Page 40 of The Wishless Ones
Jafar hadn’t come here for the lamp.
Rohan ground his teeth. He didn’t need Jafar. He didn’t know if the genie could revive the dead, but it didn’t matter now.
He was going to find the lamp anyway.
If only he weren’t trapped in a palace. A strangled laugh tore out of him.Of all the problems to have.The room was spacious and luxurious. Rohan sank into a bed that was plusher than anything he’d ever felt before.
It made him feel lonely. Baba was gone, and he felt Mama’s absence even more now that he had not a single possession to his name. Jafar had all but crushed his trust, and the Sultana’s kindness was alarming. As alarming as the cavalier way in which she spoke of the prisoner kept somewhere in the palace.
Butyou’renot a prisoner.
That was a welcome thought. He might have been trapped in the palace, but the Sultana had given them free reinofsaid palace. Rohan could explore as he pleased, without Jafar. Or better yet, he could find a way to cross over to the House of Wisdom and continue his search for the golden scarab. It was still on the palace grounds, after all.
Rohan eased the door open, listening for any sound of his brother or the ruffle of a parrot’s feathers. He picked up one of the ghorayeba cookies from the platter the Sultana had brought them and bit down. The single pistachio in its center rolled between his teeth as buttery flakes melted on his tongue. The antechamber was quiet, and the door to Jafar’s room was ajar. He peeked inside at the untouched bed and still-full pitcher of water on the low table beside it.
Jafar wasn’t there.
Rohan opened the door to the palace hall, jumping at the sight of the guard standing beside it. The man stared down at him.
“Hello,” Rohan said.
The man said and did nothing.Well then.
“Do you happen to know where my brother went?”
The guard shuffled, readjusting the menacing spear in his fist. Rohan couldn’t tell if the spear was meant to protect him or keep him in line.
“The House of Wisdom,” the guard said.
Rohan bit back a growl.So much for that plan.He didn’t want to see Jafar’s face right now. He didn’t want to hear his voice. Nor did he want to be alone when Jafar was out doing something.
He looked down the corridors outside their rooms. Somewhere, a fountain gurgled. A group of women giggled. The breeze whistled through the latticed windows, evening sunlight slipping in with it.
“Explore it is,” Rohan said, with a nod at the guard.
“Can I talk now?” Iago asked as he and Jafar crossed the open sands to the House of Wisdom. Jafar was certain they were being watched in the palace, by Harun most likely, and he hadn’t wanted Iago squawking about. Keeping the parrot in line was akin to trying to keep a child from a bag of dates. Endlessly futile.
Jafar turned his gaze to the sun, breathing in the warm sands and the fresh breeze. Before them, the House of Wisdom was still as breathtaking as the first time he’d seen it. Immense and vast, sheer power to behold.
“Go ahead,” Jafar said.
“You sounded a little breathless there,” Iago said with a tilt of his head.
Jafar glared at him. “Is that what you wanted to say? I’m going to start carrying around crackers to shove down your throat.”
Iago scowled as the guard let them through with a nod, and Jafar paused to breathe it all in. Thatsmell. Jafar wished he could inject it into his veins. He would kill for the smell of ink, for the preservation of the written word, for books. Rolls of papyrus were layered as delicately and beautifully as baklava beside books in every size and shape, worn covers humming a tune, enticing him to part their covers and hear their songs.
“I thought we already established that the Sultana has the rubies,” Iago eventually said.
“We did,” Jafar said. It was a struggle to keep his excitement from bubbling into his voice. “But who knows where she’s keeping them now.”
“Exactly,” Iago said haltingly, not following his logic.
He couldn’t waste time dawdling at the palace, especially with the Sultana being cagey and strange. Jafar didn’t know what she wanted from him and Rohan, but he didn’t intend to stick around long to find out.
“First, I want to take a look at something,” Jafar said. “Then, we’ll whip up a finder’s spell.”
He strode past the shelves to the western wing of the library, separated by a wide, ornate arch that led to something he had been as eager to see as the library itself: the laboratory.
