“I could have taken them,” he says hoarsely. “I was getting around to it.”
I long to hold his head to my chest, so relieved am I that he is alive. But I can’t, not with the guards looking on. So I let him go and stand up, then hand him his clothes. He refuses help from the guards and rises to his feet, taking care to cover the lamp, but doesn’t argue when they insist on returning to his rooms. Two of the guards want to tell Captain Pasha and Caspida what happened, but Aladdin convinces them to let it lie.
“We can deal with him later,” he says. “He isn’t worth hunting down.”
When we are alone again, Aladdin is quiet, and I can tell he’s holding back his anger at being attacked.
I, however, let mine run freely, and I rage around the room in the form of a tiger, snarling and clawing at the floor, my hackles raised.
“Would you stop that?” he says sharply. “You’re setting me on edge.”
“You’re not already on edge?” I growl. “He tried to kill you!”
“He’s done it before,” says Aladdin. “And I have a way of staying alive.”
“Because I’m there to save your skin!”
“Exactly!” He grins sunnily. “Which is why I can’t lose you. Who else will watch my back?”
With a snarl I shift into human, my gown patterned with tiger stripes. “Aladdin, you promised.”
His smile drops. “I know, I know.”
“You promised.”
“What do you want me to do? Swear on my mother’s soul? Cut my hand open and sign my name in blood?”
“It wouldn’t hurt,” I mutter.
Aladdin sighs and starts to reply, but a knock at the door interrupts. I open it to find a tailor and his two apprentices standing there with bolts of cloth and sewing boxes.
“We’re here to fit the prince for his wedding clothes,” says the tailor. He’s a small, clean-shaven man with a turban wound high to make up for his height.
I tell him to return in five minutes, which gives Aladdin time to hide the lamp in his room. I reluctantly return to it, loath to leave him unguarded for even an hour. I reach out with my sixth sense throughout the fitting, wary as a caged cat, but all goes smoothly, and once the tailor and his assistants are gone, Aladdin quickly releases me again. There follows an endless procession of servants knocking at the door, bearing food, wine, gifts from Caspida—all the traditional items that should have been parceled out over a series of days, now crammed into the few hours left.
It is well after midnight when Aladdin, exhausted, tumbles into bed. I sit in the midst of his gifts: daggers and gold, clothing and carved chests, mirrors and candlesticks. It reminds me of your first betrothed, Habiba: handsome and bold Elikum of Miniivos, and of the elaborate preparations we made for your wedding. Of course, your wedding week ended with the groom being poisoned by a traitor on the eve of the ceremony. We held a funeral instead, and you did not weep until three weeks later. You always claimed you did not love him, but I never believed you.
I can only hope this wedding will end on a better note. To be sure, I stay on watch all night, guarding Aladdin’s door as if the whole host of Ambadya might try to storm in.
• • •
Two hours before dawn, I wake him with a soft knock. He stumbles out, his eyes red from lack of sleep.
“Already?” he groans.
“You should go change,” I say. “You’re to be wed in less than an hour, and you can’t meet your bride looking like you just rolled out of bed.”
He draws a breath as if about to speak, but then sighs wearily and returns to his chamber.
I change my garments, swirling and rearranging them into festive blue and gold silk, my hair loose and long. I watch as artful brown curlicues and flowers coil down my arms and over the backs of my hands. The henna is meant for a bride, not a jinni, and with a sigh I let it fade away.
Aladdin emerges minutes later. He wears the rich set of clothes the tailor made for him the night before: a close-fitting coat of muted gold and beige that opens in a split in the front and back, over loose red leggings, and a red cape that hangs over his right shoulder and brushes the floor in front and behind.
“Wait,” I say. I motion for him to sit, then rake my fingers through his hair, conjuring a comb of jade with a tiger handle that I use to part his hair and sweep it into a neat wave high over his forehead. So rich and dark, that hair; I long to bury my fingers in it and kiss his forehead.
“There,” I say. “Let’s have a look at you.”
He cuts a striking figure and will make a handsome groom. I ignore the pang in my stomach the sight of him causes. Let him go, I tell myself. At any moment my bond with the lamp could break, and my feelings for him must break with it. But my heart is a treacherous star, refusing to dim when the sun rises.