20 - Jafar
H elping Baba thwart Jafar’s scholarship was one thing, but lying about honey cake was going too far. Jafar knew that Rohan was hurt and grieving and that Jafar was in the wrong for lying himself, but he was doing what was best for them. He wasn’t trying to sabotage his brother.
Unlike Rohan.
And Jafar needed to do something about it. He thought back to what Rohan said, about combining the two alchemical spells to create a new one, to make someone vomit words.
Someone like the Sultana’s prisoner.
“You’re sure interrogating the prisoner will get us the rubies?” Iago asked as Jafar paced the hall by their rooms just out of earshot from the guards.
Jafar had used the finder’s spell, which required less work than he’d been looking forward to for his first dabble in alchemy—and with disappointing results that gave him a headache, because the rubies kept moving. Which meant they were still on the Sultana’s person. Short of picking her pockets, which Jafar didn’t trust his ability to do, the only way he could get his hands on the rubies was if she gave them to him herself.
“She wants the prisoner’s secret and we want the rubies,” Jafar said. “It’ll be a solid trade, no?”
“And you think Rohan is going to be all right with all of this?” Iago asked, flying up to eye one of the elaborate sconces lining the hall.
Jafar wanted to stop worrying about Rohan and think of other things. Like the girl from the library and how beautiful she would look in a swathe of fabric he’d seen at the bazaar. It was the color of the sky where it met the sea, brilliant and bright, just like her.
Jafar cleared his throat. Iago lifted a brow.
“The longer we stay here, the more I lose her— him ,” Jafar quickly corrected. It was true. They hadn’t been here a day and Rohan was already becoming Baba. Jafar saw the signs. He hated them. Once he had the rubies, he would leave—as much as Jafar hated leaving all those scrolls and stories untouched. As much as he yearned to see that girl once more. And he would take Rohan with him, whether his brother wanted it or not.
Iago nodded. “So much for shedding light on my past.”
“Ah, I might have done some sleuthing,” Jafar said, stopping to face Iago in the eerily still palace hall. Moonlight slipped through the latticed wall, spotting Iago’s red coat in vibrance, the rest of him in the shadows of his unknown past.
“There are spells by which a human can be transformed into an animal, anything from tigers and elephants to creatures as small as mice,” Jafar began.
Iago was quiet for a moment. Jafar tried to imagine how it would feel to learn, without warning, that he was once a different species entirely. Seeing the shredded pieces of his scholarship was painful enough.
“Even parrots,” Iago said slowly.
“Even parrots,” Jafar said with a nod.
“So I wasn’t always like this,” Iago said, quieter than Jafar had ever heard him.
“It’s quite possible,” Jafar said. “That said, the spell is dark and no easy task to complete. It requires materials from vastly different terrains as well as something dear to the person being transformed. Certain spells take their toll on the caster. There’s no telling how it affected the one who did this to you.”
Iago shifted uneasily, and his silhouette stretched ahead of him as tall as a man’s. “So what you’re saying is whoever did this to me was dedicated.”
“Indeed,” Jafar replied. “Are you sure you don’t remember anything from before the bazaar?”
Iago shook his head, beak glinting. “I’ve tried, Jafar. I really have. Does that—does it mean—”
“Yes,” Jafar said softly, surprised by how much sympathy he felt for the bird. “It is permanent.”
Iago dropped his head and then immediately fluffed his feathers, flying up beside him. “Well, that was fun. Don’t we have some rubies to retrieve?”
Jafar didn’t move. The desert was quiet, the night calm. It reminded him of nights in Baba’s house, when Rohan and Jafar would speak freely, when the moon in the sky meant emotions weren’t bottled so tight.
“It’s all right to mourn what you once were,” Jafar said.
“Can’t mourn what I can’t remember,” Iago said, eyeing him.
He pushed on Iago’s little head until he sat back on the windowsill, talons scraping the stone. Jafar wasn’t used to praise—neither receiving it nor offering it—and so it took him a moment to piece together what he wanted to say. Iago had proven to be a better ally than Jafar ever anticipated, and in this place where allies were few and far between, Jafar did not want to lose him.
“And there’s nothing wrong with being a parrot,” Jafar said. “And a princely one at that. You’re still a worthy opponent to your foes and, well, a fine partner to have.”
The words simmered between them before Iago squinted up at him.
“Are you commending me, Jafar?”
“Seems as though I am,” Jafar said.
“I like you, too,” Iago said, and with a squawk, he hopped to Jafar’s shoulder. “To the prisoner, then? Wait, we don’t even know where the prisoner is. Are we going to try the finding spell one more time?”
He shook his head. The finding spell was so lackluster that Jafar had decided to never use it again. He had a better way in mind. He glanced back down the empty hall to where his and Rohan’s rooms were.
“We’ll know where he is soon enough,” Jafar said, and the shadows swallowed them whole.