I understood what he was saying. ‘If I disable the machine and release Fereshteh’s power, you reckon there’s a chance it’ll destroy me.’ Tamid didn’t need to answer. I understood why he wouldn’t meet my eye now. No matter how complicated our history was, it didn’t mean either of us wanted to see the other dead.
I glanced down at the destruction of Abbadon again, in the open book. I could see it clearly, all that fire from Fereshteh’s soul, unleashed from the Gamanix machine Leyla had made, burning everything in those vaults. Including me. I tried to wrap my tired mind around that. My own death. But it seemed far away right now. There were a whole lot of other things that could possibly get me killed before I risked being burned alive by Djinni fire. Right now, amid uncooperative princesses and threats of dying girls, it seemed like some remote nagging issue. ‘One problem at a time, Tamid.’ I ran my hand over my face, trying to scrub away my exhaustion. ‘Right now, there’s someone scheduled to die before me. And we’ve got to try to save her.’
Chapter 6
It wasn’t easy to move through the streets of Izman in the dark during curfew, with Abdals patrolling the streets. In fact, it was impossible for most people. But we weren’t most people. We were Demdji. And by the time the sky started to lighten behind the wall of fire, we had managed to make our way to the outskirts of the palace.
We stayed hidden until the streets finally began to fill around us, until finally the square in front of the palace was busy enough to hide us in plain sight. We moved out into the open, taking our places among the people of Izman. There was an unusual restlessness to the crowd. They had gathered here just yesterday for the Sultim trials, which we’d interrupted. But today they didn’t know what they were going to see, an execution or a hostage exchange. I glanced at the faces around me as I pushed through the crowd. Something felt different today than it had for Ahmed’s execution, or Shira’s. Both of them had been accused of crimes. They’d been brought before the crowd to face what passed for justice in the Sultan’s world. This time, though, whoever appeared on that stage would be unquestionably innocent, standing there for crimes that were not her own. And I saw, in some of the grimly pressed-together mouths and downcast eyes, that I wasn’t the only one who recognised that.
But still, the people of Izman crowded in, even as the shadows of night retreated. We had split up: Jin and I at two different vantage points with guns at our hips, Izz and Maz in the shapes of starlings, perched on a rooftop nearby, Hala at the back so she could keep everyone in view. The way we saw it, our biggest threat was the Abdals. They were the reason I hadn’t been able to save Imin. Hala’s illusions didn’t work on them. And besides, they could burn us alive if we got too close. Shooting them through their metal chests didn’t work – we had to destroy the word inscribed on their heels that gave them life. Which Leyla had helpfully covered with metal armour. I was hoping a jaguar’s claws could prise those off – Izz would take care of that. Then either Jin or I would take the shot, depending on which one of us was closer. And then, under Hala’s illusion, Maz could swoop down and pick the girl up in his talons. It wasn’t a foolproof plan, but it was better than nothing, which was what we’d had when Imin died right in front of us.
I shifted restlessly, watching the place where Imin and Shira had both lost their lives. Finally dawn broke in earnest. All eyes were fixed on the stage now, waiting for the appearance of the girl who would die for our crimes. Minutes passed slowly as I touched the gun by my side over and over, making sure it was still there. But there was no movement from the palace. The doors didn’t swing open, there was no sign of an Abdal and a struggling girl.
‘Do you think the princess was sent home?’ a voice asked in the crowd behind me.
‘Maybe it was a bluff,’ another voice considered. But I knew that neither of those could be true. So what was the Sultan waiting for?
I caught movement from the corner of my eye. Not on the stage, but up above us and to the side, on the palace walls. When I glanced up, there was nothing there at first, and for a moment I thought I was seeing things, a trick of the light. But something kept my eyes fixed on that point on the wall, as if I could see through stone by sheer force of will.
And then the Sultan stepped into view, holding a girl around the waist.
He cut an impressive figure in the dawn light, dressed in a scarlet kurti with a bright gold sheema draped around his neck: the colours of blood shed over a dawn sky. He was flanked by his Abdals, the bronze of their artificial skin glinting in the sunlight. The rush of anger and hatred and humiliation was almost too much to take. Like it might send me doubling over.
The young girl was dressed in white nightclothes that whipped and twisted around her legs in the morning air, her dark hair falling around her shoulders in a wild tumble. She would’ve looked leached of all colour, if it wasn’t for the flash of red at her neck. For a moment I feared her throat had already been slashed and she was being brought out here to die slowly. But no, it wasn’t blood, just a bright red cloth. From far away it looked like a sheema thrown loosely around her neck as any desert girl might wear it. But there was another flash of red identical to it, tied around the crenellations of the palace walls. The same walls that Jin and I had jumped from in the chaos of Auranzeb, trusting a rope to get us to safety. But this rope wasn’t securing her.
He wasn’t going to execute her on the stage. He was going to hang her.
My heart started to beat frantically as I cast around, looking for the others. I couldn’t reach her up there. I desperately searched for the twins to give them a sign to forget the plan and fly to the walls of the palace. But we’d split ourselves up, scattering through the crowd that now hid the others from me.
I was on my own. And I was too far away.
I started to move all the same, pushing my way through the mass of gawkers, praying I might be able to get close enough to the twins to call out to them, or to Hala to tell her to draw something up in the Sultan’s mind that would stall him. Or even close enough to fire off a shot, a bullet straight between the Sultan’s eyes. To do something other than watch a girl die. But the crowd fought against me like I was trying to push my way upstream in a raging river. Around me faces started to turn upwards, noticing that something was happening high above us.
The Sultan stepped up to the very edge of the palace walls.
I was close enough to see that the girl was shaking and crying as she stood on the precipice. Close enough to see the Sultan turn her away from him, towards the rising sun. To see him lean over the girl and whisper something in her ear. To see the girl squeeze her eyes shut.
But too far away to do anything.