“You’ve seen it?” Shazad asked.
Imin shook his head. He was still wearing the shape of the Gallan soldier. Everyone from the inner circle stood around him, hanging on his every word: the prince, Shazad, Jin, Bahi, Hala. And then me. “Just rumors. Some accidental fires in Izman that they’re trying to blame on us. And three ships anchored in port that burned down. But there was a missive this morning. To Fahali. Commander Naguib is coming as a representative of his father to negotiate the terms of the alliance with General Dumas.”
“Well, that certainly sounds like ‘We’re bringing you a weapon to annihilate the rebellion’ to me,” Hala commented, putting a hand on her sister-brother’s shoulder.
“Have they found us?”
“Not yet,” Imin said. “But they were close.”
“So we move the camp.”
“And where do we go?” Bahi interjected. “If we go north, we walk into Gallan hands. If we go west, we cross the border into Amonpour—if the mountain clans don’t get us first. East, your father kills us, and south, the desert has the privilege of it. It was different when we first fled Izman, but the rebellion has grown since there were a dozen of us. You can’t move a kingdom so lightly. Even a small one.”
“He’s right,” Shazad acknowledged.
Ahmed’s hand gripped the table. His knuckles were pale.
“So we intercept it,” Jin said. He was tossing his compass from hand to hand. The needle swung frantically, pointing at Ahmed’s. “Are they moving it by train?”
Imin nodded, blond Gallan curls falling into his face.
Ahmed didn’t speak immediately. We all hung on to his silence. “They can’t know we’re looking,” he said finally. It was Jin he spoke to, not his general, not the Demdji. His brother. “You make it look like you’re common bandits raiding the trains for the money. Jin, you take—”
“I’ll go.” The words fell out of my mouth before I could think better of them.
Everybody looked at me.
My argument with Jin was still fresh. He was right. I was never going to be good for anything if I just waited for my Demdji powers. I’d been still too long.
“You’re a risk,” Ahmed said honestly. But it wasn’t a no.
“I’d take that risk in a heartbeat,” Jin said, looking at his brother. “I don’t need her as a Demdji.”
Shazad spoke up for me. “Amani is the best shot I’ve ever seen and she can pass for human. She’s been doing it her whole life.”
“I can do this,” I insisted.
Ahmed’s eyes locked with mine, and for a moment he didn’t look like anybody’s brother or friend; he looked like a ruler. I straightened, trying to look like a worthy soldier.
He nodded. “You leave at dawn.”
twenty-two
“Do you know why they call this Deadman’s Ridge?” Bahi asked cheerfully. He’d been chattering ever since we landed, flown here on Izz’s back while he was in the shape of a giant Roc, the open desert rushing below us. The blue-skinned Demdji was now curled up among the rocks as a large blue lizard. At least he wasn’t trying to help set up camp as a naked boy.
“Is it because I’m going to kill you if you don’t stop talking?” Shazad asked, chucking a piece of firewood at him.
“Sadly, the mapmakers didn’t anticipate you, Shazad.” Bahi slung his arm over her shoulder. We were perched on a mountain. Below us the desert spread out on all sides. Except to the north, where I could just make out what Jin told me was the sea. And directly below us, straight through the mountains, was the railway. “It’s because so many workers died blasting the tunnels,” Bahi explained. “They say their restless ghosts wander the rails.”
“Another fine achievement of the Sultan’s allegiance with the Gallan,” Jin said, kicking a rock out of the way before laying out his bedroll. Jin called him the Sultan, I’d noticed. Where Ahmed called him their father, Jin never did.
“And you’re telling us this now?” Hala shoved Bahi. “Right as we’re about to blow out a tunnel?”
“Just trying to help everyone reflect on the situation.” Bahi’s good spirits were running a little too wild for my taste, given I could barely rein in my nerves.
The section of the railway that Deadman’s Ridge overlooked ran from Izman, before the tracks sliced their way through the mountains to Fahali on the other side. And from there it was only a day’s journey to Ahmed’s camp.
We were going to make sure the weapon didn’t make it that far. The train was due in two days’ time. Tomorrow we’d rig the tunnel with explosives that would force the train to a stop, giving us time to board, pretending to be bandits. Hala would climb inside the heads of the passengers so they would see a dozen bandits, not just four of us, distracting the soldiers while we removed the weapon.
“Aren’t Holy Fathers supposed to reflect in silence?” I asked, shaking out my bedroll.
Bahi’s mood wasn’t even dented. “I’m too young and good-looking to be a father, anyway.”
“That’s not what Sara says,” Shazad muttered.
I wondered if Sara was the reason he’d failed as a Holy Father. He claimed he’d drunk too much before morning prayers once and the previous night’s dinner wound up on the High Father’s robes, but I’d heard a dozen stories of why Bahi hadn’t finished his training.
“No one can prove that that baby is mine.” Bahi sagged.
“He has your smart mouth,” Shazad retorted.
“He’s an infant,” Bahi said. “Don’t they just wail and scream?”
“Sounds like your son,” I muttered.
Jin snorted.
“Ah, well.” Bahi pulled a bottle of something out of his bag. “Here’s to my son, then.”
“Why do you have liquor?” Shazad massaged her temples, like she already had a hangover. In answer, he pulled out two more bottles.
“Medical reasons. It’s in the scripture. Look it up. Ladies first.” He held the bottle out to her. Bahi’s face was pure victory as Shazad’s fingers closed over his. He let his fingers linger just a second before he released them. I was starting to think I was right about him leaving the holy fold for a girl, only not one named Sara. I wondered if Shazad really hadn’t noticed or if she was just pretending for his sake.
“You know I’m not allowed to drink,” Shazad said, taking a deep swig.
“You’re not allowed to drink?” I couldn’t keep the skepticism out of my voice as she passed the bottle on to me. It was cheap stuff that burned on the way down.
“The general doesn’t approve,” Bahi interjected. I knew he meant her father, not her.
Shazad gave a mock salute, but her smile was too earnest to make me believe she didn’t love her father. “He says a drunk soldier is a dead soldier.”
“Clearly one time the general was wrong,” Bahi said, pulling out a second bottle. “Or else he would’ve had a dead captain a thousand times over in my father.”