Chapter 26
The week passed. I spent half of my time working in the bookshop, trying to ignore the fact that I was not just a jinn but a jinn princess. And yet I didn’t feel any different having gained this new information.
I didn’t see Sebastian at all during that time, though I did find it oddly comforting to even think that someone might be looking out for me.
Even if what they were guarding me from was my own nature.
The potion might have blocked jinn from tracking us, but the real issue now was the Jinn King, who had direct access to my brain while sleeping.
Oddly, the Jinn King had been absent from my dreams all week. Still, I didn’t want to get my hopes up and think it was over now that I had heard him out, because the words this is only the beginning kept repeating in my head.
Avoiding Zain had proven less difficult than I had anticipated, thanks to angel training. Now that he was back, though, I wasn’t sure what I would do if—or when—I saw him. I was playing everything by ear, hour by hour.
“So, when do you find out which colleges you got into?” Cleo asked from the shop counter. I was stacking fresh copies of the latest Tracy Deonn book on one of the front tables.
“August twenty-ninth is results day, so I’ll know if I made the grades to get into either my first uni choice or my backup,” I said.
It was a date I had memorized, though I hadn’t given school much thought lately.
I’d replied to Nic’s messages about it half-heartedly.
I wasn’t sure how to act normal around people, especially people who knew me well.
It was easier to put on a facade around Cleo, since she barely knew me, or at least the me who knew nothing of the darkness and light in the world.
“You mean today?” she said.
Her words washed over me. I had been in such a daze that I hadn’t even realized today was results day. My future lay in my inbox. Or did it? Could I seriously go to university and live a normal life with everything I had uncovered about myself?
“Oh, I must have forgotten,” I mumbled.
Cleo raised an eyebrow. “You forgot today was the day you find out which college you got accepted to? When you first started here, you talked nonstop about how much you couldn’t wait to go back to the UK.”
I winced, not realizing I had been quite so obvious about my dislike of Denver. But maybe I was being unfair—it was being separated from my sister and my best friend that I disliked. And now…things had changed.
“You can check,” she said gently.
“I don’t know if I want to,” I said.
“Fair enough,” Cleo said after a beat, dropping it.
I slipped my phone from my skirt pocket, and as I expected, I had missed messages from Nic earlier in the day.
Nic
HELLO??
Have you checked your results yet??
You’re taking too long to respond…I’m going to London!!!
I was happy for her, but there was lead in my stomach, threatening to sink me right down into the Underworld. I typed out a reply anyway.
!!!! congratulations! I’m at work but will check when I’m home xx
I put the last of the books from the cart onto the proper shelves, then returned to the counter. The store was empty, as it often was in the morning, though we had new stock that needed to be sorted.
Then a customer came in, an older woman with graying hair and bright blue eyes.
She asked Cleo if we had a specific romance novel.
I went to tidy the book display by the window while Cleo searched the system for it.
As I was doing so, I saw Zain walking across the road—and toward the store. I immediately ducked.
“What are you doing?” Cleo asked. I pivoted, still low, to find Cleo and the old woman watching me like I was a Martian.
What was I doing?
“I dropped an earring,” I said, clutching one ear to reinforce my point, and to cover the fact that my earring was in fact in my ear. “But actually, I’m thinking of going on my lunch break, if that’s okay with you?” I quickly stood and headed to the back room.
“It’s eleven a.m.,” Cleo said.
“I’m so hungry,” I said, passing her and not waiting for her approval. I thought I heard her mumbling “Sure,” but maybe I only wanted to hear that.
Once in the staff room, I relaxed. The problem with seeing Zain was that I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t spill everything within the first five seconds.
And then what? Would this version of him hate me?
Or worse, somehow, accept me for what I was and then we’d both die?
Again? Because that was what happened in every lifetime—we fell in love and then we died for it.
The shop door jingled. “Hey, is Roxana in today?” Zain’s voice asked.
Hearing him broke my heart a little, but I told myself this was for his sake.
And that was what made me stay where I was, my back against the wall closest to the door.
I prayed that Cleo would get what was going on and not call for me.
“She’s on her lunch break,” she said. “I can go get her, if you want?” Silently, I cursed her for not reading my mind.
“Um…” Zain said, voice thick with hesitation. “So she’s been at work and seems fine?”
“Well, yeah? Why?”
There was a short pause before he said, “Nothing. I haven’t heard from her, but if she’s good, then…forget about it.”
“Seriously, she just went for lunch right before you came in…” As she trailed off, I could somehow sense that she had finally caught on.
“She might have left, though. I’ll go check,” she added limply before opening the back door slowly.
When she shut it, we caught eyes, and she whispered, “What’s going on? ”
I just shook my head.
She nodded wordlessly before telling Zain that I must have gone out for lunch.
He left pretty soon after that, and I stayed in the staff room for the full thirty minutes of my break.
I felt terrible. If Zain had ghosted me after we had first kissed, I would feel pretty shit. But I didn’t know what else to do.
For a distraction, I checked my emails, and I didn’t have to go far to see what my results were.
The subject line of one of my new emails caught my eye: Welcome to Brighton University.
I hadn’t gotten into Kings—and I was glad.
I wanted to go to Brighton, even if it slightly stung that my grades weren’t good enough to go to Kings College in London.
Nic would be disappointed, but it made it easier to use the excuse of not getting into Kings as the reason I wouldn’t be with her in the fall.
Especially if there were other reasons for my not being in London.
Like my death. No, I couldn’t think like that.
When I went back out onto the shop floor, Cleo made a face.
“What was that about?” She stood close to me, a new coffee cup in her hand, like she was preparing for me to spill some serious tea.
“I didn’t want to see anyone today.”
“Specifically Zain?”
“Things have gotten…complicated between us.” The words came out strangled, even though what I was saying was entirely truthful, just an understatement. I couldn’t help but ask, “How did he look?”
Cleo gave me a smug smile before moving over to the counter, where she put her coffee down and leaned both elbows against the surface like she was doing a cat stretch. She dragged the moment out, watching me sweat, before saying, “He looked like shit.”
I grimaced.
“I mean,” she continued, “he always looks good, but he seemed a little frazzled, or maybe frustrated. You know, if you tell me the details, I can help.”
Hesitation must have been plain on my face, because she latched onto my moment of weakness. “A problem shared is a problem halved.”
“That’s so cliché. I expected better from you.”
“Clichés are often true; they had to come from somewhere.”
I sighed. It would be a relief to confide in someone, even if I omitted certain truths. “We got close the other week—”
“You slept with him?” Cleo’s tone was more impressed than judgmental. I quirked my eyebrow at why she was impressed.
“No,” I said quickly. “We only kissed.” Only. It didn’t feel small, and I silently cursed myself for making it seem otherwise.
“And…what’s the problem? You’re not into him?”
“We’re very…different. I know long-term we wouldn’t work out.
And I’m going to Brighton next month—I got my grades confirmed—which will only make things more complicated.
” As I began speaking, I put thoughts that I’d barely considered into words.
“Anyway, we’re just friends. It was just a casual thing. ” The lie was thick in my throat.
“So you ghosted him? Rather than speaking to him about it?”
“I didn’t ghost him,” I said, even though my actions said otherwise.
Cleo made a clicking sound with her tongue. “Sure sounds like it.”
I shot daggers at her with my eyes. “Can you not, please?”
“Fine, fine. I’ll drop it,” she said, to my relief.
What I couldn’t explain was that keeping my distance from Zain was for him—for us.
History had shown that us being together would only lead to destruction—our deaths.
I didn’t want us to fall into that same trap.
And it seemed simple: In theory, we just had to stay away from each other.
Something our past selves were never able to do.
But I could hardly defend myself to Cleo by saying that ghosting him was something my past selves should have done so as not to have been killed, could I?
—
The gas stove was lit in the kitchen. I watched it for a couple seconds. Testing. Then I moved my gaze upward and watched the flame gain height. I held my breath, like if I breathed it would ruin the delicate balance I was working with now.
I narrowed my eyes and looked to the side, and the flame moved along with my eyes, blowing sideways, even though it should have been impossible for it to do that.
It was undeniable; I had this power of fire, like Rabiya.
But what else could I do? What other powers lay dormant inside me?
Had my hands really burned the jinn that had tried to kill Zain?
He had screamed when my palm touched his head.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Zain secretly knew I was a jinn.
The signs were there, and while I had ignored them… why had he?
Despite having these powers, I didn’t think I was a particularly bad person, no more than any other teenage girl, and certainly not evil, as Zain had described jinn. Or maybe, like my power, my wickedness was marinating, soon to reach full strength.
I needed to speak to Azar. I had tried calling her multiple times during the week, but she didn’t answer, sending replies when I was asleep.
We kept missing each other with the time difference.
I doubted she knew anything about this—she was never good at keeping secrets—but I thought my mum hadn’t, either…
After a tense dinner with Dad and Ehsan, during which I said little and Dad tried to pry into why I was saying so little, I told them I felt unwell and went to bed early.
My reprieve from the Jinn King was short-lived.
As soon as I felt my body drift, my limbs froze.
I sank into bed. The Jinn King donned his cloak, though the snakes broke free from the fabric, hissing.
They appeared longer now, like they could reach from the other side of the room to retrieve me.
The one on his left was by my window, peeking behind the curtain, while the one on his right was slinking its way through my bookcase, observing the few books I had brought with me.
The Jinn King appeared unbothered by his pets’ unruliness.
In fact, his face was the picture of ease, like he thought we were now friends.
“We were interrupted last time,” he said, clasping his hands together. “I can feel you wavering from what we agreed upon. Have you forgotten what we spoke about, what I commanded of you?”
I couldn’t speak—and not because I didn’t want to. My vocal cords, like everything else, were paralyzed. I didn’t know why he bothered asking me questions he knew I couldn’t answer. I chanted the banishing spell in my mind, willing my mouth to loosen.
I banish thee from this plane.
I decree thee to exit here.
Hear my roar and leave.
I demand you with all my power:
Be here no more.
“I can hear your thoughts,” he said simply.
“In your in-between state, I can enter your subconscious. So I know you are thinking that I’m too comfortable with you.
That you don’t like me. That you want to banish me.
It’s foolish of you to think such things, but until recently you believed you were mortal, so…
” He shrugged. “I do not know why I expected more from you.”
Neither do I.
He let out a short laugh. “Well, regardless.” Then his face sharpened. “Oh, for Shaitan’s sake.”
What?
He slipped away from my vision, until I woke to the sound of something tapping against my bedroom window.
Shuffling quickly across my room, almost tripping over myself in my haste, I drew my curtain back an inch, touching the same spot the snake had.
My eyes swept outside for signs of movement, any indication of where the sound had come from.
All appeared still, until I saw him on the front lawn, a stone in hand.
Zain.