Forty-nine

Maz didn't question me or hesitate. He took off through the door and shouted for Noor.

"Nanu, you don't want to do this."

"You don't leave me with any choice. Don't stand in my way."

"I'm not going to hurt you." I felt the djinn power running through my veins prick at my senses. A hot flame of magic was ready to burst out of me, to consume everything, the house, my grandmother, myself.

But I didn't want that path anymore.

I didn't want to kill Nanu, despite what she had done. It wouldn't end this circle of hatred, of vengeance.

"You couldn't hurt me if you tried."

"I have more power than you," I said carefully, raising my palm up and letting her see the blackness inking my palm and the hot flame within it. "I don't want to use it."

Her eyes burned bright. "So, you've made a bargain too." She smiled, too stretched, like skin pulled over a skeleton. She had become something other than human, as if the djinn had inhabited her and pulled out her humanity, leaving her with a husk of a body fed on rage.

She advanced on me, but this time, I stood my ground.

Was this who I would have become?

Was this the future that awaited me?

A woman wretched and shriveled with her need for vengeance?

No. Not anymore. You had to choose to become this, to forsake all joy in favor of destruction.

That would not be me.

She took another step forward and I lifted my palms again. Unease flashed through her eyes. And then a different kind of look altogether.

Her face creased in agony, and she unleashed a low howl.

"Nanu?" I moved toward her hesitantly.

"Don't call me that," she snapped, jerking away from my outstretched hand. She curled into herself. "You are no granddaughter of mine," she croaked out.

Then she lifted her hands, those pale green eyes bleeding into black. My breath caught in my throat as tendrils of darkness spilled from her fingertips, glossy, as if she'd spilled a bottle of ink into the air and it took flight. They curled around me, a viper tightening around its prey ready to choke the life away.

I could have raised my own hands in defense, could have used the djinn power pounding against my pulse and light the dark on fire.

But I didn't. I wanted to see how far she would go.

"You could have loved me," I whispered. "All these years, you held yourself back and I never knew it was because of your grief over my mother. But you could have opened yourself to loving me."

"Like you opened yourself after your father died? You came back for the same thing. Revenge."

The spiraling black veins grew closer, an echo of the ones crawling down my hands. They closed in, the air around me turning cold, then unbearable.

I called on the borrowed djinn magic that burned under my skin, waiting to erupt. It wrapped itself around the blackness, swarming it like a hive of bees. A column of fire burst from me and enveloped the sack of zoraat beside the bed, alighting like a puff of desert scrub.

Then I walked through the flames, toward my grandmother.

Her eyes widened, her face blanching.

"How did you do that? How much did you have to consume?"

"I didn't consume any. I was given this by the djinn himself."

"Djinns do not give . You traded something considerable for a taste of that power." She tilted her head, her black eyes knowing. "Your life, perhaps?" She watched my face carefully, and I realized she'd been doing this to me for years, assessing, evaluating. "You think I'm the dangerous one when you bargain for much more?" She watched me. "You are like me."

"I'm nothing like you," I bit off. "I am capable of changing. And even if I did something I regret, I can atone. I can make it right."

I wanted to believe that.

I had to believe that.

Because there was no way I could fulfill that bargain I made. Not when I saw where it would lead me.

"It's not too late, Nanu." I held my hand out to her again. "You don't have to do this."

She shook her head, her eyes still wild but sad. "Keep your forgiveness. I don't want to be forgiven. I gave my daughter justice. I gave—"

She broke off, a choked sound cutting off her words. Her hands went to her neck, gripping the skin hard.

"Nanu? What is it?"

She doubled over and screamed, more black tendrils spreading from her hands, filling the room around us.

"I… can't… I can't," she gasped, and I knelt next to her writhing form. She screamed again, and I saw that her tongue had shriveled inside her mouth, her teeth blackened.

"The seeds." She had taken too many, and not in the right quantities. She must have taken different quantities to Thohfsa, giving her power temporarily before poisoning her.

I swallowed, my throat thick, my eyes burning with unshed tears. Nanu had killed my father. Betrayed me and got me arrested. Did she deserve my kindness? My empathy?

I exhaled, placing my hands on her. I wouldn't destroy my soul for revenge, no matter what she deserved. "I'll try to help you."

I closed my eyes and pulled at the power that bound me to the djinn. So far it had bent to my will when I had called upon it. Something whispered inside me, dark and deep. I could save her, I knew I could.

I pressed my hand over her mouth as she convulsed with the stain of the poison inside her. I concentrated on flushing her body of the toxin. She screamed, but I held fast, stopping her wriggling with an arm wrapped around her middle.

"I'm trying to help you, Nanu."

But the more I flooded her with power, the more I realized I needed… more.

The zoraat wasn't responding in the way I thought it would, it was resisting me.

I would need more power, more strength, perhaps everything I had.

Nanu stopped struggling at the same moment my arms went slack. I released her and she got on her hands and knees on the floor.

"Help me," she begged, fear lacing her voice. "Get it out of me."

I wet my lips with my tongue, trying to tell her with the right words. That I wanted to try, but it would take all of me.

"I can't."

"What?"

"It's too much. I can't save you without destroying myself."

She coughed, black liquid spilling from her throat onto the date palm mat. "You won't even try for the last of your family?" She gripped her stomach. "Help me!" she screamed.

I hesitated. "I don't owe you this," I said finally. "I don't owe you all of me. Not after what you did. Perhaps not ever. And if you loved me, you would never ask it."

She gave a gut-wrenching cough. "I thought you weren't devoted to vengeance anymore? You are punishing me for your father's death."

I knelt down beside her, bringing my voice low, almost indiscernible. "This isn't revenge. This is cause and effect."

"Dania." Her voice was pleading, a high whine that sliced through my heart. But there was someone else in my heart too, and Baba would be here with me now if it wasn't for her. Noor and Mazin were still here. I was still here. In the end, my loyalty was with them and myself.

"I can't help you, Nanu. Not at the cost of myself."

She doubled over, crying out again as her nails began to turn black. Pain and guilt and misery lanced through me, but I turned away from her.

I walked away from the room, my grandmother's screams the last thing I heard before I finally shut the door to my baba's house.