‘You’re going to need a lot more than luck tonight, my foreign friend,’ a man with a dark green sheema draped loosely around his neck said with a laugh. ‘With cards like those.’
‘You looked at my cards?’ Sam slapped a hand dramatically to his chest in feigned shock, like he’d just been shot through the heart. ‘You curs, you cheaters, you—’ I didn’t have time for this.
‘Sam,’ I interrupted his mock tirade. ‘Buy me a drink.’ When he looked about to protest, I toyed pointedly with the sleeve of the arm slung around my shoulder. I could feel the cards tucked inside his shirt pressing against me. ‘Now, before I say something that might get you shot.’ He took my meaning as I got to my feet, freeing myself of the indignity of his lap.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said dramatically as he rose, kicking his chair back out of the way, ‘your infidelity leaves me no choice but to fold this hand. But I will return when I’ve had some luck rub off on me.’ He winked widely, pulling me tight against him by the waist. Thumbscrews. The way I murdered him was going to include thumbscrews.
‘So here’s what I’m thinking,’ Sam said. He drew me towards a table in a dark corner and gestured to the barman with two fingers. ‘Your timing is perfect to help me cheat my way to victory.’ The barman set down two glasses of amber liquid in front of us, sliding mine to me with a careful once-over. I met his gaze steadily in return. ‘All we need to do is work out some sort of code between us,’ Sam went on blithely, clearly not caring who overheard.
‘Selling Shazad’s jewellery wasn’t enough? Are you just getting greedy now?’ I ran a finger along the rim of the glass of liquor that had just been put down in front of me.
‘Oh, don’t be like that.’ He jostled me, like it was all some big joke. ‘My friend over there is charging an arm and a leg to get smuggled out of here.’ He nodded towards a man at the bar who was still looking at us. ‘And the only people who can get away with missing their limbs and still being as dashing as I am are pirates. I have no interest in spending the rest of my life eating fish with my hook hand.’
‘Why would anyone replace their hand with a hook?’ Sam didn’t used to give me this much of a headache.
He opened his mouth like he was going to explain to me some foreign concept that had gone far over my head, like he used to in our meetings at the palace, but then seemed to change his mind and took a sip of his drink instead. ‘The point is,’ Sam ploughed on, a nervous energy seeming to animate him, ‘that if I want to get out of this city and keep all my appendages, I’ve got to find something else to offer him.’
I glanced over at the man leaning on the bar. If he actually had a way out of this city, then I was the Queen of Albis.
‘So, tell me, what exactly is your plan here?’ I shifted my chair so that I had him in my sights. ‘Even if you can get out of Miraji, you’re a deserter, Sam.’ I didn’t bother softening the blow. ‘I don’t know what they do in Albis, but here if you turn your coat on the army, they take your head off your shoulders.’
‘In Albis, they let you keep your neck and use it to hang you from a tall tree.’ He didn’t sound all that bothered by it. ‘An oak, if there’s one immediately available, but ash or yew will do at a pinch. And since it’d be criminal to rob the world of me, I’m not going back to Albis. I hear the Ionian Peninsula has beautiful women and good food and the sun lets up every once in a blue moon, unlike here.’
‘So you got shot once and now you’re running scared?’ We’d all got ourselves shot once or twice in this war. I’d dug a bullet out of Jin’s shoulder before I even knew his name. I had a scar across my stomach from a wound that had nearly killed me. Sam lost a little bit of blood and suddenly he was deserting all over again.
But Sam didn’t look as cowed as I’d hoped he would. ‘Yes,’ he said, like I was the one being unreasonable. ‘Anyone who isn’t afraid of dying is stupid or lying.’ He tipped his drink at me like a bow. ‘And I’m a better liar than that.’
I tapped my glass, thinking of what Tamid had told me about the likelihood of me burning alive when I released Fereshteh’s energy from the machine. ‘We’re all going to die some day, Sam. What else are you going to do? Keep running from one country to another until you get a knife between the ribs because you walked through the wrong wall in the next city? Or from poison in your glass because you charmed the wrong woman in the one after that? Or do you think it might be worth standing still for once?’ I asked. ‘Here with us.’
A wry smile crossed his face. ‘They talked a lot about making a stand when I joined the army, too. Turns out what that means for boys who were born farmers’ sons is that they wanted us to stand in front of enemies’ cannons so the rich men’s sons behind us could go home with the glory.’
‘I don’t care about glory,’ I challenged. ‘I care about getting our people home. People I know you care about, too.’
Sam leaned his head back against the wall, like he was truly considering it. Out of the corner of my eye, I realised that the man at the bar was looking at us again. His eyes darted away, like he’d been caught. There was something unsettling about him.
‘Sam,’ I said carefully, keeping my tone neutral, ‘did that friend of yours happen to say how it was he’s able to sail out of Izman now when no one else has managed it in weeks?’
‘Mmm?’ Sam scratched his eyebrow with a thumb evasively. ‘I don’t recall.’
That sounded as good as a no to me. The man’s foot was tapping out a frantic timpani against the edge of the bar. Almost like he was nervous. Or waiting for something.
‘How about a price?’ I asked. ‘Was there a number mentioned before you turned up here with your money, or did you get here to find out that whatever amount you brought wasn’t enough?’
‘Well …’ Sam looked thoughtful. The drinks were dulling him. ‘That’s how business works. When a service is so in demand … it would be stupid to set his going rate too low …’ Now even he sounded sceptical.
‘You don’t think it’s strange –’ my hand strayed to my pistol even as I kept my voice steady – ‘that this is all happening now, right when the Sultan is especially desperate to be get his daughter back. And that you just happened not to have the right amount of money so that you’d have to stick around, gambling for a shot at getting out.’
It finally dawned on Sam what I was saying. He cursed in Albish, looking more annoyed than anything else. ‘It’s a trap.’
Chapter 8
I was on my feet, pistol in hand. That was my next mistake, showing alarm. A shrill whistle went up from the same man who’d tried to stop me when I walked in. Suddenly three more men were on their feet, pulling out guns I hadn’t seen before.
I was already moving, headed for the bar, firing as I went, Sam close behind me. One shot struck a wall, the next struck a man in the chest, the last sent a bottle exploding, forcing two men to cover their faces as we dived over the bar. Sam slid across after me, his foot catching a drink, sending it flying into the wall, spraying liquor and shattered glass. The barman flinched from where he was crouched, trying to stay covered. We were going to get him killed if we stayed back here.
My mind raced. They’d set this as a trap to lure in someone from the Rebellion. That was why they’d staged it here, in this floating box of wood, far from the reach of the desert. They’d been warding against both me and Sam. And the twins, too, since it left nowhere to fly out of if they’d been here. They knew too much about us.
Gunfire started again, shattering the shelves above our heads, raining clear booze and glass over us. I reached up and grabbed a half-empty bottle, shooting a few times over the bar.
‘Sam!’ I could feel the sand deep below the sea’s waters. It was heavy and sluggish, nothing like the wind-quick grace of pure desert sand. But it was still sand. ‘You can swim, can’t you?’
‘What?’ Sam’s eyes were wide with panic. ‘Why?’ That was as good as a yes, as far as I was concerned.
‘Give me your sheema.’
I held out my hand to him.
‘No! Why? Use yours,’ Sam protested.
‘I’m not going to use mine,’ I said, uncorking the bottle. I took a swig for good measure. ‘Sentimental value.’
‘Well, maybe I’m sentimental about mine, too,’ Sam protested. ‘It was given to me by the wife of—’
‘No it wasn’t.’ I pulled the sheema from his neck, the badly done knot coming apart easily. ‘That,’ I said, shoving the cloth into the mouth of the bottle, ‘is your own fault for never learning how to tie a sheema properly.’
‘Okay, I was lying about the sentimental value.’ Sam flinched as a new volley of gunfire started. They were being careful; they wanted us alive. But not that careful. ‘Mostly I’m sentimental about not having my skin peeled off by the sun without my sheema. And also I’m very concerned you’re going to get us both killed and—’
‘Hey,’ I said to the barman. I shoved the bottle bomb into Sam’s hands as I turned away. ‘Matches. I know you have them.’
With shaking hands, he retrieved a box of matches from under the bar, holding them out to me.
I struck a match, setting it to the sheema wick of the makeshift bomb. Sam raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Nice to know my fear of you doing something that would get us killed was baseless.’
‘You should probably toss that, unless you really want to be proved right,’ I offered. ‘Now!’
We moved as one. Whatever else he was, Sam had always been good in a crisis. It was that same survival instinct that made him run out on us. We made a good team. He surged to his feet as I pulled my Demdji energy into my fingertips. Pain flooded in with it, making me stagger for a moment, almost tripping, almost losing my grip.
Sam flung the bottle, sending it smashing to the floor in a burst of glass, fire and, best of all, smoke.
I whipped my arms upwards. The sand surged up with all the strength I had in me. The thin, cheap floorboards never stood a chance. They splintered under the force, creating a gash in the building straight down into the water below.
I grabbed Sam by the collar and hauled him through. He was going to need to come up with a better answer than ‘What?’ to my question about swimming pretty quick. At least one of us needed to be able to stay afloat.
I just had time to suck in a lungful of air before we plunged into the sea. It was like stepping off a cliff into nothingness as the rest of the water rushed up around me. I started to panic as the unnatural feeling assaulted me. Then arms around me, fastening us together, buoyed me up in the waves, keeping me from plunging to the depths and getting lost there. I latched my own arms in a death grip around Sam’s shoulders as he propelled us back up, towards air. We broke through the surface, our heads bobbing in the narrow space between the bottom of the dock and the surface of the water.
‘Here’s a tip,’ Sam sputtered in my ear as we broke free. I coughed up saltwater across his shoulder. ‘Don’t try to inhale the sea.’
I hung on to him for dear life as he kicked, swimming us away from the bar and our pursuers. I tried to focus through the sensation of saltwater clawing at my nose until we came to a stop, bobbing in the narrow space between the hulls of two huge ships. It was dark now, and I could still hear shouting, but it was far away. It was possible we’d lost them.
We floated for a second, listening, breathing hard, both of us shaking. I could feel the dull pain in my side from using my power so much, and my head was spinning. I’d almost lost my grip on it that time. Almost killed us both.
‘Well.’ Sam finally spoke up, low so his voice wouldn’t carry back to our pursuers. ‘Seems I’m a bit lower on options than I thought. What was it you said about me using my exceptional skills to heroically get you out of here?’
Thumbscrews and a knee splitter. That was how I was going to kill him.
‘Who said anything about needing you to get out?’ I said. ‘How do you feel about getting me in somewhere?’
Chapter 9
‘For what it’s worth, I still think we should have killed her.’ Hala kept her head and her voice low, letting her hood obscure her face as the crowd pressed in around us.
‘I know you do,’ I said under my breath, glancing over my shoulder to the palace walls behind us for the thousandth time, as we shuffled towards the huge doors of the prayer house with painstaking slowness. The bodies of the three girls were still hanging there. No fourth body yet. We had some time to save this morning’s victim. A little time, at least.
Above us, the predawn light glinted off the great golden dome. The sound of bells rocked through the city. They were calling the people to prayers, and today, we were answering.
Prayers had been better attended since the city had come under siege. Hundreds were flocking in every day, driven by the sight of the unholy barricade all around us. Or by the enemies at our gates. Or the fear that their daughters would be stolen from them.
The latest girl had been taken in the night, probably right around the time Sam and I were getting back to the Hidden House, drenched from our accidental dip in the ocean. Jin had raised his brows at us curiously. ‘Do I even want to ask?’
‘Probably not,’ I offered as I went in search of dry clothes while Sam stood dripping and grinning like an idiot.
Her name was Fariha. She was only fourteen. I was praying we weren’t too late to save her this morning. Even if I wasn’t sure anyone was listening to my prayers anyway.
‘And,’ Hala added, ‘I think this is a terrible idea.’
‘I know,’ I said again, not sure if I meant that I knew what she thought or that I knew it was a terrible idea.
‘Even if we’re not going to kill her, you really ought to let me take her mind away,’ Hala muttered as we followed the flow of people into the great domed building. ‘She’s a menace.’
‘I heard you the first three times you said that.’
We were both tense and irritable. I didn’t even blame Hala for it. I’d only had a few hours of sleep. And we might both be walking to our demise. All because I didn’t want to deliver Leyla back to her father dead or insane. Hala had pointed out that he wouldn’t hesitate to do it to us if the roles were reversed. And that was exactly why I couldn’t. We weren’t the Sultan. We were supposed to be better than him.
So we’d both agreed we weren’t leaving this city without doing something. Even if doing something meant we might not get out of the city at all.
The throng of people pushed us forwards. We were close enough now that I could make out some of the details of the gold panels in the door, the First Hero swinging his sword through a monster’s neck in one. Below it, the Sin Maker standing behind him with a knife, ready to betray him. In another panel, the other Djinn surrounded the Sin Maker, casting him out in shame for his treason. We passed close enough that I found myself glancing at the faces of the Djinn, trying to recognise my father among them. But their faces had been worn down over the centuries. If they had ever looked like anyone, they were anonymous now. Faded even as the Djinn drew away from the everyday life of mortals.
And then the doors and their golden panels were behind me, and Hala and I were passing under the towering blue and gold arch and into the warm embrace of the prayer house. Outside, some of the cool of night was still clinging on, but inside, fires were burning all around in grates set into the terracotta-tiled walls, and the air was thick with the smell of burning oil and incense.
I hadn’t been able to tell in the dark last night, while we were making our preparations, but I could see clearly now that the tiles of each wall were a different bright colour, with the same swirling circular patterns repeated over and over again. The north wall was two shades of blue, representing water. The west was gold and brown for earth. Those were the two elements that were blended together to make up a human body when the Djinn created us. The south wall was a startling white and silver for the air that moulded the clay into the shape of our bodies. And the east wall was a violent red and gold for the fire that sparked us to life.
They all converged together on the tiled floor, like some great flood of colours spilling from the walls. And above it all, the golden dome crowned us.
I could see now, with the fires burning, the bronze wire that was wound all the way around the inside of the dome in a spiral. A clear marker of Leyla’s inventive hand in things. And, descending from the apex of the dome on the same wire, a bronze face, mouth open as if in a scream. Leyla’s speaking machine, the one she had called the Zungvox. Meant so that prayers could be dispersed throughout the city in a vain attempt to control the people as more and more turned to worshipping at the wall. Used instead by the Sultan to speak through the Abdals and threaten us across the whole city.
Hala and I moved through the crowd as everyone around us found a place on the cool marble floor.
Everyone except us. We kept heading forward. Towards where I could see the young man at the front, standing next to the Holy Father, as he fussed with incenses and an immense gold-paged copy of the Holy Book. He stood out with his finely embroidered kurti and the fact that he had his father’s chin.
It was well known that at least one of the Sultan’s sons attended morning prayers every single day among the people. It was an attempt to calm the restlessness that was building in the city. The Sultan had sent a prince among his people to remind them we were all here together.
Hala and I were about to make a scene. Hopefully enough of one to save Fariha and every girl after her, too. Even if it meant us dying. Hala had made me swear to that. We made it out of here alive or we stayed behind dead – nothing in between.
We were almost at the front when the Holy Father standing on the dais above us raised his tattooed palms over the crowd, a gesture that everyone should kneel. With some shuffling and jostling, everyone did.
Everyone except us.
‘Ready?’ I whispered to Hala, my hand closing over a knife at my side. I was shaking. I was never nervous before a fight. But this wasn’t a fight; it was a performance.
Hero at the Fall Page 8
