Page 15 of The Wishless Ones
“The caliph is still asleep,” Iago said.
Thanks to Baba’s business, they’d visited the caliph’s mansion several times over the past few years. They knew the layout, the staff, his pet—and most importantly, the caliph’s plans to join a fully packed caravan leaving later that day. Jafar and Rohan needed his and his servant’s seats, and Jafar had devised the perfect way to finagle it.
“And his beloved tiger?” Jafar asked.
“Locked in his cage. He hasn’t been fed yet, it looks like,” Iago replied. “I saw them cutting up chunks of meat.”
Jafar tossed the last of the almond-stuffed dates he’d found in the storeroom into his mouth. “Perfect.”
“Are we sure this is a good idea?” Rohan asked, biting into a slice of oversweet halvah that didn’t qualify as breakfast. “There has to be a better way to go about this.”
“Oh, live a little,” Iago snapped.
Jafar held back a laugh. He rarely spoke his mind to Rohan—his first instinct, typically, was to placate his brother, not tell him exactly what he really felt. Iago had no such qualms; Jafar could get used to this. “We need to get to the House of Wisdom for our genie lamp, don’t we?”
Something dark passed over Rohan’s face, too quick for Jafar to decipher. “Yes.”
Jafar waited a beat for Rohan’s thoughts to catch up to him.
“It’s just that…” Rohan went on, “you know how we had so few chances to do the right thing, because Baba always decided otherwise? He’s gone now. We could start fresh. Do the right and honest thing from here on out.”
“I think he might have inhaled too much of that smoke,” Iago said in the silence. “How do you expect to do that? By begging?”
Iago was right. There wasn’t another way to get on that caravan, or to get to Maghriz short of traversing the sands on their own, but Rohan’s words transported Jafar back to the bazaar from their childhood, filching food not because he wanted to fill his own belly but because he knew it would bring a smile to Mama’s face. Stealing wasn’t right or honest, but when her eyes would glitter with joy, it felt a little like both.
“We haven’t begun our fresh start yet, have we?” Jafar asked.
Rohan’s brow furrowed. “I…suppose not.”
“Exactly. Now, we can’t do this unless we’re all fully committed, so no more doubt, understand? Weknowthe caliph is leaving today. And aside from loitering near the caravan and abducting someone right then and there to take their place, we don’t have any other way of sneaking aboard. I would say taking the caliph’s place is the more ‘right’ thing to do in this instance, as opposed to taking the seat of someone who might not be traveling for leisure.”
Jafar nodded toward the caliph’s mansion. “Here’s the plan. Iago will go in and unlatch the tiger’s cage—”
“Are you kidding me?” Iago asked. “I unlatch that cage and the monster will eat me. Tigers are faster than parrots.”
“He has a point,” Rohan said.
Jafar sighed. Since when did Rohan care what happened to Iago? “Fine. Iago, you’ll have to knock on the front door and blabber—”
“Imitate.” Iago corrected him.
“What?” Jafar asked. He was growing tired of the interruptions.
“I’ll imitate the caliph,” Iago said. “I can fly out of sight and imitate his voice, and the staff will be as confuddled as you need them to be.”
“I need them distracted,” Jafar replied, “not confuddled.”
“Thank you, Iago,”Iago snarked in an exact imitation of Jafar’s voice.
“If that’s how you plan on imitating the caliph, you’re going to fail,” Jafar lied, quickly schooling his features before Iago could see his surprise. He’d heard Iago’s imitations while the bird was perched by Baba’s desk, but he’d never heard it donethiswell. “No imitating.”
Iago threw up his wings with a snarl.
“While Iago doesas I’ve told him to,” Jafar continued, “I’ll slip in through the side door and let the tiger out.”
“He’s hungry,” Rohan pointed out. “What if he attacks you?”
“It’s a latch. I just need to hook a string in and pull at it from a distance.”
