Ali’s tunic was so badly destroyed that it was small effort to finish ripping it open. She could see three jagged wounds, including one that seemed to go all the way through to his back. She pressed her palms against the largest one and closed her eyes. She thought back to how she’d saved Dara and tried to do the same, willing Ali to heal and imagining the skin healthy and whole.
She braced herself for visions, but none came. Instead, she caught the scent of salt water, and a briny taste filled her mouth. But her intentions must have been clear; the wound twitched under her fingers, and Ali shivered, letting out a low groan.
“By the Creator . . . ,” Jamshid whispered. “That’s extraordinary.”
“Hold him still,” she warned. “I’m not done.” She lifted her hands. The wound had started to close, but his flesh was still discolored and looked almost porous. She lightly touched his skin, and foamy black blood rose to the surface, like pressing on a soaked sponge. She closed her eyes and tried again, but it stayed the same.
Though the room was cool, sweat poured from her skin, so much so that her fingers grew slick. Wiping them on her shirt, she moved on to the other wounds, the salty taste intensifying. Ali hadn’t opened his eyes, but the rhythm of his heart stabilized under her fingertips. He took a shaky breath, and Nahri sat back on her heels to examine her half-completed work.
Something seemed wrong. Maybe it’s the iron? Dara had told her on their journey that iron could impair purebloods.
I could stitch it. She’d done some stitching with Nisreen, using silver thread treated with some sort of charm. It was supposed to have restorative qualities and seemed worth a try. Ali didn’t look like he was going to keel over and die if she took a few minutes to retrieve some supplies from the infirmary. But it was still a guess. For all she knew, his organs were destroyed and leaking into his body.
Ali murmured something in Geziriyya, and his gray eyes slowly blinked open, growing wide and confused as he took in the unfamiliar room. He tried to sit up, letting out a low gasp of pain.
“Don’t move,” she warned. “You’ve been injured.”
“I . . .” His voice came out in a croak, and then she saw his gaze fall on the knife. His face crumpled, a devastated shadow overtaking his eyes. “Oh.”
“Ali.” She touched his cheek. “I’m going to get some supplies from the infirmary, okay? Stay here with Jamshid.” The Daeva guard didn’t look particularly pleased by that but nodded, and she slipped out.
The infirmary was quiet; the patients she hadn’t killed asleep and Nisreen gone for now. Nahri set a pot of water to boil on the glowing embers in her fire pit and then retrieved the silver thread and a few needles, all the while studiously ignoring the sheikh’s now-empty bed.
When the water came to a boil, she added a sludgy spoonful of bitumen, some honey, and salt, following one of the pharmaceutical recipes Nisreen had shown her. After a moment of hesitation, she crumbled in a prepared opium pod. It would be easier to stitch Ali up if he was calm.
Her mind ran rampant with speculation. Why would Ali possibly want to hide an attempt on his life? She was surprised the king himself wasn’t in the infirmary to ensure that his son got the best treatment, while the Royal Guard swept the city, breaking down doors and rounding up shafit in search of conspirators.
Maybe that’s why he wants it kept quiet. It was obvious Ali had a soft spot for the shafit. But she wasn’t about to complain. Just a few hours earlier, she feared Ghassan would punish her for accidentally killing the sheikh. Now his youngest—his favorite, according to some gossip she’d overheard—was hiding in her bedroom, his life in her hands.
Balancing her supplies and the tea, Nahri tucked a copper ewer of water under one arm and headed back to her room. She edged the door open. Ali was in the same position he’d been in when she left. Jamshid paced the bedchamber, looking like he sorely regretted whatever chain of events had led him to this moment.
He glanced up when she approached and quickly crossed to take the tray of supplies. She nodded at a low table in front of the fireplace.
He set it down. “I’m going to go get his brother,” he whispered in Divasti.
She glanced at Ali. The blood-covered prince looked to be in shock, his shaking hands wandering over the ruined sheets. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Better than two Daevas getting caught trying to cover up an attempt on his life.”
Excellent point. “Be fast.”
Jamshid left, and Nahri returned to the bed. “Ali? Ali,” she repeated when he didn’t respond. He startled, and she reached for him. “Come closer to the fire. I need the light.”
He nodded but didn’t move. “Come on,” she said gently, pulling him to his feet. He let out a low hiss of pain, one arm clutched against his stomach.
She helped him onto the couch and pressed the steaming cup into his hands. “Drink.” She pulled over the table and laid out her thread and needles, then went to her hammam to retrieve a stack of towels. When she returned, Ali had abandoned the cup of tea and was draining the entire ewer of water. He let it fall back to the table with an empty thud.
She raised an eyebrow. “Thirsty?”
He nodded. “Sorry. I saw it, and I . . .” He looked dazed, whether from the opium or the injury she didn’t know. “I couldn’t stop.”
“There’s probably barely any liquid left in your body,” she replied. She sat and threaded her needle. Ali was still holding his side. “Move your hand,” she said, reaching for it when he didn’t comply. “I need to . . .” She trailed off. The blood covering Ali’s right hand wasn’t black.
It was the dark crimson of a shafit—and there was a lot of it.
Her breath caught. “I guess your assassin didn’t get away.”
Ali stared at his hand. “No,” he said softly. “He didn’t.” He glanced up. “I had Jamshid throw him in the lake . . .” His voice was oddly distant, as if marveling over a curiosity not connected to him, but grief clouded his gray eyes. “I . . . I’m not even sure he was dead.”
Nahri’s fingers trembled on the needle. When a Qahtani gives an order in Daevabad, you obey. “You should finish your tea, Ali. You’ll feel better, and it’ll make this easier.”
He had no reaction when she started stitching. She made sure her movements were precise; there was no room for error here.
She worked in silence for a few minutes, waiting for the opium to take full effect, before finally asking, “Why?”
Ali set his cup down—or tried to. It fell from his hands. “Why what?”
“Why are you trying to hide the fact that someone wanted to kill you?”
He shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”
“Oh, come on. You can’t expect me to fix the results without knowing what happened. The curiosity will kill me. I’ll have to invent some salacious story to amuse myself.” Nahri kept her tone light, occasionally glancing up from her work to gauge his reaction. He looked exhausted. “Please tell me it was because of a woman. I would hold that over you for—”
“It wasn’t a woman.”