I stepped back just as Delila stormed out of the study, the door hitting the wall loudly enough to wake half the house. She didn’t even see me as she pushed her way down the hallway. I waited until she was out of sight before I stepped into the light on the threshold.
Ahmed’s head shot up as my shadow crossed into the study. It had been resting on his palms, his elbows propped on the desk. His gaze struggled to focus on me. There was an empty bottle next to him. I wondered how full it’d been when he started.
‘Amani.’ He stretched up, and the candlelight travelled across his face, flicking one side into light then the other, so he looked like two people. I’d never seen Ahmed drunk before, I realised. ‘If you’re here to do the selfless thing and offer yourself up to Lord Bilal for an army, I’m afraid my sister just beat you to it.’
‘Doing the selfless thing doesn’t sound a whole lot like me.’ I sank down into the chair across from him without being invited.
‘Jin would never forgive me if I were to let you go.’ Ahmed shook his head. ‘If I let Delila go, he won’t, either, but I’ll probably never forgive myself, so at least we’ll both hate me equally then.’ Let you go, he said. Not make you go. Ahmed was my ruler; he could order me to do the selfless thing. To surrender myself instead of his sister. But that hadn’t even crossed his mind.
Because he wasn’t his father.
There had been moments in the palace when that had frightened me. That he might not be strong enough, knowledgeable enough, that he might be too idealistic. But that was what Miraji needed. Miraji needed a ruler like Ahmed. I was just afraid that a ruler like Ahmed could never seize the country from a ruler like the Sultan.
‘It should be easy, shouldn’t it? One person for an entire country. My sister or an army.’
‘No,’ I said. I thought of the ease with which the Sultan had ordered an execution. ‘I don’t think ruling is ever supposed to be easy. But, what if there was another way?’
‘To win the Rebellion without an army?’ He cast me a wan smile. ‘With more riots and lost lives? More cities falling out of my hands like Saramotai? With a death count rising as my father creates machines to make slaughter easy?’
‘No. What if there was another way to gain control over the army from Iliaz?’
Ahmed looked up at me, a flicker of hope on his face.
‘Rahim,’ I said. ‘He was commander of Iliaz’s army before Bilal was ever the emir. They know him. They respect him.’ I thought of how easily his soldiers had fallen into line when Rahim had ordered them against Kadir the day the Gallan ambassador almost strangled me. ‘I think they would follow him. With or without Bilal’s consent.’
‘Are you suggesting we send Imin—’
‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘Imin might be able to take his shape, but wouldn’t be able to take Rahim’s place.’
‘Imin’s done it before,’ Ahmed said. ‘Impersonated someone for us.’
‘Not for so long. You don’t think that if Imin walked into camp with your face and started giving us orders, everyone would notice it wasn’t you quicker than anything? We need the real Rahim. No more tricks, just a good old-fashioned rescue.’
Ahmed leaned back in his chair. ‘Is that the only reason you want to save him?’
‘I don’t like leaving people behind.’ Especially not people whom I owed my life to.
‘Amani, with the whole city looking over their shoulders and Abdals patrolling the streets every night … this sounds like a suicide mission.’ Ahmed rubbed his eyes. ‘And we’re going to need the others here if we’re planning one of those.’
Chapter 44
It was dawn before we had a plan that wouldn’t end with us all dying by Abdal fire.
We started looking for the most likely place to intercept the transport taking Rahim out of the city. We needed to get to it before it left Izman. Fighting in the confined space of the city streets was to our advantage; if it got out into open ground, we didn’t stand a chance. Sam stepped through the wall as we all stood craned over a map of Izman. There was an ugly bruise on his cheek that hadn’t been there last time I saw him.
‘Where’d you get that?’ Shazad asked, distracted for a moment.
‘A friend,’ Sam said cagily before joining us around the table. He shot me a meaningful glance I couldn’t quite read. And then it was gone. ‘What are we doing?’ he asked. ‘Picking out summer homes?’
‘Picking a good place for an ambush,’ I said. The Sultan was sending Rahim’s transport across the city with human guards and Abdals alike. We weren’t worried about the mortal soldiers. Hala could take care of them. And if she couldn’t, bullets could.
The Abdals were a different story.
We needed Leyla.
She was messy with sleep when she was brought before us in chains. But her eyes were wide and awake and frightened. Even though she wasn’t so much younger than us, she looked like a child standing across from Shazad.
‘Leyla.’ My friend leaned on the desk. ‘Think very hard about the answer you are going to give me before you speak. Is there a way to stop the Abdals? Any way you can think of?’
Leyla’s eyes darted around the room nervously, between me and Imin, and the men who were her flesh and blood without being her true brothers. ‘I’m not sure—’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want anyone else to get hurt if I’m wrong.’ Her voice was thick with unshed tears. I resisted the urge to comfort her. There’d be someone to feel sorry for her if we rescued Rahim. Until then she was going to have to grow up.
‘This is your brother’s life at stake, Leyla,’ I said. ‘He would’ve done anything to save you. The least you can do is try to save him.’
She chewed nervously on her lower lip. I couldn’t tell if she was looking for an answer or if she already knew it and was deciding whether to tell us. ‘You could try destroying the word.’
‘The word?’ Ahmed asked.
‘The one that gives them life. It channels the Djinn’s fire into their spark. I put it inside their feet.’ Leyla shifted nervously. ‘It was the hardest place for anyone to do them damage,’ she said. ‘They look like people so folk will naturally aim for their heads or their hearts. Who would think to aim for a foot?’
‘That’s smart,’ Shazad admitted. ‘And very inconvenient for us.’
‘Do you think they could be fooled by an illusion?’ I asked. ‘Not like Hala climbing into their heads; like a veil.’ Like one of Delila’s illusions. But I didn’t mention her by name. It would be an argument to take Delila with us if the answer was yes and that was not an argument we’d be having in front of Leyla.
‘They might,’ she admitted. ‘Do you have someone here who can cast illusions like that?’
‘Thank you, Leyla.’ Ahmed’s voice carried dismissal. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’
Ahmed looked at me as Leyla was led back away, steeling himself.
I was ready for a fight. ‘You can’t protect her forever, Ahmed; we need Delila—’
‘I know.’ He held up a hand to stop me. ‘I know I can’t protect her forever. So I will count on you two to do it.’ Ahmed rubbed his hand tiredly across his face. ‘Get some rest before you go save my brother.’
*
Sam hung back with me as the others made their way to their beds even as the sun made its way into the sky. Jin cast a look back for me, but I waved him on.
‘I found your aunt,’ Sam said when we were out of earshot of the others. ‘She is in a very fine set of rooms above a gold merchant’s, living beyond the means of a simple medicine trader, by all accounts. It made her easy to find.’ She was living off the gold she’d traded me for. It was a sort of poetic justice that it had allowed Sam to find her.
‘Fine.’ I shook my head. It was heavy with sleep and too many plans, too many things that could go wrong in rescuing Rahim. ‘We can go in a few days and—’
‘If you do that, you’ll be finding an empty house,’ Sam said, interrupting me. ‘She’s packing up her life and leaving the city tomorrow. A lot of people are. Too much unrest in the city. And now the curfew. Cities are never a good place to be in times of war.’
Of course. It’d sounded too much like good luck to be true.
‘So we’d have to go tonight to have a stab at getting her to cut the iron out of me.’
I would need more than Sam’s help for that.