Page 8 of The Wishless Ones
Baba’s stare had made Rohan squirm. He felt as though his head was being split open, his thoughts sifted through with unwelcome fingers. He started to say,I do not—
And it will change him,Baba had interrupted, still watching him.
It would,Rohan had agreed.
For the worse,Baba added.No?
Jafar had already changed greatly with Mama’s death—and not in a way Rohan admired. Would attending the House of Wisdom cause that darkness in Jafar’s gaze to grow? Rohan didn’t know.
And so, he had voiced no protest. That was days ago.
Perhaps Baba was so harsh with Jafar because he saw himself in him.
But slapping Jafar and throwing him in a closet over and over again didn’t help. It simply enraged both of them while Rohan watched helplessly.
If only Mama were here. She could gather up the torn ends of their family and sew them back to perfection again. Rohan clasped one of his hands in the other, imagining it was Mama’s, guiding him, grounding him.
He would have done anything to get her back. Given anything to not feel so alone.Anything.Even if the cost was their fancy mansion and Baba’s business.
Pull yourself together,came Jafar’s voice in his head. Jafar, who could easily wrap up his feelings and tuck them into a well-worded gibe. Rohan often wondered if there was somethingmissingin Jafar. How else could he be so cavalier and uncaring?
Baba said nothing else, and Rohan waited until beads of sweat began trickling down his own back. Even this—the act of standing idly, saying nothing, simplybreathing—felt like defiance.
He opened his mouth.
“Is that all?” Baba asked, but he might as well have said what he meant:Leave.
Rohan swallowed his sigh and ventured back to the tiny hall near Jafar’s household prison, pausing when he thought he heard the rushed sound of a door quickly pulling closed. There was no other door in this hall except the one to the broom closet.
And what was that smell suddenly assaulting his senses? He tried to place it before something fluttered to the floor, catching his eye in the shadowed space. A scrap of parchment. He picked it up and turned toward the light. Jafar’s name was on it, next to the wordwelcome.
Jafar’s scholarship.
Rohan’s breath caught as he recognized the parchment. He had seen it in Baba’s hand earlier that morning, but he hadn’t known it was Jafar’s scholarship. And that meant…no.That meant Baba had lied when Jafar asked.
Rohan rubbed the parchment between his fingers, refusing to believe it, trying to ignore the voice in his head that was insisting over and over again: Baba had ripped it to shreds.
Despite it all, a smile stole across Rohan’s face. Jafar had done it! He really had done it. That dream Jafar had hoped to achieve since Mama had told the tale and lit his eyes with something like magic—he’d made it a reality.
Truth be told, Rohan hadn’t fully considered that Jafar might be accepted into the House of Wisdom, but he’d never imagined in a thousand and one years that Baba would dothis. Tear Jafar’s dream to shreds. Rohan swayed, his head feeling light and untethered as guilt swarmed through him like locusts. He remembered, again, his silence when Baba had asked him if it would change Jafar for the worse. Had that silence ultimately swayed Baba’s indecision? Was this Rohan’s fault?
A loudthunk!snapped him out of his thoughts, and he turned the scrap over in his hands, eyeing the shadows. Why was it here of all places? He heard another sound, like a rustle. No, a crackle. He sniffed the air, brow creasing. The smell was getting stronger. Strong enough for him to decipher what it was:
“Fire?” he asked no one in particular. Something was very likely burning on a stove, but the kitchens were on the opposite end of the house, too far away for him to smell it here. Movement caught his eye from the side of the corridor near Baba’s meeting room, like a figure stepping in front of the light.
Rohan turned. Not a figure—smoke.
Spilling into the assembly room, billowing toward the hall, crawling to him.
A meal burning in the kitchens didn’t produce that much smoke.Nothingsmall and contained produced that much smoke.
“Fire,” Rohan repeated, stumbling back. This wasn’t what he’d meant when he thought he would give up anything—Baba’s mansion included—to have Mama back.
The only way out was through that smoke, and when he heard a loud crack followed by a series of bone-chilling crackles, Rohan knew: flames raged just on the other side.
He reached for the walls to steady himself.
“Fire!” someone shouted in alarm. Several of the household staff echoed the call; others screamed, making him realize the gravity of the situation. They couldn’t contain the fire. This was the desert; it would take them far too long to collect water.
