16 - Jafar

T he royal vizier took Jafar and Rohan to a hall lit with sconces secured at intervals, each flicker illuminating the rich carvings along the stone walls. In the room’s center was a table with ornate legs and a wide surface, and it was full of food. Columns formed a sort of perimeter around the central part of the hall, darkening it and giving the illusion of a more intimate setting, but light from the hall’s windows found its way between the columns, dousing the food in golden warmth.

The smells were rich and layered, spices balanced just right with the bases they accentuated. There were lamb ribs slathered in the seven-spice blend known as baharat, hummus bejeweled with tart sumac, rice bright with saffron. Jafar, unfortunately, knew food. He’d been there in Mama’s kitchen, helping her cook, knowing what spice complemented what vegetable or meat.

“Our cuisine is unlike what you’re used to,” Harun said, as if he could read Jafar’s thoughts. The man eyed them with disgust and curiosity, a strange combination.

Curiosity was fine, but Jafar wouldn’t allow him to think of them as lesser. He gave Harun a tight smile. “A bribe is a bribe and food is food.”

With another pinched look in Jafar’s direction, Harun turned and glided out of the room.

“He wears those robes so they don’t need a maid to dust the place,” Iago snarked.

Jafar snorted. They did look like they needed hemming.

“Why would you say that to him?” Rohan hissed.

Jafar gestured to the array of food that had been spread just for them. “Are you not seeing what I’m seeing? I’d be less concerned if the food were poisoned.”

Iago dropped a falafel midchew.

Rohan stiffened. “Could it—”

“No, it’s not,” Jafar replied with a sigh. The Sultana was far too interested in them to get rid of them. Something else was at play here. Rohan’s stomach gurgled, and Jafar sat down on a dark cushion threaded with Maghrizi blue so he’d follow suit.

“I didn’t realize how hungry I was,” Rohan said, sitting down beside him.

“Eat up, then,” Jafar said. He had yet to tell Rohan about what he’d learned from the caravan leader: that the prince of Maghriz was likely dead. It hadn’t seemed important at the time, but everything had changed in the past hour.

Now they were to live in the palace. Almost like princes. Maybe like princes. For reasons still unknown. Jafar wondered if there was a correlation there, but he was too frazzled to see it.

All he knew was that he needed those rubies, and that Rohan was looking at him like it was his fault they hadn’t found the golden scarab yet.

“We’ll return to the House of Wisdom once we are situated,” Jafar promised. “I have no notion of what’s to come.”

Everything about this felt like he was under Baba’s control again, and he had to shake his head more than once to remind himself that no, he was free, he was no longer trapped. But he didn’t yet feel as though he could safely deny—and therefore defy —the Sultana any more than he had just attempted.

His appetite disappeared when his worries filled his belly, and he didn’t hide a smug look when Harun returned and saw his untouched plate.

“Where to now?” Jafar asked, and Rohan dug his elbow into his side, but Jafar couldn’t care less.

Harun ignored him and turned for them to follow. As Rohan licked pomegranate molasses off his fingers, Iago snatched up one last lauzinaj in his beak, rose-sweet syrup dripping down his chin. He bit into it as discreetly as he could—which was not at all, considering its many thin layers of flaky pastry—before hopping back on Jafar’s shoulder. It took everything in Jafar not to fling him and his sticky feathers off.

As much as Jafar would have liked to demand answers from Harun, he didn’t want the royal vizier mistaking his curiosity for fear, and so he kept quiet. After a winding walk through the halls of the palace, Harun paused before a door, waiting for a guard to open it even though it would have taken him about the same amount of time to do so himself.

“Here are your quarters,” the royal vizier said, brandishing a hand toward the open door. “I’m certain you’re accustomed to sharing, but there are separate bedrooms.”

Condescension oozed from his tone, and Jafar loathed the way he’d said “accustomed to sharing” with the assumption that they were poor and had huddled in a hut. He looked the royal vizier straight in the eye, raising a single brow. He wouldn’t even bother talking to him. Iago cleared his throat imperiously.

“Thank you,” Rohan said, squeezing between them and heading inside. When he stepped out of Harun’s line of sight, he pulled a face bidding Jafar not to lash out.

Jafar worked his jaw. Fine .

He walked past the vizier and closed the door behind him. The antechamber comprised a short hall with carved tables against the walls, cushioned seating with a collection of pillows beneath sconces, and doors on either side leading to matching bedrooms, with a third door leading to a bath at the end of the hall.

“And thank you ,” Rohan huffed, slumping back against the wall. “First you disrespect the Sultana in her own throne room, then irk that man. Are you trying to get us killed?”

Jafar exhaled. He remembered Rohan’s being overly cautious after Mama had died, too. Death came with a shroud, an aura of foreboding that blanketed the ones it left behind. They might have survived the fire that took Baba, but nothing could save them from the reminder of how fragile life truly was.

“We’re safe,” Jafar said. “I’m not callous, but I won’t allow them to order us around when we owe them no allegiance.”

“He has a point,” Iago said.

“Oh, don’t run your mouth,” Rohan snapped.

Iago mimicked him and hopped off Jafar’s shoulder, flapping around the antechamber and ducking his head into the rooms. Jafar did the same. Each of their beds was big enough for four, the cushions piled upon them enough for a family back in Ghurub. The bath smelled fresh and clean, and looked just as tidy.

“At least these are rooms meant for guests and not servants,” Jafar said. “That’s promising. We should probably settle in.”

Rohan didn’t move. “I don’t—”

A knock sounded at the door.

Jafar glanced at Rohan, ignoring a waver of uncertainty before he answered it. The Sultana stood on the other side.

“I am thrilled you decided to stay,” she said, as if she’d given them much of a choice.

She stepped inside, setting a plate of pistachio-topped cookies and garnished dates on the sideboard table. Rohan’s eyes lit up.

“And what do you think of the House of Wisdom?” she asked.

“I barely had time to explore,” Jafar said, and then pursed his lips. He still needed his rubies, and for that, he needed to be more…what had the Sultana called Rohan? Diplomatic. “But I don’t think I can put my feelings into words.”

He could not wait to return, once he’d picked the Sultana’s pockets and secured the rubies. He didn’t know how, exactly, he’d overcome the Sultana’s desire to keep them here, but that was a problem for future him.

“I feel the same. We are nothing without the written word,” the Sultana agreed, giving him a smile that said she appreciated his attempt at being civil.

“You say that with sadness,” Jafar observed. Trepidation crept into his heart. He could only hope the House of Wisdom’s collection hadn’t been promised to another kingdom in some political struggle. He’d only just arrived, and their wing on alchemy was large.

“Did you know that the process of making paper is a secret that could put us all at war?” the Sultana asked.

Rohan looked confused. “I thought paper came from the South.”

“That’s papyrus,” Jafar replied before she could. Rohan’s jaw flickered in annoyance, and he wasn’t certain why.

The Sultana looked impressed. “Indeed so. And there is only so much one can do with papyrus in this day and age. The people of a kingdom far east are the only ones who know how to make paper, and they hold the world in a vise because of it.” She laughed. “Can you imagine? We bow to them because of paper. Something we don’t even see as necessary to live.” Her gaze darkened. “But no secret can be kept forever. I’m close, I know it.”

It seemed like information she wanted them to be aware of, but Jafar didn’t understand how any of this pertained to either him or Rohan.

“Close to uncovering the secret?” Jafar asked.

She nodded and leaned toward them, lowering her voice with a lopsided smile. “I have a prisoner, and he’ll break soon enough.”

The words sent a chill down Jafar’s spine. She smiled and spoke and behaved like she could do no harm. She acted, in every respect, like a doting mother.

One who was ready to “break” a man.

“Is he from the East?” Jafar asked. He’d never met anyone from so far away.

The Sultana shook her head. “A Maghrizi traveler, if you can believe that. We’re under the assumption that he picked up the secret during his voyage.”

“Why are you doing this?” Rohan asked, harsh and sudden. “Giving us rooms; letting us walk about like we live here—why?”

Jafar went still as the Sultana turned to his brother.

“You do live here now,” the Sultana said, tilting her head. She paused a moment, as if contemplating her answer. “Maghriz isn’t short on bright minds, but ambition is harder to come by. You two came from so far away for the knowledge the House of Wisdom holds. It would be a disservice to my kingdom to not allow you to stay here.”

Something about the Sultana’s words struck Jafar as strange. As if she was trying to butter them up with praise. Jafar loved to question everything—why the sky was said to be blue, why water was a commodity, why their father was so cunning and hateful—so not having answers was gnawing at his soul.

Get the rubies and you’ll be free. Then he could even get her to stop talking in circles and tell them what she really wanted with him and Rohan. When the rubies were in his hand, he could simply ask, and people would answer. Truthfully. He could tell them to walk into the river, and they would.

“There is one condition, however,” the Sultana said.

Rohan made a sound in his throat. Jafar braced himself.

“You are to shed your identities,” she said.

For a moment, neither Jafar nor Rohan knew how to respond to the strange request.

“With respect, Sultana, you do not even know who we are,” Jafar said.

“And so it will remain,” the Sultana said. “If you are asked, you are neither your name nor your birthplace.”

Jafar didn’t know what to say to that. He had no ties to his past, not even to his name, but he was hesitant to make any promises to the Sultana. Not without knowing her motive.

He waited, hopeful she would leave and allow them to settle in. As much as he wanted to return to the House of Wisdom, standing within reach of a bed with fresh linens and cozy cushions was making his limbs lethargic, his mind slow.

The Sultana didn’t press for an answer. “I’ll leave you to rest, but don’t forget: tell no one your names. We will talk again.”

With that, she exited, instructing the guards at their door to escort them when required and to tend to their needs as if they were her sons and not a pair of waifs she had pulled from the shadows of the House of Wisdom.

Rohan whirled to Jafar. “How are you all right with this?”

“We’re a walk from the House of Wisdom, exactly where we want to be,” Jafar said.

“We should be lodging in the House of Wisdom,” Rohan said.

“Funny, you weren’t interested in the House of Wisdom at all earlier today,” Jafar mused. “Nor did you seem as concerned when you were gobbling down food meant for royalty.”

“That was before she threatened us,” Rohan snapped.

Jafar was fully, wholly, painfully aware. He’d been cautious of the Sultana from the moment she’d set eyes on him and regarded him, well, differently. He dragged a foot along the plush rug. “Is this not the finest wool we’ve ever seen?”

Rohan growled. “We need to find the golden scarab, Jafar. We need to find that lamp and bring Baba back to life. Mama, too. We need to get back to the House of Wisdom right now.”

Jafar tried, he really did. He tried to remain calm, to keep the ruse going. He tried to hold back, to not break his brother’s heart, but at some point, one had to stop being a child and grow up. Rohan was all over the place, almost as finicky as Baba. One moment he wanted to find the genie lamp, the next he wanted nothing to do with its search. One moment he refused to let Jafar question the Sultana and happily gorged on her food, the next he was hissing in Jafar’s ear for not questioning the queen—and then questioning her himself.

It appeared to Jafar that Rohan was more concerned with opposing Jafar than anything else. And Jafar decided he’d had enough.

“Did you want to bring Mama back so you could count the ridges in her spine?” Jafar asked. “See her mottled, dirt-dredged skull?”

Bile rose in his own throat at the words. Iago croaked and disappeared into one of the rooms. Rohan took a step back, disgust curling his upper lip, horror bright in his eyes.

“How could you?” he asked.

“It’s the truth, Rohan,” Jafar spat.

“What—no,” Rohan breathed. “What do you mean?”

“Say we learn of the golden scarab’s whereabouts. Say we find both halves and find the lamp and summon your genie. Say we wish Mama back to life—did you ever think about how that would work? She’s been dead for more than a decade. She could very well rise out of her grave as she is. A soulless corpse.”

Rohan was breathing hard and fast. “Then—then I’ll wish her soul back.”

“The lamp only offers so many wishes, Rohan.”

“No,” Rohan whispered again. “No, no, no. You said—”

“I said we could get our lives back. You decided the rest,” Jafar said, the fight leaching out of him. His anger winnowed into nothing. This wasn’t Baba. This wasn’t one of Baba’s advisors laughing in his face.

This was Rohan.

Jafar softened. It was easier without Iago here. “We can still—”

“Stop,” Rohan hissed. “Stop spinning words in circles. Stop twisting things. Stop acting like a caged animal let loose simply because Baba isn’t around to stop you anymore.”

Jafar’s laugh was mirthless, hiding his shock as best as he could. “I’m sorry I was trying to protect us.”

“Us?” Rohan bit out.

“Us, Rohan,” Jafar bit back. “I’ve been trying to do what’s best for us . I’m sorry if being fed and housed in a palace is inadequate for you.”

His brother said nothing, but his hurt was loud enough as he stormed into one of the bedrooms with one final look at Jafar and slammed the door closed.

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