‘What happened to his other translator?’ I asked through what I hoped was a deceptively polite smile.
‘He came down with a bad case of broken ribs this afternoon.’ Jin winked at me over the prince’s head, which was still bowed in front of me. ‘The prince has a weakness for beautiful women so it wasn’t all that hard to steer him over to you. Say something back, as if I’ve been translating to you.’
I hadn’t seen Jin in two months. And last time we’d been fighting and his hands had been inside my clothes, and his mouth over mine. There were months of unspilled words between us. Not to mention I probably ought to let him know that as soon as the last of the light that was currently stretching our shadows faded, there was the small matter of freeing a whole lot of Djinn. There was too much to say and too little time, and it was too hard to spill it all through a polite smile. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ I asked finally, through a forced smile at Prince Bao, as if I was talking to him and not demanding an explanation through my teeth.
I didn’t catch Jin’s expression as he turned away from me and said something quick in Xichian. I recognised it as some sort of polite platitude. The man said something back, nodding and smiling, handing it to Jin to translate. And finally Jin could turn back to me.
‘I was looking for you.’ His right hand was still curled into a fist, bouncing tensely against his leg.
‘Well, that was stupid,’ I said, and Jin stifled a laugh as I pressed my lips together and tried to radiate politeness at the foreign man who seemed to think I didn’t know he was staring at my chest. ‘I was right here.’
‘Yes, Shazad has already gone into great detail about my choices.’
‘Shazad knows you’re here?’
It was starting to get dark. It wouldn’t be long before need tore us apart again. ‘In Izman, yes. Here in the palace … less so.’ Then there it was. That smile that pulled me into trouble straight after him. I fought the impulse to return it. ‘You’d better say something back to your prince.’
Jin said something quick in Xichian; I only caught the edges of it, but it sounded like he was telling him that Mirajin wasn’t so economic a language as Xichian. He barely waited for Prince Bao’s answer before turning back to face me. ‘I came to make sure you leave this place tonight. Even if we don’t manage to get anyone else out, you’re coming with us. Do you understand?’
A smile pulled at my mouth in spite of myself. I ignored the grin Prince Bao gave me back, clearly thinking I was smiling for him. ‘Are you saying you’re here to rescue me?’
Jin raised a shoulder. ‘Well, when you put it that way …’
I wanted to reach out to him. More than anything. I wanted to fold into him. I wanted to remind him that this was a war. That we could fight and run and stay together all we wanted, but we weren’t always going to be able to keep each other safe. ‘Jin—’
‘A Demdji and a budding diplomat, I see.’ The new voice sent pinpricks down my spine before I could answer. We’d been so wrapped up in our covert conversation that I hadn’t noticed the Sultan approach. The Sultan placed a hand on my back.
Needles climbed the length of my spine. I felt Jin’s tension, and he turned it quickly into a bow. Prince Bao followed suit. And then he rose, and I watched Jin stand face-to-face with his father for the first time since he’d been a child in the harem.
I knew exactly what he saw because it was what I had seen: Ahmed aged by another two decades. His brother, our prince, and our enemy becoming muddled into one. But I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he felt, having to stand toe to toe with the man who had bought his mother and enslaved her in his harem. Who had killed his brother’s mother with his bare hands. Who had taken me. And having to smile politely.
Don’t lose your head, I willed silently under my breath. Not now. Don’t get us both killed.
And then he bowed his head in front of his father and, keeping the smile fixed on his face, he made the introduction, presenting the Xichian prince to the Sultan with a long string of titles as Prince Bao nodded along deliberately.
‘You speak Mirajin very well,’ the Sultan said in compliment to Jin when he was done, barely sparing a glance at the foreign prince. I held my breath. The stories spoke of Ahmed and Delila disappearing into the night as if by magic. But the stories were only a sliver of the truth, twisted after passing across so many tongues.
The Sultan was a smart man. I’d learned that much here. Surely he must’ve known how the two of them really escaped. He must have figured out that the Xichian woman who’d disappeared the same night as his son and the Demdji baby had been responsible. Surely he remembered that, while the stories had forgotten him, there had been another son who had vanished that night, too.
But if he did, none of it showed on his face.
And nothing showed on Jin’s. ‘Thank you,’ he said in his perfect Mirajin. ‘Your Majesty does me a great honour.’
But the Sultan wasn’t done with him yet. ‘Your mother was Mirajin, perhaps?’
Don’t lie. I’m standing right here. Don’t lie. If he asks me I can’t lie for you.
‘My father, Your Exalted Highness.’
The Sultan nodded. ‘If you will excuse me,’ he said to Jin, extending an arm for me. ‘I need to steal Amani.
If your prince doesn’t mind, of course.’
I knew Jin well enough to see what the idea of letting me go did to him. That he’d rather square off against his father right here in the middle of the garden than let me walk away with our enemy. With the man who’d already taken me from him the first time.
Jin inclined his head slightly. ‘Of course, Your Exalted Highness. I will make your apologies to Prince Bao.’ The Xichian prince’s head bobbed along cheerfully, oblivious to the tension around him.
And then the Sultan was clasping my arm in his, ignoring the gold dust from my arm rubbing off onto his sleeve, and I had no choice but to follow him away from Jin, and not look back.
‘You shouldn’t be on your own,’ he said as he led me away. ‘There are a great many enemies of your kind here tonight. I had asked Rahim to watch you.’
‘He found an old friend of his from Iliaz.’ It was as good as I could give him.
‘He found more than that, by the looks of things.’ He gave a pointed look to where Lord Bilal, Rahim, and Shazad were still deep in conversation. That he’d noticed that at all made me nervous as anything. ‘He found a pretty face.’ My chest eased a little. So long as he didn’t suspect Shazad and Rahim of doing any more than flirting, then we didn’t have to worry. ‘Though I suspect that one could be a match for him in wits as well.’
I’d watched Shazad get underestimated time and time again. Even Rahim had doubted her value tonight, in spite of my word. It frightened me that the Sultan had sized her up so easily.
‘Why am I here?’ I asked, trying to draw his attention away from my wayward guardian and my friend. ‘If it’s so dangerous.’
‘Because …’ The Sultan stopped walking. We’d come to an alcove in a wall of the garden, shielded from the crowd. ‘You asked me why we must renew our alliances with foreign powers who place their own countries over Miraji. I want you to have the answer to that question, Amani.’ He released my arm. ‘Stay here.’ The order didn’t come with the old pull. But the Sultan didn’t know that. As far as he knew, I’d grow roots.
The Sultan stepped up onto the raised platform in the garden. The tension that had been rising in my chest since dawn was nearly bursting me. Night was falling around us and nobody had lit any lamps around the garden to ward against it. The only light came from the lamps strung above the platform, plunging the crowd into darkness.
It was almost too perfect a cover to slip out under.