“Then what?”
Ali swallowed. “Jamshid went to get Muntadhir, didn’t he?” When Nahri nodded, he started to shake. “He’s going to kill me. He’s . . .” He suddenly pressed a hand to his head, looking like he was fighting a swoon. “Sorry . . . do you have some more water?” he asked. “I-I feel terribly strange.”
Nahri refilled the ewer from a narrow cistern set in the wall. She started to pour him a cup, but he shook his head.
“The whole thing,” he said, taking it and draining it as quickly as he had the first. He sighed with pleasure. She looked at him askance before returning to her stitches.
“Be careful,” she advised him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone drink so much water so quickly.”
He didn’t respond, but his increasingly glazed eyes took in her bedchamber again. “The infirmary is much smaller than I remember,” he said, sounding confused. Nahri hid a smile. “How can you fit patients in here?”
“I’ve heard your father wants me treating more.”
Ali waved dismissively. “He just wants their money. But we don’t need it. We have so much. Too much. The Treasury is sure to collapse from its weight one day.” He stared at his hands as he waved again. “I can’t feel my fingers,” he said, sounding surprisingly untroubled by this revelation.
“They’re still there.” The king’s earning money off my patients? It shouldn’t have surprised her, but she felt her anger quicken anyway. Collapsing Treasury, indeed.
Before she could question him further, a surge of wetness under her fingers caught her attention, and she glanced down in alarm, expecting blood. But the liquid was clear and as she rubbed it between her fingers, she realized what it was.
Water. It trickled through the fissures of Ali’s half-healed wounds, washing free the blood and seeping past her stitches, smoothing out his skin as it passed. Healing him.
What in God’s name . . . Nahri gave the ewer a puzzled glance, wondering if there’d been something in it she wasn’t aware of.
Strange. But she kept at her work, listening to Ali’s increasingly nonsensical ramblings and occasionally assuring him that it was okay that the room looked blue and the air tasted of vinegar. The opium had improved his mood, and oddly enough she started to relax as she noticed improvement with each stitch.
If only I could find such success with magical illnesses. She thought of the way the old man’s frightened eyes locked on hers as he breathed his last. It was not something she would ever forget.
“I killed my first patient today,” she confessed softly. She wasn’t sure why, but it felt better to say it out loud, and God knew Ali was in no state to remember. “An old man from your tribe. I made a mistake, and it killed him.”
The prince dropped his head to stare at her but said nothing, his eyes bright. Nahri continued. “I always wanted this . . . well, something like this. I used to dream of becoming a physician in the human world. I saved every coin I could, hoping one day to have enough to bribe some academy to take me.” Her face fell. “And now I’m terrible at it. Every time I feel like I master something, a dozen new things are thrown upon me with no warning.”
Ali squinted and looked down his long nose to study her. “You’re not terrible,” he declared. “You’re my friend.”
The sincerity in his voice only worsened her guilt. He’s not my friend, she’d told Dara. He’s a mark. Right . . . a mark who’d become the closest thing she had to an ally after Dara.
The realization unsettled her. I don’t want you caught up in any political feuds if Alizayd al Qahtani ends up with a silk cord around his neck, Dara had warned. Nahri shuddered; she could only imagine what her Afshin would think of this midnight liaison.
She briskly finished her last stitch. “You look awful. Let me clean off the blood.”
In the time it took her to dampen a cloth, Ali was asleep on the couch. She pulled off what remained of his bloody tunic and tossed it into the fire, adding her ruined bedding as well. The knife she kept, after wiping it down. One never knew when these things would come in handy. She cleaned Ali up as best she could and then—after briefly admiring her stitches—covered him with a thin blanket.
She sat across from him. She almost wished Nisreen was here. Not only would the sight of the “Qahtani zealot” sleeping in her bedroom likely give the other woman a heart attack, but Nahri would happily throw her hateful comments back in her face by pointing out how successfully she’d healed him.
The door to the servants’ entrance smashed open. Nahri jumped and reached for the knife.
But it was only Muntadhir. “My brother,” he burst out, his gray eyes bright with worry. “Where . . .” His gaze fell upon Ali, and he rushed to his side, dropping to the ground. He touched his cheek. “Is he all right?”
“I think so,” Nahri replied. “I gave him something to help him sleep. It’s best if he doesn’t jostle those stitches.”
Muntadhir lifted the blanket and gasped. “My God . . .” He stared at his brother’s wounds another moment before letting the blanket fall back. “I’m going to kill him,” he said in a shaky whisper, his voice thick with emotion. “I’m going to—”
“Emir-joon.” Jamshid had joined them. He touched Muntadhir’s shoulder. “Talk to him first. Maybe he had a good reason.”
“A reason? Look at him. Why would he cover something like this up?” Muntadhir let out an aggravated sigh before glancing back at her. “Can we move him?”
She nodded. “Just be careful. I’ll come check on him later. I want him to rest for a few days, at least until those wounds heal.”
“Oh, he’ll be resting, that’s for sure.” Muntadhir rubbed his temples. “A sparring accident.” She raised her eyebrows, and he explained. “That’s how this happened, do you understand?” he asked, looking between her and Jamshid.
Jamshid was skeptical. “No one’s going to believe I did this to your brother. The reverse, maybe.”
“No one else is going to see his wounds,” Muntadhir replied. “He was embarrassed by the defeat, and he came to the Banu Nahida alone, assuming their friendship would buy him some discretion . . . which is correct, yes?”
Nahri sensed this wasn’t the best moment to bargain. She ducked her head. “Of course.”
“Good.” He kept his gaze on her a moment longer, something conflicted in its depths. “Thank you, Banu Nahri,” he said softly. “You saved his life tonight—that’s a thing I won’t forget.”
Nahri held the door as the two men made their way out, the unconscious Ali between them. She could still detect the steady beat of his heart, recalling the moment he’d gasped, the wound closing beneath her fingers.