Tamid smiled gamely. “Sure, where are we going?” He figured I was joking. I didn’t answer. I just held up my bag for him to see. It registered on his face slowly. “Amani . . .” There was an edge to the way he said my name, like he needed to have enough fear for the pair of us. “You’re likely to get yourself hanged.”
“I’m just as likely to die here.” I pulled him aside, out of the crowd, next to the schoolhouse so we were out of the way. Wild recklessness had been building in my bones for hours. Days. Weeks. Years. And it filled up too much of me to let in anything else just now. “And they could do a lot worse than hang me.” The truth came out in a rush as the celebrations carried on around us. Everything—about my uncle, Jin, and Fazim, and how Jin left without taking me with him, and how Fazim blackmailed me to wind up wed or dead if I stayed. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to wed anyone. Not him. Not my uncle.
“And in what part of this brilliantly thought-out plan were you going to tell me you were leaving?” He looked wounded.
“I didn’t think . . .” I swallowed hard against the guilt welling up. I hadn’t really thought. That was the truth of it. There’d been no time to think. No room to think about anything other than Fazim and getting away. “You weren’t ever going to come, Tamid,” I said softly. “You’re only going to try to make me stay, and I’m in too much trouble to stay.”
“You wouldn’t be in trouble if you’d just stayed put instead of running off to the pistol pit in the first place. Why didn’t you talk to me? We could’ve figured something out together, you and I. Why do you always—” Tamid bit off his words in a breathy huff. “You always have to make things so difficult.” A long silence stretched out between us in place of the argument we’d had a hundred times. “I know what to do.” Tamid wasn’t looking at me. In the shadow of the house cast by the swinging lamplight, it was hard to read his expression. I cast my eyes around nervously, keeping my eyes out for any sign of Fazim. “You could—you could marry me.”
That pulled my attention back. “What?”
“Fazim can’t do anything if you’re already wed.” He looked so terribly earnest, it made me want to reach out to him. “I could keep you safe. From him. From the army. From your family. You wouldn’t even have to live under Farrah’s roof anymore. I’d been figuring I’d ask your uncle anyway.” He couldn’t quite meet my eyes, he looked faintly embarrassed. “Once you were a bit older. I didn’t want to pounce as soon as your mother had been dead a year. I wanted to give you time. But I’d never let him wed you, Amani, if you’d told me. This would just mean asking him for you a bit sooner.”
He’d been planning on asking to marry me? For how long? The notion had never crossed my mind. I’d figured he’d always understood that I was planning on leaving. Or maybe he’d just thought I’d never make it.
“Tamid.” I lowered my voice, unsure of what to say. I didn’t know how to explain what I wanted. Not when our ideas were so at odds.
Fazim appeared through the crowd. He wasn’t alone. Gold-and-white army uniforms trailed behind him, parting the crowd.
My stomach leapt into my mouth as I plastered myself into the shadows. Tamid glanced over his shoulder. He saw what I did. When he turned back he must’ve read my answer all over my face. I couldn’t stay. He couldn’t keep me safe. “Go.”
“Tamid . . .” I didn’t want to leave with him angry at me. But he wasn’t angry enough to want me dead.
“Go!”
For once I did as I was told.
The street was thick with the crowds. I dodged around Old Rafaat leaning heavily on his granddaughter’s arm and shoved past a stranger who was playing a sitar out of tune before colliding with the side of my uncle’s house. I was steps from the stables. If I could get to the Buraqi—
“There you are!” Aunt Farrah yanked me around to face her. For the first time the cold fury in her face didn’t reach me. She was going to scream at me for my smart mouth, for knocking over her daughter, for not helping with dinner for all I knew. It might’ve mattered this morning, but I was long past caring now.
“Let me go.” I tried to tug my arm free, but her grip tightened.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Away.” I stopped struggling, facing her head-on. “Out of this town and away from you. You don’t want me here. You don’t want your husband wanting me.” Her fingers dug in. “And I don’t want your husband or anyone else having me.” I darted a look over my shoulder, couldn’t see anyone through the crowd. But it was a damn small town. Fazim would find me. “Just let me go and I’ll leave.” I turned back to Aunt Farrah. The hatred that she usually wore had slipped. I was right and she knew it. In this we were allies. “Please.”
Her fingers loosened.
Too late. Uniform-clad arms clamped around me and I was lifted off my feet with an involuntary cry. I was half dragged back around the house into the street. The celebrations had quieted, revelry turning to panic as the army penned folks back against houses in a line. Soldiers marched down the street, lanterns held high, checking every man’s face.
“Search all the houses and see if he’s there.” I recognized the clipped, careful accent of young Commander Naguib. He walked through our town like he owned the whole damn place.
Jin was wanted for treason. As a mercenary, they claimed. They didn’t send so many men to bring in traitors for pay. So either they weren’t here for Jin or he was a lot more than a mercenary.
The soldier holding me dropped me in front of the young commander, who gave me a once-over before turning to Fazim over his shoulder. “This is her?”
“Yes. She was with the foreigner in Deadshot.” The swinging lamplight made Fazim ugly as he hovered over the commander’s shoulder. I’d been afraid before, but this was a new sort of terror. “She was working with him. She’s the Blue-Eyed Bandit.”
A soldier snorted from the edge of the lamplight. “From the pistol pit? This girl?”
“He’s an idiot.” I found my voice. I was trying to be brave. But it was Fazim’s word against mine. They were going to believe a man over a girl any day.
The commander grabbed my chin and held the lantern so close to my head, I figured he was going to burn me. “You have lovely eyes.” It was no use pretending anymore. I’d been betrayed by my own face. “Now, where is our foreign friend?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be here answering stupid questions.” His hand connected with my cheek so hard, I was afraid that he’d snapped my neck, only I was too surprised to die. Pain echoed in my teeth and bones.
“Where is he?” The commander’s voice wormed its way through the ringing in my ears. I was only still standing because a soldier was holding me up. I struggled to find the ground again. The commander grabbed my chin. “Tell me.” There was a gun at my temple. “Or I will shoot you in the head.”
My jaw hurt, but I made it work. “Well, that wouldn’t be real clever, because then you’d never get to hear what I’ve got to say.” The click of a bullet slotting into the chamber of a gun was a noise I knew like my own voice. I’d just never heard it so close to my ear.