Chapter 3
A long, long time ago—according to her family, anyway—Riya’s great-great-great-great-grandmother had been plucking gooseberries
on the mountains of Chitral when she met a male peri who’d wandered off the path.
Peris, her parents had explained when she was little, were a type of djinn: fairylike creatures with wings and the ability
to grant wishes. Ethereal beings known for their intoxicating jasmine scent and otherworldly beauty.
Romantic. Mysterious. Magical.
Or, as Riya saw it, another family story blown wildly out of proportion.
Supposedly, this long-dead ancestor and the conveniently gorgeous peri hit it off so well that they made a pit stop on the
way down the mountain to “get to know each other more intimately” (her mother’s words—not hers).
The result? A line of women on Riya’s mother’s side with peri blood: a heritage her relatives held in high esteem, even if
few had the power to match.
Sirah khala was different.
Her mom’s younger sister—or, as her business card read, life coach to the spiritually adrift—was one of the only members of the family left who had powers.
She’d spent years trying, and failing, to spark even a flicker of magic in Riya’s older sisters.
In Riya’s humble opinion, though, her sisters had their own kind of magic: Amara could charm even the grumpiest cashier, and Nyra’s hugs could squeeze the bad day out of anyone. Whether they liked it or not.
But that wasn’t enough for Sirah khala—which meant Riya was her last hope.
“Peris aren’t like fairies in Western mythology,” Sirah khala once explained during one of her whirlwind visits between client
retreats and seminars. She set down her morning cup of chai. “We’re descended from fallen angels and humans, bridging the
gap between divine magic and mortal emotion. All emotion: anger, joy, even fear. But love is our specialty. Our calling.”
Riya had been twelve at the time. Barely awake, just trying to finish her breakfast before school. Even then, she’d preferred
science over magic: Science had rules, a strict peer review process, and rigorous methodology. Magic that manipulated emotions? At best, it sounded like a waste of time.
She’d spooned another bite of cardboard-tasting cereal into her mouth.
“Sirah khala, I’m trying to eat.”
“You can eat and listen.” Sirah khala waved a hand dismissively. “Haven’t you ever wondered why so many peris work as life
coaches, teachers, therapists?”
“No.”
“It’s because we help people act on their emotions,” she went on, undeterred. “See, a good peri doesn’t create feelings. We tune them—like clearing static on a radio.”
She tapped a finger to her temple. “With just the right touch of magic, we help someone recognize what’s already in their heart. Sometimes, that’s all it takes.”
Riya chewed her cereal slowly.
“But how do you know you’re not pushing too hard?” she asked. “Even if the feelings are real, what if you’re just forcing
someone toward something they’re not ready for?”
Sirah khala hesitated.
“It’s a fair question,” she said. “It’s easy to cross that line without meaning to. The same way there are bad people, there
are bad peris—those who don’t know, or don’t care, where clarity ends and control begins. That kind of magic always has consequences.”
She held Riya’s gaze.
“But magic, Riya, is an extension of you. If your heart’s in the right place, the magic will follow.”
Riya scrunched her nose. Sirah khala made it sound so simple, like good intentions were enough to protect you. But Riya didn’t
buy it. It sounded less like helping people and more like offering them a shortcut. Like skipping the hard work of facing
feelings honestly. And what confused her most was the idea that people would want that. Someone else to tidy up the mess inside them.
To Riya, if something mattered, you worked for it. You didn’t dodge it. You didn’t fix it with magic. Could something as messy as love really be nudged into place like a crooked picture frame? And if something that important could be rearranged so easily—how real was it to begin with?
She shook her head. “Honestly, that all sounds like a pain.”
“Riya!” Sirah khala had groaned and thrown her arms up. “You don’t understand how important this is! You could very well be
my student, my successor! Even if your magic hasn’t manifested yet, you have to be ready. If you don’t learn it, our love
magic could be forgotten. Forever!”
“You’re only thirty-five,” Riya’s mom, Asma, had pointed out drily from her post at the stove. “Why are you acting like you’re
a ninety-year-old bibi?”
“She’s probably bored,” Riya had muttered through her cereal, which earned her a dramatic gasp of offense.
“I’m not bored!” Sirah khala had exclaimed, though she absolutely was. “How could I possibly be bored when I can do things like this?”
Then, with a flourish, she’d turned her kohl-rimmed eyes on Riya, her irises suddenly glowing faint, molten gold. A classic
peri trick.
“I can do that, too,” Riya had said, unimpressed.
“What?” Sirah khala had grabbed her shoulders. “Really? Truly?!”
“With colored contacts.”
Sirah khala’s howl of frustration was loud enough to make her mom wince.
But a few years later, her wish came true.
During a family dinner, Sirah khala leaned over Riya to place a jug of sharbat on the table—and suddenly, she froze.
“You—you smell like jasmine,” she whispered, her voice reverent.
Riya blinked. Any other bodily changes she’d noticed in herself—the sudden growth spurt, the weird sensitivity to other peoples’
emotions—she’d chalked up to puberty.
“Mom got me a new body wash.” She scooped a serving of chicken biryani onto her plate. “That’s probably what you’re smelling.”
But Sirah khala didn’t look convinced.
“No,” she murmured, studying Riya like she was seeing something invisible. “No, this isn’t body wash. I can feel it. I should
have known when you started growing like a reed, but—you have peri magic in you! And it’s strong, Riya.”
Riya went very still, trying to ignore the shift in the air—a brush of something against her skin, featherlight. As if the
magic within her was responding to Sirah khala’s words. Which, of course, was a ridiculous thought.
“You’re joking.”
But Sirah khala was already turning to the rest of the table, eyes shining.
“She has it,” she breathed, hands trembling. “She has the gift!”
Nyra dropped the cheesecake she’d just taken out of the oven while Amara let out a giddy squeal. Their mom nearly toppled out of her chair to grab Riya in a suffocating hug. And her dad mussed Riya’s hair, ignoring her halfhearted swats.
Riya didn’t know what to say, caught in a hurricane of expectation she didn’t ask for. She didn’t want to smell like jasmine
against her will, or hear Sirah khala’s overly dramatic declarations about her destiny.
She just wanted to eat her dinner in peace and get back to studying in her room.
Sirah khala launched into another lecture: Peris weren’t as common as they used to be, and their dwindling numbers had turned
them into little more than an exotic footnote in dusty folklore books. She’d had wild theories about why—something about Mount
Qaf, secret migrations, hiding from human governments—but Riya stopped listening as soon as her khala’s voice turned feverish,
like an over-caffeinated documentary narrator.
What Riya did catch, though, was that this revelation meant something big. That despite all odds, peri blood had been alive and well in
her all along.
She could be the one to carry our family’s peri magic into the future!
She could heal people’s woes. Inspire hopeful hearts. Give them courage.
She could—
Not that it mattered in the end.
Because that was before everything changed. Before the Incident, when she turned her back on magic. Before Sirah khala stopped visiting, like she didn’t trust herself to be around Riya without trying to fix what had been broken.
And soon enough, her family stopped bringing up peri magic at all, as if it had never existed.
In Riya’s opinion, that was for the best.