ottoman aside with his feet as he tumbled. Duban dove for the floor, avoiding a brass-and-gold hookah that was meant to connect with his face. Morgiana and Jasmine leapt around the smaller pieces of furniture meant for them.
Aladdin swept his foot around, spinning like a dervish. He connected with Jafar’s ankles.
The sorcerer started to topple to the ground—then stopped midway.
With a nasty laugh, Jafar rose back upright in a thoroughly unnatural fashion.
He threw open his cape, revealing the robes he wore beneath. Aladdin saw to his horror that cinching them in the middle was the last piece of the carpet—the end with the tassels that he had always thought of as the poor thing’s “face.”
While Aladdin was transfixed, Jasmine took her scimitar and ran at Jafar, trying to bury it in Jafar’s side. He easily turned the blow aside with his staff.
“JASMINE!” Aladdin cried. “What are you doing?”
“Distracting him,” she said, ducking as the sorcerer tried to clock her in the head, too angry to remember to use his powers for a moment. “That was my job, remember?”
“Yes! And you did a great job. Now get out of here before you get killed!”
With obvious difficulty, Jafar mastered his rage and calmed himself. His eyes glowed red again.
Things around the room now began to explode into flame—things that normally shouldn’t be flammable. Stone vases and metal bric-a-brac. The throne itself exploded, throwing Duban to the floor.
Shrapnel and debris went flying toward the back of Jasmine’s head, streaked with fire and smoking as they went.
“Jasmine!” Aladdin cried.
The princess spun around but not quite fast enough to avoid the flaming missile entirely. She screamed as it connected, covering her head with her arms. The air filled with the smell of burnt hair and flesh. Angry red skin bubbled up and pulled apart in a fleshy split across her forehead.
Another vase lifted up and aimed at her.
Morgiana immediately abandoned her attack on the hourglass and threw herself in front of Jasmine.
Shirin and Ahmed howled silently as Morgiana seemed to abandon them—and the spiderweb of cracks in the glass she had managed to start—but Maruf merely looked resigned, understanding what they needed to do. It was too painful to watch.
Using both of her swords, Morgiana swirled into a blur of movement, batting aside one flaming object after another as the sorcerer focused all of his rage on the princess. The faster the projectiles came, the faster she moved.
Jasmine reeled from the pain of her wound, stumbling around in her attempt to stay upright. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to stand firm. She raised her scimitar to defend herself.
“Morgiana! Forget me!” she ordered in a croak. “Go back and save the children!”
The thief looked unsure for only a moment, then nodded and went back to attacking the glass. Shirin and Ahmed wept in relief.
Duban began to crawl back to the table that had Al Azif.
Aladdin noticed that Jafar was frowning while things exploded and flew; he seemed to need to use all of his concentration on these multiple attacks.
The thief immediately acted on this and leapt at the sorcerer. But he fell on the floor instead, grasping nothing. Even the cloth disappeared out of his hands.
Jafar laughed maniacally, suddenly on the far side of the room.
He aimed a finger. Fiery bolts shot through the air.
Aladdin leapt from one foot to another, forward and backward, trying to avoid them and remain standing.
Jafar aimed his finger—elsewhere this time.
Duban let out a tortured cry.
Aladdin spun around to look.
Standing between Duban and Al Azif was a figure made up entirely of fire. A figure who looked exactly like Shirin. She even stood like Shirin: shyly, weight on her right foot while her left crossed over. But there was no expression on her red-and-yellow face.
Aladdin looked around quickly to see if Duban’s niece was still in the hourglass. She was, watching with horror as Morgiana dealt with a new trouble: she had made progress in shattering a small hole in the glass, but now it was in danger of being sealed up again. Flat, overlapping stones like snake scales had started growing up the sides of the glass, shielding it from her sword strikes.
Duban hesitantly went to reach around the fiery Shirin for the book.
Silently the effigy threw her hand out and burned a long, streaky black mark along his arm. Still her face was blank.
Duban hissed and pulled back.
Jafar smiled wickedly at Aladdin. “You don’t seem to have anyone you love whom I could summon and kill you