A/N: First, refer to previous author note and consider this chapter a continuation of it's ramblings. Second, again, I want to take a moment to express my thanks to readers and reviewers on this story. You've been my sole inspiration to continue writing, and a few of you have left some truly heartwarming, tear-inducing reviews (Olivia, I'm looking at you! I wish you had an account so I could have sent you a proper message expressing my gratitude. If you really like my style, and ever want to give my original work a read, and give my ego a boost in the process, you just let me know. I'm looking for betas.) So, again, my ever-loving thanks to all of you.

I made a discovery doing research last night that resulted in this chapter, and a big part of the plot progression, basically writing itself. This story is falling together with scary serendipitous beauty.

Also, I'm trying really, really hard not to get excited about this as I'm superstitious, and fear I'll jinx it with all the hype and dreams I will build up for it... but did you hear they announced development for ALADDIN 2. I cannot remember the last time in my life I wanted something as bad as this! Make this happen universe... you owe me one.

A light weight falling to rest on his closed eyelid sent his eyes twitching briefly before Aladdin shifted to his opposite side, curling around his pillow again. A few more small objects falling into his bed-mussed hair went unnoticed as they sat discarded. It wasn't until something fell into the shell of his upturned ear that he bolted upright. Snapping out of his dead sleep, he aggressively swiped at his ear, making the kind of terrified squeals he normally reserved for finer moments of bravery, like all those times he had been cornered by the palace guards in the corridors. Dislodging whatever had fallen into his ear, he pulled his hand away to examine the spider or beetle he imagined crawling into his ear canal. Instead, all that he found was the one half of a pale beige shell. A pistachio shell, to be accurate, like the others that were scattered across his sheets and pillow. Two more separated pieces of shell rained down from above. Tipping his head slowly backwards, he laid eyes on the furry little culprit cheerfully prying out the green nuts as he sat atop the wooden overhang of the four poster bed.

The the initial frenzy of alarm had faded, but Aladdin was well and truly awake after such a fright. From the look of it, he had only managed a few blissful hours of sleep. The light filtering through the gauzy curtains around the bed was still bright and full. Jasmine must have closed them when she had slipped out. He didn't know how long she had been gone, but she left to return to her work while he slept. He remembered she had made a point to stop one of the servants and arrange for a meal to be brought to him, ensuring he actually ate something more substantial than the quick snack he would settle for, if he ate anything at all. By the angle of the light, he still had plenty of time before he could expect anyone to arrive.

Apparently, Abu had found the pouch of one of the very snacks he had stashed up there. A few nights ago, he'd nicked them from the dry storage on his return journey to the depths of the unoccupied dungeons and the secret reliquary that he had found hidden there. For the first few days of the plague crisis, he'd been able to ignore the voices of doubt, but as he grew weary and stressed, they had called back to him. They made him question things he had learned to be true, like that he was managing this crisis amazingly well, and that he could in fact be a strong, capable leader.

The harder and longer he worked, the less he slept and ate, the more susceptible he became to their provocations. Six days after plague had been confirmed in the city, after Sunil had sailed away from the shores of Agrabah taking Dalia with him, the mystique and promise of al-sihr became a temptation he could no longer ignore.

While Aladdin was basically literate, he wasn't a strong reader. After he had come to live at the palace, he realized the limitations that his lack of education would cause him. Wanting to improve his basic reading, writing, and arithmetic skills, he'd searched the library hoping to find something he could use to practice. There he had discovered a few old primers for school age children. He assumed they were the same ones that Jasmine had used when she had first begun her lessons. Embarrassed as he was at the idea, he knew that he had to start somewhere.

Like so many times before, he'd gone to Sunil begging for help, to make him better, to make him more than he was. Sunil provided explanations to the concepts Aladdin didn't understand, then they practiced identifying the more common words in the books by sight. The effort paid off faster than Aladdin had expected, and his reading comprehension improved enough to better understand most of the words he now saw on official documents and correspondence, but it didn't make him better at understanding what the information really meant. Not to mention that while he could tell you what the word was, and maybe what it meant, he was still painfully slow at doing so. Fluency only came with consistent practice, and it took more time than Aladdin could reasonably dedicate to it. Despite practicing as often as he could, even taking advantage of the time allotted by so many sleepless nights, it was still a tedious process.

Which is why he had smuggled a handful of the books into his bedroom after that second trip, hoping he would be able to read them at his own pace rather than spend hours hiding out in the dungeons, having to make excuses for his disappearances. Stashing them in the rafters above them bed, he left the pouch of pistachios with them, in case he would want a midnight snack while reading. Leave it to Abu to ferret out the location of any food he'd left hidden around the palace.

Standing up on the bed, he stepped to prop a bare foot onto the bedside table, using it as a step before leaping up to catch the rafters in both his hands. As an added benefit, he scared the life out of Abu who screeched as he dropped the pouch, nuts spilling everywhere. Laughing, Aladdin didn't feel the least bit bad for returning the favor.

"Serves you right, you mangy snack bandit." Both hands occupied holding up his body weight, he jutted his chin towards the mess. "Don't think you're not cleaning that up."

The monkey skulked back to the spilled nuts, and began to pick up the strewn pistachios one by one, dropping them in the bag, chittering indignantly like he was cursing under his breath.

Expertly suspending himself from the rafter with one hand, Aladdin tapped along the top of the rafter until he his fingers fell on the spines of the stacked books. Using his forearm to drag them to the edge, he maneuvered them flat against his chest, cradling them tight with the same arm as he dropped back down to the mattress with a bounce.

His selection of just a few hadn't been easy — Jafar had acquired quite the collection. Considering that Aladdin's knowledge of magic basically consisted of genies have it and you don't, he figured that much like the process of reading, he should start with a primer.

The first of the three books he had grabbed was called Ghayat al-Hakim, "The Goal of the Sages". It consisted of four volumes which seemed to cover the general areas of magic from the workings of the universe to the bodies found within, including how to foretell the future based on their positioning. Stones, colors, and incense all had unique aspects, and the book explained how to use them to achieve specific magical outcomes. There were recipes for concoctions one could brew that upon drinking would alter and affect to the benefit of the imbiber, or for the ill of your enemies. He learned there were an array of curses one could use for the same purpose.

An index in the back of the book organized a list of spells by function. Some benign and helpful, such as increasing the yield of a crop for a season or protecting it from the ravages of drought. Others went against "the rules" that the former djinni had expressly forbade breaking, like making people fall in love. One in particular had been marked by a now frayed ribbon — to find a lost treasure. Running his finger over the aged ink, a shiver arced down his spine. The last time this spell had been invoked, it had led Jafar to the location of hidden cave, filled with untouchable treasures and a seemingly worthless oil lamp, that could only be retrieved by a diamond in the rough. Unbeknownst to him at the time, the casting of this spell would change the entire course of their lives. Jafar's actions may have been selfishly motivated, but in the end, the magic he had wrought had resulted in benefiting so many lives in Agrabah.

Despite Sunil's warning, Aladdin was determined to do it again. Sunil had been enslaved by magic, serving to cast his opinion of it in only a negative light. In his heart, Aladdin knew that in the right hands, magic could be a powerful tool for good.

The only problem was that these spells and potions and rituals, they all took time. Even if his lack of magical skill wasn't the issue, the more powerful spells required rare, hard to come by ingredients, or they required the specific timing of celestial alignments. Unlike djinn magic, the magic that could be accessed by man was complicated, restricted by limitations. If he wanted to put any of this to immediate use towards ending the plague crisis, maybe he would have more luck summoning someone with a little more flexibility in their practice.

Setting down the Ghayat al-Hakim, he reached for another book, moving aside a Greek compendium called Magaeia, for the book that had been left open on the table in the dungeon for the better part of two years.

Just like any other child of the desert, Aladdin had heard legends about the djinn, but until one had come billowing out of a lamp to grant him three wishes, he hadn't actually believed in them. He'd heard scary tales of shapeshifters and creatures who would feast upon human flesh, but he had no idea that there were so many kinds of djinn. Nor that at one point in time, they had been so powerful and numerous that they had built their own societies.

Ifrits roamed the desert wastes, taking up residence in the ancient ruins of civilizations past, some waiting to pounce on any unsuspecting human who came across them, others taking them as lovers, marrying them, and having children.

Unlike their desert dwelling counterparts, the Marid were drawn to water, often inhabiting oceans and wahahs. Of all the djinn, they were the most likely to offer three wishes to humans. They were the largest of their kind, towering like giants. Aladdin had never pressed Sunil to speak of his past life as a djinni — he seemed keen to move forward in the pursuit of his now attainable dreams. But, if Aladdin had to guess which kind of djinn Sunil had been, an ocean loving, wish granting giant seemed to fit the bill.

Some djinn took the form of animals, like the Hinn, others took the form of dervishes, like the Jann. Another, the Sila, were so rarely seen that some questioned their whether or not they had ever existed. All three took pleasure in meddling in human affairs, both benign or mischievous.

And, much to Aladdin's relief, enlisting the cooperation of a djinn didn't require to trap or trick them — according to the book, wishes could be granted as the result of kindness or favors. In some cases, djinn helped humans out of the kindness of their own heart, merely out of their love and fascination with humans.

They weren't all altruistic and friendly though. There were also djinn who seemed more like nightmarish beasts — vile monsters compared to someone like Sunil. Palis would feed off human blood, ghouls off human flesh. The most terrifying of all, the Vetala, would simply possess your corpse and where your body as their own. Then again, better to possess your dead body than to take it while you were still in custody of your soul. The malevolent Shayteen were doombringers who would happily possess you while you were still alive, using your body to commit heinous sins, serving a dark master named Iblis.

A shuddering realization disturbed Aladdin as he read the passage. Had that been the fate he had doomed Jafar too? He had looked so different than Genie after his transformation. Had he become a Shayteen? Aladdin refused to linger too long on the fear that he had inadvertently helped to bring such a demonic power into the world. If for no other reason than that, he had a responsibility to take up the use of magic for good.

The most fascinating of the djinn was called Qareen. Each human had one, referred to as a companion, who followed them through life. These were not wish granters like their cousins, and could in fact be trained to work for humans. Once compelled, a qareen could perform a number of feats for a human companion. They could obtain information on anyone, as qareen could commune with one another. And, knowing the action of other qareens, it could foretell some semblance of actions and events to come. It could perform small favors, such as locating lost or stolen objects. It could use it's power to compel the will of others… they could even cure illness.

As a human companion, the Qareen was part of the human — the darkest parts. They existed as culmination of a person's deepest fears and most sinister desires.

Every child at birth inhales their first breath, and upon exhale rises the qareen. For that is why the child cries at birth, pained as it purges all the sin it has carried into life, for children are innocent and incapable of sin until they are adults. It is this shadow of ourselves that tempts us, urges us to commit misdeeds and hurt others. To misunderstand, to harbor animosity towards others and what they have, to seek revenge to rectify it. They succeed in using our weaknesses as weapons against us, whispering the waswasah, they cloud our mind with doubt and desperation.

The slamming of the book echoed loudly in the empty room, Aladdin pushing it away with shaking hands. These words had suddenly become far to close for comfort. Instead, the words that Jasmine had spoken to him yesterday repeated in his mind, giving him consolation.

"We are all born tabula rasa, but we do not get to choose the words the world writes unto our souls… Do you understand what a rare form of person you are to have endured the hardships you have experienced, and to remain so fundamentally good?"

A strange worry haunted Aladdin that he had stumbled across something dangerous, not meant to be seen. It couldn't be that easy for humans to harness such powerful magics... could it? Obtaining information, forcing the will of others, locating stolen objects… Is that what Jafar had done? Had he been able to tame his qareen and use it serve him?

A heart-stopping knock on the door jolted him, sending the book in his lap to the floor his powerful thud. Shoving the books under the bed, he looked out the window again, surprised that the light had faded so dramatically, hours having passed lost in these books.

"Come in," he announced, taking a few breathes, forcing down his anxiety until he was presentable.

The door opened, and Maryam entered carrying a tray of simple, yet hearty lamb and lentil stew.

"Salaam, Your Highness."

Bowing, she placed the tray in front of him as he returned the greeting. Then, picking up one of the stray half shells littering the bed, she held it, smirking curiously.

"Wasn't me, I swear."

Attending to the remaining shells, she sighed, "Cheeky little monkey always makes such a mess."

"Gets away with it too. He knows he's cute." Tearing a piece of flatbread, Aladdin dipped it into the stew. "Has the Sultana eaten yet? I was hoping she would join me."

"No, sire," Maryam replied. "The Sultana has not taken a meal since breakfast. Shortly after leaving you to sleep, she returned to her study, commanding that she was not to be disturbed and locking the doors."

That was odd. Jasmine had a fairly open door policy when it came to her study. She believed that as Sultana, she should be accessible to her people, and not sequestered in secrecy like Jafar had urged of her father. Rather, it was her bedroom, her private sanctuary with Aladdin, where she kept a tighter rein on who came and went, and made demands of privacy.

"Well, we'll see about that," Aladdin scoffed, winking at Maryam. Picking up the small dessert plate on the tray, he extended it to her offering a piece of orange-almond halva. "Thank you, Maryam."

Smiling broadly, she plucked one of the sliced pieces from the plate, dipping her head in a bow in appreciation, nibbling as she left the room. By the time the door shut, Aladdin was already trying to puzzle out Jasmine's motivations. If the smell of dinner wasn't so enticing to his deprived stomach, he'd march down there right now and figure out what was going on. Had something happened while he had been sleeping? He needed answers, but now that food was in front of him, he was decidedly starving. As soon as he finished, and stashed the books back in the rafters, he'd find out exactly what Jasmine was doing.

A/N: Most of the words I used in this chapter were easily defined as part of the passages, but here are two that weren't:

waswasah — "the whisperings", voices heard by malevolent beings to tempt man to sin and to doubt. They are intrusive thoughts that the person cannot escape. When I learned about this, I couldn't believe how perfect this belief and the concept of the qareen aligns with what Aladdin is experiencing. As part of my research, I read that this is associated with modern day OCD, a disorder with which I am intimately familiar, of which I primarily deal with "Pure O"— obsessive, obtrusive, racing thoughts, that in my case, take the form of crippling anxiety towards failure, abandonment, and acceptance by others.

halva — a dessert made from semolina or sesame that is flavored with fruit, rose, chocolate, coffee, and/or a variety of nuts. It kind of reminds me of nougat or fudge, but not as soft.