Nisreen finished her fourth braid, weaving a sprig of sweet basil into the ends. “What’s that for?” Nahri asked, eager for a distraction from her dark thoughts.
“Luck.” Nisreen smiled, looking slightly self-conscious. “It’s something my people used to do for girls back home.”
“Back home?”
Nisreen nodded. “I’m from Anshunur originally. A village on the southern coast of Daevastana. My parents were priests; our ancestors ran the temple there for centuries.”
“Really?” Nahri sat up, intrigued. After Dara, it was strange to be around someone who spoke so openly about their background. “So what brought you to Daevabad?”
The older woman seemed to hesitate, her fingers trembling upon Nahri’s braid. “The Nahids, actually,” she said softly. When Nahri frowned in confusion, Nisreen explained. “My parents were killed by djinn raiders when I was young. I was badly injured, so the survivors brought me to Daevabad. Your mother healed me, and then she and her brother took me in.”
Nahri was horrified. “I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I had no idea.”
Nisreen shrugged though Nahri spotted a flicker of grief in her dark eyes. “It’s all right. It’s not uncommon. People bring offerings to their temples; they’re wealthy targets.” She stood. “And I had a good life with the Nahids. I found a lot of satisfaction working in the infirmary. Though on the topic of our faith . . .” Nisreen crossed the room, heading for the neglected fire altar across the room. “I see you’ve let your altar go out again.”
Nahri winced. “It’s been a few days since I refilled the oil.”
“Nahri, we’ve discussed this.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Upon her arrival, the Daevas had gifted Nahri with Manizheh’s personal fire altar, a guilt-inducing piece of metal and water, restored and polished to perfection. The altar was about half her height, a silver basin filled with water kept at a constant simmer by the tiny glass oil lamps bobbing upon its surface. A pile of cedar sticks smoldered on the small cupola that rose from the basin’s center.
Nisreen refilled the lamps from a silver pitcher nearby and plucked a cedar stick from the consecrated tools meant to maintain the altar. She used it to relight the flames and then beckoned Nahri closer.
“You should try to take better care of this,” Nisreen admonished, though her voice stayed gentle. “Our faith is an important part of our culture. You’re worried about treating a patient? Then why not touch the same tools your grandparents once did? Kneel and pray as your mother would have before attempting a new procedure.” She motioned for Nahri to bow her head. “Take strength from the one connection to your family you still have.”
Nahri sighed but allowed Nisreen to mark her forehead with ash. She probably could use all the luck she could get today.
About half the size of the enormous audience chamber, the infirmary was a spartan room of plain whitewashed walls, a blue stone floor, and a lofty domed ceiling made entirely of tempered glass that let in sunlight. One wall was given over to apothecary ingredients, hundreds of glass and copper shelves of varying sizes. Another section of the room was her workplace: a scattering of low tables crowded with tools and failed pharmaceutical attempts, and a heavy sandblasted glass desk in one corner surrounded by bookshelves and a large fire pit.
The other side of the room was meant for patients and typically curtained off. But today the curtain was drawn back to reveal an empty couch and a small table. Nisreen swooped past with a tray of supplies. “They should be here any moment. I’ve already prepared the elixir.”
“And you still think this is a smart idea?” Nahri swallowed, anxious. “I’ve not had the best luck with my abilities so far.”
That was an understatement. Nahri had assumed being a healer to the djinn would be similar to being a healer among humans, her time spent correcting broken bones, birthing babies, and stitching up wounds. As it turned out, the djinn didn’t need much help with those sorts of ailments—purebloods anyway. Instead, they needed a Nahid when it got . . . complicated. And what was complicated?
Stripes were common in infants born during the darkest hour of the night. The bite of a simurgh—firebirds the djinn enjoyed racing—would cause one to slowly burn up from the inside. Sweating silver droplets was a constant irritation in the spring. It was possible to accidentally create an evil duplicate, to transform one’s hands into flowers, to be hexed with hallucinations, or to be turned into an apple—an incredibly grave insult to one’s honor.
The cures were little better. The leaves from the very tops of cypress trees—and only the very tops—could be boiled into a solution that when blown upon by a Nahid opened up the lungs. A ground pearl mixed with just the right amount of turmeric could help an infertile woman conceive, but the resulting infant would smell a bit salty and be terribly sensitive to shellfish. And it wasn’t just the illnesses and their associated cures that sounded unbelievable, but the endless list of situations that seemed entirely unrelated to health.
“It’s a long shot, but sometimes a two-week dose of hemlock, dove’s tail, and garlic—taken every sunrise outdoors—can cure a nasty case of chronic unluckiness,” Nisreen told her last week.
Nahri remembered her stunned disbelief. “Hemlock is poisonous. And how is being unlucky an illness?”
The science behind it all made little sense. Nisreen went on and on about the four humors that made up the djinn body and the importance of keeping them balanced. Fire and air were to exactly even each other out at twice the amount of blood and four times the amount of bile. To become unbalanced could cause a wasting disease, insanity, feathers . . .
“Feathers?” Nahri had repeated incredulously.
“Too much air,” Nisreen had explained. “Obviously.”
And though Nahri was trying, it was all too much to take in, day after day, hour after hour. Since arriving at the palace, she had yet to leave the wing that housed her quarters and the infirmary; she wasn’t sure she was even permitted to leave, and when Nahri asked if she could learn to read—as she’d dreamed of doing for years—the older woman had gotten strangely cagey, muttering something about the Nahid texts being forbidden before promptly changing the subject. Besides her terrified servants and Nisreen, Nahri had no other company. Zaynab had politely invited her for tea twice, but Nahri turned her down—she didn’t intend to consume liquids near that girl again. But she was an extrovert, used to chatting with clients and roaming all over Cairo. The isolation and single-minded focus of her training had her ready to burst.