Then the light in my hand dashed across a figure curled up on one side, dark hair falling across her face, and I forgot everything else. Even though she looked like she wasn’t wholly there in this darkness. I could only make out the dirty white of her shirt and the darkness of her hair.
‘Shazad.’ I dropped next to her, relief rushing through me. I heard the sob in my own voice. She looked thinner, worn. And her eyes were shut. But she was breathing. I had to wake her up. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said to Shazad, leaning over her. I slapped her hard across the face. She came awake ready to fight – just not in any kind of state to. She flinched against the light. I’d never seen Shazad flinch at anything.
‘You’re not real.’ She shut her eyes. ‘You’re not real. You’re not real.’ She said it over and over again.
‘Come on.’ I forced lightness into my voice. ‘You know I wouldn’t lie to you.’
‘Prove it,’ her voice rasped, and she tucked her head further into the crook of her arm.
‘Will you believe I’m real if I can get us both out of here?’
Finally she opened her eyes, though they seemed unable to settle wholly on me, dancing unfocused across my face. ‘It would be a start.’
I glanced up at the opening far above us. I couldn’t see it through the inky blackness, but I knew we couldn’t be that far away. I wasn’t sure they would hear me if I shouted, though. And if they did and tossed us down more rope, what good would it be?
I only had one other idea. And it was an impossible one. Even if it was our only hope. I silently prayed that I had enough of my Djinni gift left.
‘Hang on to me,’ I urged Shazad. I closed my eyes, pouring all my concentration around me. There wasn’t much in this mountain – I could already tell. In here, stone had been melted hard and the dust was made mostly of iron. The desert was far away.
But sand got everywhere. It came with me all the way from the desert, through the mountain, stuck to my skin and in the folds of my clothes. It came trapped in the hair of the other prisoners and on the metal soles of the Abdals’ feet. There was no escaping it.
I took a slow, deep breath, fighting through the pain in my side. And I called it to me. All of it. Every single tiny grain of sand I could reach. I felt it start to shift above us, stirring and then scuttling towards me like hundreds of thousands of tiny insects moving across the cave floor.
It started to rain sand. Slowly at first, then more quickly, and suddenly sand was pouring in around us. I didn’t stop. I was too afraid to take a moment to breathe through the pain, too afraid that if I let it go I would lose it.
I gathered the sand up below us. I tried to think of water, the way Sam and Jin swam, the way they were able to make water lift them up when it seemed to want to drown them instead. I gathered the sand, surging it up around us with everything I had in me.
I felt the sand shift, and I doubled over in pain, gasping. But I knew I couldn’t let go, that if I did now, we would drown. I had to keep going. I had to. The sand poured in around us, lifting us higher and higher. I could see a sliver of light. I reached up, trying to grip the ledge, trying to find an escape from this place even as I felt the sand begin to drop away below me.
Then hands were on my wrists and on Shazad’s arms, pulling us out, and we collapsed on the ground. Solid ground.
I saw Shazad lying there, breathing hard, Rahim lifting her up even as Ahmed did the same for me. But she never looked away, her eyes locked on me, blinking blearily in the light.
‘All right,’ she conceded, ‘you’re real.’
I started to laugh. But instead I burst into tears. And I was embracing her and we were both talking at once. Spilling out weeks of words we’d been saving for each other.
I was so close to getting them to freedom. There were only two things standing between us and escape now: Ashra’s Wall and, according to Ahmed and the others, the soldiers on the other side.
Shazad filled me in as she led the way out of the tunnels.
‘There’s a small army camp just beyond Ashra’s Wall,’ she told me as we worked our way over unsteady ground. ‘That’s where they control the Abdals from and keep an eye on things.’ She was walking slowly, breathing hard, like she was already tired from the short walk. ‘We’re supposed to clear the debris of rocks that comes from hacking our way into a mountain, and empty them at the border of Ashra’s Wall where the soldiers can keep track of us. They’ll be suspicious that no one has come out in a while.’
‘I reckon they’ll be more than suspicious when everyone appears unchained,’ I said, casting around for Delila. She was walking with Ahmed and Rahim, both of them keeping a close eye on her. ‘Can Delila cover our escape?’
‘I don’t know.’ Shazad was nothing if not honest. She pulled herself up the slight incline, hanging on to the wall. ‘Everyone is a little worse for wear.’ She glanced over her shoulder. Zaahir was trailing far behind everyone else. ‘Your … new friend. He can help us, can’t he?’
He could, if he was so inclined. But getting Zaahir to cooperate was easier said than done, no matter what he’d promised. I slowed my pace, letting the rest of the prisoners draw ahead of me, until I’d fallen into step with Zaahir.
‘There are soldiers waiting on the other side of that wall. When we get through, I need …’ I stopped myself, choosing my words more carefully. ‘I want you to get us past them.’
Zaahir was watching me with those uncanny, inhuman eyes as I spoke. ‘I believe we had a deal, daughter of Bahadur: your people freed from Eremot for my freedom from you. Once all of them are through Ashra’s Wall, our deal is done.’
‘I’m planning on keeping my side of the bargain. But our deal isn’t done until they’re safe.’ I could see a light up ahead. Daylight. We must be almost out of the mountains. Or maybe it was just the light of Ashra’s Wall. But either way, we were close. ‘We’re not done yet.’
‘Ah,’ Zaahir said, cocking his head in that curious way, looking at me. ‘I see. And even after you are past those soldiers, we will not be done yet, will we?’ I didn’t say anything. He wasn’t wrong. After these soldiers on the mountain, there would be other fights to win. Other chances to lose everyone we had just saved. Fighting with a Djinni on our side … I wasn’t sure I could pass that chance up. ‘You want more.’ Zaahir nodded knowingly. ‘I believe you call that greed, don’t you? It’s the downfall of many, from what I hear. We never wanted anything before your kind came to this world, you know. We just had. But you take and you still want. You want your prince to take the throne, don’t you?’ I did. And I had made him swear that he would do what I wanted. And I wanted his help in this. I needed Ahmed to sit on that throne. I had given up too much for us to lose. We all had.
‘There is still a great battle ahead of you, isn’t there?’ Zaahir said. ‘One stray bullet, one blow, and your prince could be gone. And all this could be for nothing. Every single death. For nothing.’ Everything he was saying was everything I was afraid of. His words made me feel suddenly frantic. That we might have fought this hard but still lose Ahmed. That the whole of this rebellion rested on one very mortal man. ‘You want to save him. That is why you want to keep me imprisoned,’ Zaahir said. ‘Well, I can give you what you want.’
Zaahir pulled a knife from the sleeve of his shirt, making me draw back quickly. But he didn’t make a move to kill me. Instead he turned the knife over, extending the hilt to me. ‘Take it,’ he instructed.
‘I already have a knife,’ I said carefully. We were getting closer to the light, headed for the soldiers waiting on the other side. I needed to play out this game with Zaahir before we reached them, even though I didn’t understand it yet.