cuts on Hamza’s arms and then cup some in my hand and let it drip onto the gash on his forehead. The water starts to bubble and fizz, like when you put baking soda in vinegar.
“Hey, what the—” Hamza begins to speak, but before he can finish his sentence, the bubbles dissipate and the wounds close, leaving shiny new skin in their place. Dang, this flask is handy. One day, I hope I can analyze it—its properties and materials. This would be the best science fair project ever. I can see my trifold poster board now: The Magic of Science or The Science of Magic, or something like that.
“Took you long enough to get here!” Hamza laughs a little before grabbing his side. “Ouch. I thought that branch was going to make me puke up my guts.”
“Ew,” Aasman Peri says. “I know you had a near-death experience, but no need to be so graphic. Humans are very dramatic.”
I give her the stink eye. “Where were all of you anyway?”
“We were caught up by the trees as well. Hamza wandered off before I could stop him, and when we tried to search for him, roots and branches kept preventing our passage. They were blocking us in faster than we could cut ourselves free,” Maqbool says.
“You wandered off?” I use my mom’s I-can’t-believe-you-pulled-this tone as I glare at my brother.
“Look, I was starving. I smelled s’mores. Then I saw them. I swear. Hanging from this tree.”
“The one that captured you?” I ask.
Hamza nods. “I reached for a s’more, but when I did, the s’more disappeared and one of the tree-tentacles grabbed me. I guess I was so hungry I was hallucinating.”
Abdul Rahman shakes his head. “No. Some of the tree-jinn have aligned with Ifrit. One of them, who is still loyal to Shahpal bin Shahrukh, tried to warn me, but its warning came too late. The jinn simply made you see your heart’s desire and—”
“Dude, your heart’s desire was s’mores?” I ask. “Not, say, getting out of here or having a superpower like flying?”
“What? S’mores are ooey-gooey deliciousness. What did you see? A chemistry lab set?”
“I… I… did you say the trees were jinn?” I ask, turning to Abdul Rahman. I absolutely do not want to bring up the orange belts I saw earlier. It’s too embarrassing.
“Duh. How do you think they move and stuff?” Aasman Peri asks, like this is knowledge we should have been born with.
“But that’s not the worst news,” Abdul Rahman continues. I clench my fists to keep my hands from shaking. “We’ve learned that Ifrit has placed a large bounty on your heads. And if he has recruited some of the tree-jinn in this place to his side, he has more allies than we had anticipated and his forces are closer to Iram than we had thought. I must leave you now to warn the emperor. Iram’s borders must be reinforced. Iram cannot fall.”
We begin walking with our heads down toward Zendaya so we can depart. Hamza and I pull out the jade tablet. “Where do we go next?”
The words Crystal Palace appear on the face, then disappear into a swirling pool on the tablet as other words emerge: Forget safety. Live where you fear to live.
“Worst advice ever,” I say.
“No. It rocks. Conquer your fears, sis. We’re heroes,” Hamza says, then hurries to the clearing, where he spots Zendaya waiting for us.
Maqbool walks up next to me. “He’s right. You are a hero. What you did back there. That was extraordinary.” He smiles, then walks over to Abdul Rahman as he steps into his pot, readying himself to fly back to the Garden of Iram. Maqbool hands him a pair of eyeglasses. Abdul Rahman rolls his fiery eyeballs but takes the glasses and tucks them into an inner pocket of his robe. They give each other a slight bow with their right hands raised to their hearts. Then Abdul Rahman kicks up and into the blue sky.
I feel a tiny pang of sadness when he flies off. Not sure why—he’s not exactly easy to warm up to—but, I dunno, I think his leaving… with there being only the four of us left, it feels… lonely. Lonelier. We’re so far away from home. Far from everything we love. And if something happens to us, no one will know.
“Oh no.” Aasman Peri’s voice shakes me out of my worry. “My bag, our provisions, they’re all gone. One of Ifrit’s allies must have stolen it. How are we going to keep you alive now?”
“What provisions?” Hamza asks, then pauses for a second. “Hold up. Hold up. Do you mean you had food? I’ve been starving since we left Iram, and you had food?”
“My father put me in charge of feeding you, and I had to make sure to ration it out. You need food for the entire journey, and I didn’t want to run out too soon. You can’t defeat Ifrit if you starve to death first.”
Welp. “But I thought this trip was going to be two, three days tops. We don’t even have enough food for that? And we’re still going to return home right before everything went all upside down, right?” I’m starting to feel like th
ere’s more to the story.
“If you’re successful,” she responds.
“When you’re successful.” Maqbool jumps in. “You will return to the Before. Time is different here, but to human bodies, even a single day could feel much longer. We don’t have enough data to know for certain. We only know that we don’t experience time in the same way as you. And we are trying to prepare for all possibilities.”
“So we are on Qaf time, but our stomachs are still on Earth time?” Hamza asks. “Like jet lag, but worse… dimension lag.”
Maqbool nods.
“Can we gather some of the fruit from any of the good tree-jinns around here?” I ask.
“Too risky.” Maqbool shakes his head. “We don’t know which trees were inhabited by Ifrit’s jinn. Such a possession could turn the fruit to poison.”
I gulp. I guess I’m going to be rationing our granola bars and M&Ms. I wish I had some Oreos, too. And salt-and-vinegar potato chips. I’ve never really faced death before, and I guess I’m meeting it head-on, fueled by dreams of junk food.
Aasman Peri flies twenty feet into the air, her wings flapping wildly. “I know the perfect place we can stop. It’s only a slight detour. The Azure Palace tilism, where a beautiful fairy queen reigns and employs the greatest chefs in all of Qaf.”
“I thought we couldn’t skip around realms. They’re interconnected like a coil, right?”
“Yes. Yes. But this tilism is carved out between realms. Created by Queen Peri. She is loyal to my father, but she rules this small kingdom, a place of peace and refuge for the peris who want to inhabit neither Earth nor the realms of Qaf. It’s a lot of retirees, basically.”
“Retired fairies?” I ask.
“Why do you look so shocked? You can’t expect us to work all our lives. Besides, the United Peri Workers would never allow it.”
I tilt my head at her. “A union? You have a union?”
“Not me. Since my dad is an emperor, I’m technically management. But,” she whispers, “I totally have sympathy for the cause of the common peri.”
Really, what else is there to say after learning that fairies have a union to ensure their rights? At least Aasman Peri believes in social justice, I guess?
We mount Zendaya, and with Maqbool flying behind us as a lookout, we take off for the Azure Palace. Aasman Peri describes the feasts that will await us, and Hamza seems particularly interested in the fairy dessert offerings. I tune out, occasionally hearing things like “rosewater ice cream” and “orange blossom cream ladoos” and “pomegranate chocolate pot de crème.” I look down at the jade tablet, which is still in my hands, and whisper the same question we asked when we left Iram: “Will we defeat Ifrit and return home safely?”
The screen goes black, and an answer floats up from the depths of the tablet: Ask all… only from yourself. Ugh. I’m too afraid to ask myself anything because part of me doesn’t want to know the answers.
CHAPTER 10
This Illusion Is Real
WHAT’S THE OPPOSITE OF A PEP TALK? A DISCOURAGING downer? A daunting demoralizer? A dampening diatribe? Is a sign of the apocalypse that I’m doomed to alliterate only with D?
I zip the jade tablet into Hamza’s backpack. He barely even notices because we’re descending and he and Aasman Peri have been talking about food for nearly the entire ride. Maqbool has mostly been quiet, keeping an eye out for anyone or anything that might be following us. Apparently, Maqbool can also do a complete 360-degree head turn. It is as stomach-gurgling and nausea-inducing to watch as when I first saw Abdul Rahman do it. But since it’s for our protection, it’s also kind of cool.
As we plunge through thick gray clouds, I realize they’re actually plumes of smoke. As in, smoke from a fire. In the distance, sapphire-colored minarets are burning. I’m guessing that’s the Azure Palace? Also guessing it’s not supposed to be on fire.
Aasman Peri gasps and flies ahead of us. Zendaya follows, and Maqbool is right on our heels. By the time we land, Aasman Peri is already running toward the palace. Everywhere around us, the grass, the trees, the shrubs are all burned. There’s a sickly sweet smell to the smoke, like rotting bananas.
Hamza’s bag buzzes. If our phones are working here—in another universe—Ummi and Papa are going to ground us for life when they see the data charges. If the world doesn’t end, that is. Maybe even if it does. Hamza opens his backpack, and it’s not his phone at all. Of course not. He pulls out the Box of the Moon. We don’t have to lift the lid to know what’s happening—the gears are grinding. They never made that loud of a noise before, and the little moon is shifting closer and closer to Earth. A red flash lights up the interior of the backpack, and when I reach for the jade tablet, I catch a sentence right before it fades away: Be suspicious of what you want.
What does that even—
“Help!” screams Aasman Peri.
We take off running, Maqbool in the lead, and as we sprint under the half-burnt leaves of what I think might’ve been a mango tree, we find Aasman Peri on a bridge with her back to us and a giant mint-green ghul—he’s nearly two stories tall—towering over her. She has her scimitar out, and it drips with lime-yellow goo. It’s blood, I think? Gooey ghul blood? She’s backing off the bridge, and when she practically bumps into us, we see why she wants to run—aside from the towering green ghul. Mini minty-green ghuls are forming from the goo and clambering down the big ghul’s shins. They make a splooshing sound that might be the grossest thing I’ve ever heard aside from Hamza’s airsick puking. They plop to the ground, and bits of the ooze slip out of them and then are slurped back up into their bodies.
For a second, we’re all frozen in shock. The tablet lights up in my hand, but I don’t have time to look at it. Maqbool jumps between us and the advancing mini minty ghuls and shouts, “Run!” as he brandishes his sword at them.
We start scrambling away, but I slip over a smoldering tree root and almost drop the jade tablet, finally glancing at it as big bold letters flash: The outward is a reflection of the inward. Show him his face.
“What does that mean?” yelps Hamza.
“Maybe he turns to stone if he sees himself,” I say, “because he’s a monster, like Medusa?”
“Who is Medusa?” Aasman Peri asks.
“A woman from Greek mythology with snake hair who turns people to stone with her stare,” I say. I don’t make a snarky comment about the peri’s so-called in-depth knowledge of human culture because, well, I can imagine my mom frowning at my rudeness.
Aasman Peri gasps. “European monsters are scary.”
“No time to discuss that. We need to find a mirror. Now!” I glance back at Maqbool, who is holding off the ghuls by felling some of the dead trees. He’s moving in and out of his body, from physical form to mist to physical again so he can quickly cut down trees and set the dead wood on fire. But there are too many mini minty ghuls, and the big ghul is raging, advancing, emitting terrible roars.
“Do you have a compact? You know, for, like, when you reapply lip gloss?” I ask Aasman Peri.
“What is a compact?”
“I don’t think they wear makeup in this dimension,” adds Hamza. “I mean, they’re all weird colors and stuff—”
“Excuse me!” Aasman Peri swats at Hamza with one of her wings. “Who are you calling weird? We might not use human paint to color our faces, but that doesn’t mean we don’t take care of our appearance and adornments. Besides, we can make humans see us how we want.… wait!” she shouts. “That’s it! The Lake of Illusion. It’s like a mirror, but the fairy queen warns that we should not disturb its surface lest we awake the monster that makes its home in the poison. It’s said a single drop on your lips can make you lose sight of everything.”
“Not like we have a lot of other options since the tablet only talks in code. Lake of Illusion it is. But we’re going to need bait to draw the big ghul there.”
Aasman Peri and I both turn our eyes to Hamza.
“Why do I have to be t
he bait? It’s always the youngest!” Hamza moans before shrugging and throwing up his hands. “Whatever. What should I do?”
Aasman Peri flies into the air right above our heads. “Maqbool is holding off the little ghuls, so we only need to get the attention of the big one. He’s mostly yelling and waving his colossal arms in the air.” Aasman Peri flies closer and yells something in the jinn language to Maqbool.
Hamza takes off toward the bridge.
“What are you doing?”
“What I do best. Causing a distraction,” Hamza says. “You and Aasman Peri need to take the lead, and once the ghul sees me, I’ll run after you. Hopefully, he’ll follow me.”
I nod. “Be careful,” I whisper.
“Yeah, right. Me, careful?” Hamza smirks, and runs to the bridge, screaming and waving his arms.
Aasman Peri flies back toward me and tells me where we’re heading. We watch as Hamza starts throwing rocks at the giant ghul. Who is clearly not amused. He takes one giant leap over the bridge, over Maqbool’s burning dam, over Maqbool, who has increased in size. The ground thunders with each of the ghul’s steps.
Hamza starts running in our direction, screaming as the ghul follows. My heart is pounding in my ears, and there’s a tingling in my chest. Aasman Peri flies low to the ground, and we dodge branches and crumbling trees along a dirt path until we come to a silver-blue pond. The surface is absolutely still. It’s like a mirror melted onto the ground.
“Remember: Don’t touch it. Don’t go near it,” whispers Aasman Peri. “Have your weapons ready. I’m going to fly Hamza behind there.” She points to a wide trunk of a tree, which is only partially blackened. I nod.
Whipping out my bow and arrow, I take position behind an outcropping of boulders. Pretty sure that my tiny arrows will feel like a pinprick to this ghul, but if this whole show him his face mysterious instruction from the tablet doesn’t work, we’re not going to have a lot of time to figure out another plan.
My breath is raggedy, and I try to calm myself down. I try to remember Sensei’s words, but I don’t have time for a pep talk. The flutter of Aasman Peri’s wings pulls my eyes upward, and I see her arms locked around Hamza’s chest, his legs flailing. The earth rumbles as the ghul approaches with his lumbering steps. Aasman Peri drops Hamza behind the trunk, and he falls right on his butt. She shushes him when he tries to complain and motions to him to grab his dagger while she flies up into the treetop, her scimitar at the ready.