Chapter 25
My curtains were drawn, the bedroom door closed with my suitcase pressed against it for extra privacy. Dad was on a work call across the hall, and Ehsan was still gaming downstairs. It was risky, doing what I was about to do with them so close, but I had no choice.
My phone buzzed again.
Zain
Is everything okay? I just want to make sure you’re all right.
And are you still free to meet tonight? I need to go away tomorrow for another week.
It physically hurt to look at his name on my phone—and I was weak, curiosity and longing clouding my judgment.
Sorry I missed your message! I’m fine. Where are you going?
Training. Will I be able to say bye to you before I go?
I stared at his message and replied quickly, knowing I couldn’t linger or I’d let those emotions take hold over what my brain knew I had to do.
My dad wants us to spend time together today, so I won’t be able to get away. See you when you’re back?
Damn, okay. I told Sebastian about the jinn bothering you (not the full extent), and he offered to watch over your house, just to make sure you’re safe from them while I’m gone. Is that okay?
I was touched that he cared, but the words only frightened me. What if Sebastian figured out what I was and told Zain?
To stop myself from spiraling, I put my phone on airplane mode.
Everything was relatively still, except for my heavy breathing.
I took a sip of water and placed the glass on the floor next to me.
I was dehydrated and I couldn’t remember the last thing I had eaten.
I had been so overwhelmed last night I hadn’t had dinner, so it had probably been twenty-four hours since I last ate.
Under normal circumstances that would have had me wanting to eat a cow, despite being a vegetarian, but I felt nothing of hunger now.
Unfolding the note, I reread the spell. I had an idea, an amendment to the spell that would give me everything I wanted.
Sun streamed through the cracks on either side of the curtains, illuminating the dust that floated in the air.
Closing my eyes, I muttered the words I had memorized. “I call to thee from the great unknown, hear my cry, hear my moan. I call to thee, the great Jaleh Esfandari. I demand you, I decree you. Show yourself.”
Hope rose within me at the prospect of seeing my mum.
She would explain everything. A lump caught in my throat, and I blinked through tears.
My ears were hypersensitive to noise. I had even turned off the air-conditioning.
I opened my eyes slowly and, seeing no change in the room, let out a deep sigh.
“Of course,” I muttered before noticing that the candle was unlit.
Grabbing the box of matches next to me, I relit it.
I gazed at the flame on the long candlestick.
The more I looked at it, the higher the flame seemed to get.
It was almost like I was controlling it.
I shook my head to clear the thought, but that led to the flame moving in the same direction, from left to right.
Encouraged, I read the words again, this time with more confidence.
“I call to thee from the great unknown, hear my cry, hear my moan. I call to thee, the great Jaleh Esfandari. I demand you, I decree you. Show yourself!”
I kept my eyes open this time, seeing exactly when the flame was extinguished. It was just after I said my mum’s name. I sat up straighter and breathed deeply, ignoring the swell of emotions that were threatening to break free.
I recited the words again.
Nothing.
I relit the candle one last time.
And then my mouth began to move of its own accord. “I call to thee from the great unknown, hear my cry, hear my moan,” I began, my voice firmer and stronger this time. “I call to thee, my great ancestor. I demand you, I decree you. Show yourself!”
Rather than the flame being extinguished, it grew higher with each word. When I said “great ancestor,” it began to swirl, growing so tall it was the height of a human. I pushed myself up to standing, backing up to the door.
The flames transformed into something else.
Correction: someone else.
A tall figure in a black cloak stood before me, face shielded from view.
The first thing I noticed when the cloak was pushed back was his cracked skin, though no veins were visible.
His features appeared human, his face wide set and curved nose familiar somehow.
He gazed at me with eyes that were round and large, and such a deep brown that they were almost black.
He wore a beard, long and salt-and-peppered.
I realized he looked like the jinn from my nightmare, the one that had set Rabiya up.
A soft hissing punctured the air. Beneath his cloak, there was slight movement on his shoulders. Neither of us spoke for a moment, though he studied me with fondness.
“Roxana,” he said with a hint of a Persian accent. “Finally.”
“Who are you?” I whispered.
“Your grandfather. Well, Rabiya’s. Spiritually yours, though I never died. The details are irrelevant.”
“Why—why have you been coming to my—my dreams?”
He took a step forward, and instinctively, I pressed my back into the door, like it might bend to my shape to create more distance between myself and this jinn.
“To warn you, azizam.”
My head tilted to the side. The tenderness in his voice suggested he meant it, but the movement in his shoulders was rapid now, like he was struggling to restrain the beings strapped to his neck. I hoped he managed to keep them under wraps; I had seen them enough times in my sleep.
“Do not be afraid,” he said. His words washed over me, softening my bones. They were no longer rigid, and I no longer felt quite as fearful.
“What did you just do?” I asked.
“Shh,” he said, walking over to my bed and sitting on the end of it. “I’m glad you summoned me. I had been waiting for you to do so.”
“I don’t understand. What have you been trying to warn me about? Were you trying to tell me I’m a jinn? Or why my mum was killed?”
He picked up my phone from my bedside table and turned it over in his hands, like it was something to marvel at.
“Things have changed since I was your age,” he said, putting it back down and shaking his head.
“But no, I knew you would learn about your heritage soon enough—and your mother…Well, she tried her best to keep you from the angel, until the bitter end.”
“What about Dad? Why did he bring me here—does he know Zain is here?”
He let out a short, humorless laugh. “You think your father is a jinn?” The way he said it, like my dad was nothing, sat heavy on my heart.
“He had not one clue about your mother’s other life.
He had suspicions about her death, sure, and had done his own pointless investigations, which he kept hidden from you.
But none of this is what I’m here to warn you about Roxana, azizam,” he said.
This revelation was huge. For all my dad’s faults, he was the only one in the family who wasn’t a jinn, and was just as in the dark about all of this as me, Azar, and Ehsan.
“You cannot see that angel again,” he continued. “He will be the cause of your downfall. He is the reason your mother was killed.”
My breath caught. I let out a strange sound, a cross between a “how” and a “why.”
“There’s so much you were not told,” he lamented with a sigh, shifting on the bed. Then he pulled on the side of his cloak before locking eyes with me. “Do you mind if I take this off?”
Yes, actually. But I stayed silent.
He untied the ribbon around his neck and shrugged the cloak off, taking great pains to fold it neatly by his side.
It was then that I saw them: two thin snakes on either side of his neck, both the color of an oil spill.
He wore a maroon tunic underneath his cloak, with leaf patterns around the neck, embroidered with gold thread.
But this was something I only half noticed—it was the snakes, with their black eyes, flecked red, that I couldn’t keep my eyes off.
Their tongues flicked out in dismay, possibly at seeing me, or at their very existence, having been chained to this man for all of eternity.
And a memory threatened to emerge, a hiss leaving my mouth, which made the snakes stop moving for just a second, watching me.
My ancestor seemed not to notice as he said, “You know in each lifetime you fall in love with that angel, yes?”
I nodded.
“Treaties were made to ensure you stay away from each other—the balance between good and evil is at stake. Angel and jinn need to be kept separate. That’s the way it has always been, and your union has already caused upheaval once.
The ghastly divs, though, wish for chaos.
And while that would be fun”—he smiled, a glint in his eyes at the thought—“they wish to overthrow me. Regardless, none of my descendants can be with those”—he paused, nose wrinkled like he smelled something bad—“unsavory angels. So consider this an official warning.”
This was too much to take in.
“I don’t understand. Why was my mum killed? And why is it mine and Zain’s fault?”
He sighed. “The div told her to move you here, to Denver, so you would incidentally meet this boy and fall in love, or whatever it is you believe you feel for him. Your mother refused to do so, but they were persistent, until they realized the only way they could be successful in their aims was by killing her and mind-manipulating your dad. They tried to cover up their tracks, but they were sloppy. Jinn often are, as you know, from the bungled attempt to capture you and end Zain.”
“That was you?”
He shrugged. “You were not listening to me. I did what I had to do.”
I couldn’t focus on that right now, instead asking, “If you’re so powerful, why did you let my mum die?
” My voice was rising in anger. He talked like he knew so much, could do so much, and yet he had watched all this play out.
And now had the audacity to tell me to stay away from Zain after sending jinn to kill him.
“I do not typically meddle in these kinds of affairs, and by the time I had heard of their plans to kill Jaleh it was too late,” he said, voice steely.
Then he sniffed at the snake on his left shoulder.
“Shh, it will soon come,” he said to it.
To me, he added, “The truth is, each body I inhabit is temporary in this realm. In the Underworld, I am at full capacity, but I am limited on this plane.”
My brain whirled. My mum was murdered just so Zain and I would be in the same city.
This was a nightmare, one beyond my wildest imagination.
I just wanted my life to be normal again.
For my mum to be back with us, not as a jinn.
For the dreams to stop. To wake up and realize none of this was real.
I didn’t know I had said any of this aloud until he tsked.
“You, Roxana, are not normal. Not only are you jinn, but you are a princess. Are you not aware?”
“A princess?” I repeated, choked.
“A jinn princess, and I the Jinn King, Zahhak to friends. Your soul is linked to royalty, and while in past lifetimes I have let you live as a nobody, things are different now. The souls of you, Jaleh, and Azar were reborn as a family once more, a rare occurrence.”
“What—”
“I don’t have much time. Just heed my warning, Roxana, and know this is only the beginning.”
He was interrupted by a knock on my bedroom door. I was still up against it, and the force of it vibrated against my body. I stumbled back.
“Roxana, I need you to help Ehsan move more boxes, not just yours,” Dad called, tapping the door with his knuckle before attempting to open it. My suitcase blocked him from being able to open it fully, but he managed to crack it, letting in a sliver of light. “What’s going on?”
With pleading eyes, I turned to the Jinn King, but when I scanned my bedroom, I realized he’d disappeared.