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Back The Wild Ones Save as PDF
Chapters (61)
  1. Cover
  2. PRAISE FOR The Wild Ones
  3. Title Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. The Beginning, or How Paheli Became the First Wild One; With a Cameo by Taraana, the Boy Made of Stars.
  7. An Introduction; Hold On to Your Hats.
  8. The Sweetness in the Sugarcane, or The Impractical Nature of Immortality
  9. Paheli: The Vagrant Experiences of a Mango Addict
  10. Cotton Candy Sugar Screams
  11. From the Book of MEMORIES
  12. “Will You Walk into My Parlor?” Said the Spider to the Fly.
  13. The Best Ice Cream in the World, Teddy Bears, and a Tree Creature.
  14. From the Book of MEMORIES
  15. I.
  16. The Reappearance of the Boy Made of Stars and the Plight of the Girl by the Oleander Lane.
  17. Paheli: An Interlude in Blue
  18. Besieged in the Between
  19. Tea, the City of Stairs, and the Story of a Boy
  20. From the Book of MEMORIES
  21. Heartbreak, Stone Buildings, and Tandoori
  22. Observations, Conversations, and Hot Parantha
  23. Paheli: The Spies Who Came In from the Between
  24. From the Book of MEMORIES
  25. The French Quarter, the Spanish Half, and Eulalie
  26. Paheli: The Eggplant Overture
  27. Sunny Jelly Beans, Po’Boys, and “Alouette”
  28. From the Book of MEMORIES
  29. The Keeper of the Green and the Mysteries of Magic
  30. Blood and the Between
  31. The Library of the Lost and the Stories of the Silenced
  32. Walking in Wicked Ways or The Importance of Balık Ekmek
  33. From the Book of MEMORIES
  34. Looking for the Needle in the Haystack
  35. Paheli: The Peculiar Crackle in the Electricity
  36. Ten Degrees Past Despair
  37. The Fault in the Stars
  38. The Blue City in the Mountains
  39. Paheli: Disharmony in the Attics
  40. From the Book of MEMORIES
  41. Paheli: Continued
  42. The Politics of a Body, the Politics of Pleasure
  43. The Medina, the Riad, and the Red City
  44. Paheli: The Atlas Mountains, the Cozy Rooftop, and the Confession, Possibly of Love
  45. From the Book of MEMORIES
  46. Souks, Spices, and Survival: A Guide into Chaos
  47. Jemaa el-Fna: The Mosque at the End of the World
  48. Paheli: A Moment in Chartreuse
  49. From the Book of MEMORIES
  50. Paheli: On the Frailties of the Heart
  51. Sonagi, or A Sudden Rain
  52. Paheli: The Cheese in the Trap
  53. Paheli: The Maze and the Minotaur
  54. A New Era, a New Dar; the River Sings
  55. The Burning Door, the Fallen City, and Taraana 2.0
  56. Paheli: The Beginning of Forever
  57. From the Book of MEMORIES
  58. Moving One Rock at a Time Will Eventually Move a Mountain, aka Goodbye
  59. Acknowledgments
  60. More from the Author
  61. About the Author

The council member, perhaps incensed by Taraana’s perceived arrogance, tries to attack Taraana with his magic. Taraana fixes his gaze on the middle worlder’s face, and a second later the man slumps in his chair. His companions try to ready their magic, either to attack Taraana or to help their friend, but find their magic refuses to be harnessed.

It was Eulalie who discovered the strange way magic reacts to Taraana 2.0. When magic is worked against the Wild Ones, the spells simply return to the person who cast them, unable to find a place to root in us. But magic refuses to even be shaped against the Keeper of the Between.

Feel free to speculate why. We certainly don’t know, and to be honest, not knowing doesn’t bother us either. The power this grants Taraana—he calls it freedom. The day Eulalie discovered the reaction magic has to Taraana, he went outside and stood in the sunlight and said it was the first time he felt wholly unafraid to do so.

“What would you have us do?” Tabassum Naaz asks in a perfectly modulated voice, giving no indication that she is the one who came up with this plan.

“Pass laws that will guarantee my safety. Harshly penalize anyone who tries to harm me and mine.” Taraana looks around the room with a steady gaze. “I can keep myself and the people I love safe. But don’t you think it would be better if I didn’t have to leave a trail of bodies doing so?”

Taraana initially balked at using this threat. We got Paheli to persuade him otherwise.

Mama Magdaline looks around the room. None of the council members seem to have anything to say. The middle worlder who dared to move against Taraana is still unconscious. “We will agree to your”—the Keeper of the Green says, smiling slightly—“request.”

“Thank you. I expected nothing less,” Taraana says, and returns her smile with a sweet one of his own. “Do enjoy the rest of your meeting.”

We leave the room and then the hotel.

Have we won? Maybe. Maybe not. The future might boast attempts to do what Baarish failed to accomplish. It might not. We don’t know.

Right now, though, we are in a city that is a meeting ground of the modern and the traditional. Where a turn around a corner might lead to a neon alley with bass-thumping clubs or a silent sanctuary full of gardens offering peace. We are in a city where the magic flows in a rainbow and you can be as wild as your heart desires.

And our hearts desire.

Listen.