12 - Jafar
J afar woke to aching bones after tossing and turning on a thin mattress all night. His dreams were tormented fragments, from stepping into a golden mansion of knowledge to seeing it aflame. From finding comfort in Mama’s voice to cowering from Baba’s scorn. He was glad when dawn crested the horizon.
If Jafar were to sit with Mama right now, he would have much to tell her.
Your stories didn’t inspire only Rohan, Mama. I’m here in Maghriz, so close to the House of Wisdom, like all great men. Despite Baba’s attempts to stop him. Despite years of Baba’s acting as if he might have cared enough to let him go, giving Jafar tiny morsels of hope to keep the starvation at bay. Rohan thinks he killed you and Baba. As wrong as it felt to refuse Rohan a concrete answer and leave him wondering if he’d had something to do with Baba’s death, Jafar needed Rohan compliant, and that uncertainty and regret would help. Baba can’t bother me anymore. He was dead. Gone. Violently, as Iago had said, but it was also fitting.
Jafar didn’t even feel bad.
Death was an end, and if one had nothing more to offer the world, then death was all they deserved. Mama’s face, and the faces of their servants, materialized in his mind, as if asking if the words applied to them, too, but he pressed his eyes closed and made them disappear.
He smoothed out the qamis over his chest and knotted the salwar around his waist. They were a tad too large for him but still fit well. He tugged on the robes, running his fingers over the fine gold embroidery, and stood before the room’s mottled mirror beside Rohan. His brother’s robes were dove gray and vibrant with accents in jewel-toned teal. The color matched the wide grin on his face and brightened the grief that was a constant in his eyes.
“You look good, brother,” Jafar said.
“And you look regal,” Rohan commented.
Jafar smiled. He did look regal. He looked ready for the new life he was making for himself. He could almost feel the rubies weighing deliciously in his pocket. Control just within reach. He could almost smell the ink of the secrets etched for eternity within the archive’s walls. Knowledge just within reach.
“Shall we?” he asked. Shall we venture to the House of Wisdom, where I’ll distract you?
“I suppose so,” Rohan replied.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll just fly in naked, I guess!” Iago groused, and flapped after them.
Anticipation thrummed through Jafar’s veins as the sun rose fierce and bright, eager to witness all that was about to happen. They detoured around the bazaar, wary of any guards who might recognize them, and passed a bathhouse, finally coming upon the path leading to the palace grounds. With every step, the palace grew larger and larger, and soon, he saw the House of Wisdom just beyond it.
When they reached the top of the incline, Jafar turned, facing the rest of Maghriz. From here, the kingdom unfurled like the petals of a rose arranged with beautiful precision, and unlike many places, it didn’t darken with decay the farther out from the city one went. As evidenced by the bazaar they’d seen at the outskirts of the capital city—it didn’t reek of a place left to rot, it didn’t look abandoned. Even the dark alleys between streets beckoned with the promise of shade, not a lurking foe.
Jafar and Rohan stopped at a crossroads and a sign. A guard stood beside it, watching them with stoic features. An arrow pointing to the left said Grand Palace , and another pointed to the right, saying House of Wisdom . Jafar’s pulse quickened. He nodded at the guard and carried forward on the mostly barren road. The few people present were either deep in hushed conversation or rushing past with their heads bowed low.
There were, however, a great many guards.
“Stop fidgeting,” Jafar said. “I can hear your fingers twiddling.”
“There’s so many of them,” Rohan said beside him.
“Because we’re near a palace,” Iago deadpanned. He was a welcome weight on Jafar’s shoulder today. Strangely comforting.
Jafar nodded. “The Maghrizi palace at that.”
“I guess I’d hoped a library wouldn’t be as patrolled. Are you sure we can walk in through the front door?” Rohan asked.
“I have more faith in my ability to charm than in my ability to sneak through a window of the palace’s neighbor.”
The caliph’s house was one thing. A library as lauded as the Maghrizi palace? Jafar’s pulse raced even faster. He knew his limits.
Jafar looked behind them to where the sands swirled along the path leading to the palace. It was a lot less vibrant than he had anticipated. A lot quieter. The silence was eerie, filled with a sense of foreboding. Mourning, almost.
Just as he was about to turn back, he saw a young woman with midnight hair and tantalizing curves crossing into the walled gardens behind the palace. There was something about her bold gait that made it hard not to stare.
“Something feels wrong about that place,” Rohan said, picking up on what Jafar had been thinking before he’d gotten distracted.
Right. Focus.
“I know,” Jafar replied, facing the House of Wisdom again. “It feels like someone’s dead.”
The very air reeked of it. He hadn’t shared with Rohan what he’d learned from the caravan leader, mostly because he wasn’t certain it was true, but also because Rohan would be even more hesitant to go through with the plan.
Rohan paused midstep. “Then this is probably not a good time.”
Like that .
“Relax, brother,” Jafar said, glancing back to the palace again. The girl was gone. “Gaze to the oasis. We’re going to the House of Wisdom, not the palace. And we need that lamp, remember?”
That was what made Rohan immediately relax, and for once, Jafar was more relieved than guilty. Rohan had always trusted him. Enough that he had followed Jafar across the cruel sands and braved the perilous seas. Eh, perhaps he ought to feel a little bad, but he was too excited at the moment.
A pair of guards were stationed at the intricate archway ahead. Beyond them, an enclosed walkway meandered to a towering structure, welcoming and imposing at once. The House of Wisdom. Its large domes sharpened to spears cutting through the clouds, and wide windows were set with panes of glass telling a tale of their own.
“Smile,” Jafar said.
Rohan started to protest.
“Don’t think, smile ,” Jafar insisted.
Rohan smiled his innocent, boyish smile, and as Jafar expected, the guard on the right softened.
“Marhaba,” the man said.
“Shukrun,” Rohan replied with just as much ease. Jafar hadn’t expected that to come so easily when a smile couldn’t.
He continued without breaking stride, compelling Rohan to do the same. The guards said nothing more, returning to their quiet conversation as if nothing were amiss.
Not that anything was amiss.
“See? That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” Jafar asked. Rohan rolled his eyes.
The walkway was wide and airy, columns holding up a roof of stone latticed with the sky and its scattered clouds. Potted palms swayed in the breeze, corridors branching off to various doorways, all of them connected to the House of Wisdom.
“The sky is brighter here,” Rohan said.
“The absence of smoke will create such a thing,” Jafar said.
“So will not having an old man shoving stale crackers down your throat all the time,” Iago added.
Rohan’s eyes dropped to the worn leather of his sandals and the ornate stones beneath them, no doubt slipping into a memory he had no reason to dwell upon.
“That was our father. Have a little respect,” Jafar said, and Iago lifted a brow at him, but Rohan cracked a wistful smile. Success, Jafar thought.
They turned the corner. Dust gritted their footfalls. The air turned drier and warmer as the sun shook off the dregs of her slumber. The doors to the renowned House of Wisdom approached, and Jafar tightened his fingers around the scraps in his pocket.
Rohan released a slow breath. “For the lamp. For Baba.”
Jafar couldn’t bring himself to lie. Especially not with the way Iago was looking at him.
The House of Wisdom had been constructed with the sun in mind. The rising rays painted the stone in gold, sand glittering like embers in the wind. When they cleared the glare of the sun, it was to find a guard in white robes standing before a pair of massive carved double doors.
Jafar swallowed his anxiety and straightened his shoulders.
“That’s a very pointy weapon for a man guarding books,” Iago remarked.
Books that had the power to change the world.
“Remember the plan,” Jafar whispered.
Rohan drew a shaky breath and nodded.
“State your business,” said the guard, spear glinting.
“We’re House of Wisdom acolytes,” Rohan said in a voice much more believable than Jafar had expected.
The guard laughed. “Every street rat from here to Agrabah would say the same.”
Iago ruffled his feathers. Jafar soured at the words, fighting a wave of anger when Rohan flinched. Rat. Jafar’s hands itched, something feral coming over him, but he was the elder, the first. He couldn’t allow his emotions to best him.
He took the slightest step forward. “Do we appear to be rats, guard ?”
The guard swept a better look down their clothes: the finely embossed sashes around their middles, neatly hemmed robes, supple leather for their gauntlets. It was only their sandals they hadn’t been able to spruce up, but no one would look that far.
Except this guard did.
He glanced from Rohan’s feet to Jafar’s, brow wrinkling. Iago’s talons tightened. Jafar homed in on the guard’s every move: the way his mouth straightened and his fingers tightened around the spear, a decision settling into his shoulders.
Jafar held his breath. A whine was slithering up Rohan’s bare throat. The guard looked up and licked his lips, setting Jafar’s teeth on edge.
“You two have had quite a long journey,” he said at last.
Jafar exhaled long and slow, but he couldn’t let his relief show. “And you’re making it much longer.”
“Yes, yes—of course.” The guard tapped the ground with his spear. “If you can hand me your scholarship, you’ll be on your way.”
Jafar stilled. This was it. He supposed he had hoped they would be allowed inside before he was asked for proof. Somewhere such as a receiving room, so that he could put a little distance between himself and Rohan before opening his mouth.
Rohan beat him to it. “We journeyed—”
Iago leaped to Rohan’s shoulder and shoved a wing over his face, muffling the rest of his response.
The parrot’s words from before were thunder in Jafar’s ears. He needed access; he couldn’t set off the guard. He needed his brother; he couldn’t set off Rohan.
Jafar reached for his pocket and then paused, reaching for another, pretending to search for the scholarship in a way that said he was oh so certain he had pocketed it but had clearly misplaced it in all the excitement.
“Hmm. See, I applied for admission about eight weeks ago,” Jafar said, straddling that line of being confident yet humble. Honesty was a good way to begin, wasn’t it? He continued searching, and his heart skipped a beat when he brushed against the torn scraps of his scholarship.
A last resort, he told himself.
The guard narrowed his eyes. The breeze carried the din of the early crowds flooding the bazaar from just beyond, further cementing the quiet of the House of Wisdom, the otherworldliness.
“As did thousands of others,” the guard said slowly.
It wasn’t the time and place, but learning that he had succeeded in being accepted from a pool of thousands sent his spirits soaring—and quickly flaring with rage as he remembered, yet again, what his father had tried to steal from him.
Which made it all the more imperative that he get inside.
“I’m sorry, I seem to have misplaced my acceptance letter. Do you have records?” Jafar asked. At this point, it would feel ignoble to pull out the shreds. Who ripped up a scholarship? Who disrespected the written word in such a way? It couldn’t even be brushed off as a mistake. The shreds were deliberately created.
The guard did not look pleased.
“I wrote about improving routes used for trade and transport. Incorporating the use of reeds—”
“To keep goods fresh?” the guard finished, his demeanor shifting from irritated and annoyed to piqued and…excited? The change was instant, in the blink of an eye. Jafar glanced behind him, sure the guard’s zeal was directed at someone else. “You’re the one who came up with the idea?”
“You know of it?” Jafar asked slowly.
The guard laughed and dipped his head. “Guards aren’t typically a part of the application process, but it was the talk of the staff! Brilliant idea, truly. Jamal, isn’t it? No, no, that isn’t right. Jafar!”
Jafar’s eyes widened and he nodded, taken aback by the guard’s enthusiasm. He’d never experienced anything like this before. He looked over with a stupid goofy smile to find a shadow crossing Rohan’s face and a regretful expression on Iago’s.
I told you so, Iago’s look said.
It sent a zing through Jafar’s heart, but he ignored it. He wouldn’t allow himself this confusion. This befuddlement. Not when he finally had a reason to feel proud of himself.
“Yes, I am Jafar,” he said.
The guard laughed uneasily. “I’m certain, but I’m also good at my job and must verify that you really are you. I’ll need other details from your application. Your age, full name.”
As Jafar listed out the details, that he was nineteen years old and that his full name was Jafar ibn Ali al-Abbad, he also found himself slipping into an explanation. “... because the village of Ghurub is so far from here. It was a long journey with no shortage of chaos.”
The guard laughed again, this time in understanding. “I do not doubt it! This is precisely what I needed, though, as I know for a fact that you were accepted. Why, you’re all but a prince within these walls.”
From street rat to prince in a matter of one conversation.
The doors opened with a deafening groan, a glorious sound, somehow symbolic of the journey it had taken Jafar to reach the grand entryway. “Right this way.”
They entered a hall, their footsteps echoing on the dark tiles. A word was painted in calligraphy over and over on the walls, scribed in a pattern that flowed from one end to the other: ilm . Knowledge, indeed, Jafar thought, reminding himself to breathe.
The guard glanced at Rohan. “You’re the brother he mentioned, aren’t you?”
Rohan gave an embarrassed shrug, as if he hadn’t known he was in the application. Which he hadn’t.
“It was quite the essay,” the guard said with a tight smile. His gaze darted between Jafar and Rohan. “But unfortunately, apprenticeship was only granted to Jafar, and that doesn’t extend—”
“He’s only visiting,” Jafar said, leaving no room for discussion. “He didn’t want me to travel on my own, especially across the sea. Once I’m settled, he’ll return back to our village.”
The guard didn’t seem too pleased but finally obliged, turning to lead them through. “If it was up to me, he’d be allowed to stay as long as he would like, but rules are in place for a reason.” He glanced back and paused at the sight of Iago hopping onto Jafar’s shoulder. “Now pets, I’m afraid, are not allowed inside the premises at all.”
“Oh, the bird won’t be apprenticing,” Jafar said, and nearly flung Iago off when he tensed up, prepared to protest Jafar’s calling him a bird.
All the guard ever did was laugh uneasily.
“I’m aware,” the guard said, “but pets aren’t allowed because they’re animals, not—”
“My pet is pertinent to my work,” Jafar said tersely.
The guard looked from Jafar to Rohan to Iago and back, his brow and mustache furrowing in tandem. Jafar recognized the pause, the way his lip twisted, just barely. He saw the unrefined village in them, the destitution from whence they’d come.
And then, the guard laughed yet again.
“What am I thinking?” he asked. “You of all people understand the importance of keeping history safe. I know you’ll keep an eye on her. She is a beauty, by the way.”
Iago straightened. “I’m a—”
Jafar squeezed his beak shut, hiding the move with a quick stroke down his head and neck and a flitted smile. Iago shuddered.
“Thank you,” Jafar said, holding back a shudder of his own.
And then, at last, the guard led them inside.
Jafar’s pulse pounded in his ears, thrummed in the palms of his hands. Excitement ramped up with each step, the guard an amplifier. The hall opened to a wide foyer with a table in its center, ebony dark and rich, carved by a careful hand.
Beyond it was a sight to behold. The floor was a map of the known world, routes twisting like fissures in the earth, painted in bronze upon tiles of earthy, glossy stone. Shelves fanned out, reaching into the shadowed ceiling, made to look as if they rose up forever, a reminder that what the written word promised was just as limitless. He saw towers of scrolls and plaques of bronze. He tried not to gape at the countless artifacts housed in cases, each one displayed on a stone plinth. He even caught a glimpse of the famed laboratory.
“I find it funny, however,” the guard said, slicing into Jafar’s awe. “I recall a messenger picked up your scholarship about three weeks ago. We expected you a lot sooner.”
There were far too many emotions rolling through him. To know that he could have been here, witnessing this magnificence and not sitting idle in the shadows of the broom closet, made his anger thrash anew.
“Our village is a long ways from here, remember?” Rohan said. Jafar glanced at him. Not a word all this time, but when it came to defending Baba, Rohan leaped at the chance.
Again, Iago gave Jafar a look that said I told you so .
“Indeed,” the guard said, pausing in the foyer. “The head librarian has not arrived yet, but I will send for him immediately. He’ll proceed with initiation and give you a tour of the library and your lodgings at the back of the building. In the meantime, stay here. Soon you’ll be free to peruse the collections that are now yours.”
With that, he turned and left.
“That’s it?” Jafar asked, aghast, but the guard was gone, the doors groaning behind him.
“What’s it?” Rohan asked tightly. He was a completely different boy from this morning, or even yesterday atop the roof.
“He left us here unattended,” Jafar said. “No escort, no safety measures. We can do as we wish.”
“First of all, the guy was clearly a fan,” Iago said, hopping off his shoulder to poke around. “And second of all, who wants to steal books?”
“Third of all, he told you to stay put until the head librarian arrives,” Rohan pointed out.
Jafar supposed they were right. The guard trusted him. But as quickly as the concern had come, it left. Jafar was here, here! Standing in the House of Wisdom. Soft murmurs trickled from the stacks, scritching pens in the hands of scribes. There were pockets built into the walls where cushions were arranged with slates to prop on a lap and use as a desk. He even smelled fresh coffee.
The atmosphere was hushed, the walls enveloping a space of perpetual awe. He ignored the guard’s instructions and made his way past the front desk to the shelves. Along with the ones that disappeared into the shadowed ceiling, there were short bookcases, too, round tables stacked with resources waiting to be cataloged, and scrolls that had no place as yet.
Jafar didn’t know where to begin.
Yes, you do. The House of Wisdom might have recognized his worth, but his goal was still more important: he needed to secure those rubies. Then he would take a look through the laboratory and proceed with his dive into alchemy. And then—
“Where do you think we’ll find what we need for the golden scarab?” Rohan asked, not at all fazed by the wonder around them.
Jafar held back his sigh and studied the markers hammered into every few shelves. “Lore, perhaps. It could also be under Artifacts over there.” Which was conveniently located beside the section titled Al-Kimiya. Alchemy . “We can split up—I want to check out the laboratory later, but I’ll head to Artifacts.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for the head librarian?” Rohan asked.
Jafar pursed his lips and pulled a grin. “No.”
Rohan nodded, gave him a smile that was as lackluster as meals with Baba, and walked away.
Jafar felt his brow furrow, and for a moment, he could only stand still as a heavy, unwelcome sorrow thrummed through his bloodstream. He’d been worried Rohan would question him and he’d have to shy away from a response, but this was somehow worse. This sadness was foreign, a rare feeling. Baba had kept him bubbling with other emotions: anger, dismay, the overwhelming desire to be free of that place.
And now here he was, excited, jubilant, victorious—and lonely.
“Get a load of this place, huh?” Iago said, swooping closer and tugging at his attention. “It’s huge.”
That pulled a smile out of Jafar. An understatement, but some appreciation at least. “Indeed.”
“So why are you just standing there?” Iago asked.
“You’re welcome to hunt around for anything that might give you the answers you need about your…predicament,” Jafar said. “Since you can read.”
Iago deadpanned a laugh. “Very funny, Jafar. But if it’s all right with you, I’ll stick around a little longer.”
Jafar lifted a brow. “To spy?”
“For whom? Your baba?” Iago asked, a note of betrayal in his tone. “Can a parrot not be excited for your new adventure? I just don’t think I’m ready to go soul-searching yet. Besides, I know you’ve got no interest in that genie lamp.”
Again, the words pulled a genuine smile out of Jafar. He was surprised that Iago had noticed.
“What makes you think that?” Jafar asked.
“You were a little heavy-handed when you delivered your pitch to your brother,” Iago said. “I’m not so easily distracted, though. So? What are we really here for?”
Jafar appreciated good perception. “We’re searching for a pair of rubies.”
Iago dropped to Jafar’s shoulder. “Never took you for a guy who wears earrings.”
“Oh, I have something else in mind,” Jafar replied, lips curling in a wicked smile. Iago took flight again, and the two of them passed display case after display case, glass cubes presenting the most unexpected of artifacts, from shimmering gold cuffs to a headdress that seemed to change color as Jafar stared at its rich fabric. “The stories say that the rubies were gathered just like the rest of these artifacts and stored in the House of Wisdom, and judging by the way these are arranged, someone likes to organize by color.”
“Too bad the head librarian isn’t here to lead us to it,” Iago said, reading each of the little placards with interest. He fluttered higher. “Hey, there’s a line of pink stuff that way.”
He immediately dove back down with a hurried whisper. “And someone’s over there.”
Footsteps tiptoed on the other side of the shelves. They were trying to be quiet—and not in the way warranted by a library.
“It’s not Rohan,” Iago said.
Jafar held a finger to his lips, pressing against the shelves and creeping ahead with a terrible, sinking feeling. Someone else was getting to his rubies first. He knew it in his bones.
He rounded the bookcase.
It was a woman. Regal and tall, a cloak on her shoulders. Gray streaked her dark hair. Nothing about her suggested a life dedicated to reading and befriending the written word. The glass case in front of her was empty, as Jafar had feared. But none of this made sense. She didn’t look like a thief—she was dressed for attention, not obscurity.
Iago knocked into a vase, and Jafar caught it before it crashed to the floor.
Oops, Iago mouthed.
And the woman whirled. Jafar froze. Her features were delicate, with a sorrow carved into the bow of her lip. She truly was dressed in finery. Dainty cuts of topaz were threaded throughout her gown, sharp facets catching the library’s warm light. Fine gold chains shimmered from her cloak, which was as dark as Jafar’s robes. He saw a glint of scarlet red in her hands before she tightened her fist and pulled her hands behind her back. His rubies. For a moment, she looked as if she recognized him before her gaze drifted to a figure behind him.
Jafar looked back to find a man in sapphire-blue robes, his dark eyes piercing Jafar as if he’d seen a ghost.
He looked to the woman. “Sultana?”
Iago squawked. Sultana? Jafar dropped to his knees, his heart launching into his throat.
The queen of Maghriz had stolen his rubies.