The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

Amina is disappointed that the Moon of Saba is really a washbasin. Dunya says it helps one to see all the divine mysteries. She thinks that one can access it through the door that Amina noticed in the cave, but doing so would require Dunya’s tablets of spells. Amina wants to throw the tablets into the sea, but Dunya begs her not to. She wants to destroy the Moon of Saba and believes that what happened on Socotra was her fault. Amina says the easiest way to stop worse things from happening is to go home, but Dunya declares that she can’t marry a man. Amina realizes that Dunya has dressed and cut her hair like a male and asks if that’s how she sees herself. Dunya says they don’t know yet, and that their grandmother does not understand. Amina thinks about how Salima has threatened her own family and tells Dunya that she is taking them home.

She feels badly about her decision and tells her friends about Dunya’s fiancé, explaining that the Moon of Saba is a bucket. Tinbu and Majed both confront her about her decision to return Dunya, reminding her that she was Dunya’s age when she first stole the Marawati. Amina admits that what happened to Asif was her fault, for she knew that Raksh was a demon when she brought him onboard. Tinbu, however, says it was his fault for inviting Raksh to a card game in the Maldives. Majed also admits that he made a deal with Raksh, and when confronted, Dalila admits that she was in discussions with Raksh as well. Amina realizes that Raksh tricked all of them. She now wants to kill him. She finds him holding the ship’s cat and looking, terrified, at the ocean, which harbors an approaching monster.

The thing in the water comes closer, and Raksh tries to persuade Amina to throw Dunya overboard. Instead, Amina and crew prepare to face Falco’s marid. Raksh escapes in the boat, leaving them behind. An enormous tentacle wraps around the ship, and Amina hacks it off. The rest of the tentacles lift the Marawati into the air. The youngest sailor, Fiorz, clings to Amina as they hang in the air, but then the monster yanks the boat back down and holds the ship still. Amina and Dalila try to life a beam that has pinned the unconscious Tinbu. Suddenly, Falco arrives, riding on the head of the monster.

Amina tells Dalila and Majed to save Tinbu. Falco wants the ship and Dunya. He boards the Marawati. He and Amina fight, but he has unnatural speed, and when Amina’s weak knee gives out on the slippery deck and he’s about to stab her, Dunya appears. Dunya makes a deal with him, promising to obtain the Moon of Saba for him if he releases the Marawati’s crew unharmed. The crew and Amina leave their weapons. He gives Amina’s favorite scimitar to his man, Yazid, and takes the knife that was her grandfather’s. He tells her that she is nothing, and when Dunya objects, he says that the deal for the crew’s lives does not include Amina. He holds Amina over the edge of the boat with magical strength and stabs her chest with her grandfather’s knife, dropping her into the ocean. Amina’s thoughts as she falls are apologies to Marjana.

Amina is able to pull herself onto a platform just as a shark passes her. The stab wound is not serious. She fights off the shark, and then realizes that she is nowhere near land or a ship. She panics and promises God that she will be done with adventures if he gets her out of this predicament. She catches a turtle and some fish but eventually becomes weak and sees strange-colored birds of all types. She finally sees land and collapses on the beach. She sees water coming from a tree and drinks. It restores her so quickly that it makes her dizzy. The water allows her to see a magical world around her full of creatures, monsters, and enormous trees that grow human-fruit and birds that eat them. There are human-like creatures in a boat. She realizes they are mermaids, and then hears Raksh’s surprised voice asking if it is truly her.

Amina is furious and finds that she can actually hurt him. He throws her off and insists that there was no reason for him to die as well as the crew. Amina wants to go back to save her crew and prevent Falco from getting the Moon of Saba. Raksh is horrified that Falco is after the Moon and asks if he knows that it is a washbasin. When Amina mentions the story of the moon falling in love with Bilqis, Raksh laughs and says she has the story wrong.

The scribe apologizes that the true story has no grand romance, but the reality is that the moon, called al-Dabaran, was simply a lecher. Bilqis rejected him, so he bewitched her washbasin to spy on her. She trapped him in the water and used him when she needed extra power. When she died, the Moon went to people less wise and who often developed mental illnesses and committed atrocities after looking into the bowl. A family trained to track down and destroy magical relics found the Moon and put it in a cave where only another family member could access it.

Raksh says that the coming eclipse will make it easier to find and control magical objects. Amina is suspicious about Raksh’s desire to prevent Falco from getting the Moon. He explains that when a human takes control of the Moon, he and other beings of discord like him are used as a power source for it until the creature using it dies. He mentions that his cousins are discordant beings that represent love or other forces for good, and the weaker ones will be destroyed by the Moon. Amina is suddenly aware that Marjana could be one of these beings as well, used for a power source for Falco’s ambitions. She demands that Raksh help her, but he doesn’t know how to leave the island, for the beings who rule it value balance over all things and will refuse to help. Amina thinks that if Falco gets the Moon, this would be a dramatic imbalance. She resolves to petition the council of beings for help.

Raksh forces her to bathe and washes her hair, and she enjoys it despite her fury at him. He steals clothing and magically heals her skin and her knee using a healing plant. When she expresses a desire to use the plant in the real world, he cautions her that the council wants to prevent humans from using magic. Amina asks why he preyed on Asif. Raksh corrects her, saying that Asif came to him, asking for a deal to be rich, admired, and respected. At the time, Raksh jokingly said that it would cost Asif his soul. When Asif eagerly agreed, it bound them together in a contract. Raksh also wasn’t happy about how that contract ended. Amina tries to get information about Raksh’s family ties, but he believes that she will use that information against him. The beings they are about to meet are spirits of the air, which makes Amina nervous because she hates heights.

Raksh begins to address the beings, but he and Amina are swept up into the sky. They crash onto a floor of clouds. Above them is an enormous tree with creatures that have bird or insect bodies and human-like faces. One of the creatures asks for Amina’s name, birthplace, and composition. Raksh says she is human. The creature, who appears to be a scribe, is called a peri. Despite the peris’s usual policy of killing humans who invade their island, Amina petitions them for help, saying that the person who caused her to come to the island means to challenge God with magic contained in the Moon of Saba. The creatures argue and determine that the Moon of Saba, which they call “a Transgression,” is of insignificant risk and that the amount of people who will die from Falco’s actions aren’t enough to matter. Since humans are not permitted, the floor disappears under Amina.

Another peri named Khayzur grabs Amina as she falls and drops her on a terrace. When Amina pulls her knife, he apologizes and offers her tea, which she has never heard of. He explains that Transgressions are magical objects that serve as bridges between the human and magical worlds. There are too many for people to keep track of, and the peris want to destroy them in order to prevent them from being used. When Amina affirms that his is her goal, he explains that by drinking water from the island, she herself is now a Transgression. She briefly worries about her soul but then focuses on saving her crew. Khayzur says he may be able to convince the court to help her.

When they return to the heights above, Raksh is arguing with the peri. Khayzur advocates for Amina, and Raksh suggests that the peris use Amina, who is now a minor Transgression, to destroy major Transgressions for them. Amina doesn’t like it but sees no other options. She makes a deal, offering to find and destroy three items. They counter with 300, then 100. Amina gets them down to five objects, including the Moon of Saba. Khayzur will be her liaison going forward. She thinks about how to defeat Falco and decides to go to the pirates of Socotra for help.