The Girl and the Djinn (Being rebooted and rewritten)

"Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing" (Sylvia Plath).

"Do not be fooled by its commonplace appearance. Like so many things, it is not what is outside, but what is inside that truly counts" (Aladdin, 1992).

Aliyah (Ali for short) Nejem was the daughter of the Sultan's tailor. From the shadows, she was also hopelessly in love with the Sultan's son, Prince Jinan. That was before her mother killed her father in cold blood, and was hung for it. Now, Ali lives on the streets, stealing food whenever she can get it with the aid of her most loyal companion, a monkey the size of half a loaf of bread named Abu. Hated by the city guards and rejected by the city of her birth, she lives in the shadows, hiding away the girl that she used to be.

After she meets a mysterious boy in the marketplace (and having a wild adventure involving a few too many palace guards), Ali is given a choice by the Sultan's Grand Vizier: help him rob a tomb that has been sealed for over ten thousand years, or rot in the palace dungeons.