empty ruins already half sunk into the desert, the long crumbling corridors that branch like roots, linking the towers and halls and storehouses. The city is a breath away from collapsing entirely. For five hundred years this magic has churned and coiled in its chambers, building up like gas beneath the earth, waiting for a spark to set it on fire.
This boy is that spark. He will trip a trap set long, long ago, triggering an explosion of pent-up magic, and the desert will bury us both. I will be lost, a myth, a dream. Trapped forever with myself in this prison of sand and magic. I cannot imagine a more terrifying doom. I thought I had resigned myself to this fate long ago, when it seemed no one would ever find me. Now I know this to be untrue, and that hope has pulsed deep within me like a dormant seed, waiting to flourish at the first sign of escape.
But then the enchantments twang like the strings of a lute, and my fragile hope grows cold. A wind rises from the darkness, rustles through the stone leaves, until the entire cavern echoes with their clatter. The trap has been sprung.
As if sensing this, the boy hastens onward, past the beautiful trees and flowers, leaping over a stream in which lumps of gold and silver sparkle. The chamber grows lighter as the diamonds above swell with light. It is blinding, harsh. The jeweled garden glitters with razor-sharp edges and points, beautiful but deadly. The boy dodges leaves that cut the air like knives, hissing when one slices the back of his hand.
And at last he arrives at the hill at the back of the enchanted garden, and there he stops beneath the tossing branches of a willow tree hewn from copper, dripping with leaves of emerald. He twists a ring on his finger, his eyes widening as they settle on the lamp.
It sits on a throne-like chair wrought from iron and rubies, the metal twisted to resemble rose vines. Once, the queen of this city would sit here for hours, reading and meditating, but that was a very long time ago. Now there is only the lamp, gleaming in the diamond light. Inside, I expand, filling every inch of the small space with my glittering smoke, urging him to hurry. I pulse with nervous impatience that this chance at escape will slip through my fingers. Never has my lamp felt smaller.
The boy climbs the hill, panting for breath, sighing a little when he reaches the throne. For a moment he stands there, brushing the dust from his hands, his eyes fixed on the lamp.
The cave shudders. Sand trickles down the walls, tinkles across the piles of golden coin. The enchantments hum, and the jewels on the trees begin to rattle. The boy doesn’t seem to notice. He is transfixed by the lamp.
“So this is it,” he breathes.
He reaches out, and I shift from smoke to fire with excitement. When his fingers touch the bronze sides of the lamp, a crackle of energy pulses through me. I can feel his heartbeat through his fingertips, wild and strong.
“What are you?” he whispers. “Why have you been calling to me?”
As if dazed, he runs his fingers along the bronze, his palm tracing the curve of the spout, and at his touch, his human heat courses through the walls.
I simmer and expand. I gather and bunch and ready myself, red smoke turning gold.
The boy rubs the lamp.
And I answer.
I pour upward through the long dark tunnel of the spout. I am a funnel of smoke, a whirlwind of fire. I open myself and multiply, swelling into a great cloud over the boy’s head. I press a thousand smoky hands against the stone ceiling of the cave. I roll a thousand fiery eyes and stretch a thousand glittering legs. I unfold and unfold and unfold. How good it feels to be out! I crackle with energy and excitement, my blood lightning and my breath thunder.
I could stretch for hours, relishing the space around me. But because time is short, I shrink and harden, assembling my wayward tendrils. For the first time in five hundred years, I assume the form I love most.
The form of you, Roshana, my Habiba. Sister of my heart. You of the pure heart and the merry laugh, who taught me joy and called me friend. A princess among men, and a queen among her people.