Page 9 of The Wishless Ones
They could die here.
He didn’t know if Baba was safe. If the maids and his advisors and scribes and— Jafar! He was trapped in a broom closet, where he would suffocate to death. Rohan needed to find the key. He needed Mama’s genie, Mama’s direction. She would know what to do. Jafar would know what to do.
Think, Rohan,he told himself. He needed to get the key from Baba, but that required wading through the smoke. He wouldn’t be able to see more than a foot ahead of him. He might even stumble on the fire.You can do this.
Rohan gulped down clean air and took a step into the quickly darkening hall.
Smoke billowed closer, and he gasped, allowing it to siphon down his throat. It made him woozy, almost drunk. Or perhaps that was panic. He coughed, and his vision crossed and blurred. He tried to laugh at how weak he was, falling apart from a little smoke. He was spiraling, breathing so hard that his head felt light. Then he felt a gust of air. Blinked and saw dim light. He even thought he heard his name. Mama?
She lurched him back into the present, as if she were reaching through her grave to pull him from the abyss.
Jafar!Rohan had to save him. He whirled toward the broom closet and stopped in his tracks. The door was open. Something red was bouncing up and down inside the room, hovering, almost like it was flying.
Rohan didn’t have time to figure out what it was or how the door had been opened. All he cared about was that Jafar was there and safe. Rohan yelled, “The house—it’s—it’s on fire.”
A chilling thought tore through Rohan: this was his fault. He had been so ready to give up their sprawling house and Baba’s business to see Mama again that he’d wished without a genie again, and now another of his parents would pay the price. He needed to stop thinking about Mama right now. They had to save Baba, and Jafar could— Rohan paused. What was Jafar doing? He wasn’t trying to save anyone. He was pulling Rohan into the room and closing the door behind them.
“I know,” Jafar said.
“You know?” Rohan repeated, trying to blink away the blurriness, to clear the fuzz that was blanketing his mind and crowding his mouth. He was imagining things. Surely that red thing wasn’t fluttering to the ground and shoving something beneath the door. Securing them inside. With soured features, Jafar left Rohan trembling and threw open the curtains to the tiny window on the opposite wall—the one that led out onto the street—then shoved a robe-wrapped fist through the glass.
“We need to go back,” Rohan said weakly, relief flooding him as the cracks in the glass began to spread. “For Baba.”
Jafar didn’t blink, didn’t even flinch. He pulled back for one final punch, and the glass shattered completely. He didn’t look the slightest bit apologetic or upset, or perhaps the smoke was making Rohan imagine things, because surely his brother wouldn’t say:
“No, we don’t.”
Under a merciless sun, Jafar led his younger brother and Iago deeper into the shadows as villagers hurried past, sand stirring in their wake. People rushed with buckets of water, voices crashing one into the next, panic rising as thick as the smoke billowing to the skies. No one noticed as the three of them huddled in the remains of an old shack.
Jafar had never been so happy to leave that broom closet. His prison. His sanctuary.
Baba’s manor was on fire. Devastated. Jafar hadn’t known stone could crumble so quickly, but there was enough that was combustible within to send the entire thing crashing down on everything Jafar knew. It only served Baba right for having rid the house of everything Mama had once touched.
“Are we the only ones who escaped?” Jafar asked Iago. He still couldn’t quite believe he was conversing with a talking parrot.
The parrot looked grave as he settled on the jutting stone nearest him. “I nearly singed a wing out there.”
“You—you talk?” Rohan sputtered, swiping at his eyes.
“Not this again,” Iago moaned.
“Answer the question,” Jafar snapped.
Iago narrowed his eyes at Jafar, clearly irked by the command, but he finally relented. “Yes, I talk.”
Jafar dragged a hand down his face. “Myquestion, Iago.”
“Yes, Jafar.” Iago sounded bored. “I didn’t see any other survivors.”
Jafar slumped back against the wall, unsure if it was in relief or exhaustion. He couldn’t bring himself to care about the rough stone snagging at his robes.No other survivors. They were all dead. The maids and servants and kitchen staff. Baba. The house, shredded like the remains of the awarded scholarship, much of which was still in his pocket.
He could not summon tears nor sorrow. The fire had scrubbed at his insides, leaving him raw, untethered in a way. Numb. Relieved to be unharmed. Guilty to be alive. He envied Rohan and his emotions.
“Do you think it was Barkat?” Rohan asked, staring into the distance. “Baba went and yelled at him after we finished our food.”
“Vengeful cooks have more subtle ways of getting back at people,” Iago said, and when neither Jafar nor Rohan asked him to elaborate, he did so anyway. “You know, like poison. No? Guess I have to do all the talking around here.”
Iago couldn’t understand their silence, and how monumental a moment this was.
