‘There were easier ways than this, of course.’ The Sultan took a step towards us, his four Abdals following in one perfectly timed military step, forcing the crying girl forwards. I resisted the urge to take a step back. We couldn’t move from here, not if we wanted at least a chance at getting out alive. ‘Someone must have suggested returning Leyla to me dead.’ He was using that infuriatingly patient voice, like he was my father teaching me something that was very important for me to understand.
Hala helpfully raised her hand. ‘Oh, believe me, I did. So, so many times.’ The illusion changed in the blink of an eye, the way a scene changed without explanation in a nightmare. She wasn’t a living, breathing Leyla any more but Leyla’s body, hanging from the ceiling with a long red rope, just like the three girls who hung from the walls of the palace, her feet scraping along the tiles below her as she swung. But the Sultan just stared dispassionately at the illusion. It didn’t matter how real it appeared, it wasn’t enough to move him. Instead, his attention turned back to me.
‘You had good counsel. And you didn’t listen.’ He sounded like he’d expected as much. As if he’d had absolutely no fear of his daughter dying at my hands. ‘That’s why you lost, you know – trying to play at heroes.’
‘We haven’t lost yet.’ I meant to fire it back at him, but I knew I sounded like a child stomping my foot. And he was baiting me into delays. Almost baiting me into telling him our secret: that Ahmed was still alive. We were running out of time. The day was nearly finished breaking. The dawn bells would start soon – our signal for Sam to get us out of here. And we needed to get the girl out first. ‘Now, I’m going to ask you again: let Fariha go, for your own good.’
There was a long moment of silence as the Sultan considered me. I could almost hear the moments dropping away, sand running too quickly through the hourglass. Counting down the precious seconds until we would be pulled out of here, leaving Fariha behind. Then, finally, he nodded, conceding a small loss to my move. ‘Release her,’ he commanded the Abdal. Immediately its metal hands loosened. The girl stumbled out of the machine’s grasp, eyes wide and terrified. And then she ran, bolting towards the door and safety.
I’d meant to keep my eyes on the Sultan. But I couldn’t help it. I had to watch her go. I turned my head just a little, to see her step over the threshold to safety. It was a mistake. I knew it as soon as I heard the click, like a bullet slipping into place before it shoots you.
My head snapped around to see a small sphere, no bigger than a child’s ball but made of metal and gears, roll towards us, coming alive with a sickening whirring noise. It was one of Leyla’s inventions.
I was reaching for my gun when the explosion came. Not of fire and gunpowder, of dust. Suddenly a grey cloud enveloped us. I inhaled before I could think better of it and tasted the metallic tang. I realised what it was, even as I glanced over at Hala and saw her as she was, all illusions gone, just a golden-skinned girl doubled over, coughing violently.
Iron dust. It was a bomb of iron dust that the Sultan had thrown at us, draining our powers for as long as any of it clung to our skin, our tongues, our throats.
‘Hold them,’ he ordered, and I heard the whirr of the Abdals as they started to move. I yanked my sheema up quickly, shielding myself from inhaling any more and covering my eyes as best I could. I might be powerless for now, but I hadn’t come unarmed either.
I saw a glint of bronze through the cloud of dust, and I dived, knife in hand, swinging for the heel. The blade plunged through soft bronze, mangling the word below that powered the Abdal, sending it slumping over. I felt a metal hand on my shoulder. I moved like Shazad had taught me. I wasn’t nearly as good with a knife as she was, but I had the upper hand just long enough to slice the Abdal’s arm open savagely before I yanked my gun out of its holster and shot the mechanical solder in the foot. It collapsed as I rounded away from it, pushing my way out of the cloud of iron dust.
I turned, ready to face the next opponent. Instead I saw the Sultan standing a few feet away from me, his arm braced around Hala, holding her firm against him, a knife at her throat. Just like I’d held her while she wore the illusion of Leyla’s face.
She was helpless, her golden skin covered in clinging iron dust, turning its sheen a mottled grey. I’d never seen anyone look so furious and so frightened at the same time.
I held the gun pointed towards him. It didn’t shake, even though my heart was hammering out a violent beat.
‘Go ahead. Kill me,’ the Sultan taunted. ‘Then what, Amani? With our enemy at the gates and a city without a ruler or an heir, how do you think that will end? Conquest or civil war?’ He was right and I knew it. But my gun wasn’t pointed at him anyway. I was aiming at Hala.
Because we had a deal. She’d made me promise. An unbreakable Demdji promise.
Last night, in the dark, in our shared room, we’d agreed that if it all went wrong, neither of us would leave the other to be used against the rest of us. The Sultan could do a whole lot more harm with a Demdji under his control than just hanging girls from the palace walls.
It had reminded me of a thousand and one conversations Shazad and I had in our tent back in the rebel camp. It felt safer to talk in the dark somehow. Like we could confess anything there. Trust each other with our lives.
I caught her eyes, dark in her beautiful golden face. Her lips moved ever so slightly. Do it.
Now in the cold light of dawn I wondered if it had been a trick, her Djinn side showing itself as she fooled me into agreeing to this. As if either one of us might surrender her life for this. When really she knew only one of us truly risked dying here. When she knew she had no gun, no fight in her if this went wrong, when she knew she was going to throw herself at the Sultan to spare me. When what she really wanted was assurance that I wouldn’t leave her behind to be used again like she had once been.
My hand started to shake, and I saw the sunlight dance over the end of my pistol.
The Sultan was saying something else, something I didn’t hear. All I could see were Hala’s lips moving, mouthing what she wanted me to do. She couldn’t speak into my mind, not with the iron still clinging to her skin. But I could almost hear her all the same.
I was running low on time, but still I hesitated until the last possible moment, my mind scrambling for any other way out of this. I wasn’t going to pull the trigger until I absolutely had to.
In the grip of our enemy, on the brink of death, Hala rolled her eyes at me. And I heard her words from earlier, clear as a bell in my head.
Oh, don’t tell me now is when you decide to turn coward on me. Your guts are one of the things that I actually like about you.
And then the bells in the great prayer house chimed. That was our signal and that meant I was out of time. There was no other way out of this for Hala. I had to keep my promise.
Everything happened at once.
I sucked in a deep breath and held it.
Hala smiled.
My finger squeezed the trigger.
I closed my eyes, too. It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t miss.
A gunshot echoed around the cavernous gold dome just as hands closed over my feet. I felt the floor give way below me, like it was turning to water. I couldn’t help it – I opened my eyes for a fraction of a second even as I sank quickly through the floor. Even as the moment that it would be too late rushed towards us. I had to see. I had to make sure I hadn’t broken my promise.
She was slumped in the Sultan’s arms, red blood smearing her still-smiling face. Her fingers dragged on the floor. Only eight of them. That was how I knew she was dead. If she was living she would be trying to hide that wound, one way or another. Like she always did.
For a moment as I sank, my eye caught on the broken Abdal. And I realised Hala looked the same, her glowing gold skin like their polished bronze. If she’d been left alive she would have been just like them, a thing to be used. A mechanical Demdji.