Chapter 28
The air lay thick between us. I was acutely aware that I had been holding my breath since I uttered the words that changed everything. It felt like if I didn’t breathe, I could stop time, stop Zain’s inevitable reaction, stop the reality of the situation.
Initially, his gaze didn’t waver from my face. Instead, his dark eyes narrowed, assessing. He must have read the seriousness on my face fairly quickly, because he took a step back, breaking our eye contact and gazing down at the floor, shaking his head.
I breathed out then. It came out ragged.
“What are you talking about?” he whispered, though I thought some part of him had suspected the truth. Even though our dreams weren’t identical, snippets of our past lives must have reached him, too. He must have known that our love was forbidden in every life.
“The reason our relationship always ends in flames is because we aren’t meant to be together, yet we still find our way to each other—”
“Have you always known?” His tone was cautious, colored with the possibility of betrayal.
I shook my head. “Of course not, no. I suspected it, only from what people told us, and my most recent dreams. Then I…” I gulped, glancing away from Zain. “I used the lighter you gave me on myself. And it stunned me.”
His eyes widened momentarily. “But that doesn’t mean you’re a jinn, not necessarily—”
“There’s more. Jamshid slipped a note in my pocket when we saw him. It had a spell on it.”
“What kind of spell?”
“A summoning one. He wrote that if I summoned my ancestor, he could explain everything—that he’s the one who’s been trying to contact me.”
It was clear that Zain was trying to calm himself, his jaw clenched, like his brain was mentally counting before speaking. “Please tell me you didn’t recite it.”
“What do you think?”
He groaned, loud, frustrated, but most of all devastated.
“I had planned to summon my mum, but it didn’t work. Then I tried my ancestor. I don’t know why, really. I just wanted to see if it would work. I guess I thought if it did, it would confirm what I am.”
Hardness contoured Zain’s face as he assessed me.
A knock sounded on the door behind me. I jumped at the sound, whipping around as Ehsan’s soft voice began, “Roxana? Are you okay? Is it the dreams again?” The door handle moved, and I rushed to press my body against the door to stop him from opening it.
“Yeah, I’m fine!” I said, voice cracking.
“Why won’t you let me in?”
Zain was staring at me with that unreadable expression.
I didn’t want him to go, not when we hadn’t had a chance to talk fully.
But it seemed it wasn’t my choice to make, because he moved toward the window.
Before I could tell him to stop, he hoisted himself over the edge and jumped, disappearing from view.
Possibly at my lack of reply, Ehsan tried the door one more time. The force of its opening smacked my shoulder, and I stumbled forward and deeper into the room. Ehsan defiantly scanned the empty space. His face fell when he realized there was nothing suspicious.
“I had a nightmare and went to the toilet and heard you talking. I thought I heard other voices,” he explained sheepishly, wearing his Superman pajamas, his hair standing up in all different directions from sleep.
“Well, you were wrong,” I said, looking not at him but at the open window and the starry night sky. “There’s no one here.”
I had to put my hand on Ehsan’s back and guide him out to make him leave, warning him that it was late and he was being weird. Gaslighting was the only weapon I had in my arsenal.
When I was alone in my room, panic tightened my chest. I regretted the way I’d told Zain the truth; I never thought my words through until after I’d said them—always so rash.
I pounded my hand down on the mattress, growing more agitated at how bouncy the bed was and the way my hand had such little impact. For a jinn, I felt—and was—so weak.
My ears pricked at a rustling by the window.
Anticipation, then disappointment washed over me when I saw that he hadn’t come back…
until I realized I was facing the wrong direction, and that to the right, he was leaning against the wall outside as though it were the most normal thing to do, practically levitating.
His head bowed until he felt me watching him. Only then did he look at me.
I couldn’t stop staring into his dark eyes. I wished he could understand what I was saying without words—that even though I was a jinn, that didn’t mean I was bad.
“You’re still here,” I said, my voice wobbly.
“I wanted to go, but I couldn’t.”
“Maybe we could talk in your car? You drove here, right?”
“Yes,” he said before taking me in his arms. I didn’t have time to think about it before we flew down to the lawn. His car was parked across the street.
He grabbed his ripped T-shirt from the ground, and we got into his car, neither of us saying anything for a moment. Shadows from the streetlights caressed his face, making the sharp lines more pronounced.
He put his hands on the steering wheel, his knuckles white as he clenched it, the only sign that he was reeling.
“What happened when you summoned your ancestor?” he asked, voice impossibly level.
My hands were folded in my lap, and I squeezed them together. “He told me that I’m a jinn—a jinn princess, believe it or not.” My attempt at humor was pathetic. I sighed. “He said he’s the Jinn King. He has snakes on his neck. He’s the jinn that I’ve been seeing in my dreams—”
“Wait, did you say the Jinn King?” Zain hissed. He twisted around, eyes wide. “That’s your ancestor?”
“I mean, I don’t really get how it works. He’s like Rabiya’s grandfather? So, spiritually my ancestor.”
“Right, of course he is,” he said sarcastically. “Do you know how big a deal this is?”
“Well, no, it was only a few weeks ago that I found out jinn exist. And now I’m…” One of them.
“How could you not know?” His eyebrows knitted together.
I found myself getting defensive. None of this was my fault.
I tried to temper my irritation with quick, quiet breaths.
“I mean, did you really not know? Or suspect anything?” I shot back at him.
“When you had visions of our past selves, why did you think we weren’t allowed to be together—why we were killed for it? ”
He didn’t say anything at that, his silence loud. Perhaps he was burying his head in the sand just as much as I was.
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you’d see me differently. I thought if I just avoided you, maybe…I didn’t quite think that far. But the last thing I wanted was for you to stare at me the way you are now, like I’m a monster,” I continued.
His assessing stare moved away from my eyes, and a deep sound came from his throat. As he tightened his grip on the steering wheel, I swore I heard a crack. He removed his hands, pressing them to his thighs. “That’s not what I’m thinking.”
When he didn’t elaborate, I said, “He told me my mum was a jinn, but my dad’s human. I don’t think Dad knows anything about any of this. And I guess my mum wanted us to live normal lives. Maybe she thought that would change something with us if I didn’t know.”
“So you’re half jinn?” he asked, like that was something to cling to.
I shrugged. “I guess. But what if jinn aren’t all bad? What if it’s their upbringing that makes them that way?”
“Jinn are evil, Roxana. They were created to spread evil. That’s the whole point.”
“Jamshid doesn’t think so. Your way of looking at them is too simplistic,” I shot back, my words sharper than intended.
“So you think the beings brought to Earth to create sadness and tragedy are ‘misunderstood’?”
I pressed my back into the car door, wishing I could sink into it and disappear. At least I knew I could make a quick exit if needed. “If you think I’m so terrible, why are you still here?”
“You’re not…” He sighed. “You’re different.”
“What about Ehsan? He’s half jinn too. Do you think he’s evil? He’s just a child,” I said quietly.
He shook his head. “Jinn come in different forms. The bad they produce can be small. Even unintentional. Like, I’m meant to be focusing on my charge.
But I’m not. I’m here with you instead. And I physically can’t leave.
The pull I feel toward you…I feel like if I’m not careful I’d choose you over anyone and anything. Maybe that’s enough?”
His words twisted in my gut.
Frustrated, I said, “You don’t have to be with me.
I didn’t ask you to come here. If anything, I tried to keep my distance so we wouldn’t make the same mistakes as our past selves.
Except…that dream I had just now. I think you had already died, and my past self could speak to snakes, and she asked a cobra to kill her. She couldn’t live without you.”
“The other night, I dreamed of a self I hadn’t before,” he said slowly. “He died of cholera, I think, around the time of the Persian famine.”
“Well, there you go. Even apart, our lives still end early.” A sad, sobering realization.
Zain let out another noise—this time it sounded like it came from deep in his belly.
He shifted closer so there were only inches between us, gazing down at me with a fierceness in his eyes.
He cupped my cheek, and despite everything, I couldn’t help but lean into it, like a flower reaching for sunlight.
“I can’t stay away from you. Not just that, but I don’t want to,” he whispered.
I brushed my lips against his palm, lightly, only barely, but noticed the way his eyes shut.
“All I’ve been able to think about the past couple weeks is you,” he continued, groaning. “It’s a problem.”
“I didn’t tell you what else the Jinn King said. Or ordered, rather,” I began slowly. “He said we can’t be together. He’s the one who ordered those jinn to attack us. He doesn’t want me to be with an angel.”
Zain let out a short, humorless laugh. “Right, I’m the problem here.”
“Regardless, all this explains why we’re never allowed to be together in the past, right?
Because angels and jinn are enemies? And I guess me being jinn royalty—whatever that means—makes it even more important that we aren’t together?
” Even though I was piecing these things together, I was hoping Zain would prove me wrong.
Instead, he nodded, which was somehow worse than if he had verbalized his reply. His gaze drifted to the windshield, like his brain was outside this conversation, outside the car suddenly.
His shoulders slumped. “I really need to go. My mentor wants to see me.”
“Of course.” I put my hand on the door handle, preparing to leave, but there was pain coloring his features, which made me pause.
His hands found their way to my face again, cupping me, keeping me there.
He leaned in, moving slowly, like he was inviting me to protest, to move out of the way, to tell him that we shouldn’t do this. But of course, I wouldn’t do that.
His lips pressed to mine, soft and supple.
The kiss was gentle at first but steadily grew, and when his tongue touched mine, I couldn’t help but melt into him, my body crushed against his, as much as it could with the gearshift in the way.
His hands moved from my face down to the small of my back, pinning me in place.
When we pulled apart, I had the sinking feeling that this was more than a kiss—it was a goodbye.
I opened my eyes to find darkness clouding his. “I need to go,” he said again, like I was the one stopping him. “I’ll take you up to your room.”
I nodded, and we left the car. By the lawn, he bundled me into his arms, gliding us up to my open window. In my room, he kissed my forehead, his lips lingering over my skin, before he left without saying another word.