Page 54 of The Wishless Ones
“Can I tell you what I think?” Iago asked, hopping along the banister. The wind ruffled the tuft of feathers on his head.
“I abhor when a question is preceded by permission to ask a question,” Jafar drawled. The high of his moment with the girl was fading, spiraling him back to Rohan and the prisoner and all that had transpired the night before.
Iago tilted his head. “We’re really leaning into the brooding here. I like it.”
Jafar rolled his eyes. He hadn’t seen Rohan all morning, though that was in part because Jafar had avoided any opportunitytosee him.
Iago shrugged. “We need to find your rubies and skedaddle as fast as we can. Hey, will you stop moping? It’s not your fault.”
Wasn’t it?
“Oi, we’ve got company,” Iago whispered.
“For a boy who always has something to say, your silence last night was deafening.”
Jafar stilled.
He gripped the iron railing, sand clinging to his damp palms. The Sultana stepped beside him, her ebony overcloak and heavy shawl rustling in the breeze. Jafar refused to acknowledge her statement, and so they watched the city in silence, voices riding the dry breeze to their ears. He held his breath. The scent of her perfume transported him back to last night in that receiving room, the walls pressing as close as the broom closet’s, the eyes of her men boring holes into him.
“I know it was you,” she said at last.
Iago squawked. Jafar looked at her, surprised and a little wary. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Harun, the royal vizier, standing at a distance, his sapphire robes vivid. He looked less like he was there to protect her than to supervise.
“I knew the moment I saw you by the door,” the Sultana said. “You are an extraordinary boy.”
A man,his father would yell at him.You are no longer a boy.His surprise careened into anger when she smiled. If she knew,had known, why had she not confronted Rohan then and there? Why had she allowed him to boast and garner the praise and pride of her closest circle?
And if she’d never even asked for the secret in the end, what was the point, besides pitting Rohan and Jafar against each other? Almost…
Almost as if she wanted to test them.
Jafar knew manipulation when he saw it. He had experience with it, after all. He just couldn’t understand what the Sultana stood to gain. He swept his gaze to the palace courtyard below, jaw clenching at the sight of his brother. The terrace overlooked the gardens, where Rohan idled by the rectangular reflecting pool in its center, playing with a host of baby ducklings, yellow and bright.
He cupped the youngest one in his palms.
“If you knew,” Jafar started, turning his attention back to her, “then why—”
“This is no place for those who cede to others,” the Sultana said. She sounded disappointed.
She was the one who had brought them to thisplace. All he’d wanted were those rubies.
“Rohan is my brother, not my competition,” Jafar countered.
“Competition! Competition!” Iago squawked.
“The parrot has the right idea,” she said with a wry smile. “I’ve lived long, Jafar, and encountered enough people to have learned them. Men share greed, not blood. Do you think he was unaware of the penalty for lying?”
Jafar swallowed. No, Rohan was not unaware. Just as he was aware that Jafar would do anything for him.
Let go,said the girl in his mind, but she was wrong—some obsessions couldn’t be helped. Some transgressions could not be forgiven.
“I do not wish to discuss my brother,” Jafar said, surprised by how cold his voice was.
He wanted to know how being the better person and not outing his brother for lying still earned him nothing. A thought resurfaced, one that had been born in the shadows of the locked broom closet: What point was there in being good if he could not reap the benefit of it?
“Nor do I,” the Sultana replied.
Jafar looked back down at Rohan, the turquoise depths of the pool complementing his robes. The duckling was squirming in his palms.Men share greed.Jafar wondered if that was why his brother had claimed the discovery as his own. He wondered if, beneath his bright, daffodil smiles, his brother had a little bit of the devil in him.
