The Blind Wish

by Amber Lough

  He flicked his hand in the air. “Not until you’ve given me permission. Once we’re back in the Cavern, I will release you and your mind will be your own.”

  Delia cleared her throat. “Najwa, we trust that you will glean any information you find useful, as well as represent us. And our goal is peace, Firuz. Please do not forget that while you’re up there, sending your thoughts into this girl’s head.”

  Firuz nodded and then, without any warning, placed his palm on my forehead. It was warm, and I relaxed beneath it, my eyes softening, my jaw loosening. He whispered, quiet as a beetle in the dark, and lifted his hand.

  Can you hear me?

  It was less a sound than a feeling of words forming into things and spreading through the roots of my hair. I placed both hands on my veil, pulling on it, and I nodded.

  “That is the strangest feeling,” I said.

  “You’ll be used to it soon enough. Now try to speak to me. All you have to do is say the words in your mind. They will find me on their own.”

  I was starting to wish I had never met this man. As powerful as he was, he was making me more uncomfortable than I’d been in a long time. But I had to do this. Not only because it was my job, but because this meeting needed to happen. I needed to show the rest of the Corps that I was fully capable, no matter my age.

  You’ll have to do better at controlling your emotions if you want them to be impressed with you, he said.

  I miss Faisal. The words slipped out, and I could not retrieve them.

  I know you do, he said. I’m glad this is coming easily to you. Most jinn cannot tolerate the sensation.

  “Are you satisfied?” Delia asked, staring him down. He nodded, and reached out to rub his hand over the back of the Lamp.

  “She learns quickly.”

  “She does. And just so you know,” she said, turning to me, “I was not the one who felt an escort was necessary. You’re released for the night. Come back tomorrow, in the same attire. Firuz and I will be waiting for you here.”

  THE NEXT DAY, Iblis’s Palace looked different to me. Instead of seeing a spiky, lizard-looking building scraping up the far side of the Cavern wall, I saw the spire where Yashar had chosen—chosen!—to stay. But they’d forced him to live there, at first. He should have hated it on principle. Like I did.

  I took the steps leading down to the palace’s iron gate. I made my way inside, dreading every step that brought me nearer to the training garden, and this time I paused to take a closer look at the main hall.

  There, in an alcove to my right, was the imprint of a long, wide feather. It was too intricate to be anything but an impression, a stamp in muddy stone left to dry. And although I had not been all over the world, I knew enough about the birds in the area to know that the feather that made that mark had not come from any bird. Birds didn’t have feathers that long, and they didn’t curl inward at the tip.

  It was the angel’s feather. Seeing it, or the impression it left in the stone, proved to me the story of Iblis and the angel was true. It was more real than any innate power, any magic, and any bit of the fire in my veins.

  “Sometimes I forget how it made me feel when I first set eyes on the feather.” It took me a jolting second to realize Melchior was standing beside me, his hands together at his waist. He glanced sidelong at me. “You’ve just reminded me of that. Thank you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Melchior was not the sort of man to ever say thank you to anyone, much less to me.

  “Where is the feather? Did it fall apart?” I asked.

  “Iblis never touched the feather. But one had fallen off the angel’s wings and lay on the ground. When he left, it burned an impression into the earth and turned it to stone. Years later, when the palace was near completion, Iblis went back to the site and dug up the stone.”

  “So the legend is true.”

  He nodded. “It is all true. Even, I am sad to say, that the angel had been thrust out of the heavens.” This shift in tone, from critical to understanding, left me wary. And what he meant was that jinn were created by a fallen angel. There was only one I knew of, and his name was the scariest of all. “But all of this is not our doing, and it happened long ago.” How could he be so dismissive?

  “So we come from an evil source,” I said. “Just like I’ve always been told. How can any jinni claim to be good if she comes from the spite of a malevolent angel?”

  Melchior pressed his lips together thoughtfully. “In your faith, everything comes from Allah, yes?” I nodded. “Then how can anyone or anything be evil? At our beginning, we are potential, and it is our choices that divide us between darkness and light.” He waited a moment. “To the magi’s garden, then.” He turned around quickly, and his mouth settled back into its usual stiff frown. It was like a mask, but I wasn’t sure which face was the real one. Was Melchior the critical, unapologetic magus, or was he the thoughtful, understanding grandfather?

  It didn’t matter what he truly was, because for now, he was the magus, and I followed his sure steps out of the hall, through the gate, and into the garden.

  Taja was there, holding a small wooden bowl. “Ready?”

  “I think so.” I didn’t see any hornets in the cup. She saw me eyeing it and held it out to me.

  “This is for you.” I took the cup. It was made of a soft brown wood with yellowy marbling. “How much do you know about the origin of the jinn?”

  I shifted uncomfortably on my feet and told her all Melchior had just told me.

  “Do you know why the angel fell from the sky?” Melchior asked. “Some say it was because he fell in love. Not with a woman, but with her voice. He would lean down from the treetops and listen to her sing while she worked in the fields. He would follow her while she led the animals out to pasture. But his favorite was her song for drawing up the water.

  “One day, the angel was so taken by her voice that he ached to hear it from within the well. He climbed down into it, and with each note she poured down to him, the deeper he sank. Before long, his wings were wet and he could not fly out. He had to beg an old man to pull him from the well.”

  “Iblis,” I said, finally catching on. “The man who saved the angel.”

  Melchior nodded. “When the angel’s wings were dry, he grew more daring and gave Iblis a choice: bring him the woman or suffer. Iblis was a good leader, and he chose to suffer rather than hand over the woman. The angered angel made a spiteful wish on Iblis, turning him into a being of flame instead of clay, and then he spread the wish upon the whole tribe. The singing woman, however, had disappeared.”

  I frowned. “Didn’t Iblis know where she’d gone?”

  “Iblis had never seen her before. He was protecting a stranger, a woman who did not belong to his tribe. She had only been seen by the angel.”

  I gasped. “Is that who’s inscribed in the—”

  “Shh,” Taja said. “Don’t say her name, or she might tease you away.”

  I rolled the cup in my hands. “What am I supposed to do with this cup?”

  “You need to bring it back full of water from Iblis’s well,” Taja said.

  “But I don’t know where that is!”

  Melchior frowned and crossed his arms. “I expect you to use your wits and figure it out. Taja and all the other magi before her did this on their own. Even you, with only half the blood of a jinni, should be able to think this through. I will give you the same information I gave everyone else: find the source.” With that, he swept around and reentered the palace, leaving me alone with Taja, who raised her brows.

  “Good luck. The well is far, and you need to return before the wishlights dim.” She hesitated, then whispered in my ear, “This is the final test.”

  This was the last one. A thrill snuck down my shoulder blades, as if I had feathery wings brushing my skin there. I swallowed her words and watched her step back into the shadows, leaving me alone to think this problem through.

  The well’s source could be anywhere. I mentally li
sted all the strange things in the Cavern, like the blue, harmless flames that erupted from the lake, the gushing waterfall that stirred air and water, and the side tunnels full of gemstones and glowing worms.

  Najwa had told me the Cavern had been here before Iblis, although he had built the palace and the surrounding city. He and his tribe discovered it when they fled underground following their transformation into jinn.

  I needed to find Iblis’s entrance. The well would have to be nearby, on the other end. Shuddering, I remembered the last time I ran into a tunnel. It had been behind the waterfall, and I’d gotten lost in the dark. Atish came in and found me, but that was when he discovered I wasn’t Najwa. It was obvious, apparently, because I hadn’t used any of my wishpower to help myself. I’d been too weak, and that tunnel had been too long for my lamp to keep lit.

  It wasn’t through a tunnel, I realized. Iblis must have come through another way. A shorter way. I tucked the cup into a small bag on my waist, jumped up, and studied the walls of the Cavern, but I was behind the palace and couldn’t see much. My hands shook when I put them on the black square and opened the door. I ran into the palace, kicking the fallen petals out of my way, and spotted the beam of sunlight. Then I raced to the apricot tree.

  I had almost forgotten about it, and it seemed as though every time I left its presence, it slipped from my mind. It must have been a strange sort of wish, making us all forget about it. It was the perfect way to protect itself.

  The branches, the leaves, and the fruit were all perfectly normal. There wasn’t a hint of magic stirring in the roots, which meant the tree got what it needed through a natural source. Its light—and whatever pollinated the flowers—came from above. I peered up at the hole in the wall from where the sunbeam poured down.

  It seemed impossible that light would make its way into the Cavern. It was thousands of feet below the surface of the earth. But somehow, the light was here, and it had to come from outside.

  I swallowed and took a deep breath. This time, they hadn’t said I couldn’t fly. With a last look at the tree, I closed my eyes and wished myself back into a wallcreeper.

  My wings weren’t long, but they were a rich crimson beneath the black. The little cup had been in the bag at my waist, but that had disappeared with my clothing and I could only hope it would reappear when I turned back into my normal form. I stretched out my wings, hopped up, and flew into the beam of light. It was blinding. I blinked, feeling more than seeing my way up to the hole in the wall.

  My feet clung to the gray stone edge, and I blinked again. I was at an entrance to a narrow tunnel just wide enough for a person, and the light came from a bright circle a foot or two inside the tunnel. I hopped to the circle and the light vanished. Farther up the tunnel, at an angle, was another circle of light. I hopped to that circle, and discovered an array of polished silver mirrors that brought the light down from above.

  Najwa would like this.

  I shook off my wallcreeper form and was relieved to find the cup was still in my bag. Then I walked the rest of the way along the mirrors, following the light. At one point, I came to an old ladder that went straight up the side of a cliff for several hundred feet. The tunnel was wider here, and shared the space with swirling dust and moths. Although I could fly, I had a feeling I needed to stay in my normal shape. I draped the hem of my hijab over my face, tied up my skirt, and began my ascent.

  My arms were tired within twenty feet. My muscles were sore from climbing and running, but I pressed on, knowing the sun and fresh air were at the end. When my hands grew slick with sweat, I wiped them on the opposite arm and kept climbing. I didn’t glance down.

  As I climbed, I thought of what Melchior said. The angel had chased a strange singer and had gotten himself stuck in a well because of her. When his rescuer would not help him find her, he retaliated.

  Everything, it seemed, was related to the woman whose name was inscribed on the Cavern’s ceiling: Allat, one of the three daughters of Allah.

  I didn’t know much about Allat, but I’d heard her name many times. She was one of the threads woven into our lives, my aunt had told me. That was all I knew.

  —

  The jagged cliff top dug into my palms. I pulled myself up and squinted in the brightness of midday. The sky was an eternal, rich blue and it made me homesick. For all the Cavern’s wonders, it lacked the purity of the open sky.

  Once my eyes adjusted to the light, I checked my surroundings. I was up against a reddish mountain, and the valley swept out before me, craggy and dotted with trees until it met a wide, glistening river in the distance. I did not know if it was the Tigris or some other river.

  A few feet away stood a pile of rocks stacked one on top of the other. Someone had been here. I scrambled over the earth to take a closer look, and saw a string of pebbles, each no bigger than a bean, set into the shape of a crescent. Whoever had set these stones had done so since the last windstorm.

  Had it been Allat? Was the story true?

  I shook the thought away and scanned the area for any sign of a well or anything else that showed people were nearby. There! I saw it—a short walk down the slope was a grove of three acacia trees. I crept over, hoping no one would be present.

  In the shade of the trees, just as I’d hoped, stood a well. It was enshrined in wild jasmine. Thin strips of faded green ribbon were braided onto the cover’s wooden handle. Goose bumps spread down my shoulders, and I knew without a doubt that this was the place where Iblis had encountered the nameless angel.

  It was quiet there, and smelled of sky and jasmine. I took in a deep fragrant breath, and as I let it out, the weight of all I’d gone through rushed out of me. I wept as I bent over the top of the well. Hot, heavy tears splattered the green ribbon, making wide dots of darker green. I let the tears fall for a minute, then wiped my eyes and stood straight.

  “Let’s pass this test,” I said to myself and any goddesses that might be lurking nearby. I pulled the jasmine and ribbon off the wooden lid, then, using both hands because it looked heavy, tried to lift the lid off the well. It wouldn’t budge. I struggled, tugging and twisting the top until my arms and back ached. Frustrated, I muttered a curse and the lid creaked. Quickly, I twisted it off and set it on the ground.

  A long rope had been tied to the side and dropped down into the well, which looked as deep as the earth itself. I pulled the rope up and found a small brass bucket on the other end filled with clear, quiet water. My climb had exhausted me, and without thinking, I drank from the bucket. The water tasted as fresh as snowmelt, and before long, I had drunk every drop. The water chilled my stomach and I worried, Was it forbidden to drink from the well? I shook my head at myself and dropped the bucket into the well again, pulled it back up, and filled my tiny cup. With a wish, I sealed the water inside, shaking it upside down to check the seal.

  When I had replaced the well cover, rethreaded the jasmine and ribbon, and paused to appreciate my work, I heard a few notes of a song. They lilted, climbing like a bird’s, and stopped. The echoing silence that followed was chilling.

  Her voice was, indeed, the most beautiful I’d ever heard.

  “Hello?” I turned around, but saw no one. I was alone in the acacia grove with my sealed cup of well water.

  “Thank you for the water,” I said. “And the song.”

  Then I ran, afraid she’d step out from behind a tree trunk. When I got to the tunnel, I turned into the bird again, hoping against hope that the cup was all right, and flew straight down like a rock tumbling off the edge of a mountain.

  —

  When I returned, Taja and Melchior brought me to the end of the pier. Taja was having a difficult time holding back praise, it seemed. Melchior’s face was stern, but not unkind.

  “Take out your cup,” he instructed. I pulled the cup out of my bag and wished away the seal. “Now bring it to your lips and blow across the surface.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at him, but I did what he said. As my breath slipped
over the top of the water, it turned blue, like the flames on the lake. I gasped in surprise, and the flame was pulled into my mouth. “What was that?” I coughed.

  “The flame is now a part of you. Next, you must pour the water into the lake,” Melchior said.

  I upended the cup and watched the water fall and splash.

  “You have now done your duty as a member of the magi, in bringing the magic of the well into the Cavern.”

  I gaped. “You mean the water isn’t naturally like this?”

  Taja shook her head and smiled. “The water in the well was transformed after the angel made his wish. The lady who guards the grove only allows those of us with the blue flame to take from her well, so only a magus can bring a fresh cup to the Cavern. We come from the well, and by bringing it here, we replenish the source of our magic.”

  I dropped the cup.

  THE NEXT DAY, I met Firuz and Delia in the Command of Iblis. I didn’t have to wait long before Delia reminded me who to watch at the meeting, as well as the fact that Firuz was actually the person in charge of the mission. Once Firuz connected our minds again, we slipped into the flame that flickered out of the Lamp. A moment later, we appeared in the hall beside the Baghdad Lamp, stepping away from each other quickly. Transferring beside Firuz had been too intimate, and I felt a sudden lightness when our forms separated.

  Kamal stood close to the wall and was leaning forward on the balls of his feet. His eyes shone from beneath a clean indigo turban. On Hashim, the turban of the vizier had been menacing, with all the ferocity of an asp, but on Kamal it was just a long strip of dyed cloth.

  He took in Firuz’s tall and thin frame and then bowed to us. “Welcome back, Consul al-Rahman,” he said to me, and my face flushed with embarrassment. I had never had a surname until I’d discovered I had a human father. Kamal’s mouth twitched at the corners, as though he knew the name had startled me, and his eyes lingered on my pink cheeks.