It was a strangely worded response, delivered with a hint of chiding that Ali had never heard from his mild-mannered secretary. But before he could dwell on it, they reached a large room fronting an uncovered courtyard. Tattered curtains, patched where possible, were all that separated it from the chilly rain falling in the yard.
Rashid pressed a finger to his lips and pulled back one of the curtains. The floor was crowded with sleeping children, dozens of boys and girls wrapped in blankets and bedrolls, packed close for both warmth and lack of space, Ali imagined. He took a step closer.
They were shafit children. And curled under a quilt, her hair already starting to grow out, was the girl from Turan’s tavern.
Ali stepped back so quickly he stumbled. We have a safe house in the Tukharistani Quarter . . . Horrified realization swept over him.
Rashid’s hand landed heavy on his shoulder. Ali jumped, half-expecting a blade.
“Easy, brother,” Rashid said softly. “You wouldn’t want to startle the children . . .” He clapped his other hand over Ali’s as Ali reached for his zulfiqar. “. . . nor run from this place covered in another’s blood. Not when you’re so easily recognized.”
“You bastard,” Ali whispered, stunned by how easily he’d walked into a trap so obvious in hindsight. He wasn’t usually one for swearing, but the words tumbled out. “You fucking trait—”
Rashid’s fingers dug a little deeper. “That’s enough.” He pushed Ali down the hall, gesturing to the next room. “We just want to talk.”
Ali hesitated. He could take Rashid in a fight, of that he was certain. But it would be bloody, and it would be loud. Their location was intentional. A single shout, and he’d awaken dozens of innocent witnesses. He had no good options, and so Ali steeled himself and walked through the door. His heart immediately sank.
“If it isn’t the new Qaid,” Hanno said, greeting him coolly. The shapeshifter’s hand dropped to the long knife tucked in his belt, and his copper eyes flashed. “I hope that red turban of yours was worth Anas’s life.”
Ali tensed, but before he could reply, a fourth person—the older woman from the corridor—joined them at the door.
She waved Hanno off. “Now, brother, surely that’s no way to treat our guest.” Despite the circumstances, her voice was oddly cheerful. “Make some use of yourself, you old pirate, and pull me up a seat.”
The shapeshifter grumbled, but did as he was told, laying a cushion upon a wooden crate. The woman made her way in, helped by a black wooden cane.
Rashid touched his brow. “Peace be upon you, Sister Fatumai.”
“And upon you, Brother Rashid.” She settled onto the cushion. She was shafit, that much Ali could tell from her dark brown eyes and rounded ears. Her hair was gray, half-covered by a white cotton shawl. She looked up at him. “My, you are tall. You must be Alizayd al Qahtani then.” The slightest of amused smiles lit her pale face. “We meet at last.”
Ali shifted uncomfortably on his feet. It was far easier to rage at the Tanzeem men than this grandmotherly figure. “Am I supposed to know you?”
“Not yet, no. Though I suppose these times call for flexibility.” She inclined her head. “My name is Hui Fatumai. I am . . .” Her smiled faded. “Rather, I was one of Sheikh Anas’s associates. I run the orphanage here and many of the Tanzeem’s charitable works. For which I should thank you. It was only through your generosity that we were able to do so much good.”
Ali raised an eyebrow. “That’s apparently not all you were doing with my ‘generosity.’ I saw the weapons.”
“And what of it?” She nodded to the zulfiqar at his waist. “You wear a weapon to protect yourself. Why should my people not have the same right?”
“Because it’s against the law. Shafit aren’t allowed to carry weapons.”
“They’re also forbidden medical care,” Rashid cut in, giving Ali a knowing look. “Tell me, brother, whose idea was the clinic on Maadi Street? Who paid for that clinic and stole medical books from the royal library to train its providers?”
Ali flushed. “That’s different.”
“Not in the eyes of the law,” Rashid rebuked. “Both preserve the lives of shafit, and thus both are forbidden.”
Ali had no response for that. Fatumai was still studying him. Something that might have been pity flickered in her brown eyes. “How young you are,” she remarked quietly. “Far nearer in age to the children sleeping in the next room than to any of us, I imagine.” She clucked her tongue. “I am almost sorry for you, Alizayd al Qahtani.”
Ali didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you want with me?” he asked. His nerves were starting to get the better of him, and his voice shook.
Fatumai smiled. “We want you to help save the shafit, of course. Ideally by resuming our funding as soon as possible.”
He was incredulous. “You must be joking. Anas was supposed to buy food and books with the money I gave him, not rifles and daggers. You can’t possibly think I’d give you a coin more.”
“Full bellies mean nothing if we can’t protect our children from slavers,” Hanno snapped.
“And we already educate our people, Prince Alizayd,” Fatumai added. “But to what end? Shafit are forbidden from skilled work; if our kind are lucky, they can find a job as a servant or bed slave. Do you have any idea how hopeless that makes life in Daevabad? There is no betterment save the promise of Paradise. We’re not allowed to leave, we’re not allowed to work, our women and children can be legally stolen by any pureblood claiming they’re related—”
“Anas gave me the speech,” Ali interrupted, his voice more cutting than he intended. But he had believed Anas’s words before, and the knowledge that his sheikh had lied to him still stung. “I’m sorry, but I’ve done everything in my power to help your people.” It was the truth. He’d given the Tanzeem a fortune and even now was quietly delaying the harsher measures his father wanted to put in place on the shafit. “I don’t know what else you expect.”
“Influence.” Rashid spoke up. “The sheikh did not recruit you for money alone. The shafit need a champion at the palace, a voice to speak for their rights. And you need us, Alizayd. I know you’re stalling those orders your father gave you. The new laws you’re supposed to be enforcing? Hunting down the traitor from the Royal Guard who stole zulfiqar training blades?” A slight grin played on his mouth at that. “Let us help you, Brother Alizayd. Let us help each other.”
Ali shook his head. “Absolutely not.”
“This is a waste of time,” Hanno declared. “The brat is Geziri—he’d probably let Daevabad burn to the ground before turning on his own.” His eyes flashed, and his fingers again lingered on the hilt of his knife. “We should just kill him.” Bitterness crept into his voice. “Let Ghassan know what it feels like to lose a child.”
Ali drew back in alarm, but Fatumai was already waving him off. “Give Ghassan a reason to slaughter every shafit in the city, you mean. No, I don’t think we’ll be doing that.”
From out in the corridor, the little boy began to cough again. The sound—that hacking, blood-tinged cough, that sad little sob—cut deep, and Ali flinched.
Rashid noticed. “There’s medicine for it, you know. And there are a few human-trained shafit physicians in Daevabad who could help him, but their skills don’t come cheap. Without your aid, we can’t afford to treat him.” He raised his hands. “To treat any of them.”
Ali dropped his gaze. There’s nothing to stop them from turning around and spending whatever I give them on weapons. He’d trusted Anas far more than he trusted these strangers, and the sheikh had still deceived him. Ali could not risk betraying his family again.
A mouse darted past his feet, and a drop of rain landed on his cheek from a leak in the ceiling. In the next room, he could hear children snoring from their makeshift beds on the floor. He thought guiltily of the enormous bed back in the palace that he didn’t even use. It would probably hold ten of those children.
“I ca
n’t,” he said, his voice cracking. “I can’t help you.”
Rashid pounced. “You must. You’re a Qahtani. The shafit are the reason your ancestors came to Daevabad, the reason your family now possesses Suleiman’s seal. You know the Holy Book, Alizayd. You know how it requires you to stand up for justice. How can you claim to be a man of God when—”
“That’s quite enough,” Fatumai spoke up. “I know you’re passionate, Rashid, but insisting a boy not even near his first quarter century betray his family lest he be damned isn’t going to help anyone.” She let out a weary sigh, tapping her fingers on her cane. “This is not a thing that needs to be decided tonight,” she declared. “Think on what we’ve said here, Prince. On what you’ve seen and heard in this place.”
Ali blinked in disbelief. He glanced nervously among them. “You’re letting me go?”
“I’m letting you go.”
Hanno gaped. “Are you mad? He’s going to run right to his abba! He’ll have us rounded up by dawn!”
“No, he won’t,” Fatumai met his gaze, her face calculating. “He knows the cost too well. His father would come for our families, our neighbors . . . a whole score of innocent shafit. And if he’s the boy of whom Anas spoke so fondly, the one on whom he pinned so many hopes . . .” She gave Ali an intent look. “He won’t risk that.”
Her words sent a shiver down his spine. She spoke correctly: Ali did know the cost. If Ghassan learned about the money, if he then suspected others might know it was a Qahtani prince who’d funded the Tanzeem . . . Daevabad’s streets would be flowing with shafit blood.
And not just shafit. Ali wouldn’t be the first inconvenient prince to be assassinated. Oh, it would be done carefully, probably as quickly and painlessly as possible—his father wasn’t cruel. An accident. Something that wouldn’t make his mother’s powerful family too suspicious. But it would happen. Ghassan took kingship seriously, and Daevabad’s peace and security came before Ali’s life.
Those weren’t prices Ali was willing to pay.
His mouth was dry when he tried to speak. “I won’t say anything,” he promised. “But I’m done with the Tanzeem.”
Fatumai didn’t look even the slightest bit worried. “We’ll see, Brother Alizayd.” She shrugged. “Allahu alam.”
She said the human holy words better than Ali’s pureblood tongue would ever manage, and he couldn’t help but tremble slightly at the confidence in her voice, at the phrase meant to demonstrate the folly of man’s confidence.
God knows best.
13
Nahri
It was as if they stepped through an invisible door in the air. One minute Nahri and Dara were scrambling over dark dunes, and the next, they emerged in an entirely new world, the dark river and dusty plains replaced by a small glen in a quiet mountain forest. It was dawn; the rosy sky glowed against silver tree trunks. The air was warm and moist, rich with the smell of sap and dead leaves.
Dara dropped Nahri gently to her feet, and she landed on a soft patch of moss. She took a deep breath of the cool, clean air before whirling on him.
“We need to go back,” she demanded, shoving at his shoulders. There was no trace of the river, though through the trees, something blue glistened in the distance. A sea, perhaps; it looked vast. She waved her hands through the air, searching for the way through. “How do I do it? We need to get him before—”
“He’s likely already dead,” Dara interrupted. “From the stories told about the peris . . .” She heard his throat catch. “Their punishments are swift.”
He saved our lives. Nahri felt sick. She angrily wiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks. “How could you leave him there? It was him you should have carried, not me!”
“I . . .” Dara turned away with a choked sob and abruptly dropped onto a large, moss-covered boulder. His head fell into his hands. The weeds surrounding him started to blacken and a hazy heat rose in waves above the rock. “I couldn’t, Nahri. Only those of our blood can cross the threshold.”
“We could have tried to help. To fight—”
“How?” Dara glanced up. His eyes were dim with sorrow, but his expression was resolute. “You saw what the marid did to the river, how Khayzur fought back.” He pressed his mouth in a grim line. “Compared to the marid and peri, we are insects. And Khayzur was right—I had to get you to safety.”
Nahri leaned against a crooked tree, feeling ready to collapse herself. “What do you think happened to the ifrit?” she finally asked.
“If there’s any justice in this world, they were dashed upon the rocks and drowned.” Dara spat. “That . . . woman,” he said scornfully. “It was she who enslaved me. I remember her face from the memory you triggered.”
Nahri wrapped her arms around herself; she was still wet, and the dawn air was cool. “The one I killed said they were working with my mother, Dara.” Her voice choked on the word. “That Manizheh they kept talking about.” She reeled; Khayzur’s death, the mention of her mother, an entire damned river rising up to smash them to pieces . . . it was all too much.
Dara was at her side in a moment. He took her by the shoulders, bending to meet her gaze. “They’re lying, Nahri,” he said firmly. “They’re demons. You can’t trust anything they say. All they do is deceive and manipulate. They do it to humans, they do it to daevas. They will say anything to trick you. To break you.”
She managed a nod, and he briefly cupped her cheek with one hand. “Let’s just get into the city,” he said softly. “We should be able to find sanctuary at the Grand Temple. We’ll figure out our next step there.”
“All right.” The press of his palm on her skin made her think back to what they’d been doing before the ifrit attack, and she flushed. She glanced away, looking around them for the city. But she saw nothing but silvery trees and flashes of the sun-dappled water in the distance. “Where is Daevabad?”
Dara pointed through the trees. The forest descended sharply before them. “There’s a lake at the bottom of the mountain. Daevabad is on an island at its center. There should be a ferry down by the beach.”
“The djinn use ferries?” It was so unexpected and so human, she almost broke into laughter.
He raised an eyebrow. “Can you think of a better way to cross a lake?”
Movement drew her eye. Nahri glanced up, catching sight of a gray hawk perched in the trees opposite her. It stared back, shifting on its feet as it settled into a more comfortable position.
She turned back to Dara. “I suppose not. Lead the way.”
Nahri followed him through the trees as the sun climbed higher and filled the forest with a lovely, pale yellow light. Her bare feet crunched through the underbrush, and as she passed a thick bush with spindly dark green leaves, she let her hands drift out to briefly cradle a spray of salmon-colored buds. They warmed to her touch and began to blossom ever so slightly.
She glanced at Dara from the corner of her eye, watching as he gazed at the forest. Despite Khayzur’s death, there was a new light in his eyes. He’s home, Nahri realized. And it wasn’t just his eyes that were shining; as he reached to clear away a low-hanging branch, she caught a glimpse of his ring, the emerald glowing bright. Nahri frowned, but as she moved closer to him, the glow vanished.
The forest finally began to flatten, the trees thinning out to give way to a pebbly shore. The lake was enormous, ringed by mountains of green hardwood forests on the southern side and sheer cliffs in the distant north. The blue-green water was completely still, an unbroken sheet of glass. She saw no island, nothing even hinting at a village, let alone a massive city.
But there was a large boat beached not far from where they stood, similar in shape to the feluccas that sailed the Nile. The sun flashed off the dizzying black and gold designs painted on the hull, and a triangular black sail flapped uselessly in the breeze, reaching for the lake. A man stood on the sharply curved bow with his arms crossed, chewing the end of a skinny pipe. His clothing reminded Nahri of the Yemeni traders she’d
seen in Cairo, a patterned waist-wrap and simple tunic. His skin was as brown as hers, and his trimmed black beard the length of a fist. A tasseled gray turban was tied around his head.
There were two other men on the beach below the boat, both dressed in voluminous robes of dark teal and matching head wraps. As Nahri watched, one gestured angrily at the man on the boat, shouting something she couldn’t hear and pointing behind him. From the trees on the other side of the forest, a few more men appeared, leading camels laden with bound white tablets.
“Are they daevas?” she asked in an eager hush, noting the way their robes shimmered and smoked and their black skin gleamed.
Dara didn’t look as excited. “Probably not their preferred term.”
She ignored his hostility. “Djinn then?” When he nodded, she returned to watching them. Even after the months she had spent with Dara, the sight before her still seemed unimaginable. Djinn, nearly a dozen of them. The stuff of legends and campfire tales in the flesh, haggling like old women.
“The men in the robes are Ayaanle,” Dara offered. “Probably salt traders, judging from their cargo. That other man is Geziri,” Dara said, looking at the ferryman with narrowed eyes. “Probably one of the king’s agents, although he certainly doesn’t look very official,” he added snobbishly. He glanced back at Nahri. “Pull your scarf—what remains of it anyway—across your face when we get closer.”
“Why?”
“Because no Daeva would travel with a shafit companion,” he said plainly. “At least not in my time. I don’t want to draw attention.” He plucked a bit of muck from his left sleeve and rubbed it carefully on his cheek to hide his tattoo. “Let me have my robe back. I need to cover the marks on my arms.”
Nahri pulled it off and handed it over. “Do you think you’ll be recognized?”
“Eventually. But apparently my choices are being arrested in Daevabad or returning to the Gozan to be murdered by marids and peris for some unknown offense.” He wrapped the tail end of his turban close around his jaw. “I’ll take my chance with the djinn.”
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