The next instant, Hana apports into our living room. Her orange-red hair echoes the fierce flames of my earlier fires, but she’s the gentlest of my soon-to-be Zar sisters, except for Laila, of course.
“Happy Birthday!” Hana gushes, with her arms flung wide.
Is it my own arms at my sides that makes her change course? Because instead of hugging me, she pulls her elbows in and takes my hand, giving my arm a shy, tentative tug.
Am I Hana’s Yasmin?
As she greets my mother with a kiss, I can’t help but think magic lessons aren’t the ones I need.
Though we’ve e-mailed a few times, I haven’t seen her since she became Hana 2.0. Body taller, hair redder, lips fuller. What I’m thinking about her, she says about me.
“You’re gorg, Azra!”
Except I wouldn’t use “gorg” without the “eous.” Ever.
She walks a circle around me. “Hmm … though it’s all actually pretty subtle, isn’t it? Thankfully for the rest of us.”
My mother and Hana laugh. Unsure if I should join, I issue an awkward half smile. Which results in … crickets.
Hana clears her throat. “Just wanted to swing by and give you this.”
She holds out a kitschy, tarnished-gold, Aladdin-style lamp, complete with the stereotypical long spout and curved handle. “Congrats! You’re the new keeper.”
Pop culture has turned genies into a joke. Oil lamps, serving a master, flying carpets, three wishes—none of it’s true. Jinn live in houses, not lamps or bottles. Jinn do not fly on a carpet or otherwise. The Afrit assign wish candidates to Jinn. The candidate gets but one wish. The idea of three stems from humans who were greedy and Jinn who were pushovers.
“Keeper?” I ask.
Hana purses her lips. “Oh, right, you haven’t been to most of our parties, have you?”
I skipped Yasmin’s sixteenth birthday bash. Our other Zar sister, Mina’s, too. But what about Farrah’s and Hana’s parties? I don’t recall getting an invite to their birthdays.
Hana and I stare at each other as we each realize this at the same time.
Again, crickets.
“Yasmin started it,” Hana says. “She found Mr. Gemp—”
“Gemp?”
“Genie lamp.”
“Right.”
“Anyway, Yasmin passed it to Mina when she turned sixteen. And Mina gave it to Farrah, who gave it to me, and now, well, now it’s your turn.” She pulls the lamp, still held in her outstretched hands, closer to her chest. “You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to. I know it’s silly. It’s just—”
“No.” I pluck the lamp with more force than I intended. I’m really going to scare the poor Jinn. “I might have a wish or two I’d like granted,” I say softly as I stroke the side of the lamp.
Hana and my mother laugh again. This time, I join in, even though, in my heart, that wasn’t a joke.
There’s talk of how Hana’s finals went (straight As, as usual) and the summer internship in the costumes department of her local theater she nabbed (with her mother’s magical help, of course), and I zone out. Second to Laila, Hana’s the one I’m closest to. But closest to and close aren’t the same thing.
We just don’t have much in common.
“Get your family’s cantamen yet?” Hana asks.
Other than this.
“I made these killer flash cards for mine.”
Why am I not surprised? Then again, considering the size of my family’s genie handbook, that might not be such a bad idea. The Nadira cantamen codex is so big, if I dropped it, I’d surely shatter a toe. Or Yasmin’s.
I grin slightly at the thought.
Hana mistakes my look for excitement. “I can help you if you want.”
“That’d be lovely, Hana.”
Though the words left my mother’s lips, not mine, when Hana hugs me good-bye, she whispers, “I told the others you’d come around.” She releases me, waves to my mother, and says, “See you later!” before apporting.
That makes two “see you laters.” From my soon-to-be Zar sisters. On my birthday.
And it clicks. “You didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?” It’s too late for my mother’s innocent eyes. Hiding this is the reason—well, part of the reason—she was so quick to shoo Yasmin out the door.
“Seriously? You invited all those GITs to my party?”
My mother gives me a blank look.
“GITs,” I say. “Genies in training. HITs are tricky enough. But teenagers with powers?” I shudder.
I was trying to be funny more than bratty. My mother’s, “Don’t start, Azra,” as she leaves me for the kitchen means my ratio was off.
Through the open doorway, I watch her place the red tagine on the stovetop. Like always, my mouth waters.
Her chicken tagine with tomatoes and sweet caramelized onions has been my favorite for as long as I can remember. It’s one of the few meals she insists on making without the assistance of magic. “Some things turn out better without magic,” she once told me when I was little. “Making something with your hands instead of your mind can be satisfying, even rewarding,” she said as I stood on a chair watching her slice the juicy, red tomatoes grown, more or less naturally, in our backyard.
Using my powers of levitation, I steal an orange cherry tomato, a new variety for us this year, from the bowl on the counter as she grinds the cinnamon with a wave of her hand.
Okay, so she uses a little magic.
Before popping the tomato in my mouth, I say, “You should have asked.”
She sighs. “I did. You said no.”
“And so you invited them all anyway?”
My mother shakes the excess water from a freshly washed bundle of cilantro and ignores me. Again.
Testing my levitation skill with something heavier, I float Mr. Gemp her way. “This will be their fifth.”
“Hmm?” She swats at Mr. Gemp.
“Birthday party. Their fifth. Guess I should consider myself lucky I only have to make it through this one.”
The unexpected crack in my voice makes me lose control of the lantern. My mother’s eyes meet mine as she catches it and sets it on the table.