Page 57 of The Wishless Ones
“Andyou want princedom,” Iago deadpanned, snatching the rest of it with his beak and swallowing it in one gulp. “You know, if we get greedy, we’ll end up with nothing.”
“We’ll just have to get ourselves the genie, then,” Jafar said, leaning back.
Iago squinted at him. “I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”
“I honestly don’t care for princedom,” Jafar replied. For whatever reason, he saw Harun, the Maghrizi royal vizier, in his mind’s eye—never too far from the Sultana, always there to give her a nod to proceed or a shake of his head. “But I don’t want Rohan to become prince, either. Not after what he’s done.” He took a deep breath. “You were right about him all along.”
Iago didn’t gloat or squawk or even brush away Jafar’s words. He looked pensive. “I didn’t want to be.”
Jafar believed him. He hadn’t even wanted Jafar brandishing the shreds of his scholarship, to avoid any possibility of upsetting Rohan.
But Jafar shouldn’t have had to worry about Rohan turning on him. They were brothers. It was supposed to be him and Rohan against the world, as Mama had instructed when she’d told them about the two halves of the scarab being powerful together. But the universe had other plans. When it no longer had Baba to pit them against each other, it had replaced him with a new antagonist.
Perhaps, like the two halves of the golden scarab, Jafar and Rohan should never have remained together.
“Well, then,” Iago said with a sigh. “Princedom it is.”
Princedom. Jafar sent his empty plate off with a servant and readied for bed, settling under the sheets with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He had gone from a fresh start to all ofthiswithin days.
The windows were open wide to the night above. A black moon hung in the sky, waxing the barest sliver of a crescent.
He thought of Iago, an unexpected ally who had risen from the ashes of his old life like a phoenix. Jafar almost laughed at that imagery. He thought of the girl who, despite knowing so little about him and conversely the same, understood him more than anyone else. He thought of Rohan, whom he used to know like the back of his hand and could no longer understand at all. They’d never even slept apart before coming here—it was always the two of them in their own beds, feet apart, talking about everything and nothing until sleep snatched one away and the other followed.
What he did know was this: the Sultana wanted Jafar to take the place of her son. There was no other reason why she’d all but told him of her plans.
But Jafar had come here for knowledge, not power.
Are they not one and the same?Rohan would ask. He sometimes had the simplest, most mundane way of looking at things. Ways Jafar often overlooked because he was busy overthinking them. But in this case, Jafar wasn’t certain the Rohan in his thoughts was right.
Iago swooped through the curtains and landed on the bed.
“What is he up to?” Jafar asked.
“Nothing,” Iago said. “He’s asleep.”
Knowledge was indeed power, in many circumstances, but Jafar hadn’t been interested in power, not until now.That’s a lie. He had used his little knowledge of alchemy to overpower the prisoner in the dungeons. He’d done the same to Baba, time and time again. But to one day have control over an entire kingdom, especially one as large as Maghriz, felt tantalizing. Daunting, yes, but he was capable.
He would be in charge. He would never again have to answer to anyone. Not his father, nor anyone like him in a world full of people like him. He wouldn’t have to answer to the Sultana or deal with her conniving ways.
He would never again have to be second best, and that was a welcome thought.
Rohan woke the next morning as dawn crested the horizon. Birds cried out in the distance, free and untethered from the world. When his father would join them for dinners, irate and strained from his work, Rohan would always wish he could ask himwhy. He, not anyone else, had made his own life difficult, and he had continued to do so every day, tangling himself deeper and deeper into a web from which he could never escape.
Rohan understood it now.
To live was to venture into that web. The center promised the best of lives, like a mirage in the desert, and the deeper one went, the stickier it became and the harder it was to retrace one’s steps. Rohan was in the thick of it now, but he was so used to Jafar holding his hand that he didn’t know how to navigate any of it alone.
Rohan tumbled out of bed with the knowledge that he would have to see Jafar today. He couldn’t avoid him forever. It had been barely more than a day since they’d last spoken, but it felt like a lifetime.
He brushed his teeth with a siwak and washed his face, then pulled on his robes before picking up a bottle of attar that had been left on the alabaster counter in a bathroom as large as Baba’s living room. Rohan uncapped the glass vial and took a sniff of the fragrant oil: orange blossoms and sugar, two of his most favored scents. He swiped some on with a smile.
Rohan always had believed in signs.
Jafar was in the dining hall.
He lounged on the cushions as if he were royalty. Iago sat on his shoulder, snickering at something. Jafar had always been a prince without a crown, even when he was eight and Rohan was six and they’d stolen food to survive.
He looked like he’d been waiting for him.
