“This is a waste of time,” Hanno declared. “The brat is Geziri—he’d probably let Daevabad burn to the ground before turning on his own.” His eyes flashed, and his fingers again lingered on the hilt of his knife. “We should just kill him.” Bitterness crept into his voice. “Let Ghassan know what it feels like to lose a child.”
Ali drew back in alarm, but Fatumai was already waving him off. “Give Ghassan a reason to slaughter every shafit in the city, you mean. No, I don’t think we’ll be doing that.”
From out in the corridor, the little boy began to cough again. The sound—that hacking, blood-tinged cough, that sad little sob—cut deep, and Ali flinched.
Rashid noticed. “There’s medicine for it, you know. And there are a few human-trained shafit physicians in Daevabad who could help him, but their skills don’t come cheap. Without your aid, we can’t afford to treat him.” He raised his hands. “To treat any of them.”
Ali dropped his gaze. There’s nothing to stop them from turning around and spending whatever I give them on weapons. He’d trusted Anas far more than he trusted these strangers, and the sheikh had still deceived him. Ali could not risk betraying his family again.
A mouse darted past his feet, and a drop of rain landed on his cheek from a leak in the ceiling. In the next room, he could hear children snoring from their makeshift beds on the floor. He thought guiltily of the enormous bed back in the palace that he didn’t even use. It would probably hold ten of those children.
“I can’t,” he said, his voice cracking. “I can’t help you.”
Rashid pounced. “You must. You’re a Qahtani. The shafit are the reason your ancestors came to Daevabad, the reason your family now possesses Suleiman’s seal. You know the Holy Book, Alizayd. You know how it requires you to stand up for justice. How can you claim to be a man of God when—”
“That’s quite enough,” Fatumai spoke up. “I know you’re passionate, Rashid, but insisting a boy not even near his first quarter century betray his family lest he be damned isn’t going to help anyone.” She let out a weary sigh, tapping her fingers on her cane. “This is not a thing that needs to be decided tonight,” she declared. “Think on what we’ve said here, Prince. On what you’ve seen and heard in this place.”
Ali blinked in disbelief. He glanced nervously among them. “You’re letting me go?”
“I’m letting you go.”
Hanno gaped. “Are you mad? He’s going to run right to his abba! He’ll have us rounded up by dawn!”
“No, he won’t,” Fatumai met his gaze, her face calculating. “He knows the cost too well. His father would come for our families, our neighbors . . . a whole score of innocent shafit. And if he’s the boy of whom Anas spoke so fondly, the one on whom he pinned so many hopes . . .” She gave Ali an intent look. “He won’t risk that.”
Her words sent a shiver down his spine. She spoke correctly: Ali did know the cost. If Ghassan learned about the money, if he then suspected others might know it was a Qahtani prince who’d funded the Tanzeem . . . Daevabad’s streets would be flowing with shafit blood.
And not just shafit. Ali wouldn’t be the first inconvenient prince to be assassinated. Oh, it would be done carefully, probably as quickly and painlessly as possible—his father wasn’t cruel. An accident. Something that wouldn’t make his mother’s powerful family too suspicious. But it would happen. Ghassan took kingship seriously, and Daevabad’s peace and security came before Ali’s life.
Those weren’t prices Ali was willing to pay.
His mouth was dry when he tried to speak. “I won’t say anything,” he promised. “But I’m done with the Tanzeem.”
Fatumai didn’t look even the slightest bit worried. “We’ll see, Brother Alizayd.” She shrugged. “Allahu alam.”
She said the human holy words better than Ali’s pureblood tongue would ever manage, and he couldn’t help but tremble slightly at the confidence in her voice, at the phrase meant to demonstrate the folly of man’s confidence.
God knows best.
13
Nahri
It was as if they stepped through an invisible door in the air. One minute Nahri and Dara were scrambling over dark dunes, and the next, they emerged in an entirely new world, the dark river and dusty plains replaced by a small glen in a quiet mountain forest. It was dawn; the rosy sky glowed against silver tree trunks. The air was warm and moist, rich with the smell of sap and dead leaves.
Dara dropped Nahri gently to her feet, and she landed on a soft patch of moss. She took a deep breath of the cool, clean air before whirling on him.
“We need to go back,” she demanded, shoving at his shoulders. There was no trace of the river, though through the trees, something blue glistened in the distance. A sea, perhaps; it looked vast. She waved her hands through the air, searching for the way through. “How do I do it? We need to get him before—”
“He’s likely already dead,” Dara interrupted. “From the stories told about the peris . . .” She heard his throat catch. “Their punishments are swift.”
He saved our lives. Nahri felt sick. She angrily wiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks. “How could you leave him there? It was him you should have carried, not me!”
“I . . .” Dara turned away with a choked sob and abruptly dropped onto a large, moss-covered boulder. His head fell into his hands. The weeds surrounding him started to blacken and a hazy heat rose in waves above the rock. “I couldn’t, Nahri. Only those of our blood can cross the threshold.”
“We could have tried to help. To fight—”
“How?” Dara glanced up. His eyes were dim with sorrow, but his expression was resolute. “You saw what the marid did to the river, how Khayzur fought back.” He pressed his mouth in a grim line. “Compared to the marid and peri, we are insects. And Khayzur was right—I had to get you to safety.”
Nahri leaned against a crooked tree, feeling ready to collapse herself. “What do you think happened to the ifrit?” she finally asked.
“If there’s any justice in this world, they were dashed upon the rocks and drowned.” Dara spat. “That . . . woman,” he said scornfully. “It was she who enslaved me. I remember her face from the memory you triggered.”
Nahri wrapped her arms around herself; she was still wet, and the dawn air was cool. “The one I killed said they were working with my mother, Dara.” Her voice choked on the word. “That Manizheh they kept talking about.” She reeled; Khayzur’s death, the mention of her mother, an entire damned river rising up to smash them to pieces . . . it was all too much.
Dara was at her side in a moment. He took her by the shoulders, bending to meet her gaze. “They’re lying, Nahri,” he said firmly. “They’re demons. You can’t trust anything they say. All they do is deceive and manipulate. They do it to humans, they do it to daevas. They will say anything to trick you. To break you.”