I willed the relief not to show on my face.
“Why the sudden interest in our prisoner?” the vizier asked silkily.
I began shoveling forkfuls of fish into my mouth, even though it felt like the fish were still alive and squirming in my stomach. “I’m curious to know more about our voyage, since apparently I still haven’t been told everything.” I swallowed a huge mouthful, my eyes watering as it slid slowly down my throat. I took a hurried sip of wine, hoping the vizier didn’t dwell on my interest in Aliyah. “Isn’t this fish delicious?” My voice sounded choked.
Everyone jumped as Bahar let out a loud exclamation. “That’s it!” He leapt to his feet, grinning widely at me. “I knew I recognized you from somewhere.”
My fork fell back to my plate with a clatter.
“The river festival last summer. You won the squid-eating contest.”
Kassim let out a strangled noise beside me. I placed a shaking hand on his arm, to reassure myself as much as to calm him down. He stilled beneath my touch.
“I’m afraid I only arrived in Astaran about a month ago, so it can’t have been me you saw.” A trickle of sweat ran down my spine. “I’m sure we’ve never met.”
Glaring at me, Bahar sank back down into his chair.
“Perhaps we could learn more about your various past adventures, Captain Bahar,” Namir said mildly, catching sight of my hand on Kassim’s arm. “We must have heard the words shipwrecked a thousand and one times already. It sounds like you’re very well-traveled.”
“Exceedingly.” Bahar’s eyes glittered dangerously as they raked over me. “I’ve seen many places, and even more faces. But I never forget one as striking as the princess’s.”
I did my best to keep the weak smile fixed on my face, but I was all too aware of the sultan brimming with anger at my side, the questioning stares from Namir and the vizier, and the glances from Bahar’s crew, some of whom must also have been in the tavern where Tarak and I had played Bahar at cards.
Spirits, another week of this and my nerves will be wrecked.
A cool sea-breeze ruffled my hair, welcome in the midday heat. Although I had set up my writing materials in a spot shaded by the cabins, the sun at sea was relentless, and I seemed to burn just from the glare on the water.
I dipped my quill in the inkwell. The ink dried fast out here – too fast to write neatly, really – but I stubbornly persisted.
Kassim had said stiffly that I would be cooler if I remained in the cabins, but whenever I went below deck, I seemed to run into Bahar, who would invariably stop me and ply me with questions, or sit in the same room and run those probing, dark eyes over me until I grew flustered and left the room. So instead, I had come out on deck, where I was working on a dictionary translating An Nimivah into the common tongue.
The breeze stirred again and I put a hand to the parchment, anxious that it would be lost to the sea. Back in the palace gardens, Prince Diyan had told me that any written record translating the ancient spirit language into the common tongue had long since been destroyed, and I was determined to make sure that I do some good with my wish to be fluent in it. A dictionary might be invaluable one day. Or at least of interest to scholars.
I pressed firmly down on the papers as the wind rustled the edges. It would be a poor start if my first efforts at recording what I knew of the language were lost at sea.
When the breeze finally died down I began scratching out a new line, but the ink had already dried on my quill. I sighed. This is going nowhere.
My mind kept returning to the vizier. What if she released another spirit like Chimaeus on us while we were out at sea? I tried to reassure myself that it was too late for her to stop me coming on the voyage, but my thoughts continued to race.
I put down my quill. Tarak could sense magical objects… Maybe he’d be able to tell me if she’d smuggled any other spirits or enchanted objects on board.
I moved my hand to cover the other.
“Tarak,” I whispered, rubbing at the ring, “I’m out on deck, so you need to appear in an inconspicuous form.”
I ducked as an enormous seagull swooped down overhead, white feathers flashing in the sun and a strange violet smoke shimmering in the air.
I glowered at the bird as it swooped prettily overhead, then twisted around to where the crew were working nearby. Some had already turned and were pointing at the impressive display the bird was putting on.
So much for inconspicuous.
Trying to pretend I hadn’t noticed the bird wheeling and pirouetting in the wind just before me, I dipped my quill back into the inkwell and focused on writing. Hopefully Tarak would get the message and stop showing off.
“Crrraaaaeeeeeewwww!”
The gull let out an ear-splitting shriek and thumped down onto the deck right in front of me. I started and dropped my quill. I ducked down to grab it before it rolled overboard. Sitting up again, I was met with two beady purple eyes just inches from my face.
“We need to have words about the meaning of inconspicuous,” I hissed.
“Oh, come on.” The bird pulled an expression that looked alarmingly like a grin. “You can tell them I’m a trained pet.”
“Trained by whom, exactly?” I glared at him. “I hardly think a trained gull would be out here in the middle of nowhere.” I gestured to the open ocean with my quill.
The seagull sighed and gave a shrug of its wings. “Maybe I escaped from a traveling bird circus. Maybe you bartered for me in the harbor town before boarding. Maybe you’re just really good with birds. Use your imagination, princess.”
“After the last few weeks with Chimaeus and the princes, I’m done with–”
“Hey!” A reedy voice floated over the decks. I turned. It was the man who’d brought us aboard on the rowing boats. “What’re you doing talking to that gull?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again.
“First sign of cabin fever, you know.” One of the other crew stepped closer, her eyes roving over me. “Talking to birds.”
“Why don’t you chat with us instead?” another suggested. “Captain Bahar’d be very pleased if you got to know us better.”
I gave a thin smile. “I appreciate your concern. But I’m fine, thank you.”
The man with the reedy voice frowned, his eyes flicking between my papers and the gull before me. “Say, you’re not some kind of sorceress, are you?”
Hating myself, I gave a little shrug. “I think the bird must be a lost pet.” Beside me, I heard gull-Tarak squawk with laughter.
The crew still muttered, but I fixed them with my firmest sultanah-to-be stare and didn’t look away until they returned to mopping the decks.
It’d be worse if I went below deck, with Bahar staring at me.
Resolutely, I shifted around so that I could no longer see the crew. Beyond gull-Tarak perched on the edge of the ship – the gunwale as the crew called it – I could see nothing but the endless blue sea.
“Alright, princess?” The seagull tilted its head to one side. “You’re looking a bit green.”
“See what happens when you cause a scene like that? I only summoned you to ask if you could sense any magical items on this ship. Now they all think I’m a sorceress.”
“Don’t let them get a look at this, then.” Tarak hopped closer, examining my dictionary-in-progress. “Not that a sorcerer would ever write this all down. Too scared of someone else stealing their secrets.”
A long shadow fell over my parchment, and I sighed in exasperation. Spirits, if it’s not Bahar spying on me, it’s his crew. “Can’t I get a moment’s peace–”
I broke off as I twisted around and realized it wasn’t the crew members come to bother me again, but the vizier, her long dark robes rippling in the wind.
Her eyes fixed on the parchment before me, running along the lines of my scrawled hand. Is she reading it?
I hastily moved to collect the papers together, shuffling them so the ancient script was hidden behind a
blank sheet of parchment.
The vizier’s eyes snapped to mine, widening in shock.
My stomach turned to stone. If the vizier could read An Nimivah, she was definitely a sorceress. And that meant I was probably right thinking she was the one who’d bought Chimaeus from Mustafa…
For a moment we just stared at each other. Did she think I was a sorceress too?
“Princess Zadie,” the vizier finally said in her clipped voice. She hesitated for a moment, as though she had forgotten why she had come to see me.
I clutched the papers tightly. “Can I help you, Hepzibah?”
Tarak fluttered off with another loud shriek, and the vizier watched him go. Something in her expression sharpened as she watched the gull wheel around the ship until it was out of sight.
“What an unusually tame bird…”
“Yes, I was surprised too,” I replied in a halting voice. “Perhaps…perhaps it’s a lost pet.”
She looked sharply at me. “Do you usually talk to birds in case they are lost pets?”
Once again, my mouth opened and closed. Damn Tarak for coming up with such a terrible excuse.
The vizier’s lips curled upwards, her face settling into an expression of cold satisfaction. A shiver ran down my spine.
“I was just talking to myself,” I said feebly.
The vizier didn’t even bother to reply. Her eyes flicked down to my hand and settled on the ring on my finger. I thanked the spirits I always wore it with the stone on the inside, so that it looked like a plain gold ring from a distance.
“Did the sultan give you that ring?” she asked directly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without it.”
The tingling in my spine worsened. She knows something.
“It’s a family keepsake,” I said shakily. “It’s not worth much, but I wear it to remind me of home.”
The vizier’s spiderlike smile widened. “I don’t think I ever noticed that a…pattern…was engraved into it before. But then, your mother is a great collector of enchanted objects…”
I forced myself to laugh, but even to me it sounded strained. “If this thing is enchanted, it’s yet to reveal its power to me. Besides, the last enchanted object my mother gave me caused a stampede at my sister’s engagement parade. I’m afraid my mother’s enthusiasm isn’t matched by knowledge.”
That was half true. The vizier was probably only guessing, anyway.
But the look on her face chilled me to the bone.
“Is there anything else, Hepzibah?”
“Oh, that’s more than enough, princess.”
She swept back over the decks, and I found I was shaking. Even if she didn’t know for certain that the ring I wore on my finger contained a djinni, her questions were too close for comfort.
Uneasily, I recalled that the night I had found the ring, Aliyah and her thieves had been looking for it, too. For their benefactor, they’d said. I knew the vizier had hired them to get the Book of Talismans, so could she have hired them for the ring, too? But why would she need to break into the treasury when she had full access herself?
I chewed my lip. I had reason to believe the vizier was a sorceress. But what was she up to? What were her motives? If she wanted what was best for Astaran, why was she trying to get rid of me? I’d done nothing but help Astaran’s causes.
I got shakily to my feet, and I wasn’t sure whether it was the motion of the boat or my nerves that made me stumble.
Wetting my lips, I came to a decision. If I was going to get to the bottom of her dubious motives, it was time I stopped guessing what the vizier had or hadn’t done.
There was only one person on board this ship who might be able to give me the answers I needed. And she was currently a prisoner below deck.
Luckily, I had just the thing to get me in.
Chapter Seventeen
The door to the brig swung open with a creak, and I wrinkled my nose at the strong smell of brine mixed with questionable body odors.
I slipped inside, closing the door behind me. After a beat, I used the enchanted key to lock it behind me. I didn’t want to be surprised by the vizier again. Especially not when my questions for Aliyah were all about her.
My head swam. Somehow, although I was in the bowels of the ship and the water was out of sight, my body seemed all the more aware that we were out at sea. The wood around me creaked, the stench of seawater grew suffocating.
I suddenly longed to feel the steady desert sand between my toes. Having spent so long desperate to see the ocean, I was now quite sure I had seen enough of it for one lifetime.
“Come to plead with me again?” came Aliyah’s mocking tone from the shadows. “Do what you want with me. You can beg, you can threaten, you can even keep me on this stinking ship until the day I die, but you can’t force me to help you.”
Even though I trusted Namir, something in my chest cracked with relief to discover that Aliyah was alive and – from her tone at least – unharmed.
“Aliyah!” I rushed forward, blinking against the dark to make out the lines of a barred cage.
I stopped short. The stench was worse here. A bucket had been left in the corner, but Aliyah had obviously been really seasick. Even animals aren’t kept in this condition…
In spite of her unsavory lodgings, Aliyah straightened up, regarding me like a queen. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to check you were okay. Is that any way to thank me after I broke in to see you?” I waved the key before her.
“Is that my key?”
Realizing my mistake, I flushed and hastily pocketed the key again. “Never mind that. I’ve come to talk to you.”
Aliyah’s expression hardened. “Funny, I don’t feel much like talking at the moment.”
“Please, Aliyah,” I begged, glancing back at the door. “I don’t know how much time we have. And it’s important.”
She regarded me regally, crossing her arms. “I’ve got plenty of time to pass down here.”
“Aliyah,” I said beseechingly again. “It’s not my fault.”
“You’re the princess, aren’t you?” she said in an icy voice. “Your orders override that black-clad spymaster of yours.”
“It’ll look too suspicious if I ask them to let you out,” I bleated. “No one else knows we’re friends.”
Her gaze didn’t soften. “Do you usually treat your friends like this?”
I dropped my eyes to the floor, suddenly feeling very guilty. Was there a way I could persuade the others to let her out?
“What do you want, anyway?” Aliyah asked roughly.
I swallowed, glancing up at her again. “I need to know more about the vizier.”
The thief queen gave a catlike smile. “Ah. I wondered how long it would be before you asked me about her.”
“You can tell me more then?” My heart beat faster.
“I could. I’m just finding it hard to remember everything in these conditions.”
Guilt turned my stomach again.
“Tell you what, Z,” she purred, “let me out of this cage, just so I can stand up straight for a moment, and I’ll sing like a songbird for you. I promise, I’ll go back in again whenever you tell me to.”
I hesitated. Aliyah’s promises hadn’t always meant all that much in the past. But I needed to know about the vizier, and anyway, we were on a ship. She couldn’t go anywhere.
I retrieved the key from my pocket and unlocked the cage, stepping back sharply as Aliyah shoved her way out.
“Ahh.” She stretched her arms up above her head, her back letting out a loud crack as she did. “That’s much better.” She turned her dark, almond-shaped eyes on me. “Now,” she said cozily, “I think you have something of mine, friend.”
The key suddenly felt heavy in my pocket. “I can’t give you this,” I said in alarm, my hand curling around the cold, slim metal.
“Either you can give it to me now,” she said, her eyes narrowing, “or I’ll take it.”
&nbs
p; I took a step back – then spun around as the door behind me swung open, and Namir stepped into the small space.
He took one look at Aliyah, free from her prison, and stepped between us. “Zadie,” he said sharply. “Of all the foolish, irresponsible things to do–”
“Oh relax, spymaster,” Aliyah cut in, lounging back against the bars of her cage as though she were reclining on a throne. “Zadie and I were just having a little chat.”
I decided not to mention the key to Namir. The spymaster’s expression was hard, a predator sizing up its prey.
Noticing his gaze, Aliyah stretched out again, smirking as Namir’s eyes roved over her slim waist, then higher. “Like what you see, spymaster?”
Namir’s cheeks turned red. “I’d like it better if you were still behind those bars, where you can’t hurt anyone.”
“If I intended to hurt the princess, don’t you think I would have done so already?”
I waited for the biting retort. But instead Namir turned slowly to me with a horrified expression. “She knows that you’re the princess?”
Caught off guard, I floundered for an excuse. But my expression must have told Namir enough.
“Spirits, Zadie, what possessed you to tell this street rat who you are?”
“I didn’t mean–”
“Forget swordplay sessions with Elian, I ought to be schooling you in common sense. What else do I need to tell you? Not to give state secrets away?”
My temper flared, and I balled my hands into fists. “You don’t understand–” I caught sight of Aliyah, her fingers wrapped around the bars of the cage, and I made myself take a deep breath. I can have this fight with Namir later. “The point is, Aliyah didn’t tell anyone, did she?”
Namir’s brow furrowed and he spun back to look at the thief queen. She looked curiously at me, then turned her usual insolent smile back on the spymaster. The scowl returned to his face.
“Aliyah’s done nothing but help me all this time, Namir,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean for her to find out who I was. That was a – uh – things didn’t quite go as I expected at the Order of Scholars. But she’s known all this time, and she hasn’t told a soul. She has helped me out when I’ve gotten into the occasional spot of trouble…”
Palace of Wishes (2020 Reissue) Page 14