Izzi sat on the hard bed in her new tiny bare room and cried. All she had in the world now was one rack of clothes, one sack of meagre belongings, and an old picture book. 

Blinking through the tears, she fished through the sack and placed a few things she would need, like combs and cosmetics, out onto the one small uncarved bench near the one small plain lamp, and dumped the sack into the simple chest at the bottom of the bed. 

The room was not wholly without cheer, she supposed. A couple of small windows high on the walls faced not to the courtyard like her old room, but east above the Zakra walls, out over the desert.

Izzi was not really sure where she stood now in the household—she was used to just asking for what she needed and having it provided. She had never seen the actual sea, other than in the realm of the wiles, but imagined Haroun in his tiny boat at the mercy of the waves, riding up and down. She decided she would assume she still had some privilege as a daughter of the son of Enzel until the waves calmed, but would keep a low profile and not push things until her feet found the sand.

So that night she meekly fetched herself a bowl for washing, keeping her traitorous eyes averted from the other women in case they might burst into tears again. She was stronger than that! And she began to prepare herself for bed.

She unwound her hair and unfolded the scarf, a duty Yasmin would usually perform. She searched for the folded scrap of paper with the charm, expecting that using the spell would have burned it to ash, as normally it would. But instead of ash Izzi found a tiny piece of coal, about the size of a fingernail. It was probably just the spent charm, and worthless, but to be on the safe side she found a circular silver locket among her few pieces of jewellery and put it inside, closing it with a sure click. She left it on the nightstand. 

At some time during the night she was woken from a fitful sleep by muted croaking from her old friends the nightjars in the courtyard on the other side of the khan. Alerted, she slipped out of bed and dragged the single stool under a window so she could reach up and see out. Far out over the desert a storm rose up behind the mountains, with lightning flashes that lit the clouds orange and created a rumbling, muffled by distance.

Just a storm, she thought, closing her eyes but holding her mind open, questing for any taint of ghuls.

Izzi did not feel any questing ghul spirits in the air, and the lightning flashes had revealed none. But she could feel something—the khan’s wards shivered. It did not feel like something outside, it was more like the presence was within, and close.

She recited a calling her mother had taught, a little song to unhide the hidden. 

By the power of my will and voice,

I summon forth the unseen light.

By the will of my own choice,

To blind me with the desert sands.

By the magic of my heart and soul,

To show me what I dare not see.

By the price of my own toll,

To unseal what lies beneath to me.

What Izzi did not expect was a silent reply in her mind, extra new verses that were not her own.

By the waking of my ancient voice,

I reflect back your hidden light.

By wisdom of unchosen choice,

To bind you with the desert sands.

By the power of my secret urn,

To grant you what you cannot see.

By the boon of my own toll,

To be what lies beneath for thee.

Izzi opened her eyes immediately and placed her palms on the window ledge to draw on the magesty of the old building and the entwined apricot trees. She recited another charm to ward away whatever it was that had latched onto her.

Mind my will, my shining light,

Unwelcome spirit, stay away.

Soul and heart, art and part,

Leave me be, do not stay.

But the disembodied voice had different ideas, and spoke again as she jumped off the stool.

Make no haste, child of light,

Welcome me, and what I say.

With your art, and wishes three,

What you desire, comes your way.

Izzi knew now what the voice was. Mogh Kalu’s attempt to cancel the summoning spell had failed, and now somehow the ifrit spoke in her head. She knew such beings to be bound on the mortal plane by the rule of threes, and summoned the courage to confront it. She sat on her bed and placed her hand on the locket with the tiny coal inside. 

“Once already I have commanded you to leave,” she told it. “Again I say begone back to the chaos whence you came. You have already cost me so much, and what I desire is you out of my life, so it can go back to normal!”

The locket became so hot she snatched her hand away. She feared the silver would melt.

“Normal is lost to you now, little one,” the djinni said, his voice so loud in her head that Izzi clamped her hands onto her ears, which of course did not help. “But do not hasten to make a third demand to banish me, or normal will never return. Hear first what I have to say.”

“Okay, just please stop shouting!” 

Izzi took her hands from her ears and reached again toward the locket. Somehow the djinni must be bound to it, and it might be her only hope to sever the link.

The locket shone brightly in warning and she flinched away.

“I will be honest with you,” said the djinni, “When your magian teacher attempted to cancel the summoning spell, it only partly worked. I am partly through to your realm, but partly still in mine. This is a disaster for me, because I now have full power in neither. On top of that, it is quite painful and embarrassing.”

“So you have no power to help me,” Izzi interrupted.

“Ah, but I am an ifrit djinn, and a prince among them. Even a mere fraction of my power would be a boon to you, if you were to not reject it. So I will make a pact with you—if you were to help me reach full form by taking on a simple task, once I reach that form I will fully grant three wishes to you, since it will be in my power then to do so, and I will be free to return whole to my realm. Until then, I will aid you with such magesty I do retain to help you reach your goals, so long as they align with the task I set.”

Izzi knew that trusting an ifrit’s lies led inevitably to disaster. She had to have proof that any of what he claimed was true, and from everything she had learned about ifrit from her mother, it was certainly not true, or only partly so. It was likely just a clever deception to allow him to take full form and unleash his full chaos. And even if it was all true, and she did help him, she had no way to compel him to do as he promised, and grant her wishes. 

“I’m not naive enough to trust you without good proof,” she said. “There is too much I still need to understand. Why did the book from the Grimoiren call to me? Why was the book different inside from the cover? If you had not forced yourself upon me I would still have a respected place in the Magekadeh and in this household. You have already done me great harm!”

“Ah, the book was indeed a lure, but for anyone in hearing with great powers of chaotic magesty such as yours—I have not forced myself upon you specifically, nor intentionally done you harm. And it is different inside to protect it from prying eyes—you still have it do you not?”

“Yes, I do,” said Izzi, “thanks to that deception it was not taken from me like my mother’s other books.”

“Excellent, then I will teach you how to reveal its secrets, and it can help you begin your task.”

“I have agreed to no such thing!”

“Then three wishes have no value for you? Think long and hard on this, child. I sense that you are in a dire position now, having lost your status in the Magekadeh and in the household of the son of the executioner. With my help you could regain that, or better still discard it and take a true place of power in your world, as due to a daughter of Myzina, sorcerer commanding all the oases of Kythia.”

“What do you know of my mother?” Izzi had just made up that line about Myzina commanding the oases to impress the water wile, and the ifrit had just echoed it back to her. Did that mean he actually had no real knowledge of Myzina? Or did it mean that he wanted her to believe that he had no knowledge of her? It was the middle of the night, she was tired, and her head was starting to throb—probably from having a djinni shouting into it.

“I know she had a certain reputation among my kind, and had tricked a few of us over her time. Other than that I only know she is gone, and all her belongings have been shoved into the household furnace, wiping out the last traces.”

Izzi knew she should not show weakness before the djinni, but these words carved a painful hollow in her chest and splashed a rock into the acids of her stomach. Traitorous tears wet her cheeks. 

“This is a cruel outcome, Izbel. I am sorely hurt for you, and I would undo any harm that I can, if you but consider my small request.”

Izzi wiped away the traitors with the back of her hands, pushed down her nausea, and took a deep breath. She let herself imagine for a moment what she could achieve if the djinni did indeed help. She was strong in magesty already, and would be able to recover from these setbacks all by herself, but the djinni’s help could accelerate her plans for her life, which admittedly were only vague—like mastering her own destiny, meeting fun people, and doing some good in the world. But why not set herself higher goals? 

“I don’t trust you, djinni, but I’m wondering if we can’t form an alliance for now? The first thing I need from you is your name. If I cannot summon you at will, we will get nowhere.”

“Ah, give a little, get a little,” said the djinni. “I will also give you the ability to see me, it will help in our workings of the world. First, pick up your hand mirror, and look at yourself.”

Izzi took her mirror from the nightstand. A clear reflection in the ornately framed oval of silvered glass showed the high cheekbones and determined jaw of a daughter of the son of Enzel, but her rounder face and dark slanted eyes betrayed the Kyth heritage of her mother’s people, a telltale reflection of the kingdom’s enemies which rarely did her much good. And at the moment those eyes were droopy with sleeplessness and reddened from tears.

“You are what you are, girl, but turn the mirror a little.”

Izzi angled the mirror and there standing back behind her was a young man clad just like any other she would see on the streets of Zakra, in breeches and a silk shirt, but his skin seemed to be scribed with subtle ever-shifting milky lines. His face was handsome and ordinary, and possibly looked a little like her own, in a masculine version.

“Is that indeed how you look, djinni, or is it just to please me?”

“It is how I will appear to you, Izzi. The mirror was a key, but we are now unlocked.” 

Izzi put the mirror back on the nightstand, and spun around to see that the djinni was in the room with her. She stood to confront it.

“But you said you could not come through to our realm. A lie?”

“Oh no, Izbel, I am still only in your head, and no one else can see or hear me—this just makes it a little easier. And,” he said, taking a deep bow, “I am most pleased to properly meet you. People of your realm call me Balthazar, my friends just Bal.”

Izzi took a step back.

“But you seem so real, like you’re in the room with me.”

“That is just how it works; your mind makes me seem really there.” 

He seemed to be smiling reassuringly, or was it mischievously? As Izzi thought about the djinni’s intentions, they seemed to be reflected in his expression.

“Ah, I see you are very tired and confused Izzi, and I should leave you to get some sleep, but I’ll leave you with a few reassuring thoughts. 

“First and most importantly, if ever you need me, put your hand to the locket containing the little coal, and think my name. I’m sometimes occupied with dealing with the ramifications of my severance in my own realm, but usually I will be able to attend you.

“Second, have a think about your deepest wishes. If you help me as promised I will be empowered to grant them. And none of this ‘I wish for a hundred more wishes’ rubbish—I’m not and will never be your slave. Think long and hard on your three most desired life outcomes, and I will help them come to pass.

“And lastly, consider this: for now I recommend you go along with your father’s plans. Go to your old school; be the good daughter. With my help, things will have a way of bending to our advantage.”

Bal took a deep bow and disappeared.

A blinding flash lit the room, followed almost instantly by a boom of thunder that shook the very bones of the khan. The sandstorm from over the mountains had arrived.

✨