Use your wish,” I whisper to Aladdin, opening my eyes. “Please.”
“If I do,” he replies softly, “I’ll lose you.

Zahra, what happens to you when I make my last wish?”
“When your third wish is granted, you will cease to be my master. You may possess the lamp, but you cannot call me. I will return to it and await the next Lampholder.”
Abruptly he stands and walks across the room. When he reaches the wall, he turns and stares down at me. “So to win my revenge, I must lose you.

And what if you weren’t a jinni? What if you were free from their rules?”
I stare at him. His jaw tightens, his eyes steely with determination that frightens me to my core. A cloud drifts across the face of the crescent moon, and the courtyard darkens. Here and there, the grass is still bent where Aladdin and I danced just hours earlier. I drop my gaze and glare at it, shaking from head to toe.
“Don’t say it, Aladdin. Don’t you even think it.” Dread rises in me like a storm cloud, dark and menacing.
Aladdin moves closer. He takes my hands. His skin is warm and crackling with energy, setting me on fire.
“I have one wish left,” he murmurs. “And this one is for you.”
“No, Aladdin! Don’t speak it. Don’t make the Forbidden Wish. The cost—”
“Damn the cost. Zahra, I wish—”
I stop him with a kiss.
Because it is the first thing I think of to stop the terrible words. Because he fills me with light and hope and deep, deep fear. Because I have been longing to for days.

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.

Don’t you understand? It’s forbidden, Aladdin! We jinn must abide by many rules, but first among them, most important of all, we must never fall in love with a human!”
He catches his breath, swallowing hard. “And do you always follow the rules?”
“I—” Casting my gaze skyward, I draw a deep breath, searching for words among the stars. “It’s not about that. Do you know what kind of destruction we would cause? Have you not heard the story of your own people, how their city was destroyed, how thousands died? It was not hate that sparked the war between your people and mine, Aladdin. It was love. I held hands with Roshana the Wise and called her sister, and those words set our world on fire!”
There it is. My greatest shame, laid bare. The truth lies between us like broken glass. Surely now he sees what I truly am: a betrayer, a monster, an enemy. Aladdin stares at me, his face softening.
“That wasn’t your fault,” he says. “Loving someone is never wrong. And like you said, it’s not a choice. It just happens, and we’re all helpless in its power.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that the consequences are disastrous. As the poets say, shake hands with a jinni, and you shake hands with death.

But my heart is a treacherous star, refusing to dim when the sun rises