Genie Knows Best by Judi Fennell Read Free Book Online

treasure map?” She leaned forward. The map looked more brittle than parchment, but there were decorations on the side, pictures of monsters undulating beneath the waves, and intricate drawings of strange plants and beings. No big red X, though.
    She was buying into this whole fairy tale way too much.
    You have another explanation for the flying thing?
    Yeah, that was a problem.
    “Pirates would give all of their bounty to get their hooks on this.” Kal tugged the map closer. “No, it’s a map of Izaaz.”
    “Is what?”
    “Izaaz. Otherwise known as Madeenat Al-saqf Al-zojaajey . The City of the Glass Ceiling.”
    “Glass ceiling? Why would anyone name a city after an antiquated, sexist corporate structure?”
    Kal raised an eyebrow. “Because we’re under one?” He pointed up.
    Samantha followed his finger. All she saw was sunshine. “I don’t see anything.”
    “Try a pair of sunglasses.”
    “But I don’t have—” Any sunglasses was what she was going to say, but before she could, he waved his hand and two display shelves full of designer glasses materialized out of thin air in a sparkle of orange.
    Thin air. That was why she was having trouble catching her breath. The air was thin. That explained it.
    Um… no.
    She was half afraid to touch the glasses. Like gnomes and talking foxes, these shouldn’t exist. Not floating in the middle of the sky. Then again, she shouldn’t be floating in the middle of the sky, so what was one more thing?
    “Go on, Samantha. Try some on,” said Dirham.
    Hesitantly, she took a pair and put them on, and instantly she got a perspective on exactly what Kal meant.
    Off in the distance, walls ringed the city. Walls of sand that stretched to the sky, the tops of them in a perfectly straight line—
    As if they had a lid on them.
    A glass lid.
    “Is that… You mean that’s… It can’t be…”
    And then a huge bird flew overhead. It looked like a giant pterodactyl.
    Not that she knew what a pterodactyl looked like, since they were, you know, extinct , but that was no ordinary bird. With tail feathers like a peacock on steroids, the claws of a lion, and the head of a dog, it made the platypus look like a beauty pageant queen. And when it skimmed that supposed ceiling, its dog head, long neck, and rounded back—not to mention its wings—all flattened for the few dozen feet it coasted along the glass.
    Samantha looked at Kal, then pointed up. Words just weren’t happening.
    Kal conjured a glass of iced tea. He took one of her hands and wrapped her fingers around the glass. “Drink this.”
    She didn’t even think not to drink it. Prehistoric dog-bird? Glass ceiling? The sugary, minty beverage went down, if not easily, at least without choking her. “What happens if it falls?” And she could be talking about either the sky or the bird—that thing was no Chicken Little.
    “It won’t. The glass has been there for longer than anyone can remember. And considering I’m over four thousand years old, that’s a long time. I think you’re safe.”
    The glass slipped from her fingers, and she barely noticed that she and the lantern were now wearing sweet mint tea. “Four… thousand ?”
    Kal waved his fingers again, and she was once more holding a glass full of tea. Another wave of his fingers and the wet spot on her djellaba disappeared.
    “Nice,” she muttered. “I wish you could get rid of these extra ten pounds as easily.”
    “As you wish.”
    He waved his hand again, and if Samantha wasn’t above imagining such things, she would have sworn the waistband of the skirt she had on beneath her djellaba slipped a few inches.
    Actually, given what was going on around her, she wasn’t above imagining such things, so she stood up. Her skirt fell down.
    She almost did, too, but elected to gulp the rest of the tea instead. She gave half a thought to wishing for more of that water/wine he’d given her earlier, but figured sobriety was the better part of valor here.