Page 91 of Heavensent & Hellbent

“I just want to know her,” I found myself saying, notintending sadness to color my tone quite as much as it did. “If we’re going to be living the life she didn’t want.”

I could smell the oil Pouran put on the ends of my hair before braiding it down my back. I thought that would be all, until she said, “She was creative and kind.”

I let the words settle, the tightness in my chest easing just a bit at the idea of my mum not being so different in this world than she was in mine.

“Did you leave the diary out for us?” I asked.

In the other room, Azar’s voice had risen as she pleaded for Mariya to let us out. I should have been doing the same, but with each passing day, my curiosity about my mother, about this life of hers that we were now inhabiting, grew.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, speedily crossing the room to leave. Mariya left soon after. Azar came into my room in the long nightgown they’d provided each of us with, her hair and face shiny. We were surprisingly well-kept royal prisoners, a little like royalty back in England.

“Any luck?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“No, she’s tight-lipped. They’re both prisoners here themselves, so you’d think they’d have some sympathy,” Azar said.

“Really?”

“Mum mentions Pouran in her diary.” Azar moved over to my bed, lifting the mattress and retrieving the leather-bound book. She showed me a page and began reading from it.

“Pouran hates Zahhak as much as I do. Though she hasn’t said as much, he ruined her life. She is a prisoner in this palace, given to Zahhakby her family. A gift to keep him on their side. We have more in common than one would think,”Azar read.

“What else did she say about her?”

“Sometimes Pouran and I play card games in the servants’ quarters. She always beats me. I joke that she’s cheating, and she takes it too seriously, swearing on Shaitan that she wouldn’t do such a thing. I think of Pouran, how much I will miss her, when I consider my escape. I had tried suggesting to her that she join me, but I was too afraid she would tell Zahhak and the other servants. I can’t trust anyone, not after the servants in my own house killed my parents. I thought they were my friends too,”Azar read. “She also talks about how she and Pouran learned to embroider together, that they created huge tapestries. She goes on about the technicalities of it; you know Mum.”

I smiled at that.

“I knew that our grandparents were murdered, but I didn’t know their staff did it. Zahhak told me in my dreams once that the rebels that killed them would be destroyed one day. I think he said it to rile me up.”

“The div, right?” My voice shook.

“Yes. They’re against Zahhak and his dictatorship. But it’s not even just that—they don’t agree with the way jinn live, now that some live relatively normal lives. Or even that there is an agreement that’s been made with the angels, about the balance of life. They want pure chaos. In our world, as well as in the Underworld. They, among other jinn, killed most of the royals. Why they kept us alive is a mystery.”

“Maybe because we didn’t know we were jinn?” I offered.

Azar chewed on her bottom lip, unconvinced. “Maybe.”

We lay on the bed side by side, staring up at the ceiling, at the painted clouds we had grown so familiar with after numerous days spent ruminating on how we could get out of here. We had even established which clouds were our favorites. Mine was the wispy one on the right-hand side that faded into the sky and almost resembled a dog if you squinted hard enough. Azar liked one that was perfect, thick and fluffy, floating unattached to anything else. I made a quip about what that said about her personality, considering she often ended relationships with boys before they made it official.

“Maybe clouds mean a little bit more to you than me,” she shot back. “Considering you’re flying through the sky with your little angel in this life and others.” At this, I whacked her with a pillow. I didn’t know how we could make light of my situation, but apparently that was what we were doing now.

Silence stretched on for a while. “Don’t you think you should be the one getting married, and not me, seeing as you’re older?” I joked.

Azar let out a small sigh. “I wish it was me.”

“I don’t,” I said. I’d rather deal with whatever being married to a jinn entailed than watch my sister go through it. “But I am scared.” I said the words so quietly I wasn’t positive she heard me.

She put her hand over mine. “We will rip their throats out before we let that happen, okay?”

While people said that I was scary, Azar was somethingelse. She took shit from no one, and the fire in her eyes told me that she meant it. I nodded, tucking away that fear for another time.

After the first few nights of me waking and being sick, Azar had begun sleeping next to me. We felt safer next to each other, and even if I still couldn’t sleep, her presence kept the nightmares at bay. While she slept now, I allowed myself to think about Zain. I missed him. I missed him more than I thought I ever could for a person I had known less than a month.Give or take a few lifetimes.I let myself think of him as he knew me; I had to, because if he knew what I had done to those hunters…I wouldn’t blame him for hating me, for seeing the darkness within me and being repelled by it.

While Azar snored next to me, I decided to get my mother’s diary out. I skipped to the later entries and ran my fingers over the swirling handwriting in a language I couldn’t read. The ink was blotchy in places, smudged, like she had been writing quickly.

I wished, so badly, that I had been taught to read and write in Farsi. That Azar had been, and I hadn’t, presumably because they’d had more time with only one child, bothered me. I was more bothered, though, that I hadn’t cared enough about my culture to insist that I be taught.

I didn’t realize my sadness had taken hold of me as strongly as it had until I felt my bones tingling, a rush of fire with me, like my powers were erupting. I gasped, clenching my hands into fists and pushing myself into the headboard.No.I wouldburn this bed down if flames erupted from my palms again. I was about to leap off the bed when I realized that my hands weren’t on fire. I still felt that warmth, but as my eyes settled on the pages of the diary on the bed in front of me, I found that I could read the words. They were still in Farsi, but I knew exactly what they said.