‘I’m not going to lie to you all.’ Ahmed looked around the kitchen crowded with rebels. ‘This is going to be a challenge.’ It was a good thing for morale that Ahmed wasn’t a Demdji. If he couldn’t lie, I was pretty sure he would’ve struggled to use the word challenge instead of, say, disaster.
We were two dozen or so packed to the rafters around Shazad’s kitchen, leaning against the colourful tiles that swirled around the walls like steam off a fine dish, our heads bumping pans that hung from the ceiling. Shazad stood next to Ahmed, at his right hand like she always did. Jin was leaning on the fireplace; if you didn’t know he was injured, you might not even guess he was using it for support. Sam had retreated to the back, letting his hand pass in and out of the wall absentmindedly.
I cradled the cup of strong coffee in my hands. I’d slept a few more restless hours, but not enough. There were faces that should have been here that weren’t, people who had died in the escape from the valley. There were new faces I didn’t know. Still, even in the strange setting, it felt just like it used to in Ahmed’s pavilion in the camp. We’d lost that home, but we were still fighting to make a new one.
The curtains in the kitchen were red, drawn against peeping eyes on the street. They turned the room bloody as the dawn.
A new dawn. A new desert.
‘We’re outnumbered,’ Ahmed said, ‘outmanoeuvred and outgunned.’
Jin caught my eye across the room, an eyebrow going up as if to say, Not much of an inspirational speech. I snorted.
‘And out-Demdjied, judging by those things at Auranzeb,’ someone muttered from the back. A ripple of assent went through the room. The rumours of the Abdals and their strange powers had spread frighteningly fast. Shazad said there were already signs of it snuffing what sparks of dissent we’d been able to ignite in the streets.
‘Yes, thank you, Yasir. And that’s where we start.’ Shazad took control easily as she stepped up to the table. Ahmed ceded the room to her. I had an image of Shazad next to Ahmed on the throne. As his Sultana as well as his general, her head dipped over some problem with a golden crown slipping down her brow. It would suit her. ‘We have three problems of pressing urgency right now, and thanks to our real Blue-Eyed Bandit, now returned to us – no offence,’ she tossed over her shoulder at Sam, ‘we might have solutions for them.’
‘Even if she did create one of those problems in the first place,’ Hala muttered.
I ignored her. As I stepped forward, eyes followed me. I might not have been back long but I’d already noticed the change. I wasn’t just the Blue-Eyed Bandit any more; I was the girl who had made it out of the palace alive, who had stood toe to toe with the Sultan and escaped. ‘The first problem is that we need an army, a true army that can go up against the Sultan’s. If we can forge an alliance with Lord Bilal, then we have a fighting force. We’ve arranged a meeting with Lord Bilal a few hours from now. Before dark. By the end of it, here’s hoping we’ll have an army.’
‘Assuming he hasn’t already fled the city,’ Hala added.
‘Did you get more pessimistic since I left,’ I asked, ‘or did I just forget what a pain in the ass you are?’
‘Well, you know what they say about absence making the heart grow fonder.’ Hala shot a fake smile my way. ‘Isn’t optimism what got you captured in the first place?’
‘Please keep in mind how many ways I know to kill you both if you don’t shut up,’ Shazad interrupted before we could descend into an all-out brawl. A laugh went around the room, lightening the weight of the mood.
‘Our second problem,’ Ahmed said, trying to get the room back on track, ‘is that even if we do get an army, we can only stand against another army of flesh and blood. Not one made out of mechanical parts and magic. Which is why we need to get Amani to that machine.’
‘And right now it’ll be too well defended. There’s no way we can get anywhere near it,’ Shazad said. ‘Not unless we draw the Sultan and his whole army away from guarding it. Which, as it turns out, wars are very useful tools for.’
Everyone stared at Shazad. ‘Are you suggesting we start a war just to get Amani into the palace?’ someone said from the back of the room.
‘No,’ Shazad said. ‘We need to start a war anyway. I’m suggesting we use the war to make our odds of winning a little better by giving Amani the opportunity to sneak into the palace.’
Even if I could get inside I wouldn’t be able to deactivate the machine without the right words to free the Djinn in the first language. Words not even Tamid knew.
‘Bringing us to our final problem,’ Ahmed pressed on. ‘Which is that Amani is currently … incapacitated.’ That settled the room soon enough. I self-consciously rubbed the spot on my arm where I could feel one of the pieces of iron sewed into my flesh. It was like prodding at a loose tooth. An instinct, a tic, feeling that little shoot of pain when I pressed it in, reminding myself this wasn’t truly part of me. Reminding me I was useless with my body riddled with iron scars.
‘Where are we on finding a Holy Man we can trust?’ Shazad asked, leaning her knuckles on the table. ‘Someone to cut the iron out of Amani?’ I knew what the words cost her. In the months since Bahi had died, I didn’t know if I’d truly heard Shazad talk so plainly about Holy Fathers. Not even when I’d been shot through the stomach. But then again, I had been unconscious for most of that.
‘More or less exactly where we were the last three times you asked me that,’ said Sam. He was on edge. ‘Holy Men are largely in the pockets of your Sultan. They’d all sell you out in a heartbeat sooner than they’d help you.’
And Tamid couldn’t be trusted not to stick a blade in me either, given how he felt about the Rebellion.
‘Can’t we take a chance?’ I rubbed my finger along my forearm, worrying at the piece of metal below there. I wanted to claw it out of my skin myself.
‘No,’ Jin said without hesitation, speaking for the first time. Everyone’s head swivelled towards him. Jin didn’t tend to speak up at war meetings, unless he had something that needed saying. Which meant folk tended to listen. Only there was an uneasiness among the rebels now. He hadn’t disappeared on just me. He’d abandoned the whole Rebellion. ‘We’re not taking chances with you.’
‘So either we find someone,’ I concluded, ‘or I’ve got to walk into the palace more or less defenceless.’
‘Welcome back to being human,’ Shazad said. ‘I’ll get you some guns.’
*
‘Sam.’ I caught him as the kitchen emptied He was peeling an orange stolen out of one of the baskets hanging from the ceiling. ‘I need your help.’ I stopped speaking as Shazad brushed past me, calling out to someone quickly about the weapons supply. That earned me a raised eyebrow from Sam.
‘Something your general can’t help you with?’
I lowered my voice as I pulled him into an out-of-the-way corner. ‘I think I know somebody who might be able to help get the iron out of my skin. Not a Holy Man. A woman. My aunt.’
Sam paused, orange wedge halfway to his mouth. ‘The woman who drugged you and kidnapped you and sold you to the harem? Yes, she seems very trustworthy.’
‘Please, Sam, I need help. You walked in and out of the harem at will for months. You have no idea what it’s like to be in there and feel powerless to leave or defend yourself.’ I tugged up my shirt, showing the scar on my hip, the same one I’d shown him the first time we met. ‘This happened even when I had my power. If I have to, I’ll walk into the palace again without it, but I’m twice as likely to get killed doing that and you know it. But I’d take just about any risk not to. Now, will you help me?’
Sam considered, peeling off another piece of the orange. ‘How much?’
‘How much what?’
‘How much are you going to pay me to find your oh-so-very-trustworthy aunt?’
My shoulders sagged. ‘Really? After all this, you want to keep pretending you’re doing it for the money?’