The Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury Page A

didn’t need to ask to know what
that
meant. So you’re still up to your old tricks, then?” She shakes her head. “Anyway, he’s pretty angry with you. Said you pulled the job, then left town. Guards are hunting fora thief too. Offering a thousand gold crowns for his head.” She narrows her eyes. “Did you break into the
palace
, Aladdin?”
    â€œA thousand crowns?” Aladdin gives a low whistle. “Nearly makes a man want to turn him
self
in.”
    â€œOf all the stupid things . . .” Her eyes glowering, Dal gives us both a brief, sharp look before going to mop up someone’s spilled wine.
    Aladdin finds a table near the central ring, where two men the size of bulls are grappling. One, whose neck is easily the size of my waist, is getting the upper hand. He’s stripped nearly bare, doused in oil to make him slippery. His head, bald but for a long black tail sprouting from the top, gleams like a boiled egg. His opponent, slightly smaller, is on the defensive, holding up his hands to block the bigger man’s blows.
    Aladdin watches with disinterest and takes a long swig of wine.
    â€œSee that?” He runs his finger over the tabletop, where someone has carved a small symbol.
    â€œIt looks like a sewing needle,” I say.
    He nods and drinks. His eyes are starting to get foggy from the wine. “Not just
a
needle.
The
Needle. The sign of a rebellion that started up years ago. This is where the leaders of the movement met. Here. At this table.”
    He traces the needle with his thumbnail.
    â€œMy father was the Tailor,” he tells me. “I mean, he was just
a
tailor at first, but when I was a kid, he started running with these rebels. The king’s vizier was press-ganging peasants onto his warships, rowing them to their deaths in a mad attempt to rebuild the Amulen Empire of the past. My father and his friends protested by burning garrisons and guardhouses, stealing weapons, sabotagingships.” Aladdin’s face darkens. He leans back and pulls the coin from Neruby from his pocket. I hadn’t even noticed him pick it up. He flips it idly; on it flashes the face of a king who died so long ago, no one in this world would even know his name. “Eventually he got my mother to join in. Soon people were calling him
the
Tailor, and a reward was offered for his head. His needle became the rebellion’s symbol.”
    I listen in silence, watching his hands. They’re clever hands, his nails neat, his fingers long and nimble. He spins the coin and catches it, over and over, as he talks.
    â€œWhen I was twelve they caught him. Remember that prince in the desert, Darian? His father, our
exalted
Vizier Sulifer, held me and forced me to watch as my parents’ heads were cut from their shoulders. Darian was there. He laughed at me when I began to cry.” Aladdin makes the coin disappear up his sleeve, then takes a long drink of wine. “Afterward, Sulifer made me pick up their heads and hold them so he could drive stakes in them. He let them stand there in the city square for weeks.”
    I lean back, my hands in my lap. “Why are you telling me all this?”
    He shrugs and sniffs. “You wanted to know why I . . . almost wished for Darian’s death.” The wine is nearly gone, as are Aladdin’s wits. “Ever since I was young, people thought I’d be the next leader of the rebellion, that I’d rise up and fight. They think
I
should be the one out there breaking people out of prison and stopping bloody plagues. They think I’ve wasted my life, becoming a thief and a criminal. Well, I’ve no interest in fighting for lost causes that only get people killed. All I want is to avenge my parents, not start a war we can’t win.”
    I lift my face. He’s staring at me with drunken intensity, his lipsa thin line. “And now,” he goes on, “I find out I don’t even