Copyright

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2019

Copyright © S.A. Chakraborty 2019

Cover design Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

Designed by Paula Russell Szafranski

Map copyright © Nicolette Caven

S.A. Chakraborty asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008239442

Ebook Edition © February 2019 ISBN: 9780008239466

Version: 2019-01-07

Dedication

FOR SHAMIK

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Maps

Prologue

Chapter 1: Nahri

Chapter 2: Ali

Chapter 3: Nahri

Chapter 4: Dara

Chapter 5: Ali

Chapter 6: Nahri

Chapter 7: Dara

Chapter 8: Ali

Chapter 9: Ali

Chapter 10: Nahri

Chapter 11: Ali

Chapter 12: Nahri

Chapter 13: Nahri

Chapter 14: Dara

Chapter 15: Ali

Chapter 16: Dara

Chapter 17: Nahri

Chapter 18: Nahri

Chapter 19: Dara

Chapter 20: Ali

Chapter 21: Nahri

Chapter 22: Ali

Chapter 23: Nahri

Chapter 24: Dara

Chapter 25: Ali

Chapter 26: Nahri

Chapter 27: Ali

Chapter 28: Nahri

Chapter 29: Ali

Chapter 30: Nahri

Chapter 31: Ali

Chapter 32: Nahri

Chapter 33: Ali

Chapter 34: Nahri

Chapter 35: Nahri

Chapter 36: Ali

Chapter 37: Dara

Chapter 38: Nahri

Chapter 39: Dara

Chapter 40: Nahri

Chapter 41: Dara

Epilogue

Cast of Characters

Glossary

The Six Tribes of the Djinn

Acknowledgements

Also by S. A. Chakraborty

About the Publisher

Maps

PROLOGUE
ALI

Alizayd al Qahtani didn’t make it a month with his caravan.

“Run, my prince, run!” the sole Ayaanle member of his traveling party cried as he staggered into Ali’s tent one night when they were camped along a southern bend of the Euphrates. Before the man could say more, a blood-dark blade burst from his chest.

Ali flew to his feet. His weapons already at hand, he slashed the back of the tent open with a strike of his zulfiqar and fled into the darkness.

They pursued him on horseback, but the Euphrates glistened close ahead, black as the star-drenched night reflected in the river’s coursing surface. Praying his weapons were secure, Ali plunged into the water as the first arrows flew, one whistling past his ear.

The cold water was a shock, but Ali swam fast, the motion as instinctual as walking, faster than he ever had, with a grace that would have taken him aback had he not been preoccupied with saving his life. Arrows struck the water around him, following his path, and so he dived deep, the water growing murky. The Euphrates was wide, and it took him time to cross, to push through waterweeds and fight the fierce current trying to drag him downstream.

It was only when he was staggering up the opposite bank that the sick realization swept over him: he had not needed to emerge for air the entire time.

Ali gulped, shivering as a cold breeze stole through his wet dishdasha. Nausea rose in his chest, but there was little time to contemplate what had happened in the river—not when mounted archers were pacing on the other side. His tent was aflame, but the rest of the camp looked untouched and eerily still, as though a quiet command had been passed among the other travelers in his party to ignore the screams they might hear tonight.

Ali had been betrayed. And he was not waiting around to find out if either the assassins or his traitorous companions could cross the river. He stumbled to his feet and ran for his life, racing headlong toward the opposite horizon.

Dawn had broken by the time his legs finally gave out. He collapsed, landing hard on the golden sand. The river was long gone. In every direction was desert, the sky a bright, hot bowl turned upside down.

Ali’s gaze darted across the still landscape as he fought for breath, but he was alone. Relief and fear warred through him. He was alone—with a vast desert before him and enemies at his back, his only possessions his zulfiqar and khanjar. He had no food, no water, no shelter. He hadn’t even had time to grab the turban and sandals that might have protected him from the heat.

He was doomed.

You were already doomed, you fool. Your father made that clear. Ali’s exile from Daevabad was a death sentence, one obvious to anyone with knowledge of the politics of his tribe. Did he really think he could fight it? That his death would be easy? If his father had wanted to be merciful, he would have had his youngest son strangled in his sleep within the city’s walls.

For the first time, a twinge of hate clawed up in Ali’s heart. He didn’t deserve this. He had tried to help his city and his family, and Ghassan wasn’t even generous enough to give him a clean death.

Angry tears pricked his eyes. Ali wiped them away roughly, feeling disgusted. No, this wouldn’t be how things ended for him, weeping tears of self-pity and cursing his family as he wasted away in some unknown patch of sand. He was Geziri. When the time came, Ali would die dry-eyed, with the declaration of faith on his lips and a blade in his hand.

He fixed his eyes southwest, in the direction of his homeland, the direction he’d prayed his entire life, and dug his hands in the golden sand. Ali went through the motions to cleanse himself for prayer, the motions he’d made multiple times a day since his mother had first shown him how.

When he finished, he raised his palms, closing his eyes and catching the sharp scent of the sand and salt clinging to his skin. Guide me, he begged. Protect those I was forced to leave behind and when my time comes—his throat thickened—when my time comes, please have more mercy on me than my father did.

Ali touched his fingers to his brow. And then he rose to his feet.

Having nothing but the sun to guide him through the unbroken expanse of sand, Ali followed its relentless path across the sky, ignoring and then growing accustomed to its merciless heat upon his shoulders. The hot sand scorched his bare feet—and then it didn’t. He was a djinn, and though he couldn’t drift and dance as smoke among the dunes the way his ancestors had done before Suleiman’s blessing, the desert would not kill him. He walked each day until exhaustion overtook him, only stopping to pray and sleep. He let his mind—his despair at how completely he’d ruined his life—drift away under the white, bright sun.

Hunger gnawed at him. Water was no problem—Ali had not thirsted since the marid took him. He tried hard not to think about the implication of that, to ignore the newly restless part of his mind that delighted in the dampness—he refused to call it sweat—beading on his skin and dripping down his limbs.

He could not say how long he’d been walking when the landscape finally changed, rocky cliffs emerging from the sandy dunes like massive, grasping fingers. Ali scoured the craggy bluffs for any sign of food. He’d heard rural Geziris were able to conjure entire feasts from human scraps, but Ali had never been taught such magic. He was a prince raised to be a Qaid, surrounded by servants his entire privileged life. He had no idea how to survive on his own.

Desperate and starving, he ate any bit of greenery he could find down to the roots. It was a mistake. The following morning, he awoke violently ill. Ash crumbled from his skin, and he vomited until all that came up was a fiery black substance that burned the ground.

Hoping to find a bit of shade in which to recover, Ali tried to climb down from the cliffs, but he was so dizzy that his vision blurred and the path danced before him. He lost his footing on the loose gravel almost immediately and slipped, tumbling down a sharp incline.

He landed hard in a stony crevasse, smashing his left shoulder into a protruding rock. There was a wet pop, and a searing heat burst down his arm.

Ali gasped. He tried to shift and then yelped, a sharp pain shooting through his shoulder. He sucked for air through his teeth, biting back a curse as the muscles in his arm spasmed.

Get up. You will die here if you do not get up. But Ali’s weakened limbs refused to obey. Blood trickled from his nose, filling his mouth as he stared helplessly at the stark cliffs outlined against the bright sky. A glance at the crevasse revealed nothing but sand and stones. It was—rather fittingly—a dead place.

He choked back a sob. There were worse ways to die, he knew. He could have been caught and tortured by his family’s enemies or hacked apart by assassins eager to claim bloody “proof” of their victory. But God forgive him, Ali was not ready to die.

You are Geziri. A believer in the Most Merciful. Do not dishonor yourself now. Shaking, Ali squeezed his eyes against the pain, trying to find some peace in the holy passages he’d memorized so long ago. But it was difficult. The faces of those he’d left behind in Daevabad—the brother whose trust he’d finally lost, the friend whose love he’d killed, the father who’d sentenced him to death for a crime he hadn’t committed—kept breaking through the encroaching darkness, their voices taunting him as he slowly slipped away.

He woke to an impossibly foul substance being forced down his throat.

Ali’s eyes shot open and he gagged, his mouth full of something crunchy and metallic and wrong. His vision swam, slowly focusing on the silhouette of a broad-shouldered man squatting beside him. The man’s face came to him in patches: a nose that had been broken more than once, a matted black beard, hooded gray eyes.

Geziri eyes.

The man laid a heavy hand on Ali’s brow and spooned another thick helping of the disgusting gruel into his mouth. “Eat up, little prince.”

Ali choked. “W-what is that?” His voice was barely a whisper in his parched throat.

The other djinn beamed. “Oryx blood and ground locusts.”

Ali’s stomach immediately rebelled. He turned his head to throw up, but the man clamped his hand over Ali’s mouth and massaged his throat, forcing the revolting mixture back down.

“Aye, do not be doing that. What kind of man turns down food that his host has so thoughtfully prepared?”

“Daevabadis.” A second voice spoke up, and Ali glanced down at his feet, catching sight of a woman with thick black braids and a face that might have been carved from stone. “No manners.” She held up Ali’s zulfiqar and khanjar. “Lovely blades.”

The man held up a gnarled black root. “Did you eat something like this?” When Ali nodded, he snorted. “Fool. You’re lucky not to be a pile of ash right now.” He shoved another spoonful of the bloody gristle at Ali. “Eat. You’ll need your strength for the journey home.”

Ali pushed it weakly away, still dazed and now thoroughly confused. A breeze swept through the crevasse, drying the dampness that clung to his skin, and he shivered. “Home?” he repeated.

“Bir Nabat,” the man said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Home. It is but a week’s travel west.”

Ali tried to shake his head, but his neck and shoulders had gone stiff. “I can’t,” he rasped out. “I … I’m going south.” South was the only direction he could think to go; the Qahtani family originally hailed from the forbidding mountain chain along Am Gezira’s humid southern coast, and it was the only place he could think to find allies.

“South?” The man laughed. “You are mostly dead and you think to cross Am Gezira?” He thrust another spoonful into Ali’s mouth. “There are assassins looking for you in every shadow of this land. Word is the fire worshippers will make rich the man who kills Alizayd al Qahtani.”

“Which is what we should be doing, Lubayd,” the other raider cut in. She nodded rudely at the gruel. “Not wasting our provisions on a southern brat.”

Ali swallowed back the vile concoction with difficulty, narrowing his eyes at her. “You’d kill a fellow Geziri for foreign coins?”

“I’d kill a Qahtani for free.”

Ali started at the hostility in her voice. The man—Lubayd—sighed and shot her an annoyed look before turning back to Ali. “You’ll forgive Aqisa here, prince, but it’s not a good time to be visiting our land.” He put down the clay cup. “We haven’t seen a drop of rain in years. Our spring is drying up, we’re running out of food, our babies and old folk are dying … So we send messages to Daevabad pleading for help. And do you know what our king says, our fellow Geziri king?”

“Nothing.” Aqisa spat at the ground. “Your father doesn’t even respond. So do not speak of tribal ties to me, al Qahtani.”

Ali was too tired to be frightened by the hatred in her face. He eyed the zulfiqar in her hands again. He kept his blade sharp; at least this ordeal would finally end quickly should they choose to execute him with it.

He choked back another wave of bile, the oryx blood thick in his throat. “Well …,” he started weakly. “In that case I agree. You needn’t waste that on me.” He nodded at Lubayd’s gruel.

There was a long moment of silence. Then Lubayd burst into laughter, the sound ringing out across the crevasse.

He was still laughing when he grabbed Ali’s injured arm without warning and pulled it firmly straight.

Ali cried out, black spots blossoming across his vision. But as his shoulder slid back into place, the searing pain immediately lessened. His fingers tingled, sensation returning to his numb hand in excruciating waves.

Lubayd grinned. He removed his ghutra, the cloth headdress worn by northern Geziri djinn, and quickly fashioned it into a sling. Then he hauled Ali to his feet by his good arm. “Keep your sense of humor, boy. You’re going to need it.”

A massive white oryx waited patiently at the mouth of the crevasse; a line of dried blood crossed one flank. Ignoring Ali’s protests, Lubayd shoved him up onto the animal’s back. Ali clutched its long horns, watching as Lubayd wrestled his zulfiqar away from Aqisa.

He dropped it in Ali’s lap. “Let that shoulder heal and perhaps you’ll swing this again.”

Ali gave the blade an incredulous look. “But I thought …”

“We’d be killing you?” Lubayd shook his head. “No. Not yet, anyway. Not while you are doing that.” He motioned back to the crevasse.

Ali followed his gaze. His mouth fell open.

It wasn’t sweat that had soaked his robe. A miniature oasis had sprung up around him while he lay dying. A spring gurgled through the rocks where his head had been, trickling down a path shrouded with new moss. A second spring bubbled up through the sand, filling the depression his body had left. Bright green shoots covered a bloody patch of gravel, their unfurling leaves wet with dew.

Ali took a sharp breath, scenting the fresh moisture on the desert air. The potential.

“I have no idea how you did that, Alizayd al Qahtani,” Lubayd said. “But if you can draw water into a barren patch of sand in Am Gezira, well …” He winked. “I’d say you’re worth far more than a few foreign coins.”

NAHRI

It was very quiet inside Emir Muntadhir al Qahtani’s apartment.

Banu Nahri e-Nahid paced the room, her bare toes sinking into the sumptuous carpet. Upon a mirrored table, a bottle of wine rested beside a jade cup carved in the shape of a shedu. The wine had been brought in by the calm-eyed servants who’d helped Nahri out of her heavy wedding clothes; perhaps they’d noticed the Banu Nahida’s trembling and thought it would help.

She stared at the bottle now. It looked delicate. It would be easy to break it, easier still to conceal a glass shard under the pillows of the large bed she was trying not to look at and end this evening in a far more permanent way.

And then you will die. Ghassan would put a thousand of her tribesmen to the sword, make Nahri watch each one, and then throw her to his karkadann.

She tore her gaze from the bottle. A breeze came from the open windows, and she shivered. She’d been dressed in a delicate blue silk shift and soft hooded robe, neither of which did much to ward off the chill. All that was left of the overly elaborate outfit in which she’d been wed was her marriage mask. Made of finely carved ebony and secured by copper clasps and chains, the mask was engraved with her and Muntadhir’s names. It was to be burned upon consummation, the ash marking their bodies the next morning proof of the marriage’s validity. It was—according to the excited Geziri noblewomen teasing her earlier at the wedding dinner—a beloved tradition of their tribe.

Nahri didn’t share their excitement. She’d been sweating since she entered the room, and the mask kept sticking to her damp skin. She pulled it slightly loose, trying to let the breeze cool her flushed cheeks. She caught the reflection of her movement in the massive bronze-edged mirror across the room and averted her eyes. However fine the clothes and mask, they were Geziri, and Nahri had no desire to see herself in the garb of her enemy.

They’re not your enemy, she reminded herself. “Enemy” was Dara’s word, and she was not going to think about Dara. Not tonight. She couldn’t. It would break her—and the last Banu Nahida of Daevabad was not going to break. She’d signed her wedding contract with a steady hand and toasted Ghassan without trembling, smiling warmly at the king who’d threatened her with the murder of Daeva children and forced her to disown her Afshin with the crudest of charges. If she could handle all of that, she could handle whatever happened in this room.

Nahri turned to cross the bedroom again. Muntadhir’s vast apartment was located on one of the upper levels of the enormous ziggurat at the heart of Daevabad’s palace complex. It was filled with art: paintings on silk screens, delicate tapestries, and finely wrought vases, all of which had been carefully displayed and all of which seemed to carry an aura of magic. She could easily envision Muntadhir in this wondrous room, lounging with a cup of expensive wine and some cosmopolitan courtesan, quoting poetry and bantering about the useless pleasures of life that Nahri had neither the time nor inclination to pursue. There was not a book in sight. Not in this room, nor in the rest of the apartment she’d been guided through.

She stopped to stare at the closest painting, a miniature of two dancers conjuring flamelike flowers that sparked and flashed like hearts of ruby as they twirled.

I have nothing in common with this man. Nahri couldn’t imagine the splendor in which Muntadhir had been raised, couldn’t imagine being surrounded by the accumulated knowledge of millennia and not bothering to learn how to read. The only thing she shared with her new husband was one awful night upon a burning ship.

The bedroom door opened.

Nahri instinctively stepped back from the painting, pulling her hood low. There was a soft crash from outside, followed by a curse, and then Muntadhir entered.

He wasn’t alone; indeed, she suspected he might not have made it alone, for he was leaning heavily on a steward, and she could practically smell the wine on his breath from across the room. A pair of female servants followed, and Nahri swallowed as they helped him out of his robe, unwinding his turban with a number of what sounded like teasing jests in Geziriyya, before leading him to the bed.

He sat heavily on the edge, looking drunk and somewhat stunned to find himself there. Heaped with cloudlike linens, the bed was big enough to fit a family of ten—and given the rumors she’d heard whispered about her husband, she suspected he’d filled it on many an occasion. Frankincense smoldered in a corner burner beside a chalice of sweetened milk mixed with apple leaves—a traditional Daeva drink brewed for new brides hoping to conceive. That, at least, would not be happening—Nisreen had assured her. One did not assist Nahid healers for two centuries without learning a number of nearly foolproof methods to prevent pregnancy.

Even so, Nahri’s heart beat faster as the servants left, closing the door softly behind them. Tension filled the air, thick and heavy and at awkward odds with the sounds of celebration in the garden below.

Muntadhir finally glanced up, meeting her eyes. Candlelight played on his face. He might not have had Dara’s literally magical beauty, but he was a strikingly handsome man, a charismatic man, she’d heard, one who laughed easily and smiled often … at least with people who weren’t her. His thick black hair was cut short, his beard stylishly trimmed. He’d worn his royal regalia for the wedding, the gold-trimmed ebony robe and patterned blue, purple, and gold silk turban that were the hallmarks of the ruling al Qahtani family, but he was dressed now in a crisp white dishdasha edged with tiny pearls. The only thing detracting from his careful appearance was a thin scar dividing his left eyebrow—a remnant from Dara’s scourge.

They stared at each other for a long moment, neither one moving. She saw that beneath the edge of drunken exhaustion, he too looked nervous.

Finally he spoke. “You’re not going to give me plague sores, are you?”

Nahri narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Plague sores.” Muntadhir swallowed, kneading the embroidered covering on the bed. “That’s what your mother used to do to men who looked at her too long.”

Nahri hated that the words stung. She wasn’t a romantic—on the contrary, she prided herself on her pragmatism and her ability to set aside her emotions—that’s what had led her to this room, after all. But it was still her wedding night, and she might have hoped for a word of kindness from her new husband; for a man eager to touch her, rather than one worried she would curse him with some sort of magical disease.

She let her robe drop to the floor without ceremony. “Let’s get this over with.” She approached the bed, fumbling with the delicate copper fixtures holding her marriage mask in place.

“Be careful!” Muntadhir’s hand shot out, but he jerked it back when he brushed her fingers. “Forgive me,” he said quickly. “It’s just—the mask clips were my mother’s.”

Nahri’s hands stilled. No one in the palace ever spoke of Muntadhir’s mother, Ghassan’s long-dead first wife. “They were?”

He nodded, taking the marriage mask from her hands and deftly unhooking the clips. In comparison to the opulent room and the glittering jewelry they were both wearing, the clips were rather plain, but Muntadhir held them as if he’d just been handed Suleiman’s seal ring.

“They’ve been in her family for centuries,” he explained, running his thumb over the fine filigree work. “She always made me promise to have my own wife and daughter wear them.” His lips quirked into a sad smile. “She said they brought good fortune and the best of sons.”

Nahri hesitated and then decided to press forward; long-lost mothers might be the only topic they had in common. “How old were you—”

“Young,” Muntadhir cut in, his voice a little raw, as if the question caused him pain. “She’d been bitten by a nasnas out in Am Gezira when she was a child, and the poison stayed with her. She’d have the occasional reaction, but Manizheh could always treat it.” His expression darkened. “Until one summer Manizheh decided dawdling in Zariaspa was more important than saving her queen.”

Nahri tensed at the bitterness lingering in his words. So much for a connection between them. “I see,” she said stiffly.

Muntadhir seemed to notice. A flush came to his cheeks. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that to you.”

“It’s fine,” Nahri replied, though in truth she was regretting this marriage more with each passing moment. “You’ve never hid how you feel about my family. What was it you called me to your father? The ‘lying Nahid whore’? The one who seduced your brother and ordered my Afshin to attack your men.”

Muntadhir’s gray eyes flashed with regret before he dropped his gaze. “That was a mistake,” he said, defending himself weakly. “My best friend and my little brother were at death’s door.” He rose to his feet, moving toward the wine. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

Nahri dropped to sit on the bed, crossing her legs under the silk shift. It was a pretty thing, the fabric so thin it was nearly sheer, chased through with impossibly fine gold embroidery and adorned with delicate ivory beads. At another time—with another person—she might have delighted in the teasing way it brushed her bare skin.

She was decidedly not feeling that way now. She glared at Muntadhir, incredulous that he believed such an excuse sufficient justification for his actions.

He choked on his wine. “That’s not helping me forget about plague sores,” he said between coughs.

Nahri rolled her eyes. “For God’s sake, I’m not going to hurt you. I can’t. Your father would murder a hundred Daevas if I so much as put a scratch on you.” She rubbed her head and then held out a hand for the wine. Maybe a drink would make this more bearable. “Pass that over.”

He poured her a cup, and Nahri drank it down, her lips puckering at the sour taste. “That’s awful.”

Muntadhir looked wounded. “That’s an antique ice wine from Zariaspa. It’s priceless, one of the rarest vintages in the world.”

“It tastes like grape juice that’s been passed through a rotting fish.”

“A rotting fish …,” he repeated faintly. He rubbed his forehead. “Well … what do you like to drink then, if not wine?”

Nahri paused but then answered honestly, seeing little harm in it. “Karkade. It’s a tea made from hibiscus flowers.” The lump grew in her throat. “It reminds me of home.”

“Calicut?”

She frowned. “What?”

“Isn’t that where you’re from?”

“No,” she replied. “I’m from Cairo.”

“Oh.” He looked a bit nonplussed. “Are they close?”

Not at all. Nahri tried not to cringe. He was supposed to be her husband, and he didn’t even know where she was from, the land whose essence still flowed in her blood and beat in her heart. Cairo, the city she missed so fiercely it took her breath away at times.

I don’t want this. The realization, swift and urgent, swept through her. Nahri had learned the hard way not to trust a soul in Daevabad. How could she share a bed with this self-centered man who knew nothing of her?

Muntadhir was watching her. His gray eyes softened. “You look like you’re about to be sick.”

She did flinch now. Maybe he wasn’t completely blind. “I’m fine,” she lied.

“You don’t look fine,” he countered, reaching for her shoulder. “You’re trembling.” His fingers brushed her skin, and Nahri tensed, fighting the urge to jerk away.

Muntadhir dropped his hand as though he’d been burned. “Are you afraid of me?” he asked, sounding shocked.

“No.” Nahri’s cheeks burned with embarrassment, even as she bristled. “It’s just … I haven’t done this before.”

“What, slept with someone you hate?” His wry smile vanished when she bit her lip. “Oh. Oh,” he added. “I had assumed that you and Darayavahoush—”

“No,” Nahri said quickly. She couldn’t hear that sentence completed. “Things weren’t like that between us. And I don’t want to talk about him. Not with you.”

Muntadhir’s mouth tightened. “Fine.”

Silence grew between them again, punctuated by the shouts of laughter that drifted in from the open window.

“Glad to know everyone’s so happy we’re uniting our tribes,” Nahri muttered darkly.

Muntadhir glanced at her. “Is that why you agreed to this?”

“I agreed”—her voice turned sarcastic on the word—“because I knew I would otherwise be forced to marry you. I figured I might as well go willingly and take your father for every coin of dowry I could. And maybe one day convince you to overthrow him.” It probably wasn’t the wisest response, but Nahri was finding it harder and harder to care what her new husband thought.

The color abruptly left Muntadhir’s face. He swallowed and then tossed back the rest of his wine before turning to cross the room. He opened the door, speaking in Geziriyya to whoever was on the other side. Nahri inwardly cursed the slip of her tongue. Her feelings toward Muntadhir aside, Ghassan had been hell-bent on marrying them, and if Nahri ruined this, the king would no doubt find some ghastly way to punish her.

“What are you doing?” she asked when he returned, anxiety rising in her voice.

“Getting you a glass of your strange flower tea.”

Nahri blinked in surprise. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to.” He met her gaze. “Because, quite frankly, you terrify me, wife, and I wouldn’t mind staying on your good side.” He retrieved the marriage mask from the bed. “But you can stop shaking. I’m not going to hurt you, Nahri. I’m not that kind of man. I’m not going to lay another finger on you tonight.”

She eyed the mask. It was starting to smolder. She cleared her throat. “But people will be expecting …”

The mask burst into cinders in his hands, and she jumped. “Hold out your hand,” he said, dumping a fistful of ash into her palm when she did so. He then ran his ash-covered fingers through his hair and around the collar of his tunic, wiping them on his white dishdasha.

“There,” he deadpanned. “The marriage has been consummated.” He jerked his head at the bed. “I’ve been told I toss and turn terribly in my sleep. It will look like we’ve been doing our part for peace between our tribes all night long.”

Heat filled her face at that, and Muntadhir grinned. “Believe it or not, it’s nice to know something makes you anxious. Manizheh never showed any emotion, and it was terrifying.” His voice grew gentler. “We’ll need to do this eventually. There will be people watching us, waiting for an heir. But we’ll take it slow. It doesn’t have to be a horrible ordeal.” His eyes twinkled in amusement. “For all the handwringing that surrounds it, the bedroom can be a rather enjoyable place.”

A knock interrupted them, which was a blessing, for despite growing up on the streets of Cairo, Nahri didn’t have a retort for that.

Muntadhir crossed back to the door and returned with a silver platter upon which a rose quartz pitcher rested. He placed it on the table next to the bed. “Your karkade.” He pulled back the sheets, collapsing into the small mountain of pillows. “Now if I’m not needed, I’m going to sleep. I’d forgotten how much dancing Daeva men did at weddings.”

The worry inside her unknotted slightly. Nahri poured herself a glass of karkade, and, ignoring her instinct to retreat to one of the low couches arranged near the fireplace, carefully slipped into the bed as well. She took a sip of her tea, savoring the cool tang.

The familiar tang. But the first memory that came to Nahri wasn’t of a café in Egypt, it was of Daevabad’s Royal Library, sitting across from a smiling prince who’d known the difference between Calicut and Cairo quite well. The prince whose knowledge of the human world had drawn Nahri to him in a way she hadn’t realized was dangerous until it was too late.

“Muntadhir, can I ask you something?” The words burst from her before she could think better of them.

His voice came back to her, already husky from sleep. “Yes?”

“Why wasn’t Ali at the wedding?

Muntadhir’s body instantly tensed. “He’s busy with his garrison in Am Gezira.”

His garrison. Yes, that’s what every Geziri said, almost down to the word, when asked about Alizayd al Qahtani.

But secrets were difficult to keep in Daevabad’s royal harem. Which is why Nahri had heard rumors that Zaynab, Ali and Muntadhir’s sister, had cried herself to sleep every night for weeks after her little brother was sent away. Zaynab, who had looked haunted ever since, even at the wedding festivities this evening.

The real question slipped from her. “Is he dead?” she whispered.

Muntadhir didn’t respond right away, and in the silence Nahri felt a tangle of conflicting emotions settle into her chest. But then her husband cleared his throat. “No.” The word sounded careful. Deliberate. “Though if you don’t mind, I would rather not discuss him. And, Nahri, about what you said before …” He looked at her, his eyes heavy with an emotion she couldn’t quite decipher. “You should know that when it comes down to it, I’m a Qahtani. My father is my king. I will always be loyal to that first.”

The warning was clear in his words, uttered in a voice that had lost all hint of intimacy. This was the emir of Daevabad speaking now, and he turned his back to her without waiting for a response.

Nahri set her glass down with a thud, feeling the slight warmth that had risen between them turn to ice. Annoyance sparked in her chest.

One of the tapestries across the room shuddered in response. The shadows falling across Muntadhir’s form, outlining the palace window, suddenly lengthened. Sharpened.

Neither surprised Nahri. Such things had been happening lately, the ancient palace seeming to awaken to the fact that a Nahid dwelled within its walls again.

DARA

In the crimson light of a sun that never set, Darayavahoush e-Afshin slumbered.

It was not true sleep, of course, but something deeper. Quieter. There were no dreams of missed opportunities and unrequited love, nor nightmares of blood-drenched cities and merciless human masters. He lay on the felt blanket his mother had woven for him as a boy, in the shade of a cedar glen. Through the trees, he caught glimpses of a dazzling garden, one that occasionally tugged at his attention.

But not now. Dara did not entirely know where he was, nor did it seem to matter. The air smelled of his home, of meals with his family and the sacred smoke of fire altars. His eyes fluttered open briefly now and then before the sounds of birdsong and a distant lute lulled him back toward sleep. It was all Dara wanted to do. To rest until the weariness finally slipped from his bones. Until the scent of blood left his memory.

A small hand nudged his shoulder.

Dara smiled. “Coming to check on me again, sister?”

He opened his eyes. Tamima knelt at his side, grinning a gap-toothed smile. A shroud draped his little sister’s small form, her black hair neatly plaited. Tamima looked far different than she had when Dara had first set eyes on her. When he had arrived in the glen, her shroud had been drenched in blood, her skin carved and scored with names written in Tukharistani script. It was a sight that had made him wild; he’d torn the glen apart with his bare hands again and again until he finally collapsed in her small arms.

But her marks had been fading ever since, along with the black tattoo on his own body, the one that looked like rungs on a twisting ladder.

Tamima dug her bare toes into the grass. “They are waiting to talk to you in the garden.”

Apprehension stole through him. Dara suspected he knew all too well the judgment that awaited him in that place. “I am not ready,” he replied.

“It is not a fate to fear, brother.”

Dara squeezed his eyes shut. “You do not know the things I have done.”

“Then confess them and free yourself of their weight.”

“I cannot,” he whispered. “If I start, Tamima … they will drown me. They—”

A burst of heat suddenly seared his left hand, and Dara gasped, the pain taking him by surprise. It was a sensation he’d started to forget, but the burn vanished as quickly as it had come. He raised his hand.

A battered iron and emerald ring was on his finger.

Dara stared at it, baffled. He pushed to a sitting position, the heavy mantle of drowsiness falling from his body like a cloak.

The glen’s stillness ebbed away, a cold breeze sweeping aside the smells of home and sending the cedar leaves dancing. Dara shivered. The wind seemed like a thing alive, pulling at his limbs and tousling his hair.

He was on his feet before he realized it.

Tamima grabbed his hand. “No, Daru,” she pleaded. “Don’t go. Not again. You’re finally so close.”

Startled, he glanced at his sister. “What?”

As if in response, the shadows in the cedar grove deepened, emerald and black writhing and twisting together. Whatever magic this was … it was intoxicating, tugging hard at his soul, the ring pulsing against his finger like a beating heart.

It was suddenly obvious. Of course, Dara would go. It was his duty, and he was a good Afshin.

He obeyed.

He pulled free of his sister’s hand. “I will come back,” he said. “I promise.”

Tamima was weeping. “You always say that.”

But his sister’s sobs grew distant as Dara walked deeper into the grove. The sound of birdsong vanished, replaced by a low humming buzz that set his nerves on edge. The air seemed to close in around him, uncomfortably hot. The tug came again from his hand, the ring smoldering.

And then he was seized. Stolen, an unseen force snatching him like a rukh and dragging him into its maw.

The cedar glen vanished, replaced by utter blackness. Nothingness. A blazing, tearing pain ripped through him, worse than any sensation he could imagine, a thousand knives seeming to shred every fiber of his body as he was pulled, dragged through a substance thicker than mud. Disassembled and reformed from pieces as sharp as broken glass.

A presence thundered to life in his breast, pounding like a drum. Rushing liquid swirled through new veins, lubricating the growing muscles, and a smothering heaviness settled upon his chest. He choked, his mouth reforming to draw air into his lungs. His hearing returned, bringing with it screams.

His screams.

Memories slammed into him. A woman shouting his name, whispering his name. Black eyes and a sly smile, her mouth on his as their bodies pressed together in a darkened cave. Those same eyes filled with shock, with betrayal, in a ruined infirmary. A drowned man covered in scales and tentacles looming over him, a rusting blade in his dripping hand.

Dara’s eyes shot open, but he saw only blackness. The pain was fading but everything felt wrong, his body both too light and yet too real, pulsing in a way he hadn’t experienced in decades. Centuries. He choked again, gasping as he tried to remember how to breathe.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder, and a wave of warmth and calm surged into his body. The pain vanished, his heart slowing to a steady beat.

Relief flooded through him. Dara would know the healing touch of a Nahid anywhere. “Nahri,” he breathed. Tears burned his eyes. “Oh, Nahri, I am sorry. I am so sorry. I never meant—”

The words died in his mouth. He’d caught sight of his hand.

It was fire-bright, tipped in deadly sharp claws.

Before he could scream, a woman’s face swam into view. Nahri. No, not Nahri, though Dara could see the ghost of her in the woman’s expression. This Daeva was older, her face slightly lined. Silver stole through the black hair roughly shorn at her shoulders.

She looked almost as shocked as Dara felt. Delighted—but shocked. She reached up to stroke his cheek. “It worked,” she whispered. “It finally worked.”

Dara stared down in horror at his burning hands. The hated emerald slave ring glittered back. “Why do I look like this?” His voice broke in panic. “Have the ifrit—”

“No,” the woman assured him quickly. “You’re free of the ifrit, Darayavahoush. You’re free of everything.”

That answered nothing. Dara gaped at the incomprehensible sight of his fiery skin, dread rising in his heart. In no world he knew did djinn and daevas look as he did now, even when brought back from slavery.

In a distant corner of his mind, Dara could still hear his sister begging him to return to the garden of his ancestors. Tamima. Grief rushed through him, and tears streamed down his cheeks, sizzling against his hot skin.

He shuddered. The magic coursing through his blood felt raw: new and ragged and uncontrollable. He drew a sharp breath, and the walls of the tent they were in undulated wildly.

The woman grabbed his hand. “Calm yourself, Afshin,” she said. “You are safe. You are free.”

“What am I?” He glanced again at his claws, sick at the sight. “What have you done to me?”

She blinked, looking taken aback by the despair in his voice. “I’ve made you a marvel. A miracle. The first daeva to be freed of Suleiman’s curse in three thousand years.”

Suleiman’s curse. He stared at her in disbelief, the words echoing in his head. That wasn’t possible. That … that was abominable. His people honored Suleiman. They obeyed his code.

Dara had killed for that code.

He shot to his feet. The ground shook beneath him, the tent walls flapping madly in a gust of hot wind. He staggered outside.

“Afshin!”

He gasped. He had been expecting the darkly lush mountains of his island city, but instead, Dara faced a desert, vast and empty. And then with horror, he recognized it. Recognized the line of salt cliffs and the single rocky tower that stood sentinel in the distance.

The Dasht-e Loot. The desert in southern Daevastana so hot and inhospitable that birds dropped dead from the sky while flying over it. At the height of the Daeva rebellion, Dara had lured Zaydi al Qahtani to the Dasht-e Loot. He’d caught and killed Zaydi’s son in a battle that should have finally turned the war in the Daevas’ favor.

But that was not how things had ended for Dara in the Dasht-e Loot.

A cackling laugh brought him sharply to the present.

“Well, there is a wager I have lost …” The voice behind him was smoothly clever, pulled from the worst of Dara’s memories. “The Nahid actually did it.”

Dara whirled around, blinking in the sudden brightness. Three ifrit were before him, waiting in the crumbling ruins of what might have once been a human palace, now lost to time and the elements. The same ifrit who’d hunted him and Nahri across the Gozan River, a desperate encounter they’d barely survived.

Their leader—Aeshma, Dara remembered—dropped from a broken wall, sauntering forward with a grin. “He even looks like us,” he teased. “I suspect that’s a shock.”

“It’s a pity.” The ifrit who spoke next was a woman. “I liked the look of him before.” She gave him a sly smile, holding up a battered metal helmet. “What do you think, Darayavahoush? Want to see if it still fits?”

Dara’s eyes locked on the helmet. It had gone bluish-green with rust, but he instantly recognized the ragged edge of the brass shedu wings that sprouted from its sides. Shedu feathers, passed down from father to son, had once lined the helmet’s crest. Dara could still remember shivering the first time he had touched them.

With rising horror, he looked again at the crumbling bricks. At the dark hole they enclosed, a black void upon the moonlit sand. It was the well down which he’d been callously thrown centuries ago to be drowned and remade, his soul enslaved by the ifrit now casually spinning his helmet on one finger.

Dara jerked back, clutching his head. None of this made any sense, but it all suggested something unfathomable. Unconscionable.

Desperate, he reached for the first person on his mind. “N-nahri,” he stammered. He’d left her screaming his name upon the burning boat, surrounded by their enemies.

Aeshma rolled his eyes. “I did tell you he would ask for her first. The Afshins are like dogs for their Nahids, loyal no matter how many times they’re whipped.” He turned his attention back to Dara. “Your little healer is in Daevabad.”

Daevabad. His city. His Banu Nahida. The betrayal in her dark eyes, her hands on his face as she begged him to run away.

A choked cry came from his throat, and heat consumed him. He whirled around, not certain where he was going. Only knowing that he needed to get back to Daevabad.

And then in a crack of thunder and flash of scalding fire, the desert was gone.

Dara blinked. Then he reeled. He stood upon a rocky shore, a swiftly coursing river gleaming darkly beside it. On the opposite bank, limestone cliffs rose against the night sky, glowing faintly.

The Gozan River. How he had gotten here from the Dasht-e Loot in the blink of an eye was not a thing Dara could begin to comprehend—but it didn’t matter. Not now. The only thing that mattered was returning to Daevabad and saving Nahri from the destruction he’d wrought.

Dara rushed forward. The invisible threshold that hid Daevabad away from the rest of the world was mere moments from the riverbank. He had crossed it countless times in his mortal life, returning from hunting trips with his father and his assignments as a young soldier. It was a curtain that fell instantly for anyone with even a drop of daeva blood, revealing the misty green mountains that surrounded the city’s cursed lake.

But as he stood there now, nothing happened.

Panic swept him. This couldn’t be. Dara tried again, crisscrossing the plain and running the length of the river, struggling to find the veil.

On what must have been the hundredth attempt, Dara crashed to his knees. He wailed, flames bursting from his hands.

There was a crack of thunder and then the sound of running feet and Aeshma’s annoyed sigh.

A woman knelt quietly at his side. The Daeva woman whose face he’d awoken to, the one who resembled Nahri. A long moment of silence stretched between them, broken only by Dara’s ragged breaths.

He finally spoke. “Am I in hell?” he whispered, giving voice to the fear that gnawed at his heart, the uncertainty that had kept him from taking his sister’s hand to enter the garden. “Is this punishment for the things I’ve done?”

“No, Darayavahoush, you are not in hell.”

The soft assurance in her calm voice encouraged him to continue, and so he did. “I cannot cross the threshold,” he choked out. “I cannot even find it. I have been damned. I have been turned away from my home and—”

The woman gripped his shoulder, the powerful magic in her touch stealing his words. “You have not been damned,” she said firmly. “You cannot cross the threshold because you don’t carry Suleiman’s curse. Because you are free.”

Dara shook his head. “I do not understand.”

“You will.” She took his chin in her hands, and Dara found himself turning to look at her, feeling strangely compelled by the urgency in her dark eyes. “You’ve been granted more power than any daeva in millennia. We will find a way to return you to Daevabad, I promise.” Her grip tightened on his chin. “And when we do, Darayavahoush … we are going to take it. We’re going to save our people. We’re going to save Nahri.”

Dara stared at her, desperate for the chance her words offered. “Who are you?” he whispered.

Her mouth curved in a smile familiar enough to break his heart. “My name is Banu Manizheh.”

Nahri closed her eyes, lifting her face to the sun and enjoying its heat on her skin. She inhaled, savoring the earthy smell of the distant mountains and the fresh breeze off the lake.

“They’re late,” Muntadhir complained. “They’re always late. I think they like the sight of us waiting in the sun.”

Zaynab snorted. “Dhiru, you haven’t been on time for a single event in your life. Is this truly a fight you wish to pick?”

Nahri ignored their bickering, taking another deep breath of the crisp air and reveling in the stillness. It was rare she was allowed such freedom, and she intended to savor what she could of it. She’d learned the hard way that she had no other choice.

The first time Nahri had attempted sneaking out of the palace had been shortly after the night on the boat. She had been desperate for a distraction, aching to wander parts of the city she’d yet to visit, places where thoughts of Dara wouldn’t haunt her.

In response, Ghassan had her maid Dunoor brought out before her. He hexed the girl’s tongue for not reporting the Banu Nahida’s absence, stealing her ability to ever speak again.

The second time, Nahri had been moved by a surge of defiance. She and Muntadhir were soon to be wed. She was the Banu Nahida. Who was Ghassan to lock her away in her ancestor’s city? She had taken better care, making sure her companions had alibis and using the palace itself to cloak her in shadows and guide her through the most unused of corridors.

Still, Ghassan had found out. He dragged in the sleeping gate guard she’d tiptoed past and had the man scourged before her until there was not a strip of unbloodied skin on his back.

The third time, Nahri hadn’t even been sneaking around. Newly married to Muntadhir, she had merely decided to walk back to the palace from the Grand Temple on a sunny day, instead of taking her guarded litter. She’d never imagined Ghassan—now her father-in-law—would care. On the way, she’d stopped inside a small café in the Daeva Quarter, passing a lovely few moments chatting with its surprised and delighted proprietors.

The following day Ghassan had the couple brought to the palace. This time, he didn’t have to harm anyone. Nahri had no sooner seen their frightened faces than she dropped to her knees and swore never to go anywhere without permission again.

Which meant she now never turned away a chance to escape the palace walls. Aside from the royal siblings’ squabbling and the cry of a hawk, the lake was entirely silent, the air wrapping her in a blessed, heavy peace.

Her relief didn’t go unnoticed.

“Your wife looks like someone just released her from a century in prison,” Zaynab muttered from a few paces away. She kept her voice low, but Nahri had a talent for listening to whispers. “Even I’m starting to feel bad for her, and one of the vines in her garden ripped my cup from my hand the last time we had tea.”

Muntadhir shushed his sister. “I’m certain she didn’t mean it. Sometimes that just … happens when she’s around.”

“I heard one of the shedu statues bit a soldier who slapped her assistant.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t have slapped her assistant.” Muntadhir’s whisper turned sharper. “But enough of such gossip. I don’t want Abba hearing things like that.”

Nahri smiled beneath her veil, pleasantly surprised by his defense. Despite being married now for nearly five years, Muntadhir rarely defended her against his family.

She opened her eyes, admiring the view before her. It was a beautiful day, one of the few in which not a single cloud marred the bright, fathomless blue of Daevabad’s sky. The three of them were waiting at the front of the city’s once grand port. Though the docks were still serviceable, the rest of the port was in ruins and apparently had been for centuries. Weeds grew through the cracked paving stones and the decorative granite columns lay smashed. The only hint of the port’s ancient grandeur was behind her, in the gleaming brass facades of her ancestors on the city’s mighty walls.

Ahead was the lake, the misty-green mountains of the opposite shore melting into a thin, pebbly beach. The lake itself was still, its murky water cursed long ago by the marid during some forgotten feud with the Nahid Council. It was a curse Nahri tried very hard not to think about. Nor did she let her gaze drift southward to where the high cliffs beneath the palace met the dark water. What had happened on that stretch of the lake five years ago was a thing she didn’t dwell on.

The air shimmered and sparked, pulling Nahri’s attention to the center of the lake.

The Ayaanle had arrived.

The ship that emerged from the veil looked like something out of a fairy tale, slipping through the mists with a grace that belied its size. Nahri had grown up along the Nile and was used to boats, to the thicket of sleek feluccas, fishing canoes, and loaded trade transports that glided over the wide river in a ceaseless flow. But this ship was nothing like any of those. It looked large enough to fit hundreds, its dark teak dazzling in the sunlight as it floated lightly upon the lake. Teal banners adorned with the icons of studded golden pyramids and starry silver salt tablets flew from the masts. Its many amber-colored sails—and Nahri counted at least a dozen—dwarfed the glimmering decks. Segmented and ribbed, the sails looked more like wings than anything that belonged on a boat, and they shivered and undulated in the wind like living things.

Awed, Nahri drew closer to the Qahtani siblings. “How did they get a ship here?” The only land beyond the magical threshold that embraced Daevabad’s vast lake and misty mountains was composed of immense stretches of rocky desert.

“Because it’s not just any ship.” Zaynab grinned. “It’s a sandship. The Sahrayn invented them. They’re careful to keep the magic behind them a secret, but a skilled captain can fly across the world with one of those.” She sighed, her gaze admiring and rueful. “The Sahrayn charge the Ayaanle a fortune to use them, but they do make a statement.”

Muntadhir didn’t look as impressed by the lovely ship. “Interesting that the Ayaanle can afford such a thing when Ta Ntry’s taxes have been chronically short.”

Nahri’s gaze flickered to her husband’s face. Though Muntadhir had never directly spoken to her of Daevabad’s economic problems, they were obvious to everyone—especially the Banu Nahida who healed the training injuries of soldiers as they griped about reduced rations and undid the hexes the increasingly frazzled Treasury secretaries had begun hurling at one another. Fortunately, the downturn had yet to largely affect her Daevas—mostly because they’d cut themselves off from trading with the other tribes after Ghassan had tacitly allowed the Daeva stalls to be destroyed and their merchants harassed in the Grand Bazaar after Dara’s death. Why take the risk of trading with djinn if none would stand up to protect them?

The Ayaanle ship drifted nearer, its sails fanning out as deckhands in brightly striped linen and thick gold ornaments dashed about the boat. On the top deck, a chimeralike creature with a feline body covered in ruby scales strained at a golden harness, flashing horns that shone like diamonds and whipping a serpentine tail.

The ship had no sooner docked than a knot of passengers made their way toward the royal party. Among them was a man dressed in voluminous teal robes and a silver turban that wrapped his head and neck.

“Emir Muntadhir.” He smiled and bowed low. “Peace be upon you.”

“And upon you peace,” Muntadhir returned politely. “Rise.”

The Ayaanle man did so, aiming what seemed to be a far sincerer grin at Zaynab. “Little princess, how you’ve grown!” He laughed. “You do this old coin-changer a great honor, coming to greet me yourself.”

“The honor is mine,” Zaynab assured him with a grace Nahri would never have the patience to emulate. “I pray your journey went well?”

“God be praised.” The man turned to Nahri, his gold eyes lighting in surprise. “Is this the Nahid girl?” He blinked, and Nahri didn’t miss the way he stepped back ever so slightly.

“This is my wife,” Muntadhir corrected, his voice considerably cooler.

Nahri met the man’s eyes, drawing up as she pulled her chador close. “I am the Banu Nahida,” she said through her veil. “I hear you are called Abul Dawanik.”

He bowed. “You hear correctly.” His gaze didn’t leave her, the examination making her skin crawl. He shook his head. “Astonishing. I never imagined I’d meet a real Nahid.”

Nahri gritted her teeth. “Occasionally we’re allowed out to terrify the populace.”

Muntadhir cleared his throat. “I have made room for your men and your cargo at the royal caravanserai. I would be happy to escort you there myself.”

Abul Dawanik sighed. “Alas, there’s little cargo. My people needed more time to prepare the tax caravan.”

Muntadhir’s civil mask didn’t waver, but Nahri sensed his heartbeat pick up. “That was not the arrangement we agreed on.” The warning in his voice was so reminiscent of Ghassan, her skin prickled. “You are aware of how close Navasatem is, yes? It is a bit difficult to plan a once-in-a-century celebration when tax payments are consistently late.”

Abul Dawanik threw him a wounded look. “Straight to all this talk of money, Emir? The Geziri hospitality I’m used to typically involves chattering about polite nonsense for at least another ten minutes.”

Muntadhir’s response was direct. “Perhaps you would prefer my father’s company to mine.”

Abul Dawanik didn’t look cowed; if anything, Nahri saw a hint of slyness in his expression before he responded. “No need for threats, Your Highness. The caravan is but a few weeks behind me.” His eyes twinkled. “No doubt you will enjoy what it brings you.”

From behind the city walls, the adhan sounded, calling the faithful to noon prayer. It rose and fell in distant waves as new muezzins picked it up, and Nahri fought a familiar twinge of homesickness. The adhan always made her think of Cairo.

“Dhiru, surely this can wait,” Zaynab said, clearly trying to alleviate the tension between the two men. “Abul Dawanik is our guest. He has had a long journey. Why don’t the two of you go pray together and then visit the caravanserai? I can take Nahri back to the palace.”

Muntadhir didn’t look pleased, but he didn’t protest. “Do you mind?” he asked Nahri courteously.

Do I have a choice? Zaynab’s bearers were already bringing their litter over, the pretty cage that would return Nahri to her gilded prison. “Of course not,” she muttered, turning away from the lake to follow her sister-in-law.

They didn’t talk much on the way back. Zaynab appeared absorbed in her thoughts, and Nahri was happy to rest her eyes before returning to the bustling infirmary.

But the litter shuddered to a stop too soon. Nahri jolted from her half doze and rubbed her eyes, frowning as she caught sight of Zaynab hastily pulling off some of her jewelry. Nahri watched as she piled it on the cushion beside her, and then from beneath the brocade-covered seat, retrieved two plain cotton abayas, pulling one over her silk gown.

“Are we being robbed?” Nahri asked, half-hoping it might be true. Being robbed would mean a delay in returning to the palace and Ghassan’s constant, watchful presence.

Zaynab neatly wrapped a dark shawl around her hair. “Of course not. I’m going for a walk.”

“A walk?”

“You’re not the only one who wants to escape sometimes, and I take my opportunities when they arise.” Zaynab tossed the second abaya at Nahri. “Quick, put this on. And keep your face veiled.”

Nahri stared at her in surprise. “You want me to come?”

Zaynab eyed her. “I’ve known you for five years. I am not leaving you alone with my jewelry.”

Nahri hesitated, tempted. But the terrified faces of the people Ghassan had punished in her place immediately flooded her mind, and her heart seized in fear. “I can’t. Your father—”

Zaynab’s expression softened. “He hasn’t caught me yet. And I’ll take the responsibility if he does today, I swear.” She beckoned Nahri forward. “Come. You look like you need this even more than I do.”

Nahri quickly considered her options. Ghassan did have a soft spot for his only daughter, so after another moment of indecision, temptation won out. She pulled free her most visibly royal jewels, slipped into the garment Zaynab had offered her, and followed her out of the litter.

With a quiet word and a knowing wink between the princess and one of her guards—Nahri sensed this was a well-honed routine—the two women were pulled into the crush of pedestrians. Nahri had been to the Geziri Quarter plenty of times with Muntadhir to visit his relatives, but she hadn’t seen anything beyond the curtains of the litters in which they traveled and the sumptuous interiors of mansions. Palace women were not expected to mix with commoners, let alone wander the city streets.

At first glance, the Quarter looked small—despite a Geziri family ruling the city, most of their tribesmen were said to prefer the rugged terrain of their homeland. But it was a pleasant glance, nonetheless. Windtowers loomed far above, sending lake-fresh breezes past neat rows of tall brick buildings, their pale facades adorned with copper shutters and white stucco filigree. Ahead was the market, protected from the hot sun by woven reed mats and a glistening water channel cut into the main street, filled with enchanted ice. Across from the market was the quarter’s main mosque, and next to the mosque was a large floating pavilion, shaded by date and citrus trees, where families feasted on dark halwa, coffee, and other treats from the market.

And over it all loomed the stark tower of the Citadel. The home of the Royal Guard, the Citadel threw shadows over the Geziri Quarter and the neighboring Grand Bazaar, jutting up against the brass walls that separated Daevabad from its deadly lake. Nisreen had once told her—in one of her many dark warnings about the Geziris—that the Citadel had been the first structure Zaydi al Qahtani built upon seizing Daevabad from the Nahid Council. He’d ruled from there for years, leaving the palace a deserted ruin stained with the blood of her ancestors.

Zaynab chose that moment to take her arm, pulling her toward the market, and Nahri happily let herself be towed. Almost unconsciously, she palmed a ripe orange from a fruit stand as they passed. Stealing it was probably reckless, but there was something so freeing about strolling crowded city streets. It might not be Cairo, but the rustle of impatient passersby, the aroma of street food, and knots of men emerging from the mosque were familiar enough to briefly ease her homesickness. She was anonymous again for the first time in years, and it was delightful.

They slowed to a stroll once they entered the shadowed depths of the market. Nahri looked around, dazzled. A glassworker was turning hot sand into a speckled bottle with her fiery hands while across the lane a wooden loom worked by itself, bright woolen threads wrapping and twisting to pattern a half-completed prayer mat. From a stall packed with flowers came a rich aroma, a perfumer sprinkling rosewater and musk over a glittering tray of molten ambergris. Next door, a pair of hunting cheetahs in jeweled collars lounged on elevated cushions, sharing a storefront with squawking firebirds.

Zaynab stopped to stroke the large cats while Nahri wandered ahead. Down an adjacent lane was a row of booksellers, and she immediately headed for them, captivated by the volumes laid out in rows on rugs and tables. While a few books had an aura of magic, their covers bound in scales and pages shimmering gently, the majority looked human-made. Nahri wasn’t surprised; of all the djinn tribes, the Geziris were said to be closest to the humans with whom they silently shared their land.

She browsed the nearest stall. Most of the books were in Arabic, and the sight sent an odd pang through her. It was the first language she’d learned to read, and a skill she could never entirely divorce in her mind from the young prince who’d taught her. Not wanting to think of Ali, she glanced idly at the next table. A book with a sketch of a trio of pyramids rested in its center.

Nahri was there the next moment, reaching for the book like she might have grabbed a long-lost friend in an embrace. They were Giza’s famed Pyramids, all right, and as she flipped through the pages, she recognized more of Cairo’s distinctive landmarks: the twin minarets of the Bab Zuweila gate and the vast interior of the Ibn Tulun mosque. There were women in the black dresses Nahri had once worn gathering water from the Nile, and men sorting piles of sugarcane.

“You have a good eye, miss.” An older Geziri man ambled forth. “That’s one of my newest human acquisitions, and I’ve never seen anything like it. A Sahrayn trader picked it up crossing the Nile.”

Nahri ran her hands over the first page. The book was written in a script she’d never seen. “What language is this?”

The man shrugged. “I’m not certain. The lettering appears similar to some of the old Latin texts I have. The trader who picked it up didn’t stay in Egypt long; he said it looked as though the humans were engaged in some sort of war.”

Some sort of war. Her fingers pressed harder on the book. Egypt had been freshly subjugated by the French when Nahri left, ruled by the Ottomans before that—it was seemingly Nahri’s destiny to belong to an occupied people wherever she went. “How much do you want for this?”

“Three dinars.”

Nahri narrowed her eyes at him. “Three dinars? Do I look as though I’m made of gold?”

The man seemed shocked. “That … that is the price, miss.”

“Maybe for someone else,” she said scornfully, masking her glee while feigning insult. “I won’t give you a coin over ten dirhams.”

He gaped. “But that’s not how we—”

Zaynab was suddenly there, seizing Nahri’s arm in a tight grip. “What are you doing?”

Nahri rolled her eyes. “It’s called bargaining, sister dear. I’m sure you’ve never had to do such a thing but—”

“Geziris do not bargain in our community markets.” Zaynab’s words dripped with revulsion. “It breeds discord.”

Nahri was scandalized. “So you just pay whatever they ask?” She couldn’t believe she’d married into such a naive people. “What if they’re cheating you?”

Zaynab was already handing three gold coins to the bookseller. “Perhaps it would be better to stop thinking that everyone is cheating you, no?” She pulled Nahri away and pushed the book into her hands. “And stop making a scene. The point is to not get caught.”

Nahri clutched the book to her chest, a little abashed. “I’ll pay you back.”

“Don’t insult me.” Zaynab’s voice turned gentler. “You’re not the first outspoken fool for whom I’ve bought overpriced human books on this street.”

Nahri darted a look at the princess. She wanted to press her as much as she wanted to change the subject. And that, in essence, was how she felt about Alizayd al Qahtani.

Let it go. There were plenty of other ways to pester her sister-in-law. “I’m hearing rumors you’re being courted by a noble from Malacca,” she said brightly as they resumed walking.

Zaynab drew to a stop. “Where did you hear that?”

“I like to converse with my patients.”

The princess shook her head. “Your patients should learn to hold their tongues. You should learn to hold your tongue. Surely, I deserve that much for buying your book about odd human buildings.”

“Do you not want to marry him?” Nahri asked, peeling the orange she’d stolen.

“Of course, I don’t want to marry him,” Zaynab replied. “Malacca is across the sea. I’d never see my family.” Disdain entered her voice. “Besides which, he has three other wives, a dozen children, and is approaching his second century.”

“So refuse the match.”

“That’s my father’s decision.” Zaynab’s expression tightened. “And my suitor is a very wealthy man.”

Ah. Muntadhir’s concerns about the state of the city’s treasury suddenly made more sense. “Can’t your mother object?” she asked. Queen Hatset thoroughly intimidated Nahri, and she couldn’t imagine the woman allowing her only daughter to be packed off to Malacca for any amount of gold.

Zaynab seemed to hesitate. “My mother has a more important battle to fight right now.”

They’d wandered down a quieter street that ran past the Citadel. Its heavy stone walls loomed high overhead, blocking the blue sky in a way that made Nahri feel nervous and small. Through a pair of open doors came the sound of laughter and the distinctive sizzling clash of zulfiqar blades.

Not certain how to respond, she handed Zaynab half of her orange. “I’m sorry.”

Zaynab stared at the fruit, uncertainty blooming in her gray-gold eyes. “You and my brother were enemies when you married,” she said haltingly. “Sometimes it seems like you still are. How … how did you …?”

“You find a way.” The words unfurled from a hard place within Nahri, one that she’d retreated to countless times since she’d been plucked from the Nile and dropped in Cairo, alone and afraid. “You’d be amazed by the things a person can do to survive.”

Zaynab looked taken aback. “You make me feel as though I should tell Muntadhir to keep a blade under his pillow.”

“I’d advise against your brother keeping anything sharp in his bed,” Nahri said as they continued walking. “Considering the number of visitors—” She choked, the orange falling from her fingers as a wave of coldness stole through her.

Zaynab instantly stopped. “Are you all right?”

Nahri barely heard the question. It felt as though an unseen hand had grasped her chin, turning her head to stare down the gloomy street they’d just passed. Tucked between the Citadel and the mottled brass of the city’s outer walls, it looked as though the block had been razed centuries ago. Weeds and dirt covered the broken paving stones and scorch marks scarred the bare stone walls. At the very end was a crumbling brick complex. Broken windows faced the street, the black spaces looking like missing teeth in a gaping mouth. Beyond the front portico were the lush tops of wildly overgrown trees. Ivy covered the buildings, strangling columns and dangling over smashed windows like so many nooses.

Nahri took a few steps in and then inhaled sharply, a buzz racing down her skin. She’d swear the heavy shadows had lifted slightly when she moved.

She turned to see Zaynab had followed her. “What is this place?” she asked, her voice echoing against the stone.

Zaynab gave the complex a skeptical glance. “A ruin? I’m not exactly an expert when it comes to moldering buildings in a three-thousand-year-old city.”

The street warmed beneath Nahri’s feet, hot enough to feel through her sandals. “I need to go in there.”

“You need to do what?”

But Nahri was already walking, thoughts of the princess, even fears of Ghassan’s gruesome punishments all falling away. She felt almost compelled, her gaze locked on the mysterious complex.

She stopped outside a pair of large brass doors. Pictograms were carved into their surface—a leaping oryx and a ship’s prow, a Daeva fire altar and a pair of scales—and magic all but simmered off the brass. Though Nahri couldn’t imagine anyone living in such a place, she raised a hand to knock.

Her knuckles hadn’t even grazed the surface when the door swung open with a groan, revealing a yawning black hole.

There was no one on the other side.

Zaynab had caught up. “Oh, absolutely not,” she said. “You’re with the wrong Qahtani if you think I’m about to go wandering into this haunted wreck.”

Nahri swallowed. Had she been back in Egypt, this might have been the start of a tale told to frighten children, one of mysterious ruins and terrifying djinn.

Except she was technically the terrifying djinn, and the icy grip the building had on her heart had only tightened. It was reckless; it was an impulse that made no sense—but she was going inside.

“Then stay out here.” Nahri dodged Zaynab’s hand and ducked inside.

The darkness instantly swallowed her. “Naar,” she whispered. Flames blossomed in her palm, throwing light on what must have once been a grand entrance chamber. Remnants of paint clung to the walls, outlining the forms of winged bulls and prancing phoenixes. Pockmarks were everywhere, places gems had likely been pried from the walls.

She stepped forward, raising her flames. Her eyes widened.

In fragments and shadows, the Nahids’ creation story spread on the wall before her. Suleiman’s ancient temple rising over the heads of its laboring daeva workers. A woman with pointed ears kneeling in a blue-and-gold chador at the feet of a human king. As Nahri stared in wonder at the mural, she’d swear the figures started to move and merge: a scattering of glazed paint becoming a flock of soaring shedus, the bare line drawing of veiled Nahid healers mixing potions filling with color. The faint sound of marching boots and cheering spectators whispered in her ear as a parade of archers trooped by, wearing ceremonial helmets crested with swaying feathers.

Nahri gasped, and as she did, the flame twirled away from her palm, pinpricks of light dancing away to illuminate the rest of the chamber. It was a burst of unconscious magic, the kind she associated with the palace, the royal heart of the Nahids whose power still coursed in her blood.

The murals abruptly stopped moving. Zaynab had entered and was gingerly picking her way over the debris littering the floor.

“I think this place belonged to my family,” Nahri whispered, awed.

Zaynab gave the room a wary look. “To be fair … I believe that could be said of much of Daevabad.” Her expression turned exasperated when Nahri glared. “Excuse me if it’s difficult to be diplomatic when I’m afraid the building is going to come down at any moment. Now can we please leave? My father will have me packed off to Malacca tomorrow if his Nahid gets crushed under a pile of falling bricks.”

“I’m not his Nahid, and I’m not leaving until I figure out what this place was.” The tingle of magic on Nahri’s skin had only increased, the humid heat of the city oppressive in the close chamber. She pulled free her veil, thinking it unlikely they would come upon anyone, and then, ignoring Zaynab’s warning, Nahri climbed over one of the crumbling walls.

She landed lightly on her feet in a long, covered corridor, a succession of sandstone arches separating a row of doors from an overgrown courtyard garden. The walkway was in far better shape than the foyer: the floor appeared freshly swept, the wall plastered and covered in swirls of colorful paint.

With a curse, Zaynab followed. “If I’ve not said it lately, I think I hate you.”

“You know, for a magical being, you have a terrible sense of adventure,” Nahri replied, touching one of the eddies of paint, a blue swell that looked like a wave. An ebony boat was outlined against it. At her touch, the wave rose as if alive, sending the boat careening down the wall.

Nahri grinned. Thoroughly intrigued, she kept walking, peeking inside the rooms she passed. Save for the occasional broken shelf and rotting bits of carpet, they were all empty.

Until they weren’t. Nahri abruptly stopped outside the last room. Cedar shelves bursting with scrolls and books covered the walls, stretching to the distant ceiling. More texts were stacked in precarious, towering piles on the floor.

She was inside before she noticed the floor desk wedged between two of the piles. A figure was hunched over its paper-strewn surface: an elderly looking Ayaanle man in a striped robe that nearly swallowed his wizened body.

“No, no, no …,” he muttered in Ntaran, scratching out whatever he’d just written with a charcoal pencil. “That makes no sense.”

Nahri hesitated. She couldn’t imagine what an Ayaanle scholar was doing in a book-stuffed room in a ruined building, but he looked harmless enough. “Peace be upon you,” she greeted him.

The man’s head snapped up.

His eyes were the color of emeralds.

He blinked rapidly and then yelped, pushing back from his cushion. “Razu!” he cried. “Razu!” He snatched up a scroll, raising it like a sword.

Nahri instantly backed away, brandishing her book. “Stay back!” she shouted as Zaynab ran to join her. The princess held a dagger in one hand.

“Oh, Issa, whatever is the problem now?”

Nahri and Zaynab both jumped and whirled around. Two women had emerged from the courtyard so swiftly they might have been conjured. One looked Sahrayn, with reddish black locks that fell to the waist of her paint-streaked galabiyya. The taller woman—the one who’d spoken—was Tukharistani, dressed in a dazzling cape of visibly magic design that fell like a mantle of molten copper across her shoulders. Her gaze locked on Nahri. Green eyes again. The same bright hue Dara’s had been.

The Ayaanle scholar—Issa—peeked past his door, still wielding his scroll. “It looks human, Razu! I swore they would never take me again!”

“That is no human, Issa.” The Tukharistani woman stepped forward. Her brilliant gaze hadn’t left Nahri’s. “It is you,” she whispered. Reverence swept over her face and she dropped to her knees, bringing her fingers together in respect. “Banu Nahida.”

“Banu Nahida?” Issa repeated. Nahri could see him still trembling. “Are you certain?”

“I am.” The Tukharistani woman gestured to an emerald-studded iron cuff on her wrist. “I can feel the tug in my vessel.” She touched her chest. “And in my heart,” she added softly. “Like I did with Baga Rustam.”

“Oh.” Issa dropped the scroll. “Oh, dear …” He attempted to bow. “Apologies, my lady. One can never be too careful these days.”

Zaynab was breathing heavily beside her, her dagger still raised. Nahri reached out and pushed her arm down. Thoroughly mystified, she stared at the strange trio, her gaze darting to each of them in turn. “I’m sorry …,” she started, lost for words. “But who are you all?”

The Tukharistani woman rose to her feet. Her silver-and-gold-streaked black hair was held back in an intricate lace net, and her face well-lined; had she been human, Nahri would have guessed she was in her sixties. “I am Razu Qaraqashi,” she said. “You have already stumbled into Issa, and this is Elashia,” she added, affectionately touching the shoulder of the Sahrayn woman next to her. “We are the last ifrit slaves in Daevabad.”

Elashia instantly scowled, and Razu bowed her head. “Forgive me, my love.” She glanced back at Nahri. “Elashia does not like to be called a slave.”

Nahri fought to keep the shock from her face. Quietly, she let her abilities expand. Small wonder she thought she’d been alone: hers and Zaynab’s were the only hearts pounding in the entire complex. The bodies of the djinn before her were entirely silent. Just as Dara’s had been.

Because they’re not true bodies, Nahri realized, recalling what she knew of the slave curse. The ifrit murdered the djinn they took, and in order to free them, the Nahids conjured new forms, new bodies to house their reclaimed souls. Nahri knew little else about the process; slavery was so feared among the djinn, it was rarely spoken of, as if simply mentioning the word “ifrit” would get one dragged off to a fate considered worse than death.

A fate the three people before her had survived. Nahri opened her mouth, struggling for a response. “What are you doing here?” she finally asked.

“Hiding,” Issa responded mournfully. “No one else in Daevabad will have us after what happened to the Afshin. People fear we’re liable to go mad and start murdering innocents with ifrit magic. We thought the hospital the safest place.”

Nahri blinked. “This was a hospital?”

Issa’s bright eyes narrowed. “Is it not obvious?” he asked, gesturing inexplicably to the crumbling ruins around them. “Where do you think your ancestors practiced?”

Razu quickly stepped forward. “Why don’t you two come with me for some refreshments?” she suggested kindly. “It is not often I have guests as esteemed as Daevabadi royals.” She smiled when Zaynab shrank back. “Do not fear, my princess, it is otherwise a lovely disguise.”

With the word “hospital” ringing in her ears, Nahri followed at once. The courtyard was in the same sorry state as the rest of the complex, with roots snaking over its shattered blue and lemon-yellow tiles, yet there was something lovely about its ruin. Dark roses grew lush and wild, their thorny vines twining around a long-fallen shedu statue and the air rich with their fragrance. A pair of bulbuls splashed and sang in a cracked fountain set in front of the cascading boughs of a stand of shade trees.

“Do not mind Issa,” Razu said lightly. “His social graces could use some work, but he’s a brilliant scholar who’s lived an extraordinary life. Before the ifrit took him, he spent centuries traveling the lands of the Nile, visiting their libraries and sending copies of their work back to Daevabad.”

“The Nile?” Nahri asked eagerly.

“Indeed.” Razu glanced back. “That is right … you grew up there. In Alexandria, yes?”

“Cairo,” Nahri corrected, her heart giving its familiar lurch.

“Forgive the error. I’m not sure there was a Cairo in my day,” Razu mused. “Though I’d heard of Alexandria. All of them.” She shook her head. “What a vain, upstart youth Alexander was, naming all those cities after himself. His armies terrified the poor humans in Tukharistan.”

Zaynab gasped. “Do you mean to say you lived in the same era as Alexander the Great?”

Razu’s smile was more enigmatic this time. “Indeed. I’ll be twenty-three hundred at this year’s generation celebration. Anahid’s grandchildren were ruling Daevabad when the ifrit took me.”

“But … that’s not possible,” Nahri breathed. “Not for ifrit slaves.”

“Ah, I suspect you’ve been told that we’re all driven mad by the experience within a few centuries?” Razu quirked an eyebrow. “Like most things in life, the truth is a bit more complicated. And my particular circumstances were unusual.”

“How so?”

“I offered myself to an ifrit.” She laughed. “I was a terribly wicked thing with a fondness for tales of lost fortune. We convinced ourselves that we’d find all sorts of legendary treasures if we could recover the powers we’d had before Suleiman.”

“You gave yourself to the ifrit?” Zaynab sounded scandalized, but Nahri was starting to feel a bit of a kinship for this mysterious hustler.

Razu nodded. “A distant cousin of mine. He was a stubborn fool who refused to submit to Suleiman, but I liked him.” She shrugged. “Things were a little … gray between our peoples back then.” She raised her palm. Three black lines marred the skin. “But it was foolish. I set my masters chasing after fantastical prizes my cousin and I planned to retrieve after I was freed. I was digging through some old tombs with my third human when the entire thing collapsed, killing him and burying my ring under the desert.”

She snapped her fingers and a bolt of silk spun out from a basket sitting beneath a neem tree, arching and expanding in the air to form a swing. She motioned for Nahri and Zaynab to sit.

“It took two thousand years for another djinn to stumble upon me. He brought me back to Daevabad, and here I am today.” Razu’s bright eyes dimmed. “I never did see my ifrit cousin again. I suppose a Nahid or Afshin caught up with him, in the end.”

Nahri cleared her throat. “I’m sorry.”

Razu nudged her shoulder. “You needn’t apologize. I was certainly more fortunate than Issa and Elashia; the few human masters I had never abused me. But when I returned, my world was gone, any descendants lost to history, and the Tukharistan I knew a legend in the eyes of my own people. It was easier to begin anew in Daevabad. At least until recently.” She shook her head. “But here I am rambling about the past … what brings you two here?”

“Carelessness,” Zaynab muttered under her breath.

“I … I don’t quite know,” Nahri confessed. “We were passing by and I felt …” She trailed off. “I felt the magic emanating from this place, and it reminded me of the palace.” She glanced around wonderingly. “Was this truly a hospital?”

Razu nodded. “It was.” With another snap of her fingers, a smoking glass ewer appeared alongside three chalices. She poured Nahri and Zaynab each a glass of a cloud-colored liquid. “I spent some time here as a patient after failing to dodge one of my creditors.”

Zaynab took a cautious sip and then promptly spit it most inelegantly back into the cup. “Oh, that’s definitely forbidden.”

Curious, Nahri tested her own glass, coughing at the intense burn of alcohol as it ran down her throat. “What is this?”

“Soma. The preferred drink of your ancestors.” Razu winked. “Regardless of Suleiman’s curse, the daevas of my day had yet to entirely lose our wildness.”

Whatever soma was, it admittedly left Nahri feeling more relaxed. Zaynab looked ready to bolt, but Nahri was enjoying her time more and more with each allusion to Razu’s felonious past. “What was it like back then—when you were a patient, I mean?”

Razu gazed pensively at the hospital. “It was an astonishing place, even in a city as magical as Daevabad. The Nahids must have treated thousands, and it all hummed along like a well-oiled wheel. I’d been hexed with a rather contagious streak of despair, so I was treated in quarantine over there.” She tilted her head toward a crumbling wing, then took a sip of her drink. “They took excellent care of us. A bed, a roof, and warm meals? It was almost worth being sick.”

Nahri leaned back on her palms, contemplating all that. She knew hospitals fairly well; she’d often snuck into Cairo’s most famous—the majestic, old bimaristan in the Qalawun complex—to steal supplies and wander its depths, fantasizing about joining the ranks of the students and physicians crowding its lofty corridors.

She tried to imagine how that bustle would look here, the hospital whole and filled with Nahids. Dozens of healers consulting notes and examining patients. It must have been an extraordinary community.

A Nahid hospital. “I wish I had something like that,” she said softly.

Razu grinned, raising her chalice in Nahri’s direction. “Consider me your first recruit should you attempt to rebuild.”

Zaynab had been tapping her foot, but now she stood. “Nahri, we should go,” she warned, motioning to the sky. The sun had disappeared behind the hospital walls.

Nahri touched Razu’s hand. “I’m going to try and come back,” she promised. “The three of you … are you safe here? Is there anything you need?” Though Razu and her companions were probably more capable than Nahri at taking care of themselves, she felt suddenly protective of the three souls her family had freed.

Razu squeezed her hand. “We are fine,” she assured her. “Though I do hope you come back. I think the place likes you.”

Ali gazed at the edge of the rocky cliff, squinting in the desert’s bright sunlight. His heart was beating so fast he could hear it in his ears, his breath coming in ragged bursts. Nervous sweat beaded on his brow, soaking into the cotton ghutra he’d wrapped around his head. He raised his arms, shifting back and forth on his bare feet.

“He’s not going to do it,” he heard one of the other djinn goad. There were six of them there atop the cliffs bordering the village of Bir Nabat, and they were all fairly young, for what they were doing required the sort of recklessness youth provided. “Little prince isn’t risking his royal neck.”

“He’ll do it,” another man shot back—Lubayd, Ali’s closest friend in Am Gezira. “He better do it.” His voice rose. “Ali, brother, I’ve got coin riding on you. Don’t let me down!”

“You shouldn’t be gambling,” Ali shot back anxiously. He took another shaky breath, trying to work up his courage. This was so dangerous. So unnecessary and foolish, it was almost selfish.

From beyond the cliff, there was the sound of reptilian snuffling, followed by the sharp, unpleasant tang of burnt feathers. Ali whispered a prayer under his breath.

And then he took off, sprinting toward the cliff edge. He ran as fast as he could and when the cliff gave way to air, he kept going, hurling himself into empty space. For one petrifying moment, he was falling, the distant, rock-strewn ground he was about to be dashed upon rushing up …

He landed hard on the back of the zahhak that had been roosting along the cliff face. Ali gasped, a thrill racing through his blood as he let out a cry that was equal parts terrified and triumphant.

The zahhak clearly didn’t share his enthusiasm. With an offended screech, the flying serpent took to the sky.

Ali lunged for the copper collar that a far more enterprising djinn had slipped over the zahhak’s neck years ago, tightening his legs around the creature’s sleek, silver-scaled body as he’d been instructed. Four massive wings—misty white and billowing like clouds—beat the air around him, snatching the breath from his lungs. Resembling an overgrown lizard—albeit one with the ability to shoot flames from its fanged mouth when harassed by djinn—this particular zahhak was said to be over four hundred years old and had been nesting in the cliffs outside Bir Nabat for generations, perhaps favoring the familiarity of its nesting spot enough to deal with the antics of the Geziri youth.

One of those youths squeezed his eyes shut now; the rush of the wind and the sight of the ground whizzing beneath him sending another rush of fear into Ali’s heart. He clutched the collar, huddling against the zahhak’s neck.

Look, you fool. Considering there was a chance this ended with him in pieces on the sand below, Ali might as well appreciate the view.

He opened his eyes. The desert spread before him, great sweeps of red-gold sand stretching to meet the bright blue horizon, broken by proudly jutting stands of rocks, antique formations sculpted by the wind over countless millennia. Jagged paths marked the line of long-vanished wadis, a distant stand of darkly lush palms forming a tiny oasis to the north.

“God be praised,” he whispered, awed by the beauty and magnificence of the world below him. He understood now why Lubayd and Aqisa had been goading him into taking part in this most deadly of Bir Nabat’s traditions. Ali might have grown up in Daevabad, but he’d never experienced anything as extraordinary as flying like this.

He squinted at the oasis, growing curious as he noticed black tents and movement between the distant trees. A group of nomads perhaps—the oasis belonged to humans according to custom long set, the djinn of Bir Nabat not daring to take even a cup of water from its wells.

He leaned forward against the creature’s neck for a better look, and the zahhak let out a smoky grumble of protest. Ali coughed, his stomach turning at the stench of the creature’s breath. The gristle of roasted prey crusted its stained fangs, and though Ali had been warned about the smell, it still left him light-headed.

The zahhak obviously didn’t think much of him either. Without warning, it banked, sending Ali scrambling to keep his grip, and then the creature hurtled back the way they’d come, cutting through the air like a scythe.

Ahead, Ali could see the entrance to Bir Nabat: a forbiddingly dark, empty doorway built directly into the cliffs. Stark sandstone carvings surrounded it: crumbling eagles perched upon decorative columns and a sharp pattern of steps that rose to meet the sky. The carvings had been done eons ago by Bir Nabat’s original human settlers, an ancient group lost to time whose ruined settlement the djinn now called home.

His companions were just below, waving their arms and beating a metal drum to draw the ire of the zahhak. It dived for them, letting out a screech. Steeling himself, Ali waited until the zahhak drew close to his friends, opening its jaws to breathe an angry plume of scarlet fire that they narrowly ducked. Then he jumped.

He tumbled hard to the ground, Aqisa yanking him back just before the zahhak scorched the place he’d landed. With another offended shriek, it soared off, clearly having had enough of djinn for one day.

Lubayd hauled Ali to his feet, clapping his back and letting out a whoop. “I told you he would do it!” He grinned at Ali. “Worth the risk?”

Every part of his body ached, but Ali was too exhilarated to care. “It was amazing,” he gushed, trying to catch his breath. He pulled away the ghutra the wind had plastered to his mouth. “And guess what? There’s a new group of humans at the—”

Groans interrupted him before he’d even finished the sentence.

“No,” Aqisa cut in. “I am not going to spy on humans with you again. You are obsessed.”

Ali persisted. “But we could learn something new! You remember the village we explored in the south, the sundial they used to regulate their canals? That was very helpful.”

Lubayd handed Ali his weapons back. “I remember the humans chasing us away when they realized they had ‘demonic’ visitors. They were firing quite a lot of those explosive stick … things. And I don’t intend to learn if there’s iron in those projectiles.”

“Those ‘explosive stick things’ are called rifles,” Ali corrected. “And you are all sadly lacking a spirit of enterprise.”

They made their way down the rocky ledge that led to the village. Etchings covered the sandstone: letters in an alphabet Ali couldn’t read, and carefully hewn drawings of long-vanished animals. In one high corner, an enormous bald man loomed over simple line drawings of figures, stylized flames twisting around his fingers. An original daeva, the village djinn believed, from before Suleiman blessed them. Judging from the figure’s wild eyes and sharp teeth, they must have terrorized the human settlers.

Ali and his friends crossed beneath the entrance facade. A pair of djinn were drinking coffee in its shade, ostensibly guarding it. On the rare occasion a curious human got too close, they had charms capable of conjuring rushing winds and blinding sandstorms to frighten them off.

They looked up as Ali and his companions passed. “Did he do it?” one of the guards asked with a smile.

Lubayd wrapped an arm around Ali’s shoulders proudly. “You’d think he’d been riding zahhak since he was weaned.”

“It was extraordinary,” Ali admitted.

The other man laughed. “We’ll make a proper northerner out of you yet, Daevabadi.”

Ali grinned back. “God willing.”

They crossed through the dark chamber, passing the empty tombs of the long-dead human kings and queens who once ruled here—no one would ever give Ali a straight answer as to exactly where their bodies had gone and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Ahead was a plain stone wall. To a casual observer—a human observer—little would mark it as special save the slight glow emanating from its oddly warm surface.

But it was a surface that all but sang to Ali, magic simmering from the rock in comforting waves. He placed his palm upon the wall. “Pataru sawassam,” he commanded in Geziriyya.

The wall misted away, revealing the bustling greenery of Bir Nabat. Ali paused, taking a moment to appreciate the newly fertile beauty of the place he’d called home for five years. It was a mesmerizing sight, far different from the famine-stricken shell it had been when he first arrived. Though Bir Nabat had likely been a lush paradise at the time of its founding—the remnants of water catchments and aqueducts, as well as the size and artistry of its human-crafted temples, indicated a time of more frequent rains and a flourishing population—the djinn who’d moved in after had never matched their numbers. They’d gotten by for centuries with a pair of remaining springs and their own scavenging.

But by the time Ali arrived, the springs had dwindled down to almost nothing. Bir Nabat had become a desperate place, a place willing to defy their king and take in the strange young prince they’d found dying in a nearby crevasse. A place willing to overlook the fact that his eyes occasionally gleamed like wet bitumen when he got upset and his limbs were covered in scars no blade could draw. That didn’t matter to the Geziris in Bir Nabat. The fact that Ali had uncovered four new springs and two untapped cisterns, enough water to irrigate Bir Nabat for centuries, did. Now small but thriving plots of barley and melons hemmed new homes, more and more people opting to replace tents of smoke and oryx hide with compounds of quarried stone and sandblasted glass. The date trees were healthy, thick and towering to provide cool shade. The village’s eastern corner had been given over to orchards: a dozen fig saplings growing strong between citrus trees, all carefully fenced off for protection from Bir Nabat’s booming population of goats.

They passed by the village’s small market, held in the shadow of the enormous old temple that had been carved into the cliff face, its carefully sculpted columns and pavilions laden with magical goods. Ali smiled, returning the nods and salaams of various djinn merchants, a sense of calm stealing over him.

One of the vendors quickly stepped to block his path. “Ah, sheikh, I’ve been looking for you.”

Ali blinked, pulled from his euphoric daze. It was Reem, a woman from one of the artisan-caste families.

She waved a scroll in front of him “I need you to check this contract for me. I’m telling you … that shifty southern slave of Bilqis is cheating me. My enchantments have no equal, and I know I should be seeing higher returns on the baskets I sold him.”

“You do realize I’m one of those shifty southerners, correct?” Ali pointed out. The Qahtanis originally hailed from Am Gezira’s mountainous southern coast—and were rather proud descendants of the djinn servants Suleiman had once gifted Bilqis, the human queen of ancient Saba.

Reem shook her head. “You’re Daevabadi. It doesn’t count.” She paused. “It’s actually worse.”

Ali sighed and took the contract; between spending the morning digging a new canal and getting tossed around by a zahhak in the afternoon, he was beginning to yearn for his bed. “I’ll have a look.”

“Bless you, sheikh.” Reem turned away.

Ali and his friends kept walking but didn’t get far before Bir Nabat’s muezzin came huffing over to them.

“Brother Alizayd, peace and blessings upon you!” The muezzin’s gray eyes flitted over Ali. “Aye, you look half-dead on your feet.”

“Yes. I was about to—”

“Of course, you were. Listen …” The muezzin lowered his voice. “Is there any way you could give the khutbah tomorrow? Sheikh Jiyad hasn’t been feeling well.”

“Doesn’t Brother Thabit usually give the sermon in his father’s place?”

“Yes, but …” The muezzin lowered his voice even further. “I can’t deal with another of his rants, brother. I just can’t. The last time he gave the khutbah, all he did was ramble about how the music of lutes was leading young people away from prayer.”

Ali sighed again. He and Thabit didn’t get along, primarily because Thabit fervently believed all the gossip coming out of Daevabad and would rail to anyone who would listen that Ali was an adulterous liar who’d been sent to corrupt them all with “city ways.” “He won’t be happy when he learns you asked me.”

Aqisa snorted. “Yes, he will. It will give him something new to complain about.”

“And people enjoy your sermons,” the muezzin added quickly. “You choose very lovely topics.” His voice turned shrewd. “It is good for their faith.”

The man knew how to make an appeal, Ali would grant him that. “All right,” he grumbled. “I’ll do it.”

The muezzin pressed his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“You’re dealing with Thabit when he hears about this,” Ali said to Aqisa, half-stumbling down the path. They had almost reached his home. “You know how much he hates—” Ali broke off.

Two women were waiting for him outside his tent.

“Sisters!” he greeted them, forcing a smile to his face even as he inwardly swore. “Peace be upon you.”

“And upon you peace.” It was Umm Qays who spoke first, one of the village’s stone mages. She gave Ali a wide, oddly sly grin. “How does this day find you?”

Exhausted. “Well, thanks be to God,” Ali replied. “And yourselves?”

“Fine. We’re fine,” Bushra, Umm Qays’s daughter spoke up quickly. She was avoiding Ali’s eyes, embarrassment visible in her flushed cheeks. “Just passing through!”

“Nonsense.” Umm Qays yanked her daughter close, and the young woman gave a small, startled yelp. “My Bushra has just made the loveliest kabsa … she is an extraordinarily gifted cook, you know, can conjure up a feast from the barest of bones and a whisper of spice … Anyway, her first thought was to set aside a portion for our prince.” She beamed at Ali. “A good girl, she is.”

Ali blinked, a little taken aback by Umm Qays’s enthusiasm. “Ah … thank you,” he said, catching sight of Lubayd covering his mouth, his eyes bright with amusement. “It is much appreciated.”

Umm Qays was peeking in his tent. She tutted in disapproval. “A lonely place this looks, Alizayd al Qahtani. You are a great man. You should have a proper home in the cliffs and someone to return to.”

God have mercy, not this again. He stammered out a reply. “I-I thank you for your concern, but really I’m quite content. Being lonely.”

“Ah, but you’re a young man.” Umm Qays clapped his shoulder, giving his upper arm a squeeze. A surprised expression came over her face. “Well, my goodness … God be praised for such a thing,” she said admiringly. “Certainly, you have needs, dear one. It’s only natural.”

Heat flooded Ali’s face—more so when he realized Bushra had slightly lifted her gaze. There was a flicker of appraisal in her eyes that sent nerves fluttering in his stomach—and not entirely unpleasant ones. “I …”

Mercifully, Lubayd stepped in. “That’s very considerate of you, sisters,” he said, taking the dish. “We’ll make sure he appreciates it.”

Aqisa nodded, her eyes dancing. “It smells delicious.”

Umm Qays seemed to recognize temporary defeat. She wagged a finger in Ali’s face. “One day.” She gestured inside as she left. “By the way, a messenger came by with a package from your sister.”

The women were barely around the bend when Lubayd and Aqisa burst into peals of laughter.

“Stop it,” Ali hissed. “It’s not funny.”

“Yes, it is,” Aqisa countered, her shoulders shaking. “I could watch that a dozen more times.”

Lubayd hooted. “You should have seen his face last week when Sadaf brought him a blanket because she felt his bed ‘needed warming.’”

“That’s enough.” Ali reached for the dish. “Give me that.”

Lubayd ducked away. “Oh no, this is my reward for saving you.” He held it up, closing his eyes as he inhaled. “Maybe you should marry her. I can intrude upon all your dinners.”

“I’m not marrying anyone,” Ali returned sharply. “It’s too dangerous.”

Aqisa rolled her eyes. “You exaggerate. It has been a year since I last saved you from an assassin.”

“One who got close enough to do this,” Ali argued, arching his neck to reveal the faint pearly scar running across his throat just under the scruff of his beard.

Lubayd waved him off. “He did that and then his own clan caught him, gutted him, and left his body for the zahhak.” He gave Ali a pointed look. “There are very few assassins foolish enough to come after the man responsible for half of northern Am Gezira’s water supply. You should start building a life here. I suspect marriage would vastly improve your temperament.”

“Oh, immeasurably so,” Aqisa agreed. She glanced up, exchanging a conspiratorial grin with Lubayd. “A pity there is no one in Bir Nabat to his taste …”

“You mean someone with black eyes and a penchant for healing?” Lubayd teased, cackling when Ali glared at him.

“You know there’s no truth to those idiotic rumors,” Ali said. “The Banu Nahida and I were merely friends, and she is married to my brother.”

Lubayd shrugged. “I find the idiotic rumors enjoyable. Can you blame people for spinning exciting tales out of what happened to all of you?” His voice took on a dramatic edge. “A mysterious Nahid beauty locked away in the palace, an evil Afshin set to ruin her, an irritable prince exiled to the land of his forefathers …”

Ali’s temper finally snapped as he reached for the tent flap. “I am not irritable. And you’re the one spinning most of those tales!”

Lubayd only laughed again. “Go on inside and see what your sister sent you.” He glanced at Aqisa, holding up the dish. “Hungry?”

“Very.”

Shaking his head, Ali kicked off his sandals and ducked inside his tent. It was small yet cozy, with ample space for the bed cushion one of Lubayd’s cousins had mercifully lengthened to Ali’s “ludicrous” height. In fact, everything in the room was a gift. He’d arrived in Bir Nabat with only his weapons and the bloodstained dishdasha on his back, and his belongings were a record of his years here: the extra robe and sandals that were the first things he’d scavenged from an abandoned human caravan, the Qur’an that Sheikh Jiyad had given him when Ali started teaching, the pages and pages of notes and drawings he’d taken while observing various irrigation works.

And something new: a sealed copper tube the length of his forearm and wide as a fist, resting upon his neatly folded cushion. One end had been dipped in jet black wax, a familiar signature carved around its perimeter.

With a smile, Ali picked up the tube, peeling off the wax to reveal the blade-sharp pattern it had been protecting. A blood seal, one that ensured none but a blood relation of Zaynab’s would be able to open it. It was the most they could do to protect their privacy … not that it mattered. The man most likely to have their communication intercepted was their own father and he could easily use his own blood to read their messages. Likely he did.

Ali pressed his arm against the edge. The scroll top smoked away the moment the blades drew blood, and Ali tilted it, emptying the contents onto his cushion.

A bar of gold, a copper armband, and a letter, several pages in length. Attached to the armband was a small note in Zaynab’s elegant hand.

For the headaches you keep complaining about. Take good care of this, little brother. The Nahid horribly overcharged me for it.

Ali fingered the armband, eying the gold bar and the letter. God preserve you, Zaynab. Bir Nabat might be recovering, but it was still a hard place and that gold would go a long way here. He only hoped sending it hadn’t gotten his sister in any trouble. He’d written her multiple times trying to warn her off providing him with supplies, and she’d ignored him, flouting his advice as thoroughly as she defied their father’s unofficial decree that no Geziri was to aid him. Zaynab was probably the only one who could get away with such a thing; Ghassan had always been softhearted when it came to his daughter.

He fell on his bed cushion, rolling onto his stomach to read the letter, Zaynab’s familiar script and barbed observations like a warm hug. He missed his sister terribly; theirs was a relationship he’d been too young and self-righteous to appreciate until now, when it was reduced to the occasional letter. Ali would never see Zaynab again. He wouldn’t sit by the canal on a sunny day to share coffee and family gossip, nor be proudly at her side when she married. He’d never meet her future children, the nieces and nephews he would have spoiled and taught to spar in another life.

He also knew it could be worse. Ali thanked God every day he’d landed with the djinn of Bir Nabat rather than in the hands of any of the dozens who’d tried to kill him since. But the ache when he thought of his family never quite went entirely away.

Then maybe you should start building one here. Ali rolled onto his back, basking in the warmth of the sun glowing against the tent. In the distance, he could hear children laughing and birds chirping. Bushra’s quiet interest played across his mind, and alone in his tent, Ali would not deny it sent a slight thrill through his body. Daevabad seemed a world away, his father apparently content to forget him. Would it truly be so terrible to allow himself to settle more permanently here, to quietly seize the kind of domestic life he would have never been allowed as Muntadhir’s Qaid?

Dread crept over him. Yes, it seemed to answer, swallowing the simple fantasies running through his mind’s eye. For in Ali’s experience, dreaming of a better future had only ever led to destruction.

Well, one thing was clear: her Daeva elders did not share Nahri’s enthusiasm about the Nahid hospital.

Nisreen stared at her. “You slipped away from your guards? Again? Do you have any idea what Ghassan will do if he finds out?”

“Zaynab made me do it!” Nahri defended herself. Then—realizing it was perhaps a little ungrateful to blame her sister-in-law for an outing she rather enjoyed—she quickly added, “She said she takes such walks often and hasn’t been caught yet. And she promised to take the blame if we were.”

Kartir looked openly alarmed. The grand priest was normally more indulgent of Nahri’s … unorthodox ways, but this latest misadventure seemed to have shaken his calm. “And you trust her?” he asked, his wiry brows knitting in worry.

“On this, yes.” Nahri’s relationship with her sister-in-law was a prickly one, but she recognized a woman eager for a little bit of freedom when she saw one. “Now will the two of you stop fretting over everything? This is exciting! Can you imagine it? A Nahid hospital?”

Kartir and Nisreen shared a look. It was quick, but there was no denying the way the priest’s cheeks flushed in guilt.

Nahri was instantly suspicious. “You already know of this place? Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

Kartir sighed. “Because what happened to that hospital is neither pleasant nor wise to discuss. I doubt anyone besides the king and a few devoted Daevabadi historians even know anything about it.”

Nahri frowned at the vague words. “Then how do you two?”

“Because Banu Manizheh learned of its existence—and of its fate,” Nisreen said quietly. “She was always poring over her family’s old books. She told us.”

“What do you mean, ‘its fate’?” When neither replied, Nahri’s impatience got the better of her. “Suleiman’s eye, must everything be a seceret here? I learned more from Razu in five minutes than I have from the two of you in five years!”

“Razu? Baga Rustam’s Razu?” Relief lit Kartir’s face. “Thank the Creator. I feared the worst when her tavern was burned.”

Nahri felt a pang of sorrow for the kind gambler who’d welcomed her so warmly. “I’m the Banu Nahida. I should have known ifrit slaves were being hunted down.”

Nisreen and Kartir exchanged another glance. “We thought it best,” Nisreen said finally. “You were still so deep in grief over Dara, and I didn’t want to burden you with the fate of his fellows.”

Nahri flinched at Dara’s name; she could not deny she had fallen apart in the weeks after his death. “It still wasn’t a decision you should have made on my behalf.” She eyed them. “I cannot be Banu Nahida in the Temple and infirmary and then be treated like a child when it comes to political matters you believe upsetting.”

“Political matters we think could get you killed,” Nisreen corrected bluntly. “There is more room for error in the Temple and infirmary.”

“And the hospital?” Nahri pressed. “What political reason could there be to have kept me in the dark about its existence?”

Kartir stared at his hands. “It’s not because of its existence, Banu Nahida. It’s because of what happened to it during the war.”

When he fell silent again, an idea struck Nahri. “If you can’t give me a better explanation that that, you’ll force me to find a way back. One of the freed djinn was a historian, and I’m sure he knows.”

“Absolutely not,” Nisreen cut in quickly, but then she sighed, sounding resigned. “The hospital was the first place to fall when Zaydi al Qahtani took Daevabad. The Nahids inside didn’t even have a chance to flee back to the palace. The shafit revolted the moment Zaydi’s army breached the city walls. They stormed the hospital and murdered every Nahid inside. Every single one, Banu Nahri. From elderly pharmacists to apprentices barely out of childhood.”

Kartir spoke up, his voice grave as the blood left Nahri’s face. “It was said to have been quite brutal. The Geziris had their zulfiqars, of course, but the shafit fought with Rumi fire.”

“Rumi fire?” Nahri asked. The term sounded slightly familiar.

“It’s a human invention,” Nisreen explained. “A substance that sticks like tar and burns even Daeva skin. ‘Fire for the fire worshippers,’ the shafit were said to have shouted.” She dropped her gaze, looking sick. “Some still use it. It’s how the djinn thieves who murdered my parents set our family’s temple ablaze.”

Guilt swept through Nahri, hard and fast. “Oh, Nisreen, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“It’s not your fault,” Nisreen replied. “In truth, I suspect what happened at the Nahid hospital was far worse. I didn’t read the accounts Banu Manizheh did, but she barely spoke for weeks after finding them.”

“There were some indications that it was an act of revenge,” Kartir added carefully. “The violence … it seemed purposeful.”

Nisreen scoffed. “The djinn do not need a reason to be violent. It is their nature.”

The priest shook his head. “Let’s not pretend our tribe doesn’t have blood on its hands, Lady Nisreen. That is not the lesson I would impart to a young Nahid.” A shadow passed across his face. “Banu Manizheh used to speak like that. It was not good for her soul.”

Nisreen’s eyes narrowed. “She had reason to speak as she did, and you know it.”

There was a knock on the door. Nisreen instantly fell silent. They might be in the Temple, but one still needed to be wary of speaking ill of the Qahtanis in Daevabad.

But the man who poked his head in was anything but a spy. “Banu Nahida?” Jamshid tented his fingers together in respect. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but the palace sent a litter for you.”

Nahri scowled. “Because Creator forbid I spend one unauthorized moment in my own temple.” She stood up, glancing at Nisreen. “Are you coming?”

Nisreen shook her head. “I have some matters to finish here.” She gave Nahri a stern look. “Please resist the urge to take another side trip, I beg you.”

Nahri rolled her eyes. “I bet my own mother would have been less controlling than you.”

Nisreen touched her wrist as she passed, an act technically forbidden in the Temple. Her eyes were soft. “But she’s not here, child, so it’s up to us to protect you.”

The genuine worry in her face cut through some of Nahri’s annoyance. For their many arguments, Nisreen was the closest thing Nahri had to family in Daevabad, and she knew her mentor cared dearly for her. “Fine,” she grumbled, bringing her hands together in blessing. “May the fires burn brightly for you both.”

“And for you, Banu Nahida,” they replied.

“SIDE TRIP?” JAMSHID ASKED ONCE THE DOOR WAS closed. “You have the look of someone freshly scolded.”

“A new, rather grisly lesson in Daevabad’s history.” Nahri made a face. “Just once, I’d like to learn of an event that was nothing but our ancestors conjuring rainbows and dancing in the street together.”

“It’s a bit more difficult to hold a grudge over the good days.”

Nahri wrinkled her nose. “I suppose that’s true.” She set aside thoughts of the hospital, turning to face him. In the dim light of the corridor, the shadows under Jamshid’s eyes were well-pronounced and the planes of his cheekbones and nose stood out sharply. Five years after Dara’s attack had nearly killed him, Jamshid was still recovering—at a gruelingly slow pace no one could understand. He was a shadow of the healthy archer Nahri had first seen deftly shooting arrows from upon the back of a charging elephant. “How are you feeling?”

“As though you ask me that question every day, and the answer is always the same?”

“I’m your Banu Nahida,” she said as they emerged into the Temple’s main prayer hall. It was a vast space, designed to fit thousands of worshippers with rows of decorated columns holding up the distant ceiling and shrines dedicated to the most lionized figures in their tribe’s long history lining the walls. “It’s my duty.”

“I’m fine,” he assured her, pausing to look at the bustling temple. “It’s crowded here today.”

Nahri followed his gaze. The temple was indeed packed, and it seemed like many were travelers: ascetics in worn robes and wide-eyed pilgrim families jostling for space with the usual Daevabadi sophisticates.

“Your father wasn’t joking when he said people would start arriving months before Navasatem.”

Jamshid nodded. “It’s our most important holiday. Another century of freedom from Suleiman’s imprisonment … a month of celebrating life and honoring our ancestors.”

“It’s an excuse to shop and drink.”

“It’s an excuse to shop and drink,” Jamshid agreed. “But it’s supposed to be an extraordinary spectacle. Competitions and parties of every kind, merchants bringing all the newest and most exciting wares from across the world. Parades, fireworks …”

Nahri groaned. “The infirmary is going to be so busy.” The djinn took merrymaking seriously and the risks of overindulgence far less. “Do you think your father will be back by then?” Kaveh had left recently to visit the Pramukhs’ ancestral estate in Zariaspa, ranting about a union dispute among his herb growers and a particularly pernicious plague of ravenous frogs that had besieged their silver-mint plants.

“Most certainly,” Jamshid replied. “He’ll be back to help the king with the final preparations.”

They kept walking, passing the enormous fire altar. It was beautiful, and Nahri always paused for a moment to admire it, even when she wasn’t conducting ceremonies. Central to the Daeva faith, the striking altars had persisted through the centuries and consisted of a basin of purified water with a brazierlike structure rising in its middle. Inside burned a fire of cedarwood, extinguished only upon a devotee’s death. The brazier was carefully swept of ash at dawn each day, marking the sun’s return, and the glass oil lamps that bobbed in the basin were relit to keep the water at a constant simmer.

A long line of worshippers waited to receive blessings from the priest; Nahri caught the eye of a little girl in a yellow felt dress fidgeting next to her father. She winked and the girl beamed, tugging her father’s hand and pointing excitedly.

At her side, Jamshid misstepped. He stumbled, letting out a hiss of pain, but waved Nahri off when she moved to take his arm.

“I can do it,” he insisted. He tapped the cane. “I’m hoping to be done with this come Navasatem.”

“An admirable goal,” Nahri said gently, worry rising in her as she studied the stubborn set of his features. “But take care not to exhaust yourself. Your body needs time to heal.”

Jamshid made a face. “I suppose being cursed has its drawbacks.”

She immediately stopped, turning to look at him. “You’re not cursed.”

“Do you have a better explanation for why my body reacts so badly to Nahid healing?”

No. Nahri bit her lip. Her skills had come a long way, but her inability to heal Jamshid gnawed at her confidence. “Jamshid … I’m still new at this, and Nisreen isn’t a Nahid. It’s far more likely there’s some magical or medical reason that your recovery is taking so long. Blame me,” she added. “Not yourself.”

“I would not dare.” They were nearing the shrines that lined the Temple wall. “Though on that note … I would like to have another session soon if possible.”

“Are you certain? The last time we tried …” Nahri trailed off, trying to find a diplomatic way to point out that the last time she’d healed him, he’d barely lasted five minutes before he was screaming in agony and clawing at his skin.

“I know.” He kept his gaze averted, as if he was struggling to keep both the hope and despair from his face; unlike many in Daevabad, Jamshid had never struck Nahri as a good liar. “But I’d like to try.” His voice dropped. “The emir … his father forced him to appoint another captain to his personal guard.”

“Oh, Jamshid, it’s just a position,” Nahri replied. “Surely you know you’re Muntadhir’s closest companion regardless. He never stops singing your praises.”

Jamshid shook his head, stubborn. “I should be protecting him.”

“You almost died protecting him.”

They came into view of Dara’s shrine at that rather inopportune time, and Nahri felt Jamshid tense. Dara’s shrine was among the most popular; roses garlanded his brass statue, that of a Daeva warrior on horseback, standing proudly upright in his stirrups to aim an arrow at his pursuers, and offerings littered the floor around the statue’s base. No blades were allowed in the temple, so small ceramic tokens depicting a variety of ceremonial weapons—mostly arrows—had been brought instead.

An enormous silver bow hung on the wall behind the statue, and as Nahri gazed at it, a lump rose in her throat. She’d spent a lot of time staring at that bow, though never in the company of a man—a friend—she knew had every right to hate the Afshin who’d wielded it.

But Jamshid wasn’t looking at the bow. He was instead squinting at the statue’s foot. “Is that a crocodile?” he asked, pointing to a small charred skeleton.

Nahri pressed her lips together. “Looks like it. Alizayd the Afshin-slayer.” She said the title softly, hating everything about it.

Jamshid looked disgusted. “That’s obscene. I am no fan of Alizayd’s, but the same sentiment that calls the Ayaanle crocodiles calls us fire worshippers.”

“Not everyone shares your tolerance,” she replied. “I’ve seen the skeletons here before. I suppose some people think Dara would enjoy having his murderer burned before him.”

“He probably would,” Jamshid said darkly. He glanced at her, his expression shifting. “Do you do that often? Come here, I mean?”

Nahri hesitated, uncertain how to respond. Dara was a raw nerve within her, even five years after his death—an emotional bramble that only grew more tangled when she tried to cut through it. Her memories of the grumbling, handsome warrior she’d grown to care for on their journey to Daevabad warred with the knowledge that he was also a war criminal, his hands drenched with the blood of Qui-zi’s innocents. Dara had stolen his way into her heart and then he’d shattered it, so desperate to save her despite her own wishes that he’d been willing to risk plunging their world into war.

“No,” she finally replied, checking the tremor in her voice. Unlike Jamshid, Nahri was accomplished at hiding her emotions. “I try not to. This isn’t a shrine to the Dara I knew.”

Jamshid’s gaze flickered from the shrine to her. “What do you mean?”

Nahri considered the statue, the warrior caught in action. “He wasn’t a legendary Afshin to me. Not originally. Qui-zi, the war, his rebellion … he didn’t tell me about any of that.” She paused. It had been here in the Temple that she and Dara had come closest to speaking aloud of what had grown between them, a fight that had dragged them apart and offered Nahri the first true glimpse of how much the war had stolen from Dara—and how much the loss had warped him. “I don’t think he wanted me to know. In the end …” Her voice softened. “I don’t think that was the man he wanted to be.” She flushed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be burdening you of all people with this.”

“You can burden me,” Jamshid said quietly. “It’s hard to watch the way this city ruins the ones we love.” He sighed and then turned away, leaning on his cane. “We should head back.”

Lost in thought, Nahri said nothing as they left the Temple and crossed its manicured grounds to the waiting palanquin. The sun blinked past the distant mountains, vanishing into the green horizon, and from deep inside the temple, a drum began to beat. Across the city, the djinn call to prayer answered it in waves. In marking the departure of the sun, the djinn and Daeva faithful were briefly united.

Once inside the palanquin, she relaxed into the cushions, the rocking motion lulling her toward sleep as they made their way through the Daeva Quarter.

“Tired?” Jamshid asked as she yawned.

“Always. And I had a patient who went late last night. An Agnivanshi weaver who inhaled the vapors she uses to make her carpets fly.” Nahri rubbed her temples. “Never a dull day.”

Jamshid shook his head, looking amused. “I can help when we get back.”

“That would be appreciated. I’ll have the kitchens send us up some dinner.”

He groaned. “Not your strange human food.”

“I like my strange human food,” Nahri defended. One of the palace cooks was an old man from Egypt, a shafit with a knack for knowing when to prepare the comforting dishes of her former home. “And anyway—”

From beyond the palanquin, a woman’s cry pierced the air. “Let him go! Please! I beg you. We did nothing wrong!”

Nahri shot upright. The palanquin lurched to a stop, and she yanked back its brocade curtain. They were still in the Daeva Quarter, on a quiet street that ran past some of the city’s oldest and finest homes. In front of the largest, a dozen members of the Royal Guard were rooting through a pile of furnishings. Two Daeva men and a boy who couldn’t be out of his teens had been bound and gagged, pushed into kneeling positions on the street.

An older Daeva woman was pleading with the soldiers. “Please, my son is only a boy. He wasn’t involved!”

Another soldier exited the smashed and dangling doors of the home. He shouted excitedly in Geziriyya and then tossed a carved wooden chest to the cobblestone street with enough force to break it. Coins and uncut jewels spilled out, glittering on the wet ground.

Nahri leapt from the litter without a second thought. “What in God’s name is going on here?” she demanded.

“Banu Nahida!” Relief lit in the woman’s wet eyes. “They’re accusing my husband and his brother of treason and trying to take my son!” She choked back a sob, switching to Divasti. “It’s a lie! All they did was hold a meeting to discuss the new land tax on Daeva properties. The king heard of it and now’s he’s punishing them for telling the truth!”

Anger surged through Nahri, hot and dangerous. “Where are your orders?” she demanded, turning to the soldiers. “I can’t imagine they gave you permission to loot this home.”

The officers looked unimpressed by her attempt at authority. “New rules,” one replied brusquely. “The Guard now gets a fifth of whatever is confiscated from unbelievers—and that would be you Daevas.” His expression darkened. “Strange how everyone in this city is suffering save the fire worshippers.”

The Daeva woman dropped to her knees in front of Nahri. “Banu Nahida, please! I told them they could have whatever money and jewelry they want, but don’t let them take my family! I’ll never see them again once they’re in that dungeon.”

Jamshid came to their side. “Your family isn’t going anywhere,” he assured her. He turned to the soldiers, his voice steely. “Send one of your men to the emir. I don’t want another hand laid on these people until he’s here.”

The djinn officer snorted. “I take my orders from the king. Not from the emir and certainly not from some useless Afshin pretender.” Cruelty edged his voice as he nodded at Jamshid’s cane. “Your new bow isn’t quite as intimidating as your old one, Pramukh.”

Jamshid jerked back like he’d been slapped, and Nahri stepped forward, enraged on his behalf. “How dare you speak so disrespectfully? He is the grand wazir’s son!”

In the blink of an eye, the soldier had his zulfiqar drawn. “His father is not here and neither is your bloody Scourge.” He gave Nahri a cold look. “Do not try me, Nahid. The king made his orders clear, and believe me when I say I have little patience for the fire worshipper who loosed her Afshin on my fellows.” He raised his zulfiqar, bringing it dangerously close to Jamshid’s throat. “So, unless you’d like me to start executing Daeva men, I suggest you return to your palanquin.”

Nahri froze at the threat—and the implication that accompanied its open hostility. Ghassan had an iron grip on Daevabad: if his soldiers felt comfortable intimidating two of the most powerful Daevas in the city, it was because they weren’t worried about being punished.

Jamshid stepped back first, reaching for Nahri’s hand. His was cold. “Let’s go,” he said softly in Divasti. “The sooner we’re gone, the sooner I can get word of this to Muntadhir.”

Heartsick, Nahri could barely look at the woman. In that moment, though she hated the memory of the warrior Dara, she couldn’t help but wish he was here, bringing shedu statues to life and drawing his bow against those who would hurt their people. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, cursing her inability to do anything more. “We’ll talk to the emir, I promise.”

The woman was weeping. “Why bother?” she asked, bitter despair lacing into her voice. The words she spoke next cut Nahri to the core. “If you can’t protect yourself, how can you possibly protect the rest of us?”

In the deep quiet of a snowy night, Dara made his way through a black forest.

He did so in complete silence, moving stealthily alongside the five young Daeva men mirroring his every action. They had bound their boots in cloth to muffle their steps and smeared their woolen coats with ash and dirt to mimic the pattern of the skeletal trees and rocky ground. There were magical ways—better ways—to conceal oneself, but what they were doing tonight was as much test as it was mission, and Dara wanted to challenge his young recruits.

He stopped at the next tree, raising a hand to signal his men to do the same. He narrowed his eyes and studied their targets, his breath steaming against the cloth that covered the lower part of his face.

Two Geziri scouts from the Royal Guard, exactly as rumored. Gossip in this desolate part of northern Daevastana had been buzzing with news of them. They had apparently been sent to survey the northern border; his sources had told him it was normal, a routine visit completed every half-century or so to harass the locals about their taxes and remind them of King Ghassan’s reach. But Dara had been suspicious of the timing and thus quietly relieved when Banu Manizheh ordered him to bring them to her.

“Would it not be easier to kill them?” had been his only protest. Contrary to the rumors he knew surrounded him, Dara did not relish killing. But neither did he like the prospect of two Geziris learning of his and Manizheh’s existence. “This is a dangerous land. I can make it look as though they were attacked by beasts.”

Manizheh had shaken her head. “I need them alive.” Her expression had grown stern, his Banu Nahida perhaps coming to know him a bit too well in the few years he’d served her. “Alive, Darayavahoush. That’s nonnegotiable.”

Which is why they were here now. It had taken them two weeks to find the scouts, and two days to quietly drive them off course, his men shifting the boundary stones in waves to send the Geziris off the established path to the village of Sugdam and deep into the thick forest that belted the nearby mountains.

The scouts looked miserable, wrapped in furs and felt blankets and huddled together under a hastily erected tarp. Their fire was a weak one, slowly losing the battle against the steady snowfall. The older scout was smoking a pipe, the sweet smell of smoldering qat scenting the air.

But it wasn’t pipes Dara was concerned with, nor the khanjar daggers tucked in their belts. After a moment of scanning the camp, he spotted the zulfiqars he’d been looking for on a bed of raised stones just behind the scouts. Their leather scabbards had been wrapped in a layer of felt to protect the blades from the snow, but Dara could see a hilt poking free.

He silently cursed. Skilled zulfiqaris were treasured, and he’d been holding out hope that the king hadn’t bothered sending such valuable warriors on what should have been a rather dull mission. Invented during the war against the Nahid Council—or stolen from the angels who guarded Paradise, as the more fanciful stories went—the zulfiqar at first appeared to be a normal scimitar, its copper construction and two-pronged end a bit unusual but otherwise unremarkable.

But well-trained Geziris—and only Geziris—could learn to conjure poisoned flames from the zulfiqar’s deadly edge. A single nick of the skin meant death; there was no healing from the wounds, not even by the hand of a Nahid. It was the weapon that had turned the war and ended the rule of his blessed and beloved Nahid Council, killing an untold number of Daevas in the process.

Dara glanced at the warrior nearest him. Mardoniye, one of his youngest. He’d been a member of the Daeva Brigade, the small contingent of Daeva soldiers once allowed to serve in the Royal Guard. They’d been run out of the Citadel after Dara’s death on the boat, ordered from their barracks by djinn officers they considered comrades and sent into the Grand Bazaar with only the clothes on their backs. There, they’d been met by a shafit mob. Unarmed and outnumbered, they’d been brutally assaulted, several men killed. Mardoniye still bore Rumi fire burns on his face and arms, remnants of the attack.

Dara swallowed against the worry rising in his chest. He’d made it clear to his men that he would not aid them in capturing the Geziris. He considered it a rare opportunity for them to test their training. But fighting zulfiqaris wasn’t the same as fighting regular soldiers.

And yet … they needed to learn. They would face zulfiqaris one day, Creator willing. They’d fight Daevabad’s fiercest, in a battle that would need to be decisively won.

The thought sent more smoldering heat into Dara’s hands. He fought it back with a tremble, this new, raw power he’d yet to entirely master. It simmered beneath his skin, the fire aching to escape. He struggled with it more when he was emotional … and the prospect of the young Daevas he’d mentored for years being cut down by the blade of a sand fly certainly made him so.

You’ve spent a lifetime training warriors. You know they need this. Dara pushed aside his misgivings.

He let out a low hoot, the approximation of an owl. One of the djinn glanced up but only briefly. His men fanned out, their dark eyes darting back to him as they moved. Dara watched as his archers nocked their arrows.

He clicked his tongue, his final signal.

The archers’ pitch-soaked arrows burst into conjured flames. The djinn had less than a second to spot them before they shot past, striking the tarp. In the blink of an eye, the entire thing was blazing. The larger Geziri—an older man with a thick salt-and-pepper beard—whirled around to grab the zulfiqars.

Mardoniye was already there. He kicked away the blades and then threw himself on the Geziri. They rolled into the snow, scrabbling at each other.

“Abu Sayf!” The younger scout lunged for his companion—an unwise move that left his back exposed when the rest of Dara’s men emerged. They threw a weighted net over his head, dragging him back and ensnaring his arms. In seconds, his khanjar had been ripped away and iron cuffs—meant to dampen his magic—clasped around his wrists.

Mardoniye was still struggling. The Geziri man—Abu Sayf—struck him hard across the face and then lunged to grab a zulfiqar. It burst into flames. He whirled back on Mardoniye.

Dara’s bow was off his shoulder, an arrow nocked before he even realized what he was doing. Let him fight! the Afshin in him demanded. He could all but hear his father’s voice, his uncles’ voices, his own. There was no room for mercy in the heat of the battle.

But by the Creator, he did not have it in him to watch another Daeva die. Dara drew back his bow, his index finger on the twitching feather fletch, the string a whispered brush against his cheek.

Mardoniye threw himself at the Geziri’s knees with a howl, knocking him into the snow. Another of Dara’s archers ran forward, swinging his bow like a club at the Geziri man’s hand. Abu Sayf dropped the zulfiqar, and the flames were gone before it hit the ground. The archer struck the djinn hard across the face, and he collapsed.

It was over.

The scouts were secured by the time Dara stomped out their campfire. He quickly checked the unconscious one for a pulse. “He’s alive,” he confirmed, silently relieved. He nodded at the small camp. “Check their supplies. Burn any documents you find.”

The conscious djinn was indignant, straining against his binds. “I don’t know what you fire worshippers think you’re doing, but we’re Royal Guard. This is treason! When my garrison commander learns you interfered with our mission, he’ll have you executed!”

Mardoniye kicked at a large sack, and it let out a jingle. “All the coins they’ve been stealing from our people, I suspect.”

“Taxes,” the Geziri cut in savagely. “I know you’re all half feral out here, but surely you have some basic concept of governance.”

Mardoniye scoffed. “Our people were ruling empires while yours were scavenging through human trash, sand fly.”

“That’s enough.” Dara glanced at Mardoniye. “Leave the coins. Leave everything but their weapons and retreat. Take them at least twenty paces away.”

The Geziri soldier struggled, trying to twist free as they hauled him to his feet. Dara began unwrapping his headcloth, not wanting it to burn when he shifted. It briefly caught on the slave ring he was still too nervous to remove.

“You’re going to hang for this!” the djinn repeated. “You filthy, sister-fucking, fire-worshipping—”

Dara’s hand shot out as Mardoniye’s eyes flashed again. He knew all too well how quickly tensions built between their peoples. He grabbed the djinn by the throat. “It is a long walk back to our camp,” he said flatly. “If you can’t be polite, I am going to remove your ability to speak.”

The djinn’s eyes traveled over Dara’s now uncovered face, landing on his left cheekbone. That was all it took for the color to leach from his skin.

“No,” he whispered. “You’re dead. You’re dead!”

“I was,” Dara agreed coldly. “Now I’m not.” He could not keep the edge of bitterness out of his voice. Annoyed, he shoved the Geziri back at his men. “Your camp is about to be attacked by a rukh. Best step away.”

The djinn let out a gasp, looking up at the sky. “We’re about to be what?”

Dara had already turned his back. He waited until the sounds of his men faded away. The distance wasn’t only for their protection.

Dara didn’t like anyone to see him when he shifted.

He pulled off his coat, setting it aside. Heat rose in hazy waves from his tattooed arms, the snow melting in the air around him before the flakes came close to brushing his skin. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he steeled himself. He hated this part.

Fire burst from his skin, flushed light sweeping down his limbs, washing away the normal brown. His entire body shook violently, and he fell to his knees, his limbs seizing. It had taken him two years to learn how to shift between his original form—that of a typical man of his tribe, albeit an emerald-eyed one—and that of a true daeva, as Manizheh insisted on calling him, the form their people had taken before Suleiman changed them. The form the ifrit still held.

Dara’s vision sharpened, the taste of blood filling his mouth as his teeth lengthened into fangs. He always forgot to prepare for that part.

His clawed hands clenched at the icy ground as his raw jittery power settled completely. It only ever happened in this form, a peace he obtained by becoming something he hated. He exhaled, burning embers leaving his mouth, and then he straightened back up.

He raised his hands, smoke swirling up from around them. With a quick snap of his claws across his wrist, a shimmer of golden blood dripped down to merge with the smoke, growing and twisting in the air as he shaped it. Wings and talons, a beak and glittering eyes. He fought for breath, the magic draining him.

“Ajanadivak,” he whispered, the command still foreign on his tongue. The original language of the daevas, a language only a handful of ifrit still remembered. They were Manizheh’s “allies,” pressed into teaching a reluctant Afshin the ancient daeva magic that Suleiman had stripped away.

Fire burst from the rukh, and it let out a screech. It rose in the air, still under Dara’s command, destroying the camp in a matter of minutes. He took care to let it crash through the canopy and rake its talons over the tree trunks. To anyone with the misfortune of coming across this place—any members of the Royal Guard looking for their two lost fellows, though Dara doubted they’d ever make it out here—it would appear as though the scouts had been eaten, the fortune in taxes left untouched.

He released the rukh, and it disintegrated, cinders raining over the ground as its hazy form dissipated. With a final burst of magic, Dara shifted back, stifling a gasp of pain. It always hurt, like shoving his body into a tight, barbed cage.

Mardoniye was at his side in moments, reliably loyal. “Your coat, Afshin,” he said, offering it out.

Dara took it gratefully. “Thank you,” he said, his teeth chattering.

The younger man hesitated. “Are you all right? If you need a hand—”

“I am fine,” Dara insisted. It was a lie; he could already feel the black pitch churning in his stomach, a side effect of returning to his mortal body while his new magic still swirled in his veins. But he refused to show such weakness before his men; he would not risk it getting back to Manizheh. If the Banu Nahida had her way, Dara would stay forever in the form he hated. “Go. I’ll be along shortly.”

He watched, waiting until they were out of view. Then he dropped to his knees again, his stomach heaving, his limbs shaking, as the snow fell silently around him.

THE SIGHT OF THEIR CAMP NEVER FAILED TO EASE Dara’s mind, the familiar plumes of smoke promising a hot meal, the gray felt tents that blended into the horizon a warm bed. These were appreciated luxuries for any warrior who’d just spent three days trying hard not to rip the tongue out of a particularly irritating djinn’s mouth. Daevas bustled about, hard at work cooking, training, cleaning, and forging weapons. There were about eighty of them, lost souls Manizheh had come upon in her years of wandering: the sole survivors of zahhak attacks and unwanted children, exiles she’d rescued from death and the remnants of the Daeva Brigade. They swore allegiance to her, offering loyalty in an oath that would rot their tongues and hands should they attempt to break it.

He’d shaped about forty of them into warriors, including a handful of young women. Dara had at first balked at that, finding it unorthodox and improper. Then Banu Manizheh had bluntly pointed out that if he could fight for a woman, he could fight beside one, and he had to admit she’d been right. One of the women, Irtemiz, was by far his most talented archer.

But his good mood vanished the second he caught sight of their corral. A new horse was there: a golden mare whose finely tooled saddle hung over the fence.

Dara’s heart dropped. He recognized that mare.

Kaveh e-Pramukh had arrived early.

A gasp from behind stole his attention. “This is your camp?” It was Abu Sayf, the zulfiqari who’d nearly killed Mardoniye and yet had oddly proven far less maddening on their return trek than his younger tribesman. He asked the question in fluent Divasti; he’d told Dara that he’d been married to a Daeva woman for decades. His gray eyes scanned the neat row of tents and wagons. “You move,” he noted. “Yes, I suppose you would. Easier to stay hidden that way.”

Dara met his gaze. “You would do well to keep such observations to yourself.”

Abu Sayf’s expression dimmed. “What do you plan to do with us?”

I do not know. It was also not a thing Dara could think about—not when the sight of Kaveh’s horse was making him so anxious he felt sick.

He glanced at Mardoniye. “See that the djinn are secured, but get them water for washing and something hot to eat.” He paused, glancing at his tired band of soldiers. “And do the same for yourselves. Your rest is well earned.”

Dara turned toward the main tent. Emotions swirled inside him. What did one say to the father of a man they had nearly killed? Not that Dara had meant to do so; he remembered nothing about his assault on the warship. The time between Nahri’s strange wish and Alizayd tumbling into the lake that ill-fated night was shrouded in fog. But he remembered what he’d seen afterward far too well: the body of the kind young man he’d taken under his wing slumped on the boat deck, his back riddled with Dara’s arrows.

His stomach fluttering with nerves, Dara coughed outside the tent flap, alerting those inside to his presence before he called out. “Banu Nahida?”

“Come in, Dara.”

He ducked inside and immediately starting coughing more as he inhaled the cloud of acrid purple smoke that greeted him—one of Manizheh’s many experiments. They lined the enormous slate table she insisted on lugging around with them, her equipment taking up an entire wagon.

She was at the table now, seated on a cushion behind a floating glass flask and holding a long pair of forceps. A lilac-hued liquid boiled inside the flask, giving off the purple smoke.

“Afshin,” she greeted him warmly, dropping a small, wriggling silver object into the boiling liquid. There was a metallic squeal, and then she stepped back, pulling aside her facecloth. “Your mission was a success?”

“The Geziri scouts are being secured as we speak,” he said, relieved that Kaveh was nowhere to be seen.

Manizheh’s brow arched. “Alive?”

Dara scowled. “As requested.”

A small smile lit her face. “It is much appreciated. Please tell your men to bring me one of their relics as soon as possible.”

“Their relics?” Djinn and Daeva alike all wore relics—a bit of blood, sometimes a baby tooth or lock of hair, often paired with a holy verse or two, all bound in metal and worn on the person. They were safeguards, to be used to bring a soul back into a conjured body should one be enslaved by an ifrit. “What do you want with their …”

The question died on his lips. Kaveh e-Pramukh had emerged from the inner room to join them.

Dara just managed to keep his mouth from falling open. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more: that Kaveh had stepped out of the small, private chamber in which Manizheh slept, or that the grand wazir looked terrible. He might have aged fifteen years, not five, his face scored by lines and his hair and mustache mostly silver. He was thin, the shadowed swells under his eyes indicating a man who had seen too much and not slept enough.

But by the Creator, did those eyes find him. And when they did, they filled with all the anger and betrayal that had undoubtedly been seething inside him since that night on the boat.

Manizheh caught the wazir’s wrist. “Kaveh,” she said softly.

The practiced words of regret vanished from Dara’s mind. He crossed the room, falling to his knees.

“I am so sorry, Kaveh.” The apology tumbled inelegantly from his lips. “I never meant to hurt him. I would have taken a blade to myself had I—”

“Sixty-four,” Kaveh cut in coldly.

Dara blinked. “What?”

“Sixty-four. It is the number of Daevas who were killed in the weeks following your death. Some died after being interrogated, innocents who had nothing to do with your flight. Others because they protested what they saw as your unjust murder at the hands of Prince Alizayd. The rest because Ghassan let the shafit attack us, in an effort to muscle our tribe back into compliance.” Kaveh’s mouth thinned. “If you are going to offer useless words of remorse, you should at least be reminded of the extent of what you’re responsible for. My son lives. Others do not.”

Dara’s face burned. Did Kaveh not think he regretted, down to his marrow, what his actions had led to? That he wasn’t reminded of his mistake every day as he watched over the traumatized remnant of the Daeva Brigade?

He gritted his teeth. “So in your eyes I should have stood silently by as Banu Nahri was forced to marry that lecherous sand fly?”

“Yes,” Kaveh said bluntly. “That is exactly what you should have done. You should have bowed your damn head and taken the governorship in Zariaspa. You could have quietly trained a militia for years in Daevastana while Banu Nahri lulled the Qahtanis into a false sense of peace. Ghassan is not a young man. Alizayd and Muntadhir could have easily been manipulated into warring against each other once Muntadhir took the throne. We could have let the Geziris destroy themselves and then swept in to take over with minimal bloodshed.” His eyes flashed. “I told you we had allies and support outside Daevabad because I trusted you. Because I didn’t want you to do something rash before we were prepared.” His voice turned scornful. “I never imagined the supposedly clever Darayavahoush e-Afshin, the rebel who almost beat Zaydi al Qahtani, would risk us all because he wanted to run away.”

The fire under Manizheh’s flask flared, and with it, Dara’s anger. “I was not running—”

“That’s enough,” Manizheh cut in, glaring at them both. “Afshin, calm yourself. Kaveh …” She shook her head. “Whatever the consequences, Dara acted to protect my daughter from a fate I fought for decades. I cannot fault him for that. And if you think Ghassan wasn’t looking for a reason to crack down on the Daevas the instant a Nahid and Afshin strolled through the gates of Daevabad, you clearly do not know him at all.” She gave them another sharp look. “Tearing each other apart is not why we are here.” She gestured to a heap of floor cushions arranged around her fire altar. “Sit.”

Chastened, Dara obeyed, rising to his feet and moving toward the cushions. After a few moments, Kaveh did the same, still glowering.

Manizheh placed herself between them. “Would you conjure some wine?” she asked Dara. “I suspect you could both use it.”

Dara was fairly certain that the only thing Kaveh wanted to do with wine was throw it in his face, but he obeyed. With a snap of his fingers, three brass goblets appeared, filled with the dark amber hue of date wine.

He took a sip, trying to calm himself. Causing fires to explode was not going to alleviate Kaveh’s concerns about his temper. “How is he?” he asked carefully. “Jamshid. If I may inquire.”

Kaveh stared at the altar. “He didn’t wake for a full year. It took another for him to be able to sit up and use his hands. He’s walking with a cane now, but …” His voice broke, his hand trembling so hard he nearly spilled his wine. “He hasn’t handled being injured well. He loved being a warrior … he wanted to be like you.”

The words were like a blow. Ashamed, he dropped his gaze, though not before he caught sight of Manizheh. Her hand was clenched around her goblet so tightly that her knuckles were turning white.

She spoke. “He will be all right, Kaveh. I promise you. Jamshid will be healthy and whole and have everything that has been denied him.”

The intensity in her voice took Dara aback. In the years he’d known her, Manizheh’s calm was constant. Rather reassuring, in fact. The type of absolute unflappability he preferred in a leader.

They are friends, he reminded himself. Small surprise she was so protective of Kaveh’s son.

Deciding Jamshid was perhaps not the safest subject, Dara moved on, all while quietly working to calm the magic pulsing through his veins. “And how is Banu Nahri?” he asked, forcing a bland distance into his voice.

“Surviving,” Kaveh replied. “Ghassan keeps her on a tight leash. All of us. She was wed to Muntadhir less than a year after your death.”

“He no doubt forced her,” Manizheh said darkly. “As I said, he tried to do the same to me for decades. He was obsessed with uniting our families.”

“Well, he certainly underestimated her. She took Ghassan for everything she could during the marriage negotiations.” Kaveh sipped his wine. “It was actually a bit frightening to watch. But Creator bless her. She ended up signing the bulk of her dowry over to the Temple. They’ve been using it for charitable work: a new school for girls, an orphanage, and assistance for the Daevas ruined in the assault on the Grand Bazaar.”

“That must make her popular with our people. A clever move,” Manizheh assessed softly before her expression turned grim. “And regarding the other part of their marriage … Nisreen is keeping an eye on that situation, yes?”

Kaveh cleared his throat. “There will be no child between them.”

Dara’s insides had been churning as they spoke, but Kaveh’s carefully worded response made his skin prickle. It did not sound like Nahri had much of a say in that either.

The words were leaving his mouth before he could stop them. “I think we should tell her the truth about what we are planning. Your daughter,” he burst out. “She is smart. Strong-willed. She could be an asset.” Dara cleared his throat. “And she did not quite seem to … appreciate being left in the dark the last time.”

Manizheh was already shaking her head. “She is safe in the dark. Do you have any idea what Ghassan would do to her if our conspiracy were uncovered? Let her innocence protect her a bit longer.”

Kaveh spoke up, more hesitant. “I must say Nisreen has been suggesting the same, Banu Nahida. She’s grown very close to your daughter and hates lying to her.”

“And if Nahri knew, she might be able to better protect herself,” Dara persisted.

“Or she might reveal us all,” Manizheh countered. “She is young, she is under Ghassan’s thumb, and she has already shown a predilection for cutting deals with djinn. We cannot trust her.”

Dara stiffened. The rather curt assessment of Nahri offended him, and he struggled not to show it. “Banu Nahida—”

Manizheh raised a hand. “This is not a debate. Neither of you know Ghassan like I do. You do not know the things he is capable of. The ways he finds to punish the ones you love.” A flicker of old grief filled her eyes. “Ensuring that he cannot do such things to another generation of Nahids is far more important than my daughter’s feelings about being left in the dark. She can yell at me about that when Ghassan is ash.”

Dara lowered his gaze, managing a bare nod.

“Perhaps we can discuss our preparations then,” Kaveh said. “Navasatem is approaching, and it would be an excellent time to attack. The city will be caught up in the chaos of celebration and the palace’s attention focused on the holiday.”

“Navasatem?” Dara’s head jerked up. “Navasatem is less than eight months away. I have forty men.”

“So?” Kaveh challenged. “You’re free of Suleiman’s curse, aren’t you? Can you not tear down the Citadel with your hands and let your blood beasts loose on the city? That is what Banu Manizheh has told me you can do. That is the reason you were brought back.”

Dara gripped his cup tightly. He knew he was viewed as a weapon—but this unvarnished assessment of his worth still stung. “It is more complicated than that. I am still learning to control my new abilities. And my men need more training.”

Manizheh touched his hand. “You are too humble, Darayavahoush. I believe you and your warriors are more than ready.”

Dara shook his head, not as ready to concede on military matters as he was on personal ones. “We cannot take Daevabad with forty men.” He looked between them urgently, willing them to listen. “I spent years before the ifrit killed me contemplating how to best capture the city. Daevabad is a fortress. There is no scaling the walls, and there is no tunneling under them. The Citadel has thousands of soldiers—”

“Conscripts,” Kaveh cut in. “Poorly paid and growing more mutinous by the day. At least a dozen Geziri officers defected after Alizayd was sent to Am Gezira.”

Thoughts of besieging Daevabad vanished from Dara’s mind. “Alizayd al Qahtani is in Am Gezira?”

Kaveh nodded. “Ghassan sent him away within days of your death. I thought it might have been temporary, until things calmed, but he hasn’t returned. Not even for Muntadhir’s wedding.” He took another sip of his wine. “Something is going on, but it’s been difficult to discern; the Geziris hold their secrets close.” A little relish filled the other man’s face. “Admittedly, I was happy to see him fall from favor. He’s a fanatic.”

“He is more than that,” Dara said quietly. A buzz filled his ears, smoke curling around his fingers. Alizayd al Qahtani, the self-righteous brat who’d cut him down. The young warrior whose dangerous combination of deadly skill and unquestioning faith had reminded Dara a little too much of his younger self.

He knew quite well how that had turned out. “He should be dealt with,” he said. “Swiftly. Before we attack Daevabad.”

Manizheh gave him a skeptical look. “You do not think Ghassan would find it suspicious should his son turn up dead in Am Gezira? Presumably in whatever brutal fashion you’re currently imagining?”

“It is worth the risk,” Dara argued. “I too was a young warrior in exile when Daevabad fell and my family was slaughtered.” He let the implication linger. “I would strongly suggest you not let such an enemy have a chance to grow. And I wouldn’t be brutal,” he added quickly. “We have time aplenty for me to track him down and get rid of him in a way that would leave nothing for Ghassan to question.”

Manizheh shook her head. “We don’t have time. If we are to attack during Navasatem, I can’t have you spending weeks wandering the Am Gezira wastelands.”

“We are not going to be able to attack during Navasatem,” Dara said, growing exasperated at their stubbornness. “I cannot yet even cross the threshold to enter Daevabad, let alone conquer it.”

“The threshold is not the only way to enter Daevabad,” Manizheh replied evenly.

“What?” Dara and Kaveh said the word together.

Manizheh took a sip of her wine, seeming to savor their shock. “The ifrit think there might be another way to enter Daevabad … one for which you may have Alizayd al Qahtani to thank. Or the creatures pulling his strings anyway.”

“The creatures pulling his strings,” Dara repeated, his voice growing hollow. He’d told Manizheh everything about that night on the boat. About the magic that had overpowered him and stolen his mind. About the prince who’d climbed out of Daevabad’s deadly lake covered in tentacles and scales, whispering a language Dara had never heard, raising a dripping blade. She’d come to the same impossible conclusion. “You don’t mean …”

“I mean it is time we go speak to the marid.” A little heat entered Manizheh’s expression. “It is time we get some vengeance for what they have done.”

“Sheen,” Ali said, marking the letter in the damp sand before him. He glanced up, his gaze turning severe at the sight of two boys tussling in the last row. They immediately stopped, and Ali continued, motioning for his students to copy the letter. They obediently did so, also on the sand. Slates and chalk required resources Bir Nabat didn’t have to spare, so he taught his lessons in the cool grove where the canals met and the ground was reliably wet. “Who knows a word that starts with ‘sheen’?”

“Sha’b!” a little girl in the center piped up while the boy sitting beside her shot his hand into the air.

“I start with sheen!” he declared. “Shaddad!”

Ali smiled. “That’s right. And do you know who you share your name with?”

His sister answered. “Shaddad the Blessed. My grandmother told me.”

“And who was Shaddad the Blessed?” he asked, snapping his fingers at the boys who’d been fighting. “Do either of you know?”

The smaller one shrank back while the other’s eyes went wide. “Um … a king?”

Ali nodded. “The second king after Zaydi the Great.”

“Is he the one who fought the marid queen?”

The grove went dead silent at the question. Ali’s fingers stilled on the damp sand. “What?”

“The marid queen.” It was a little boy named Faisal who’d spoken up, his face earnest. “My abba says one of your ancestors defeated a marid queen, and that’s why you can find our water.”

The simple words, said so innocently, went through Ali like a poisoned blade, leaving sick dread creeping through his limbs. He’d long suspected quiet rumors circulated in Bir Nabat about his affinities with water, but this was the first time he’d heard himself mentioned in relation to the marid. It was probably nothing; a half-remembered folktale given new life when he started discovering springs.

But it was not a connection he could let linger. “My ancestors never had anything to do with the marid,” he said firmly, ignoring the churning in his stomach. “The marid are gone. No one has seen them in centuries.”

But he could already see eager curiosity catching ahold of his students. “Is it true they’ll steal your soul if you look too long at your reflection in the water?” a little girl asked.

“No,” an older one answered before Ali could open his mouth. “But I heard humans used to sacrifice babies to them.” Her voice rose in fear-tinged excitement. “And if they didn’t give them up, the marid would drown their villages.”

“Stop,” one of the youngest boys begged. He looked near tears. “If you talk about them, they’ll come for you in the night!”

“That’s enough,” Ali said, and a few children shrank back, his words coming out sharper than he’d intended. “Until you’ve mastered your letters, I don’t want to hear anything more about—”

Lubayd ran into the grove.

“Forgive me, brother.” His friend bent over, clutching his knees as he caught his breath. “But there is something you need to see.”

THE CARAVAN WAS LARGE ENOUGH TO BE VISIBLE FROM a fair distance away. Ali watched it approach from the top of Bir Nabat’s cliffs, counting at least twenty camels moving in a steady, snaking line toward the village. As they left the shadow of a massive sand dune, the sun glinted off the pearly white tablets the animals were carrying. Salt.

His stomach plummeted.

“Ayaanle.” Lubayd took the word from Ali’s mouth, shading his eyes with one hand. “And with a fortune … that looks like enough salt to pay a year’s taxes.” He dropped his hand. “What are they doing here?”

At his side, Aqisa crossed her arms. “They cannot be lost; we are weeks’ travel from the main trade route.” She glanced at Ali. “Do you think they could be your mother’s kin?”

They better not be. Though his companions didn’t know it, his Ayaanle mother’s kin were the ones who’d truly gotten Ali banished from Daevabad. They’d been behind the Tanzeem’s decision to recruit him, apparently hoping the shafit militants would eventually convince Ali to seize the throne.

It had been a ludicrous plot, but in the chaos following the Afshin’s death, Ghassan wasn’t taking the chance of anyone preying on Ali’s conflicted sympathies—let alone the powerful lords of Ta Ntry. Except, of course, the Ayaanle were difficult to punish in their wealthy, cosmopolitan homeland across the sea. So it had been Ali who suffered, Ali who was ripped from his home and tossed to assassins.

Stop. Ali checked the vitriol swirling within him, ashamed of how easily it had come. It was not the fault of the entire Ayaanle tribe, only a handful of his mother’s scheming relatives. For all he knew, the travelers below were perfectly innocent.

Lubayd looked apprehensive. “I hope they brought their own provisions. We won’t be able to feed all those camels.”

Ali turned away, resting his hand on his zulfiqar. “Let’s go ask them.”

THE CARAVAN HAD ARRIVED BY THE TIME THEY climbed down from the cliffs, and as Ali waded through the crowd of bleating camels, he realized Lubayd had been right about the fortune they were carrying. It looked like enough salt to provision Daevabad for a year and was most certainly some type of tax payment. Even the glossy, bright-eyed camels appeared costly, the decorated saddles and bindings covering their golden-white hides far finer than was practical.

But Ali didn’t see the large delegation he would have expected making small talk with Sheikh Jiyad and his son Thabit. Only a single Ayaanle man stood with them, dressed in the traditional bright teal robes that Ayaanle djinn on state business typically donned, their hue an homage to the colors of the Nile headwater.

The traveler turned around, the gold glittering from his ears and around his neck dazzling in the sunlight. He broke into a wide smile. “Cousin!” He laughed as he took in the sight of Ali. “By the Most High, is it possible a prince is under all those rags?”

The man crossed to him before Ali could offer a response, flabbergasted as he was. He held out his arms as if to pull Ali into an embrace.

Ali’s hand dropped to his khanjar. He swiftly stepped back. “I do not hug.”

The Ayaanle man grinned. “As friendly as people said you would be.” His warm gold eyes shone with amusement. “Peace be upon you either way, Hatset’s son.” His gaze traveled down Ali’s body. “You look awful,” he added, switching to Ntaran, the language of his mother’s tribe. “What have these people been feeding you? Rocks?”

Offended, Ali drew up, studying the man, but no recognition came to him. “Who are you?” he stammered in Djinnistani. The common tongue felt strange after so long in Am Gezira.

“Who am I?” the man asked. “Musa, of course!” When Ali narrowed his eyes, the other man feigned hurt. “Shams’s nephew? Cousin to Ta Khazak Ras on your mother’s maternal uncle’s side?”

Ali shook his head, the tangled lines of his mother’s family confusing him. “Where are the rest of your men?”

“Gone. May God have mercy upon them.” Musa touched his heart, his eyes filling with sorrow. “My caravan has been utterly cursed with every type of misfortune and injury, and my last two comrades were forced to return to Ta Ntry due to dire family circumstances last week.”

“He lies, brother,” Aqisa warned in Geziriyya. “No single man could have brought a caravan of such size here. His fellows are probably hiding in the desert.”

Ali eyed Musa again, growing more suspicious. “What is it you want from us?”

Musa chuckled. “Not one to bother with small talk, are you?” He pulled free a small white tablet from his robe and tossed it to Ali.

Ali caught it. He rubbed his thumb over the grainy surface. “What am I supposed to do with a lump of salt?”

“Cursed salt. We bewitch our cargo before crossing Am Gezira, and none but our own can handle it. I suppose the fact that you just did means you’re Ayaanle, after all.” He grinned as if he had said something enormously witty.

Looking doubtful, Lubayd reached to take the salt from Ali’s hands and then let out a yelp. His friend yanked his hand away, both the salt and his skin sizzling from the contact.

Musa wrapped a long arm around Ali’s shoulder. “Come, cousin. We should talk.”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT,” ALI DECLARED. “WHETHER OR NOT Ta Ntry’s taxes make it to Daevabad is not my concern.”

“Cousin … show some compassion for family.” Musa sipped his coffee and then made a face, setting it aside. They were in Bir Nabat’s central meeting place: a large sandstone chamber in the cliffs, its corners dotted with tall columns wrapped in ribbons of carved snakes.

Musa lounged against a worn cushion, his tale of woe finally complete. Ali kept catching sight of curious children peeking past the entrance. Bir Nabat was extremely isolated; someone like Musa, who flaunted the Ayaanle’s legendary wealth so openly in his sumptuous robe and heavy gold ornaments, was probably the most exciting thing to happen since Ali’s own arrival.

Musa spread his hands; his rings winked in the firelight. “Are you not headed home for Navasatem anyway? Certainly the king’s own son would not miss the generation celebrations.”

Navasatem. The word rang in Ali’s mind. Originally a Daeva holiday, Navasatem was now when all six tribes celebrated the birth of a new generation. Intended to commemorate the anniversary of their emancipation and reflect upon the lessons taught by Suleiman, it had turned into a frenetic celebration of life itself … Indeed, it was an old joke that there was typically a swell in life ten months after because so many children were conceived during the wild festivities. Like most devout djinn, Ali had mixed feelings about a full month of feasts, fairs, and wild revelry. Daevabad’s clerics—djinn imams and Daeva priests alike—typically spent the time clucking their tongues and admonishing their hungover flock.

And yet, in his previous life, Ali had looked forward to the celebrations for years. Navasatem’s martial competitions were legendary and, young age notwithstanding, he’d been determined to enter them, to sweep them, earning his father’s admiration and the position his name had already bought: Muntadhir’s future Qaid.

Ali took a deep breath. “I am not attending Navasatem.”

“But I need you,” Musa implored, sounding helpless. “There is no way I can continue on to Daevabad alone.”

Ali gave him an incredulous look. “Then you shouldn’t have left the main route! You could have found assistance at a proper caravanserai.”

“We should kill him and take his cargo,” Aqisa suggested in Geziriyya. “The Ayaanle will think he perished in the desert, and the lying fool deserves it.”

Lubayd touched her fingers, easing them away from the hilt of her zulfiqar. “People won’t think much of our hospitality if we start killing all the guests who lie.”

Musa glanced between them. “Am I missing something?”

“Just discussing where we might host you for the evening,” Ali said lightly in Djinnistani. He pressed his fingers together. “Just so I’m clear. You left the main route to come to Bir Nabat—an outpost you knew could not afford to host you and your animals—in order to foist your responsibilities upon me?”

Musa shrugged. “I do apologize.”

“I see.” Ali sat back and gave the circle of djinn a polite smile. “Brothers and sisters,” he started. “Forgive the burden, but would you mind giving me a few moments alone with my … what did you call yourself again?”

“Your cousin.”

“My cousin.”

The other djinn rose. Thabit gave him a pointed look. He clearly knew Ali well enough to hear the danger in his voice even if Musa did not. “Do not get blood on the rugs,” he warned in Geziriyya. “They are new.”

The others were barely gone before Musa let out an overwrought sigh. “By the Most High, how have you survived for so long in this backwater?” He shuddered, picking at the goat that had been prepared for him, a goat one of the villagers had been readying for his daughter’s wedding and happily offered when he learned they had a guest. “I didn’t think djinn still lived like—ah!” he cried out as Ali grabbed him by his silver-embroidered collar and threw him to the ground.

“Does our hospitality not please you?” Ali asked coldly, drawing his zulfiqar.

“Not current—wait, don’t!” Musa’s gold eyes went bright with terror as flames licked down the copper blade. “Please!”

“Why are you really here?” Ali demanded. “And don’t give me any more nonsense about your travel woes.”

“I’m here to help you, you wild fool! To provide you with a way to return to Daevabad!”

“Help me? Your scheming was the reason I was sent away in the first place!”

Musa held up his hands in surrender. “To be fair … that was another branch of the family—stop!” he shrieked, scrambling back as Ali pressed the blade closer. “Are you crazy? I’m your blood! And I’m under guest-right!”

“You are not my guest,” Ali countered. “I am not from Bir Nabat. And Am Gezira is a dangerous—what did you call it?—backwater?” He spat in offense. “Traders disappear all the time. Especially ones foolish enough to go traipsing about alone with such wealth.”

Musa’s eyes locked on his. There was determination under the fear. “I made it very clear where I was headed. If my cargo doesn’t make it to Daevabad in time to pay for Navasatem, the king will come looking for it.” He lifted his chin. “Would you invite such trouble upon your new brothers and sisters?”

Ali stepped back, the flames vanishing from his blade. “I’m not getting drawn into another scheme. And I will kill you myself before you threaten these people.”

Musa rolled his eyes. “I was warned you had a temper.” He straightened up, brushing the sand off his robe. “And a rather alarmingly close relationship with your zulfiqar.” He crossed his arms. “But I’m not leaving without you. A not-inconsiderable amount of risk and cost went into this. Another man might be grateful.”

“Find him, then,” Ali shot back.

“And that would be it? You’d really go back to picking through human trash and selling dates when I’m offering to help you return to Daevabad before it falls apart?”

“Daevabad is not falling apart.”

“No?” Musa stepped closer. “Does news from the capital not make it to this forsaken place? Crime is soaring, and the economy is so bad that the Royal Guard can barely afford to feed its soldiers, let alone provision them with proper weapons.”

Ali gave him an even look. “And what part did the Ayaanle play in those economic woes?”

Musa spread his hands. “Why should we be fair to a king who exiles our prince? A king who turns his back on his own family’s legacy and does nothing as shafit are sold at auction blocks?”

“You’re lying.” Ali eyed the man with scorn. “Not that your people would care about the shafit or the city. Daevabad is a game to the Ayaanle. You sit in Ta Ntry, counting your gold and playing with other people’s lives.”

“We care far more than you think.” Musa’s eyes flashed. “Zaydi al Qahtani wouldn’t have taken Daevabad without the Ayaanle. Your family would not be royalty without the Ayaanle.” His mouth lifted in a slight smile. “And let’s be honest … rising crime and political corruption do have a tendency to disrupt business.”

“And there it is.”

“That’s not all it is.” Musa shook his head. “I don’t understand. I thought you’d be thrilled! I’d be heartbroken if I was banished from my home. I know I’d do anything to return to my family. And your family …” His voice softened. “They’re not doing well.”

Apprehension raced down Ali’s spine. “What are you talking about?”

“How do you think your mother responded to your being exiled? You should be relieved she’s restricted herself to a trade war rather than an actual one. I hear your sister is heartbroken, that your brother falls further into drink every day, and your father …” Musa paused, and Ali did not miss his calculated tone when he spoke again. “Ghassan’s a vengeful man, and his wrath has fallen directly on the shafit he believes stirred you to treason.”

Ali flinched, the last line finding its mark. “I can’t do anything about any of that,” he insisted. “Every time I tried, it hurt the people I cared about. And I have even less power now than I did then.”

“Less power? Alizayd the Afshin-slayer? The clever prince who has learned to make the desert bloom and travels with a pack of Am Gezira’s fiercest warriors?” Musa eyed him. “You underestimate your appeal.”

“Probably because I know intimately how much of that is nonsense. I’m not going to Daevabad.” Ali crossed to the entrance to beckon his companions back. “My decision is final.”

“Alizayd, would you just—” But Musa was wise enough to fall silent as the others joined them.

“My cousin apologizes for abusing the hospitality of Bir Nabat,” Ali announced. “He intends to depart at dawn and says we may take a fifth of his inventory to compensate our loss.”

Musa whirled on him. “What?” he said hotly in Ntaran. “I certainly did not!”

“I will gut you like a fish,” Ali warned in the same tongue before slipping back into Djinnistani: “… to compensate our loss,” he repeated firmly, “and refill the bellies of the children gone hungry while his camels gorge. Additionally, have someone take his provisions and replace them with locusts and dates.” He watched as Musa went from incredulous to outraged. “You said you were feeling weak. I suggest a change in diet. Such food has made us very hardy.” He clicked his teeth. “You get used to the crunch.”

Indignation simmered in Musa’s eyes, but he didn’t speak. Ali stood, pressing a hand to his heart in the traditional Geziri salute. “If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. I’ll wake you at dawn for prayer.”

“But of course,” Musa said, his voice newly cool. “One must never forget their obligations.”

Ali didn’t like the look in his eyes, but having made his point, he turned for the exit. “Peace be upon you, cousin.”

“And upon you peace, prince.”

ALI SLEPT HARD; HE ALWAYS DID HERE. HE DREAMT HE was back in Daevabad on the lovely pavilion overlooking the harem gardens, lost in his books. A cool breeze, a wet breeze, gently swung his hammock. The water soaked through the fabric, through his dishdasha, clammy and cold fingers upon his skin …

“Ali!”

Ali’s eyes snapped open. His hand flew to his khanjar, the dagger a silver gleam in the dark tent. He caught sight of Lubayd, the other man staying wisely out of reach, and dropped the blade.

It landed with a splash in the pool of water nearly level with his bed cushion. Ali shot up in alarm at the sight of his flooded tent, then flew to his feet, quickly snatching up his books and his notes.

“Come,” Lubayd said, already holding open the tent flap. “It looks to be the worst rupture we’ve had.”

The scene outside was mayhem. The water in the courtyard was waist high, and judging from its turbulence, still gushing out of the cistern below. The cairns Ali used to block off the canals were nowhere to be seen, probably washed away.

He swore. “Wake the rest. Anyone with a working pair of hands needs to get down to the fields and orchards. Don’t let the soil get oversaturated.”

Lubayd nodded, his usual humor vanished. “Don’t drown.”

Ali pulled off his robe and waded through the courtyard. He made sure Lubayd was gone before he submerged to check on conditions underground. Drowning didn’t worry him.

It was the fact that he couldn’t that did.

THE SUN WAS WELL RISEN OVER A SOGGY BIR NABAT BY the time the rupture was fixed. Ali was so tired he had to be helped from the cistern. His fingers were swollen from groping the rock, his senses numb from the cold water.

Lubayd pushed a cup of hot coffee into his hands. “We’ve salvaged what we could. I don’t think there was much harm to any crops, but several of the aqueducts will need to be repaired. And there was rather extensive damage to the trellis in the fig orchard.”

Ali nodded mutely. Water streamed down his limbs, echoing the cold rage welling inside him. “Where is he?”

Lubayd’s reluctant silence confirmed Ali’s suspicions. He’d known as soon as he dived into the cistern and found that the rocks limiting the spring had been moved. No Geziri would have swum so deep, and none would have ever dared sabotage a well. But an Ayaanle man who’d been taught to swim as a child? One who’d never gone thirsty? He might have.

“Gone, departed in the chaos,” Lubayd finally answered. He cleared his throat. “He left his cargo.”

Aqisa dropped down next to them. “We should let it rot in the desert,” she said bitterly. “Salvage what we can, sell what we can’t, and let the rest sink below the sands. To hell with the Ayaanle. Let them explain to the king.”

“They will find a way to blame us,” Ali said softly. He stared at his hands. They were shaking. “Stealing from the Treasury is a capital offense.”

Lubayd knelt before him. “Then we’ll take the damned salt,” he said firmly. “Aqisa and I. You’ll stay in Am Gezira.”

Ali tried to clear the lump growing in his throat. “You can’t even touch it.” Besides, this was his family’s mess; it wasn’t right to foist responsibility for dealing with it on the people who’d saved him.

He stood up, feeling unsteady. “I … I’ll need to organize repairs first.” The words made him sick. The life he’d been carefully putting together in Bir Nabat had been turned upside down in a night, carelessly cast aside by outsiders in the name of their own political calculations. “We’ll leave for Daevabad tomorrow.” The words sounded odd in his mouth, unreal somehow.

Lubayd hesitated. “And your cousin?”

Ali doubted they would find Musa, but it was worth a try. “No man who would sabotage a well is kin of mine. Send a pair of fighters after him.”

“And should they find him?”

“Drag him back. I’ll deal with him when I return.” Ali’s hands tightened on his cup. “And I will return.”

“Ow! By the Creator, are you doing that on purpose? It didn’t hurt nearly as bad last time!”

Nahri ignored her patient’s complaint, her attention focused instead on his neatly splayed lower midsection. Metal clamps held open the skin, white-hot to keep the wound clean. The shapeshifter’s intestines shimmered a pale silver—or at least they would have shimmered had they not been studded with stubborn bits of rocky growths.

She took a deep breath, centering herself. The infirmary was stifling, and she’d been working on this patient for at least two grueling hours. She had one hand pressed against his flushed skin to dull the pain of the procedure and keep it from killing him. With the other, she manipulated a pair of steel tweezers around the next growth. It was a complicated, time-consuming operation, and sweat beaded her brow.

“Damn it!”

She dropped the stone into a pan. “Stop turning into a statue, and you won’t have to deal with this.” She briefly paused to glare at him. “This is the third time I’ve had to treat you … people are not meant to shift into rocks!”

He looked a little ashamed. “It’s very peaceful.”

Nahri threw him an exasperated look. “Find another way to relax. I beg you. Stitches!” she called aloud. When there was no response, she glanced over her shoulder. “Nisreen?”

“One moment!”

From across the crowded infirmary, she caught sight of Nisreen dashing between a table piled high with pharmaceutical preparations and another with instruments due for a magical scalding. Nisreen picked up a silver tray, holding it over her head as she navigated the tightly packed cots and huddles of visitors. The infirmary was standing room only, with more people pushed into the garden.

Nahri sighed as Nisreen squeezed between a bouncing Ayaanle artist hexed with exuberance and a Sahrayn metalworker whose skin was covered in smoking pustules. “Imagine if we had a hospital, Nisreen. An enormous hospital with room to breathe and staff to do your busywork.”

“A dream,” Nisreen replied, setting down her tray. “Your stitches.” She paused to admire Nahri’s work. “Excellent. I never get tired of seeing how far your skills have progressed.”

“I’m barely allowed to leave the infirmary, and I work all day. I’d hope my skills had progressed.” But she couldn’t entirely hide her smile. Despite the long hours and grueling work, Nahri took great satisfaction in her role as a healer, able to help patients even when she couldn’t fix the myriad other problems in her life.

She closed the shapeshifter up quickly with the enchanted thread and then bound the wound, pressing a cup of opium-laced tea into his hands. “Drink and rest.”

“Banu Nahida?”

Nahri glanced up. A steward dressed in royal colors peeked in from the doors leading to the garden, his eyes going wide at the sight of her. In the moist heat of the infirmary, Nahri’s hair had grown wild, black curls escaping her headscarf. Her apron was splashed with blood and spilled potions. All she needed was a fiery scalpel in one hand to look like one of the mad, murderous Nahids of djinn lore.

“What?” she asked, trying to keep her irritation in check.

The steward bowed. “The emir would like to speak with you.”

Nahri gestured to the chaos around her. “Now?”

“He is waiting in the garden.”

Of course he is. Muntadhir was practiced enough in protocol to know she couldn’t entirely snub him if he showed up in person. “Fine,” she grumbled. She washed her hands and removed her apron, then followed the steward outside.

Nahri blinked in the bright sunshine. The wild harem garden—more jungle than garden, really—had been pruned back and tamed on the land facing the infirmary by a team of dedicated Daeva horticulturists. They’d been giddy at the assignment, eager to recreate the glorious palace landscapes the Nahids had been famous for, even if only in miniature. The infirmary’s grounds were now starred with silver-blue reflecting pools, the walkways lined with perfectly pruned pistachio and apricot trees and lush rosebushes laden with delicate blooms that ranged from a pale, sunny yellow to the deepest of indigos. Though most of the herbs and plants used in her work were grown in Zariaspa on the Pramukh family estates, anything that needed to be fresh when used was planted here, in neatly manicured corner plots bursting with shuddering mandrake bushes and dappled yellow henbane. A marble pavilion overlooked it all, set with carved benches and invitingly plump cushions.

Muntadhir stood there now, his back to her. He must have come from court because he was still dressed in the smoky gold-edged black robe he wore for ceremonial functions, his brightly colored silk turban dazzling in the sun. His hands rested lightly upon the balustrade, the lines of his body commanding as he gazed upon her garden.

“Yes?” she asked brusquely as she stepped into the pavilion.

He glanced back, his gaze traveling down her body. “You look a sight.”

“I’m working.” She wiped away some of the sweat from her forehead. “What do you need, Muntadhir?”

He turned to face her fully, leaning against the railing. “You didn’t come last night.”

That was what this visit was about? “I was busy with my patients. And I doubt your bed was cold for long.” She couldn’t resist adding the last part.

His lips twitched. “This is the third time in a row you’ve done this, Nahri,” he persisted. “You could at least send word instead of leaving me waiting.”

Nahri took a deep breath, her patience with Muntadhir—already a thing in short supply—diminishing with each second. “I apologize. Next time I’ll send word so you can head straightaway to whatever wine-soaked salon you’re frequenting these days. Now are we done?”

Muntadhir crossed his arms. “You’re in a good mood today. But no, we’re not done. Can we talk somewhere more private?” He gestured to the bright citrus trees in the distance. “Your orange grove, perhaps?”

A protective instinct surged in Nahri’s heart. The orange grove had been planted long ago by her uncle Rustam, and it was precious to her. While not as talented a healer as her mother, Manizheh, Rustam had been a famed botanist and pharmacist. Even decades after his death, the carefully selected plants within the grove grew strong and healthy, their healing powers more potent and their fragrance headier. Nahri had requested the grove be restored to its original glory, enchanted by the privacy and shade afforded by the glen’s thick screen of leaves and brambles, and the feeling of standing on soil once worked by her family’s hands.

“I don’t let anyone in there,” she reminded him. “You know that.”

Muntadhir shook his head, used to her stubbornness. “Then let’s just walk.” He moved toward the steps without waiting for her.

Nahri followed. “What’s happened with the Daeva family I told you about?” she asked as they made their way along the snaking path. If Muntadhir was going to pull her away from work, she might as well take advantage of it. “The ones who were abused by the Royal Guard?”

“I’m looking into it.”

She stopped. “Still? You told me you’d speak to your father last week.”

“And I did,” Muntadhir replied, sounding annoyed. “I can’t exactly go around setting criminals free against the king’s command because you and Jamshid are upset. It’s more complicated than that.” He eyed her. “And the more you interfere, the harder you make it. You know how my father feels about you getting involved in political matters.”

The words struck hard, and Nahri drew up. “Fine,” she said bitterly. “You can go tell him his warning has been passed on.”

Muntadhir grabbed her hand before she could turn away. “I’m not here at his command, Nahri,” he protested. “I’m here because I’m your husband. And regardless of how either of us feels about that, I don’t want to see you hurt.”

He led her toward a shaded bench that faced the canal. It was tucked behind a timeworn neem tree whose boughs curved down in a thick cascade of emerald leaves, effectively curtaining them from view.

He sat, pulling her down beside him. “I hear you had quite the adventure with my sister the other week.”

Nahri instantly tensed. “Did your father—”

“No,” Muntadhir assured. “Zaynab told me. Yes,” he clarified, perhaps noticing the surprise on Nahri’s face. “I know about her little jaunts in the Geziri Quarter. I found out about them years ago. She’s clever enough to keep herself safe, and her guard knows he can come to me if she’s ever in trouble.”

“Oh.” That took Nahri aback. And oddly enough, it made her a little jealous. The Qahtanis might be her ancestral enemies and a bunch of backstabbing opportunists, but the quiet loyalty between the siblings—borne out of the type of familial love Nahri had never known—filled her with a sad sort of envy.

She pushed it away. “I take it she told you about the hospital?”

“She said she’d never seen you so excited.”

Nahri kept her face carefully blank. “It was interesting.”

“It was interesting?” Muntadhir repeated in disbelief. “You, who barely stops talking about your work in the infirmary, discovered your ancestors’ old hospital and a group of freed ifrit slaves, and your only comment is ‘It was interesting’?”

Nahri chewed her lip, debating how to respond. The hospital had been far more than interesting, of course. But the fantasies she’d been spinning since her visit seemed a fragile thing, safest kept to herself.

Muntadhir clearly wasn’t so easily fooled. He took her hand again. “I wish you would talk to me,” he said softly. “I know neither of us wanted this, Nahri, but we could try to make it work. I feel like I have no idea what goes on in your head.” His tone was imploring but there was no hiding a hint of exasperation. “You have more walls up than a maze.”

Nahri said nothing. Of course, she had walls up. Nearly everyone she knew had betrayed her at least once.

He rubbed his thumb against her palm. Her fingers twitched, and she made a face. “Lots of stitching today, and I think my internal healing abilities have stopped recognizing aching muscles as an abnormality.”

“Let me.” Muntadhir took her hand in both of his and began to massage it, pressing the joints as though he’d been doing it for years.

Nahri exhaled, some of the tension immediately leaving her sore fingers. “Who taught you how to do this?”

He pulled at her fingers, stretching them out in a way that felt heavenly. “A friend.”

“Were you and said friend wearing clothes at the time of this lesson?”

“You know, considering the friend … it is rather likely we weren’t.” He gave her a wicked smile. “Would you like to know what else she taught me?”

Nahri rolled her eyes. “I won’t unburden myself to you, so now you’re trying to seduce me using knowledge you gained from another woman?”

His grin widened. “Political life has taught me to be creative in my approaches.” He brushed his fingers lightly up her wrist, and Nahri couldn’t help a slight shiver at his touch. “You’re clearly too busy to come to my bed. How else to sustain the peace our marriage alliance was supposed to build?”

“You have no shame; do you know that?” But the edge was gone from her voice. Muntadhir was damnably good at this.

His fingers were tracing delicate patterns on the skin of her wrist, his eyes dancing with mirth. “You don’t complain about that when you do find your way into my bed.”

Heat flooded her cheeks—not all of it from embarrassment. “You’ve slept with half of Daevabad. I’d hope that would teach you some skill.”

“That sounds like a challenge.”

The mischief in his expression was not helping with the utterly traitorous unspooling of heat in her belly. “I have work,” she protested as he pulled her onto his lap. “At least a dozen patients waiting. And we’re in the garden. Someone could …” She trailed off as he pressed his mouth to her neck, lightly kissing her throat.

“No one can see anything,” Muntadhir said calmly, his voice sending a brush of warmth against her skin. “And you clearly need to relax. Consider it a professional duty.” His hands slipped underneath her tunic. “Surely your patients will be better served by having a Banu Nahida who’s not in such a snappish mood.”

Nahri sighed, pressing closer to him despite herself. His mouth had moved lower, his beard tickling her collar. “I am not snappish …”

There was a polite cough from behind the tree, followed by a squeaked “Emir?”

Muntadhir removed neither his hands nor his lips. “Yes?”

“Your father wishes to speak with you. He says it’s urgent.”

Nahri stilled, the mention of Ghassan making her go cold.

Muntadhir sighed. “Of course it is.” He pulled away to meet her gaze. “Have dinner with me tonight?” he asked. “I will order your strange flower tea and you can insult my shamelessness to your heart’s content.”

Nahri had little desire to dine with him but admittedly wouldn’t mind continuing what they’d just started. She had been under a great deal of stress lately, and she often got more sleep the nights she spent in Muntadhir’s room; people usually had to be actively dying for a servant to muster up the courage to interrupt the emir and his wife there.

Besides which, the flicker of hope in his eyes was pulling on the one shred of tenderness left in her heart; for all his flaws—and there were a great number—her husband did not lack in charm. “I’ll try,” she said, biting back a smile.

He grinned back, looking genuinely pleased. “Excellent.” He untangled his limbs from hers.

Nahri hastily straightened her tunic; she was not going back to the infirmary looking like … well, like she had just been doing what she had been doing. “Good luck with whatever your father wants.”

Muntadhir rolled his eyes. “I am sure it is nothing.” He touched his heart. “In peace.”

She watched him go, taking a minute to enjoy the fresh air and the trill of birdsong. It was a beautiful day, and her gaze drifted lazily over to the herb garden.

It landed on a shafit man scurrying through the bushes.

Nahri frowned, watching as the fellow hurried past a patch of sage to stop in front of a willow tree. He wiped his brow, looking nervously over his shoulders.

Odd. While there were some shafit among the gardeners, none were allowed to touch the Nahid plants, nor was this particular man familiar. He took a pair of shears from his belt and opened them, as though he meant to cut away one of the branches.

Nahri was on her feet in an instant, her silk slippers and a lifetime of cat burglary disguising the sound of her steps. The man didn’t even look up until she was nearly on top of him.

“What do you think you’re doing to my tree?” she demanded.

The shafit man jumped up, whirling around so fast that his cap tumbled off. His human-hued hazel eyes went wide with horror.

“Banu Nahida!” he gasped. “I … forgive me,” he begged, bringing his hands together. “I was just—”

“Hacking at my willow? Yes, I see that.” She touched the maimed branch, and a sprinkling of new bark spread beneath her fingers. Nahri had a bit of a talent for botany herself, though she hadn’t yet attempted to develop it further, much to Nisreen’s chagrin. “Do you know what would happen if someone else had caught …” She trailed off, the sight of the man’s bare scalp stealing her attention. It was disfigured, his hair long around his temples, but prickly and patched at the top as if recovering from a rushed shave. The flesh there was mottled purple and slightly swollen, surrounding an oddly flat patch in the size and shape of a coin. A half-moon of scar tissue edged the patch—it had been stitched, and skillfully so.

Overwhelmed by curiosity, Nahri reached out and lightly touched the swollen flesh. It was soft—too soft. She let her Nahid senses expand, confirming what seemed impossible.

A small section of the man’s skull had been removed beneath the skin.

She gasped. It was healing; she could sense the spark of new bone growth, but even so … She dropped her hand. “Did someone do this to you?”

The man looked petrified. “I had an accident.”

“An accident that neatly bored a hole through your skull and then stitched it shut?” Nahri knelt beside him. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she assured him. “I just want to know what happened—and make certain someone isn’t going around Daevabad cutting coins out of people’s skulls.”

“It was nothing like that.” He bit his lip, glancing around. “I fell off a roof and cracked my head,” he whispered. “The doctors told my wife that blood was swelling under the bone and that removing part of the skull might relieve the pressure and save my life.”

Nahri blinked. “The doctors?” She looked at the tree he’d been taking the cuttings from. Willow. Of course. Both the leaves and bark were valuable, easily distilled into medicine for aches and pains … for human aches and pains. “Did they ask you for this as well?”

He shook his head, still trembling. “I offered. I saw a picture in one of their books and thought I remembered seeing a tree like it when I worked on the roof here last year.” He gave her an imploring look. “They’re good people, and they saved my life. I wanted to help.”

Nahri was having trouble containing her excitement. Shafit doctors who could do surgery and had medical books? “Who?” she asked eagerly. “Who are these doctors?”

He dropped his gaze. “We’re not supposed to talk about them.”

“I don’t mean them any harm.” She touched her heart. “I swear on my ancestors’ ashes. I’ll bring them some willow myself, and more. I have plenty of medicines that are safe for shafit in my apothecary.”

The man looked torn. Nahri studied him again, noting his bare feet and ragged galabiyya. His heavily calloused hands.

Hating herself a little, Nahri pulled a gold ring from her pocket. She’d forgotten to remove it before starting work in the infirmary and had settled for slipping it in there. Small rubies, set in a floral pattern, were embedded in its surface.

She placed it in his hand. “A name and a location.” His eyes went wide, locking on the ring. “I’m not going to hurt them, I promise. I want to help.”

Longing filled his face; Nahri imagined the money a ring like that could fetch would go a long way for a shafit laborer.

“Subhashini Sen,” he whispered. “The house with the red door on Sukariyya Street.”

Nahri smiled. “Thank you.”

A SMALL ARMY OF SERVANTS WAS WAITING FOR NAHRI when she finished her work, and she’d no sooner set foot in the steamy hammam than they descended, taking her blood- and potion-splattered clothes away to be washed and then giving her a thorough scrub, rinsing her skin with rosewater, massaging her limbs with precious oils, and attempting to coax her wild curls into an elegant crown of braids.

Never one content to give up control, Nahri had, however, insisted on picking out her own clothes. Tonight she’d selected a gown cut from the finest linen she’d ever touched. It was sleeveless, falling to her ankles in a pale buttery sheath and held together by an ornate collar of hundreds of beads: lapis lazuli, gold, carnelian, and topaz. It reminded Nahri of home, the pattern looking like one that might have been copied from an ancient temple back in Egypt.

A servant had just finished clasping the delicate collar when another approached, bearing a discreet ivory cosmetics pot. “Would you like me to powder your skin, my lady?” she asked.

Nahri stared at the vessel. An innocent question, but one that always caused her stomach to tighten. Instinctively, she glanced up, catching sight of her reflection in the polished silver mirror perched on her dressing table.

Though the line between the shafit and the purebloods in Daevabad was a hard one, carved by centuries of violence and enshrined in law, the differences in their appearances were not as great as their divide in power suggested. The purebloods had their pointed ears and metal-toned eyes, of course, the color varying by tribe. And their skin had a gleam to it, a shimmer and a haze that reflected the hot, jet-colored blood that simmered in their veins. Depending on ancestry and luck, shafit had a mix of human and djinn features: human hazel eyes paired with perfectly pointed ears, or perhaps the tin-toned gaze of the Agnivanshi without the glimmer to their skin.

And then there was Nahri.

At first glance, there was nothing magical about Nahri’s appearance. Her ears were as rounded as a human’s and her skin an earthy matte brown. Her black eyes were dark, to be certain, but she’d always felt like they lacked the same shining ebony depths that marked one as Daeva. Hers was a face that had once convinced Dara she was a shafit with the barest drop of magical blood in her veins. And it was a face that was apparently a lie, the product of a marid curse—or so the ifrit who’d hunted her had claimed, a claim Ghassan had seized upon in order to publicly declare her a pureblood.

Privately, of course, he’d said something very different. Not that it mattered. Nahri suspected she would never fully discern the truth of her origins. But the laissez-faire approach to her appearance had changed when she married Muntadhir. The future queen of Daevabad was expected to look the part, and so hairdressers arranged her braids to cover the tips of her ears. Ash was mixed into her kohl to make her eyes look darker. And then the cursed ivory pot appeared. It contained an incredibly expensive powder made from the Creator only knew what that when brushed upon her skin gave Nahri the shimmer of a pureblood for hours.

It was an illusion, a waste of time and an utter facade—and all for a future queen who couldn’t even protect her tribesmen from being beaten and robbed in front of her. And the fact that it was her shafit servants who were forced to create an image of the blood purity that circumscribed their lives … it made Nahri feel ill. “No,” she finally replied, trying not to let her revulsion show. “I don’t need that.”

There was a knock on the door and then Nisreen entered.

Nahri groaned. “No. I need a night off. Tell whoever it is to heal themselves.”

Her mentor gave her a wounded smile. “It is not always work that I seek you for.” She glanced at Nahri’s maids. “Would you mind leaving us?”

They obeyed at once, and Nisreen joined her at the dressing table. “You look very pretty,” she said. “That dress is beautiful. Is it new?”

Nahri nodded. “A gift from a Sahrayn seamstress happy to no longer have silver-pox.”

“Your husband will be hard-pressed to take his eyes off you in that.”

“I suppose,” Nahri said, fighting embarrassment. She wasn’t sure why she was even bothering. Muntadhir had married her for her name, not her face, and her husband was so constantly surrounded by djinn who were breathtakingly gorgeous—men and women who had voices like angels and smiles that could lure humans to madness—that it seemed a waste of time to even attempt to attract his eye.

Nisreen’s gaze darted to the door before she set down the small silver chalice that had been casually concealed in the folds of her shawl. “I’ve prepared your tea.”

Nahri stared at the chalice, the sharp scent of herbs wafting from pale green liquid. They both knew what kind of “tea” it was: the kind Nahri drank only when she visited Muntadhir. “I still worry we’re going to get caught.”

Nisreen shrugged. “Ghassan probably has his suspicions, but you’re a Nahid healer. On this, he’s going to have a hard time outmaneuvering you, and it’s worth the risk to buy you a bit of time.”

“A bit of time is all it’s buying.” Ghassan hadn’t overly pressed on the topic of grandchildren yet. Djinn didn’t conceive easily, and it was entirely reasonable the emir and his wife had yet to be blessed with an heir. But she doubted he’d hold his tongue for long.

Nisreen must have heard the uncertainty in her voice. “That is enough for now.” She pushed the cup into Nahri’s hands. “Take things here day by day.”

Nahri gulped the tea and then stood, pulling a hooded robe over her dress. “I should go.” She was early, but if she left now, she could sneak through the back passages and have a few minutes to herself rather than being escorted by one of Muntadhir’s stewardesses.

“I won’t delay you.” Nisreen stood as well, and when she met Nahri’s eyes, there was conviction in her gaze. “Have faith, my lady. Your future here is brighter than you realize.”

“You always say that.” Nahri sighed. “I wish I had your confidence.”

“You will one day,” Nisreen promised. She shooed her off. “Go on then. Don’t let me keep you.”

Nahri did, taking one of the private corridors that led from the harem garden to the royal apartments on the upper level of the palatial ziggurat, a level with an excellent view of Daevabad’s lake. All the Qahtanis had quarters up there save Zaynab, who preferred the garden below.

Just as Ali had. The thought came to her unbidden—and unwelcome. She hated thinking about Ali, hated that five years after that night, a sting of humiliation still pierced her when she recalled how her supposed friend had quietly led her and Dara into a deadly trap. The naive young prince should have been the last one capable of duping her, and yet he had.

And she hated that despite everything, part of her still worried about him. For it was damnably clear—no matter what the Qahtanis pretended—that Ali was not merely “leading a garrison” in the peace of his ancestral land. He’d been cast out, and under terms Nahri suspected were rather dire.

She emerged onto the expansive balcony that ran the length of Muntadhir’s apartment. Like everything he owned, it was achingly sophisticated, its trellised wooden railings and screens carved in the semblance of a garden, with embroidered panels of silk draped to mimic a tent. Frankincense smoldered inside a fiery brazier across from a pile of brocaded cushions that sat angled toward the best view of the lake.

Cushions that were very much not empty. Nahri abruptly stilled, catching sight of Jamshid and Muntadhir sitting across from each other. Jamshid’s presence there didn’t surprise her—but the fact that they were clearly arguing did.

“Tell your father to send him back!” Jamshid was insisting. “Is there any reason he can’t drop his damned cargo on the beach and turn right around?”

“I tried.” Muntadhir sounded nearly hysterical. “I begged my father, and do you know what he told me?” He let out a choked, humorless laugh. “To go put an heir in my Nahid wife if I was so worried about my position. That’s all we are to him. Pawns in his damned political game. And now his favorite, sharpest piece is returning.”

Nahri frowned in confusion. Pushing aside the guilt she felt for eavesdropping—more on account of Jamshid, her friend, than for the sake of her politician of a husband, who almost certainly had a loyal spy or two installed in her infirmary—she crept closer, tucking herself into a niche between a potted fern and an ornamental carved screen.

She took a deep breath. The palace’s magic was as unpredictable as it was powerful, and though Nahri had been quietly working to learn how to better call upon it, doing so was always a risk—she had no doubt that if Ghassan got an inkling of what she was up to, she’d be promptly punished.

But sometimes a little risk was worth it. Nahri focused on the shadows at her feet. Grow, she urged, beckoning them closer and allowing her fear of getting caught to expand. Protect me.

They did so, the shadows sweeping up to envelop her in a cloak of darkness. Breathing a bit easier, Nahri moved closer to the screen to peer through the cutouts in the wood. The two men were alone, Jamshid seated on the edge of a cushion as he watched Muntadhir with open concern.

Muntadhir shot to his feet, visibly trembling. “His mother’s going to kill me.” He paced, pulling anxiously at his beard. “The Ayaanle have wanted this for years. He’ll no sooner be back in Daevabad than I’ll be waking up with a cord around my neck.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Jamshid said sharply. “Muntadhir, you need to calm down and think this—no.” His hand shot out to grab Muntadhir’s as her husband lunged for the bottle of wine on the table. “Stop. That’s not going to help you.”

Muntadhir offered a broken smile. “I disagree,” he said weakly. He looked close to tears. “Wine is reportedly an excellent companion during one’s downfall.”

“There’s not going to be any downfall.” Jamshid pulled Muntadhir onto the cushion beside him. “There’s not,” he repeated when Muntadhir looked away. “Muntadhir …” Jamshid hesitated, and when he spoke again, there was a wary edge to his voice. “It’s a long journey back to Daevabad. A dangerous one. Surely you have people who—”

Muntadhir violently shook his head. “I can’t. I don’t have that in me.” He bit his lip, staring in bitter resignation at the floor. “Not yet anyway.” He wiped his eyes and then took a deep breath, as if to compose himself before speaking again. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t burden you with this. God knows you’ve suffered enough for my family’s politics.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Jamshid touched Muntadhir’s cheek. “I want you to come to me with things like this.” He smiled. “To be honest … the rest of your companions are fairly useless sycophants.”

That drew a laugh from her husband. “Whereas I can always rely on you to honestly insult me.”

“And keep you safe.” Jamshid’s hand had moved to cradle Muntadhir’s jaw. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, I swear. I won’t let it, and I’m obnoxiously honorable about these things.”

Muntadhir laughed again. “That I know.” He took another breath and then suddenly closed his eyes as if in pain. When he spoke again, his voice was heavy with sorrow. “I miss you.”

Jamshid’s face twisted, the humor vanishing from his expression. He seemed to realize what he was doing with his hand, his gaze falling to her husband’s mouth. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to—”

The rest of his explanation didn’t leave his lips. Because Muntadhir was suddenly kissing him, doing so with a desperation that was clearly returned. Jamshid tangled his hand in Muntadhir’s dark hair, pulling him close …

And then he pushed him away. “I can’t,” Jamshid choked out, his entire body shaking. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. Not anymore. I told you when you got married. She’s my Banu Nahida.”

Nahri stepped back from the screen, stunned. Not by the allusion to past intimacy between them—there were times it seemed Muntadhir had literally slept with half the people he knew. But those affairs all seemed so casual—flirtations with various foreign ministers, dalliances with poets and dancing girls.

The anguish radiating off her husband now was not casual. Gone was the emir who’d confidently pulled her into his lap in the garden. Muntadhir had rocked back like he’d been punched when Jamshid had pushed him away, and it looked like he was struggling not to cry. Sympathy stole through her. For all the trappings of power and glamour of the court, she could not help but be struck by how utterly lonely this place had made them all.

Muntadhir stared at the ground. “Of course.” It sounded like he was fighting to regain his composure. “Then maybe you should go,” he added, his voice stiff. “I’m expecting her and I would hate to put you in an uncomfortable position.”

Jamshid sighed, pulling himself slowly to his feet. He leaned on his cane, looking resignedly down upon Muntadhir. “Have you had any luck freeing the Daeva men Nahri and I told you about?”

“No,” Muntadhir replied, his response far flatter than it had been with her on the topic. “It’s difficult to free people when they’re guilty of the crime they’re charged with.”

“It’s a crime now to discuss the implications of your father’s financial policies in a public setting?”

Muntadhir’s head jerked up. “Daevabad is restless enough without such gossip being spread. It hurts morale and causes people to lose faith in their king.”

“So does arbitrarily arresting people who happen to have wealth and land that can be confiscated for the Treasury.” Jamshid’s eyes narrowed. “Of course, by ‘people’ I mean ‘Daevas.’ We all know the rest of the tribes aren’t suffering the same treatment.”

Muntadhir was shaking his head. “He’s trying to keep the peace, Jamshid. And let’s not pretend your people make that easy.”

Jamshid’s mouth pressed into a disappointed line. “This isn’t you, Muntadhir. And since we’ve established I’m the only one who’s honest with you … let me warn you that you’re going down the same path you say ruined your father.” He turned away. “Give my greetings to Nahri.”

“Jamshid—”

But he was already leaving, making his way toward the place where Nahri was hiding. Quickly, she retreated to edge of the steps as though she’d just arrived.

“Jamshid!” she said, greeting him with false cheer. “What a lovely surprise!”

He managed a smile, though it didn’t meet his eyes. “Banu Nahida,” he replied, his voice a little hoarse. “Apologies. I didn’t mean to intrude upon your evening.”

“It’s all right,” she said gently, hating the heartbreak still writ clearly across his face. Muntadhir wasn’t looking at them; he’d walked to the edge of the balcony, his attention focused on the twinkling fires of the city below. She touched Jamshid’s shoulder. “Come see me tomorrow. I have a new poultice I want to try on your back.”

He nodded. “Tomorrow.” He moved past her, disappearing down into the palace.

Nahri took a few steps forward, feeling uncertain. “Peace be upon you,” she called out to her husband. “If it’s a bad time …”

“Of course not.” Muntadhir turned around. Nahri had to give him credit: though he was pale, his face was swept of the emotion that had been there only moments ago. She supposed a few decades in Daevabad’s royal court taught one that ability. “Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I was not expecting you so soon.”

Obviously. She shrugged. “I finished early.”

Muntadhir nodded. “Let me call a servant,” he suggested, crossing the balcony. “I’ll have them bring some food.”

Nahri caught his wrist. “Why don’t you sit?” she suggested softly. “I’m not hungry and I thought we could talk first.”

They’d no sooner sunk into the cushions than Muntadhir was reaching for the wine bottle. “Would you like some?” he asked, filling his cup to the top.

Nahri watched. She wasn’t Jamshid, and she didn’t feel comfortable stopping him. “No … thank you.” He drank back most of his cup and then refilled it. “Is everything well?” she ventured. “The meeting with your father …”

Muntadhir winced. “Can we talk about something else? For a little while at least?”

She paused. Nahri was madly curious to discover what he’d been discussing with Ghassan that had led to his fight with Jamshid, but perhaps a change in subject would pull him from his dark mood.

And she certainly had a subject ready to discuss. “Of course. Actually, I came across someone interesting in the garden after you left. A shafit man with a hole in his skull.”

Muntadhir choked, coughing a spray of wine into his hand. “You found a dead shafit in your garden?”

“Not dead,” Nahri corrected lightly. “He looked quite well otherwise. He said a surgeon had done the procedure to save his life. A shafit surgeon, Muntadhir.” Admiration crept into her voice. “Someone skilled enough to bore a hole in a man’s skull, sew it back up, and keep him alive. And it looked perfect. I mean, it felt a bit spongy where the bone was gone, but—”

Muntadhir raised a hand, looking slightly ill. “I don’t need to hear the details.” He glanced at his crimson wine, a little revulsion passing across his face, and then set it down. “So what of it?”

“What of it?” Nahri exclaimed. “That speaks to extraordinary talent! That physician might have even trained in the human world. I convinced the man in the garden to give me a name and the street where he works.”

“But why would you want such information?” Muntadhir asked, looking perplexed.

“Because I want to find him! For one … I am the Banu Nahida. I should ensure he’s a real doctor and not some … con artist taking advantage of desperate shafit.” Nahri cleared her throat. “But I’d also just love to meet him. He could be a valuable asset; after all, I still find much of what Yaqub taught me relevant.”

Muntadhir seemed even more confused. “Yaqub?”

Her stomach tightened. Nahri wasn’t used to talking about her passions, the ones closest to her heart, and Muntadhir’s bewilderment wasn’t making it easier. “The pharmacist I worked with back in Cairo, Muntadhir. The old man. My friend. I know I’ve mentioned him to you before.”

Muntadhir frowned. “So, you want to find some shafit doctor because you once had a pharmacist friend in the human world?”

Nahri took a deep breath, seeing her opening. Maybe it wasn’t the best time, but Muntadhir had said he wanted her to talk to him more freely, and right now, her heart was bursting. “Because I want to see if there’s a way we can work together … Muntadhir, it’s so hard being the only healer here,” she confessed. “It’s lonely. The responsibility is crushing. There are times I barely sleep, I barely eat …” She checked the emotion growing in her voice. “I thought … the old Nahid hospital …” She stumbled over her words, trying to explain the dreams that had been spinning in her head since her visit to those ruins. “I wonder if maybe we could rebuild it. Bring in a shafit physician to share the patient load and …”

Muntadhir’s eyes went wide. “You want to rebuild that place?”

Nahri tried not to shrink back at the horrified disbelief in his expression. “You … you told me that I could come to you, talk to you—”

“Yes—but about plausible things. If you want to bring another Daeva to court or take part in the preparations for Navasatem. What you’re suggesting …” He sounded shocked. “Zaynab said the building was in a shambles. Do you have any idea of the effort and expense it would take to restore?”

“I know, but I thought—”

Muntadhir stood, pacing in agitation. “And to work alongside shafit?” He said the word with thinly veiled disdain. “Absolutely not. My father would never allow it. You shouldn’t even be looking for this doctor. You must realize that what he’s doing is illegal.”

“Illegal? How is helping people illegal?”

“The shafit …” Muntadhir rubbed the back of his neck, shame creeping across his face. “I mean … they’re not—we’re not—supposed to act in a manner that … encourages their population to increase.”

Nahri was silent for a moment, shock freezing her tongue. “Tell me you don’t really believe that,” she said, praying he’d misspoken, that she’d imagined the distaste in his voice. “You’re a Qahtani. Your ancestors overthrew mine—slaughtered mine—to protect the shafit.”

“That was a long time ago.” Muntadhir looked beseechingly at her. “And the shafit are not the innocents you might imagine. They hate the Daevas, they hate you.”

She bristled. “Why should they hate me? I was raised in the human world!”

“And then you came back here at the side of a man famous for using a scourge to determine the color of someone’s blood,” Muntadhir pointed out. “You have a reputation with them, Nahri, like it or not.”

Nahri flinched, but let the charges slide past her. This conversation had taken enough of a horrifying turn without bringing her broken Afshin and his bloody crimes into it. “I had nothing to do with Qui-zi,” she said, defending herself. “None of us alive today did.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Muntadhir’s eyes filled with warning. “Nahri, there’s too much history between the Daevas and the shafit. Between most of the purebloods and the shafit. You don’t understand the hatred they feel for us.”

“And you do? You’ve probably never spoken to a shafit in your life!”

“No, but I’ve seen the human weapons they’ve smuggled here in hopes of sparking unrest. I’ve listened to their preachers spout poisonous lies and aim threats toward your people just before being executed.” A look she couldn’t decipher crossed his face. “And believe me when I say I know all too well how clever they are in recruiting others to their cause.”

Nahri said nothing. She felt sick—and not because of the reminder that she and the Daevas were in danger.

It was because she suddenly realized her husband—the Qahtani she’d assumed cared little about blood purity—might share the worst prejudices of her tribe. Nahri still didn’t know what about her appearance made Ghassan so certain she was both Nahid and shafit, but he’d made it clear it was the possession of Suleiman’s seal that brought him such insight.

And one day Muntadhir would have it. Would take it and see truly the woman he’d married.

Her heart stuttered. “None of what you’re suggesting sounds politically stable, Muntadhir,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “If things have gotten so bad, wouldn’t it be better to try and work with the shafit? You and I were married to foster peace between the Geziris and the Daevas. Why can’t we attempt the same with the mixed-bloods?”

Muntadhir shook his head. “Not like this. I feel bad for the shafit, I do. But theirs is a problem generations in the making, and what you’re suggesting is too risky.”

Nahri dropped her gaze. She caught sight of the beaded collar of her pretty new dress, and she pulled her robe more tightly over it, suddenly feeling very foolish.

He is never going to be the ally I need. The blunt truth resounded through her: Muntadhir’s refusal to address the shafits’ persecution and Jamshid’s accusations churned in her mind. Oddly enough, Nahri couldn’t hate him for it. She too had been beaten down by Ghassan, and she wasn’t even his son. There was no denying Muntadhir’s anguish over Jamshid and the genuine regret when he’d mentioned—and then promptly dismissed—the shafits’ plight.

But Ghassan hadn’t worn her down, not yet, not entirely. And she didn’t want to bend any further than she already had, even if it meant standing alone.

Muntadhir must have registered the change in her expression. “It’s not a no forever,” he said quickly. “But it’s not the right time to propose something so drastic.”

Nahri gritted her teeth. “Because of Navasatem?” If one more thing got blamed on that damned holiday, she was going to burn something.

He shook his head. “No, not because of Navasatem. Because of the reason my father wanted to see me today.” His jaw clenched, and his gaze fixed on the distant lake, the black water reflecting the scattered stars overhead. “Because my brother is coming back to Daevabad.”

Dara studied the smoky map of Daevabad he’d conjured, using his fingers to spin it this way and that as he thought. “On the chance we do find a way to pass the threshold and cross Daevabad’s lake, getting into the city itself poses the next problem.” He glanced up at his band of warriors. He’d chosen the group carefully: his ten cleverest, the ones he was grooming for leadership. “What would you suggest?”

Irtemiz paced the map, almost stalking it. “Is there a way we could scale the walls?”

Dara shook his head. “The walls cannot be scaled, nor can they be tunneled under or flown over—Anahid herself raised them, may she be blessed.”

Mardoniye spoke up, nodding at the city gates. “The gates are poorly defended. The Royal Guard keeps an eye out for boats crossing the lake—not for warriors arriving directly upon the beach from the water itself. We could force our way through.”

“And enter directly in the middle of the Grand Bazaar,” Dara pointed out.

Mardoniye’s eyes flashed with hatred. “Is that a bad thing?” He ran a hand over his scarred face, the skin mottled where it had come into contact with Rumi fire. “I would not mind getting some vengeance for what the shafit did to us.”

“Vengeance is not our mission,” Dara chided. “And right now we are merely discussing strategy—I want you to think. The Grand Bazaar is only blocks from the Citadel.” He nodded at the Citadel’s tower, looming over the Grand Bazaar from its perch beside the brass wall. “We would have hundreds—thousands—of Royal Guard down on us in minutes. We’d be annihilated before we even reached the palace.”

Bahram, another survivor from the Daeva Brigade, spoke next. “We could split up,” he suggested. “Half of us stay behind to delay the Guard while you take the lady and the rest to the palace.”

A chill went down Dara’s spine at how easily he suggested it. “It would be certain death for the warriors left behind.”

Bahram met his gaze, his eyes glittering. “We are all prepared to make that sacrifice.”

Dara glanced at his group. He didn’t doubt Bahram was right. The faces of his young soldiers were fierce with conviction. It should have filled Dara with pleasure. He’d poured himself into their training; he should be proud to stand at their side.

But by the Creator, he had fought at the side of so many young Daevas whose faces had sparked with equal conviction. He’d collected their bodies afterward, consigning them to the flames as martyrs in what was beginning to feel like a war with no end.

He sighed. This one would have an end, Dara would make sure of it—but he’d also take greater care with his men. “It would only be a delay. They’d slaughter you and be on the rest of us before we got far.”

“What about ghouls?” another man suggested. “The ifrit are our allies now, are they not? One of them was boasting about how he could summon an entire army of ghouls. The skinny one.”

Dara’s face twisted in disgust at the mention of the ifrit, whom he hated in particular, escalating ways. The remark about them being allies and the memory of their ghouls only fueled his revulsion. Not to mention that Vizaresh—the ifrit they were speaking of now—had once threatened Nahri. Threatened “to grind her soul into dust” for blood-poisoning his brother … a threat Dara wouldn’t be forgetting anytime soon. “I do not wish to see those foul things in our city,” he said shortly.

Irtemiz grinned. “The ghouls or the ifrit?”

Dara snorted. His soldiers were all like family to him, but he had a particular fondness for Irtemiz, whose innate talent with a bow had come a long way under Dara’s careful hand and who’d managed to keep her good humor even during the hardest of training sessions.

“Both,” he replied. Then he gestured back at the map. “I want you to think about this and discuss solutions with each other while I’m away.” Dara didn’t quite share Manizheh’s confidence that some mysterious meeting with Aeshma and the marid would result in his being able to cross the magical threshold protecting Daevabad, but on the off chance it did, he wanted to be prepared.

“Should we keep practicing with Abu Sayf?”

Dara considered that. He’d managed to convince Abu Sayf to spar with his soldiers … well, no, perhaps convince wasn’t the right term. He’d threatened to scourge the younger, more irritating Geziri scout to death if the older man didn’t comply. They were going to face zulfiqars in their fight to retake Daevabad, and they’d been handed a rare opportunity to learn to fight against them with the two Geziri scouts as their prisoners. Dara had not liked making such a ghastly threat, but there was little he was unwilling to do if it would help prepare his young warriors.

But only under his eye; he didn’t trust the Geziris not to try something in his absence. “No. I do not want either of them unchained for even a moment.” He dismissed the group. “Now go. I will join you for dinner before I leave.”

He raised a hand to sweep the map away as they left, watching the buildings tumble together in a smoky wave. The miniature palace collapsed, the Citadel’s tower dissolving over the wall.

Dara stilled. He snapped his fingers, conjuring and then crushing the tower again, letting it topple. It was tall enough that the upper half could crash through the wall, ripping a hole into the heart of the Citadel itself—and creating an entrance into the city.

That is magic beyond me. Manizheh might think him invincible, but Dara was learning that the fantastic tales told about the powers of their mighty ancestors in the time before Suleiman were best taken with a little salt. He was willing to break himself to reclaim Daevabad, but he couldn’t afford to exhaust his magic at the very beginning of the invasion.

He tucked the idea away, crossing to the large carpet rolled in one corner. Dara hadn’t flown one in years, not since journeying to Daevabad with Nahri. He ran a hand down its woolen length.

I will find a way to get back to you. I promise.

But first Dara had a meeting with the devil himself.

HE AND MANIZHEH FLEW EAST, TRAVELING ACROSS A stunning landscape that spread before them like crumpled silk, emerald hills and dusty plains blending into each other, marked by deep blue lines of twisting rivers and streams. The sight brought Dara a rare peace. Khayzur, the peri who’d once nursed him back to health, had tried to teach Dara to appreciate such moments, to let the solace and beauty of the natural world sweep him away. It had been a difficult lesson to internalize. The first time he’d been brought back, Dara had awakened to the news that his world had died fourteen centuries earlier and that he was nothing but a blood-soaked memory to his people.

Not to everyone. It was impossible to sit on this rug as it cut through the sky and not think of the first days he’d spent with Nahri—days that had driven him to drink. He’d found her very existence a scandal, physical proof one of his blessed Nahids had broken their most sacred code and lain with a human. That she’d been a cunning thief who lied as easily as she breathed seemed proof of every negative stereotype Dara had heard about the shafit.

But then … she became so much more. He had felt shockingly free with her—free to be a normal man and not the celebrated Afshin or the despised Scourge, free to exchange flirtatious barbs with a quick-witted, beautiful woman, and delight in the unexpected stirring her magnetic, mocking grin caused in his shuttered heart. All because Nahri hadn’t known their history. She was the first person Dara had spoken to in centuries who knew nothing about his past—and so he’d been able to leave it behind.

He’d known theirs was foolish affection, had known it couldn’t last, and yet Dara had been desperate to keep the worst from her—a decision he still regretted. Had he been honest with Nahri and confessed it all … given her a chance to make her own choice … he could not help but wonder if she would have chosen to escape Daevabad at his side without him putting a blade to Alizayd al Qahtani’s throat.

Not that it mattered now. Nahri had seen exactly what Dara was on the boat that night.

“Are you all right?” Startled, Dara glanced up to find Manizheh watching him, a knowing expression on her face. “You look to be contemplating something weighty.”

Dara forced a smile. “You remind me of your ancestors,” he said, evading the question. “When I was a child, I used to think they could read minds.”

Manizheh laughed, a rare sound. “Nothing so fantastical. But when you spend two centuries attuned to every heartbeat, skin flush, and inhalation that surrounds you, you learn to read people.” She gave him a pointed look. “The question remains.”

Dara flinched. At first glance, there wasn’t much resemblance between Manizheh and her daughter. Manizheh was shorter and more compact, reminding him in no small way of his own mother, a woman who could cook up a meal for fifty, then break a spoon over her knee to stab a man. Manizheh’s eyes, though, the sharp black eyes that tugged down slightly at the outer edge—those were Nahri’s. And when they lit with challenge, they cut through Dara rather effectively.

“I am fine.” He swept his hand toward the distant ground. “Appreciating the scenery.”

“It is beautiful,” she agreed. “It reminds me of Zariaspa. Rustam and I used to spend summers with the Pramukhs when we were young.” Her voice turned wistful. “They were the happiest days of my life. We were always dashing about, climbing mountains, racing simurgh, experimenting with whatever forbidden plants and herbs we could.” A sad smile crossed her face. “The closest thing to freedom we experienced.”

Dara cocked his head. “Perhaps you are fortunate you did not have an Afshin. That all sounds terribly risky. We never would have permitted it.”

Manizheh laughed again. “No, there weren’t any legendary guardians around to ruin our fun, and the Pramukhs were fairly indulgent as long as we brought Kaveh along. They seemed not to realize he was equally irresponsible.” She saw Dara’s skeptical expression and shook her head. “Do not let his stern grand wazir face fool you. He was a mud-splattered country boy when I met him, more accomplished at sneaking out to hunt for fire salamanders than reining in two restless Nahids.” She stared into the distance, her eyes dimming. “We weren’t permitted to go to Zariaspa as frequently when we were older, and I always missed him.”

“I suspect he felt the same,” Dara said carefully. He had seen the way Kaveh looked at Manizheh, and no one at camp had missed the fact that their visitor had yet to sleep in the tent they’d prepared for him. That had thrown Dara; clearly the prim grand wazir did have a hidden side. “I am surprised you didn’t bring him with us.”

“Absolutely not,” she said at once. “I don’t want the ifrit to know anything more than necessary about him.”

Dara frowned at the fierceness in her voice. “Why not?”

“Would you die for my daughter, Darayavahoush?”

The question surprised him, and yet the answer was already leaving Dara’s lips. “Yes. Of course.”

Manizheh gave him a knowing look. “And yet, would you let her die for you? Suffer for you?”

She has already suffered for me. “Not if I could help it,” Dara said quietly.

“Precisely. Affection is a weakness for people like us, a thing to be concealed from those who would harm us. A threat to a loved one is a more effective method of control than weeks of torture.”

She said the words with such cold certainty that a chill raced down his spine. “You sound as though you speak from experience,” he ventured.

“I loved my brother very much,” she said, staring into the distance. “The Qahtanis never let me forget it.” She dropped her gaze, studying her hands. “I will confess that my desire to attack during Navasatem has a personal edge.”

“How so?”

“Because Rustam spent the last one in the dungeons. I lost my temper, said something unwise to Ghassan’s father. Khader.” The name fell like a curse from her tongue. “An even harder man than his son. I don’t remember what it was, petty nonsense from an angry young woman. But Khader took it as a threat. He had my brother dragged from the infirmary and thrown into a lightless cell at the bottom of the palace. They say …” She cleared her throat. “They say that the bodies of those who die in the dungeon aren’t removed. You lie with corpses.” She paused. “Rustam spent the entire month of Navasatem there. He didn’t speak for weeks. Even years later … he could only sleep if lamps were blazing all night long.”

Dara felt sick. He thought unwillingly of his sister’s fate. “I am sorry,” he said softly.

“As am I. I’ve learned since that anonymity is far safer for those I love.” Her mouth twisted bitterly. “Though not without its own cruel drawbacks.”

He hesitated; Manizheh’s words indicated something that he couldn’t let pass. “Do you not trust the ifrit?” he asked. He’d made his poor opinion of the ifrit clear more than once, but Manizheh never wanted to hear it. “I thought they were your allies.”

“They are a means to an end, and I do not trust easily.” She leaned back on her palms. “Kaveh is dear to me. I will not have the ifrit learn that.”

“Your daughter …” Dara’s throat constricted. “When I said I would die for her, I hope you know I would do so for any Nahid. It was not because …” He grew flustered. “I would not overstep my station.”

A glint of amusement lit her face. “How old were you when you died, Afshin? The first time?”

Dara tried to recall. “Thirty?” He shrugged. “It was so long ago, and the last years were difficult. I do not remember exactly.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“I do not understand.”

She gave him a wry smile. “At times you speak like a young man who’s yet to see a half-century. And as we discussed … I am a Nahid with a skill you compared to mind-reading.”

Heat filled his cheeks before he could check it, his heart skipping a beat … the very signs, of course, that he knew she’d been looking for.

Manizheh shaded her eyes. “Ah, I do believe that is the lake where we are to meet Aeshma. You can take us down.”

He flushed again. “Banu Manizheh, I pray you know …”

She met his eyes. “Your affections are yours, Afshin.” Her gaze turned a little harder. “But do not let them be a weakness. In any way.”

Embarrassed, he merely nodded. He raised a hand, and the rug dipped, speeding toward a distant gleam of azure. The lake was enormous—more sea than lake—the water a brilliant aquamarine, the tropical hue at stark odds with the snowcapped mountains ringing its shore.

“Lake Ossounes,” Manizheh said. “Aeshma says it’s been sacred to the marid for millennia.”

Dara gave the lake an apprehensive look. “I am not flying over that much water on a rug.”

“We needn’t.” Manizheh pointed to a thin trail of smoke drifting from the easternmost shore. “I suspect that is him.”

They flew closer, zooming over rocky red bluffs and a narrow, marshy beach. It really was a stunning place. Lines of evergreens stood as sentinels against jutting hills and grassy valleys. A few clouds streaked the pale sky, and a hawk circled overhead. The air smelled fresh, promising cold mornings around pine-scented fires.

Longing stole into his heart. Though Dara had been born in Daevabad, this was the type of country he loved. Open skies and staggering vistas. One could take a horse and a bow and disappear into a land like this to sleep under the stars and explore the ruins of kingdoms lost to time.

Ahead, a fire blazed on the beach, the flames licking the air with a bit too much malicious delight.

Dara inhaled, catching the scent of ancient blood and iron. “Aeshma. He is near.” Smoke curled from under his collar. “I can smell that foul mace he carries, thick with the blood of our people.”

“Perhaps you should shift back into your natural form.”

Dara scowled. “This is my natural form.”

Manizheh sighed. “It isn’t, and you know it. Not anymore. The ifrit have warned you that your magic is too much for this body.” She tapped his tattooed arm, the skin pale brown and very much not aflame. “You leave yourself weak.”

Their carpet fluttered to the ground. Dara didn’t respond, but he didn’t shift either. He would do so if and when the marid appeared.

“Ah, there are my erstwhile allies.”

At the sound of Aeshma’s voice, Dara’s hand dropped to the long knife at his side. The bonfire split, and the ifrit strolled through the break with a black-fanged grin.

It was a grin that made Dara sick. That was what he looked like now when he shifted, his fire-bright skin, gold eyes, and clawed hands a mirror of the demons who’d enslaved him. That his ancestors had looked the same before Suleiman’s curse was of little comfort. It hadn’t been his ancestor’s grin he’d seen just before the fetid water of the well closed over his face.

Aeshma sauntered closer, his smile widening as if he could sense Dara’s displeasure. He probably could; it was not a thing Dara tried to conceal. Balanced on one shoulder was his mace, a crude metal hammer studded with barbs. Aeshma seemed to enjoy the effect it had on Dara’s temper, and took special delight in mentioning the times it had been bathed with Nahid and Afshin blood.

Our allies. Dara’s hand curled around the hilt of his knife.

“A knife?” Aeshma clucked his tongue in disappointment. “You could summon a sandstorm that would throw me across the lake if you would leave that useless body behind you.” His eyes brightened with viciousness. “And surely if you’re going to use a weapon, we might as well get a look at your famous scourge.”

Manizheh’s hand shot out as the air sparked with heat. “Afshin,” she warned him before fixing her attention on Aeshma. “I received your signal, Aeshma. What have you heard?”

“The same whispers and premonitions that started up when you brought your Scourge back to life,” the ifrit replied. “My companions have gone burning through all the marid haunts they know without response. But now there’s something else …” He paused, seeming to savor the moment. “The peris have left the clouds to sing their warnings on the wind. They say the marid have overstepped. That they broke the rules and are to be called to account—punished by the lesser being to whom they owe blood.”

Dara stared at him. “Are you drunk?”

Aeshma grinned, his fangs gleaming. “Forgive me, I forget at times one must speak simply to you.” His voice slowed to a mocking crawl. “The marid killed you, Afshin. And now they owe you a blood debt.”

Dara shook his head. “They might have been involved, but it was a djinn who wielded the blade.”

“And?” Manizheh cut in. “Think back on what you’ve told me of that night. Do you truly believe some al Qahtani brat was capable of cutting you down on his own?”

Dara hesitated. He’d put arrows in the prince’s throat and lungs and knocked him into the lake’s cursed depths. Alizayd should have been dead twice over and instead he’d climbed back onto the boat looking like some sort of watery wraith. “What do you mean by a blood debt?” he asked.

Aeshma shrugged. “The marid owe you a favor. Which is convenient, because you want to break into their lake.”

“It’s not their lake. It’s ours.”

Manizheh laid a hand on Dara’s wrist as Aeshma rolled his eyes. “It was once theirs,” she said. “The marid helped Anahid build the city. Surely you were taught some of this? It’s said that the jeweled stones that pave the Temple grounds were brought by the marid as tribute.”

Afshin children were not exactly schooled in the finer points of their people’s history, but Dara had heard the story of the Temple’s stones. “So how does that get me across the threshold?”

“Forget your threshold,” Aeshma said. “Do you imagine water beings crossing deserts and mountains? They use the waters of the world to travel … and they once taught your Nahid masters to do the same.” Resentment flashed in his eyes. “It made hunting my people that much easier. We dared not even go near a pond lest some blood-poisoning Nahid spring from its depths.”

“This is madness,” Dara declared. “You want me to threaten the marid—the marid, beings capable of turning a river into a serpent the size of a mountain—based on the supposed whispers of peris and tales of a legendary magic neither Banu Manizheh nor I were alive to witness.” He narrowed his eyes. “You wish to kill us, is that it?”

“If I wanted to kill you, Afshin, believe me I’d have come up with a far simpler method and spared myself your paranoid company,” Aeshma replied. “You should be excited! You get to avenge yourself on the marid who killed you! You get to be their Suleiman.”

The comparison instantly extinguished Dara’s anger, replacing it with dread. “I am no Suleiman.” The denial surged from his mouth, his skin prickling at the thought of such blasphemy. “Suleiman was a prophet. He was the man who set our laws and granted us Daevabad and blessed our Nahids—”

Aeshma burst into laughter. “My, you really do rattle that off. I remain forever impressed by the training your Nahid Council beat into you.”

“Leave him alone,” Manizheh said sharply. She turned back to Dara. “No one is asking you to be Suleiman,” she assured him, her voice gentler. “You are our Afshin. That is all we need you to be.” The confidence in her eyes helped calm him. “But this blood debt is a good thing. A blessed thing. It might get us back to Daevabad. To my daughter.”

Nahri. Her face played in his memory. The betrayal in her dark eyes as Dara forced her hand in the infirmary, her screams as he was cut down.

Sixty-four, Kaveh had said coldly. Sixty-four Daevas who died in the chaos Dara had caused.

He swallowed the lump growing in his throat. “How do we summon the marid?”

Violent delight danced across the ifrit’s face. “We anger them.” He turned away. “Come! I’ve found something they’re going to be very upset to lose.”

We anger them? Dara stayed rooted to the sand. “My lady … this could be quite dangerous.”

“I know.” Manizheh’s gaze was locked on the retreating ifrit. “You should shift.”

This time, Dara obeyed, letting the magic take him. Fire raced down his limbs, claws and fangs bursting forth. He sheathed the knife, conjuring a new weapon from the smoke that swirled around his hips. He raised it, the familiar handle of the scourge warming in his hand.

It would not hurt to remind Aeshma of what he was capable of.

“Don’t believe everything they tell you,” Manizheh said, suddenly sounding on edge. “The marid. They are liars.” She turned abruptly on her heel, following Aeshma through the flames.

Dara stared at her another moment. What would they possibly have to tell me?

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