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01Undated
Time has a different meaning for me, and these events that seem so monumental in the moment will one day be nothing more than a line in a scroll. These humans are but letters to be inked into history. A hundred years from now, I will be free. I will have forgotten their names and faces, and the struggles they have will not matter. Time has a way of burying things, shifting like the desert and swallowing entire civilizations, erasing them from map and memory. Always, in the end, everything returns to dust.
Jessica Khoury / quote
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03Undated
I know who you are,” he says.Something about his tone causes my heart of smoke to flicker in response, and I throw my guard up. “Oh? And who, O boy of Parthenia, am I?”He nods to himself, his eyes alight. “You’re her. You’re that jinni. Oh, gods. Oh, great bleeding gods! You’re the one who started the war!”“Excuse me?”“You’re the jinni who betrayed that famous queen—what was her name? Roshana? She was trying to bring peace between the jinn and the humans, but you turned on her and started the Five Hundred Wars.”I turn cold. I want him to stop, but he doesn’t.“I’ve heard the stories,” he says. “I’ve heard the songs. They call you the Fair Betrayer, who enchanted humans with your . . .” He pauses to swallow. “Your beauty. You promised them everything, and then you ruined them.
Jessica Khoury / quote
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05Undated
I always knew it would end like this. It always does. There’s no point in fighting it, Aladdin. It is simply the way of things.”“I can’t accept that.”“You must.”“How can you just give up? How can you say that?” His eyes light up, and he takes the lamp from his sash and grips it so tightly his knuckles whiten. “Earlier, before you kissed me, I was about to wish for your freedom.”I leap to my feet. “Aladdin, you must not do that. You must never even think it!”“Why is that so bad? You’d be free.”“It’s called the Forbidden Wish for a reason!”“By whom? Nardukha? Let him come. I have a few things I’d like to say to him.”“I forbid it. Aladdin. If anything we have done together means anything to you, please, please trust me now. Don’t make that wish. It is the worst wish you can make. It is—it will break my heart.”“What is it?” he asks softly. “What is it you’re not telling me? What happens if I wish for your freedom?”I stand trembling, the words clawing at my throat, until I can hold them back no more.“Like all wishes, the Forbidden Wish comes at a price. My freedom must be bought with a death, a life paid in sacrifice. And I will not let you make that sacrifice, not for me.
Jessica Khoury / quote
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10Undated
This is Roshana, the last queen of the Amulen Empire, back when my people ruled all the lands from the east to the west. She is something of a legend among us. Every queen aspires to learn from her mistakes.”“Her mistakes? Surely you mean her victories.”“What?”I frown at her. “Roshana was one of the greatest queens in the world. She ended the Mountain Wars, she routed Sanhezriyah the Mad, she—”“For a foreign serving girl, you are strangely well versed in Amulen history.”“I spent a lot of time in libraries as a girl.”“Were you there to dust the scrolls or read them?”“Surely Roshana’s victories outweigh her errors.”“The higher you rise, the farther you fall. For all her wisdom, Roshana was fooled by the jinni, believing it was her friend, and then it destroyed her. Ever since that day, my people have hunted the jinn. There is no creature more vicious and untrustworthy.”“This is not the story I heard,” I say softly. “My people tell it differently. That the jinni truly was a friend to Roshana but was forced to turn against her. That she had no choice.”“Surely I know how my own ancestress died,” returns the princess, a bit hotly. “Anyway, it was a long time ago, but we Amulens do not forget.
Jessica Khoury / quote
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12Undated
You understand why you must go through with this marriage.”“You say you couldn’t live with yourself if anything happened to Caspida. Yet you ask me to live with myself, knowing I sentenced you to this!” He holds up the lamp. “What’s the difference?”I look away angrily. “The difference is that this is my choice, Aladdin.”“Well, it’s a stupid choice!”I stand up. “Promise me you’ll go through with it.”He shuts his eyes.“Promise me! Please!”He opens his eyes then, and they are filled with pain. But he nods.“I have to hear you say it.”“I promise.
Jessica Khoury / quote
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20Undated
I rest my head on his shoulder, feeling his heart beating against me. I wish I could gather time around us, slowing the minutes, making them last a lifetime.“I was born on the island kingdom of Ghedda,” I whisper. This is a story I never told even to you, Habiba. I tell it now only because I cannot bear to leave him without the truth, knowing only half of me. I raise my head and meet his eyes. “That was more than four thousand years ago. I was the eldest daughter of a wise and generous king.”Aladdin stares at me, his eyes soft and curious, encouraging me to go on.“When I was seventeen, I became queen of Ghedda. In those days, the jinn were greater in number, and the Shaitan held greater sway over the realms of men. He demanded we offer him twenty maidens and twenty warriors in sacrifice, in return for fair seas and lucrative trade. I was young and proud and desired, above all else, to be a fair ruler. I would not bow to his wishes, so he shook our island until it began to fall into the sea.”I shudder, and Aladdin draws me closer.“I climbed to the alomb at the top of the Mountain of Tongues, and there offered myself to the Shaitan, if he would only save my city from the sea.” My voice falls to a whisper, little more than a ripple on the water. “So he took me and made me jinn and put me in the lamp. And then he caused the Mountain of Tongues to erupt, and Ghedda was lost to fire. For he had sworn only to save my people from the sea, not from flame.
Jessica Khoury / quote
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23Undated
I’m not for you,” I say desperately. “We are so different. Our lives are a thousand and one worlds apart. It wouldn’t work. And it’s dangerous.”But his face only brightens. “Then you do feel the same.”“We are not the same—and that is the whole point! I am not human, Aladdin. Everything that was once human in me was destroyed, and I was forged into something entirely different. I’m not here to help you—I was never here to help you, or any of my masters.”He shakes his head. “I don’t believe that.”“It doesn’t matter what you believe,” I say bitterly. “It is what it is, and it has nothing to do with what you want.”He walks around me, forcing me to face him. “You helped me get away from Darian in the desert. You got me into the palace when you could have let them find out who I really was. You taught me to dance, for sky’s sake! You’ve had a hundred opportunities to trick me and betray me, but you don’t. You’ve helped me when I didn’t wish for it.”“A chicken doesn’t fly like other birds, but it is still a bird.”“Zahra!” He spreads his hands, the wind ruffling his hair. “You do care. I see it when you think I’m not looking.
Jessica Khoury / quote
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