‘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.
‘Oh, don’t tell me now is when you decide to turn coward on me.’ I couldn’t see Hala’s face, but I could practically hear the roll of her eyes in her voice. ‘Your guts are one of the things that I actually like about you.’
I decided to take that as a yes.
It was like a curtain dropping at a show, a sea of people descending to their knees as we stayed standing. And then we moved together, Hala tipping her head back and dropping her hood even as I pulled out the knife and placed it at her collarbone. Then I let out a long whistle. Around us, all the heads that had dropped, ready for prayers, shot back up. Attendants dotted around glanced our way, ready to move to stop the disturbance. Even the Holy Father looked up, brow furrowed in annoyance. But his expression quickly changed as he caught sight of us.
No one looking at us would see two Demdji. Instead, they would see Princess Leyla with the Blue-Eyed Bandit holding a knife to her throat, though none of them would know exactly how they recognised the pair. Princess Leyla had never been seen by most of the people of Izman. And there were so many stories of the Blue-Eyed Bandit swirling around that no one was sure whether I was a girl, a man or a legend. But Hala would slip into every single one of their minds, and they would all be perfectly sure of who we were.
‘Your Highness,’ I called over the cacophony of whispers. The prince at the front in his elaborately stitched robes looked our way.
I didn’t know the name of this particular prince, who was now staring at us with guileless eyes. It didn’t much matter. There were hundreds of princes. According to Leyla, the youngest princes had been sent to safety, stored away somewhere, until the storm passed and they could be brought home. And then the Sultan could mould one of them into the heir he really wanted. One who wouldn’t disappoint him like Kadir had. Who wouldn’t rebel like Ahmed had. Who wouldn’t resent him like Rahim still did. But in the meantime, the other sons were being used. I wondered if they knew it that no matter what they did they wouldn’t be chosen as heirs.
‘I believe your father wants this back.’ I pressed the knife firmer against Hala’s throat. The young prince winced, thinking it was his sister whimpering under my blade. ‘Now, here’s what I want. Give us back Fariha Al-Ilham, the girl he currently has imprisoned in the palace. And I want her alive. Do you reckon you can get that message to your father before the sun rises?’ The young prince looked bewildered. He definitely didn’t take after his father with brains like that. ‘That means you’d better run.’
The boy took off like a hare who’d just spotted a hawk, dashing the short distance back to the palace to fetch his father and hopefully a still-living Fariha. As he disappeared, I addressed the crowd kneeling around us, turning to face them, still holding Hala. ‘The rest of you ought to get out of here if you don’t want to get caught up in this.’ My voice echoed around the high dome of the prayer house like the words of the Holy Father did when he stood here, making them sound like they were sent from a greater power.
No one moved right away, staying kneeling all around me. Staring up, at me. Drinking in my words.
‘Now,’ I barked. And they obeyed, scrambling to their feet, almost creating a stampede in their rush to get out of the line of fire. It didn’t matter what happened from here on. Or what the truth of matters was. The men and women now rushing out would tell the story of what they had seen: the Blue-Eyed Bandit returning the Sultan’s daughter. There would be no convincing the city that it hadn’t been real. Belief was a foreign language to logic. Jin had told me that long ago. And I was counting on him being right – that if the city really believed that the Sultan had his daughter back, it would be enough to stop the executions. The Sultan would have no more justification for them in the eyes of his people.
I turned my attention now towards the attendants and the Holy Father, still lingering, uncertain of what they should do. ‘“The rest of you” means everyone,’ I ordered. They almost tripped over themselves, gathering the Holy Father’s heavy robes around him, bundling him hastily out as they gratefully fled. The great golden door that led on to the square closed behind them, leaving us alone in the cavernous prayer house.
I let the knife fall away from Hala’s throat now we didn’t have an audience. I turned my attention to the ground. The riot of colours in the tiles was chaos as they spilled down from the walls. But slowly they converged and coalesced into order as they swept into the dead centre of the floor, where a huge golden sun painted into the tiles aligned perfectly with the dome above. I started counting from the centre of the sun. Five tiles towards the dais and six to the right. Hala and I moved without speaking, in careful steps, checking our path like our lives depended on it. Which they did, really.
‘It’s this one, genius.’ Hala pointed, finding the right tile a fraction of a second before I did. ‘Don’t they teach you to count at the dead end of the desert?’
‘Sometimes you have to do it on your hands,’ I deadpanned. ‘Four fingers plus one thumb makes this fist that I’m real tempted to knock you out with. How’s that?’ We took up our position carefully, making sure we were standing exactly where we were meant to on the tile.
The small side door swung open just as I settled my knife against Hala’s throat again. It led directly from the palace to the great prayer house, a passage so the Sultan and princes could attend prayers without having to pass among their people. And sure enough, the Sultan appeared through it, trailing four Abdals behind him. One of them was holding a young crying girl: Fariha.
I had to remind myself that she was not Rima or Ghada or Naima. They were hanging from the palace walls. I had failed them. But Fariha could still be saved. And a hundred other girls in this city could, too. Girls whose names I would never know, so long as we saved one last girl whose name I did.
‘Amani.’ The Sultan greeted me with a slow, luxuriant smile. I hated that voice. I hated that even now it made me want to straighten my spine and lean in to hear what he would say to me.
He’d shown me a whole lot of faces before. The benevolent arbitrator at his petitioners’ court, the concerned father, the man with the heavy weight of a whole country on his shoulders across from me at dinner. But all those masks had been discarded now. Here in front of me, the Sultan looked like what he honestly was: a ruler descended from hundreds of legendary rulers before him who had fought and clawed for that throne. And grabbed it. And then held it. He was the blood of Imtiyaz the Blessed; Mubin, the victor against the Red-Eyed Conqueror; Fihr, who built the city of Izman from the dust.
And I was just a discarded Djinni’s daughter from a dead-end desert town who was scraping tricks from the bottom of the barrel. I heard it again, that voice at the back of my head, getting louder every day that the eyes of the Rebellion turned to me for orders I didn’t want to give. And answers I didn’t have. Who did I think I was to face this man, the descendant of conquerors and legends?
‘And who’s this?’ The Sultan’s eyes skated to Hala, who was still holding the illusion of looking like Leyla in everyone’s minds. Though not doing a good enough job of it to fool the princess’s father. I hadn’t counted on it fooling him. It didn’t need to. It was enough that it had tricked the people.
‘Does it matter?’ I dropped the knife and the pretence, although Hala didn’t discard the illusion right away, still wearing Leyla’s face. ‘Everyone thinks I walked in here with your daughter. And now I reckon it would be a good idea for you if they saw Fariha walk out. Or else some folks are bound to wonder why their Sultan doesn’t seem to be a man of his word now he’s got his daughter back.’
I hated the slow, wry smile that spread over his face, the one Jin had inherited from him. I hated that as I saw it, I realised I had wanted it. That some part of me had wanted to impress him by pulling off this trick. I had cared that he understood that I knew he was toying with us by killing those girls. Some part of me even wanted praise for playing my own game right back.
‘There were easier ways than this, of course.’ The Sultan took a step towards us, his four Abdals following in one perfectly timed military step, forcing the crying girl forwards. I resisted the urge to take a step back. We couldn’t move from here, not if we wanted at least a chance at getting out alive. ‘Someone must have suggested returning Leyla to me dead.’ He was using that infuriatingly patient voice, like he was my father teaching me something that was very important for me to understand.
Hala helpfully raised her hand. ‘Oh, believe me, I did. So, so many times.’ The illusion changed in the blink of an eye, the way a scene changed without explanation in a nightmare. She wasn’t a living, breathing Leyla any more but Leyla’s body, hanging from the ceiling with a long red rope, just like the three girls who hung from the walls of the palace, her feet scraping along the tiles below her as she swung. But the Sultan just stared dispassionately at the illusion. It didn’t matter how real it appeared, it wasn’t enough to move him. Instead, his attention turned back to me.
‘You had good counsel. And you didn’t listen.’ He sounded like he’d expected as much. As if he’d had absolutely no fear of his daughter dying at my hands. ‘That’s why you lost, you know – trying to play at heroes.’
‘We haven’t lost yet.’ I meant to fire it back at him, but I knew I sounded like a child stomping my foot. And he was baiting me into delays. Almost baiting me into telling him our secret: that Ahmed was still alive. We were running out of time. The day was nearly finished breaking. The dawn bells would start soon – our signal for Sam to get us out of here. And we needed to get the girl out first. ‘Now, I’m going to ask you again: let Fariha go, for your own good.’
There was a long moment of silence as the Sultan considered me. I could almost hear the moments dropping away, sand running too quickly through the hourglass. Counting down the precious seconds until we would be pulled out of here, leaving Fariha behind. Then, finally, he nodded, conceding a small loss to my move. ‘Release her,’ he commanded the Abdal. Immediately its metal hands loosened. The girl stumbled out of the machine’s grasp, eyes wide and terrified. And then she ran, bolting towards the door and safety.
I’d meant to keep my eyes on the Sultan. But I couldn’t help it. I had to watch her go. I turned my head just a little, to see her step over the threshold to safety. It was a mistake. I knew it as soon as I heard the click, like a bullet slipping into place before it shoots you.
My head snapped around to see a small sphere, no bigger than a child’s ball but made of metal and gears, roll towards us, coming alive with a sickening whirring noise. It was one of Leyla’s inventions.
I was reaching for my gun when the explosion came. Not of fire and gunpowder, of dust. Suddenly a grey cloud enveloped us. I inhaled before I could think better of it and tasted the metallic tang. I realised what it was, even as I glanced over at Hala and saw her as she was, all illusions gone, just a golden-skinned girl doubled over, coughing violently.
Iron dust. It was a bomb of iron dust that the Sultan had thrown at us, draining our powers for as long as any of it clung to our skin, our tongues, our throats.
‘Hold them,’ he ordered, and I heard the whirr of the Abdals as they started to move. I yanked my sheema up quickly, shielding myself from inhaling any more and covering my eyes as best I could. I might be powerless for now, but I hadn’t come unarmed either.
I saw a glint of bronze through the cloud of dust, and I dived, knife in hand, swinging for the heel. The blade plunged through soft bronze, mangling the word below that powered the Abdal, sending it slumping over. I felt a metal hand on my shoulder. I moved like Shazad had taught me. I wasn’t nearly as good with a knife as she was, but I had the upper hand just long enough to slice the Abdal’s arm open savagely before I yanked my gun out of its holster and shot the mechanical solder in the foot. It collapsed as I rounded away from it, pushing my way out of the cloud of iron dust.
I turned, ready to face the next opponent. Instead I saw the Sultan standing a few feet away from me, his arm braced around Hala, holding her firm against him, a knife at her throat. Just like I’d held her while she wore the illusion of Leyla’s face.
She was helpless, her golden skin covered in clinging iron dust, turning its sheen a mottled grey. I’d never seen anyone look so furious and so frightened at the same time.
I held the gun pointed towards him. It didn’t shake, even though my heart was hammering out a violent beat.
‘Go ahead. Kill me,’ the Sultan taunted. ‘Then what, Amani? With our enemy at the gates and a city without a ruler or an heir, how do you think that will end? Conquest or civil war?’ He was right and I knew it. But my gun wasn’t pointed at him anyway. I was aiming at Hala.
Because we had a deal. She’d made me promise. An unbreakable Demdji promise.
Last night, in the dark, in our shared room, we’d agreed that if it all went wrong, neither of us would leave the other to be used against the rest of us. The Sultan could do a whole lot more harm with a Demdji under his control than just hanging girls from the palace walls.
It had reminded me of a thousand and one conversations Shazad and I had in our tent back in the rebel camp. It felt safer to talk in the dark somehow. Like we could confess anything there. Trust each other with our lives.
I caught her eyes, dark in her beautiful golden face. Her lips moved ever so slightly. Do it.
Now in the cold light of dawn I wondered if it had been a trick, her Djinn side showing itself as she fooled me into agreeing to this. As if either one of us might surrender her life for this. When really she knew only one of us truly risked dying here. When she knew she had no gun, no fight in her if this went wrong, when she knew she was going to throw herself at the Sultan to spare me. When what she really wanted was assurance that I wouldn’t leave her behind to be used again like she had once been.
My hand started to shake, and I saw the sunlight dance over the end of my pistol.
The Sultan was saying something else, something I didn’t hear. All I could see were Hala’s lips moving, mouthing what she wanted me to do. She couldn’t speak into my mind, not with the iron still clinging to her skin. But I could almost hear her all the same.
I was running low on time, but still I hesitated until the last possible moment, my mind scrambling for any other way out of this. I wasn’t going to pull the trigger until I absolutely had to.
In the grip of our enemy, on the brink of death, Hala rolled her eyes at me. And I heard her words from earlier, clear as a bell in my head.
Oh, don’t tell me now is when you decide to turn coward on me. Your guts are one of the things that I actually like about you.
And then the bells in the great prayer house chimed. That was our signal and that meant I was out of time. There was no other way out of this for Hala. I had to keep my promise.
Everything happened at once.
I sucked in a deep breath and held it.
Hala smiled.
My finger squeezed the trigger.
I closed my eyes, too. It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t miss.
A gunshot echoed around the cavernous gold dome just as hands closed over my feet. I felt the floor give way below me, like it was turning to water. I couldn’t help it – I opened my eyes for a fraction of a second even as I sank quickly through the floor. Even as the moment that it would be too late rushed towards us. I had to see. I had to make sure I hadn’t broken my promise.
She was slumped in the Sultan’s arms, red blood smearing her still-smiling face. Her fingers dragged on the floor. Only eight of them. That was how I knew she was dead. If she was living she would be trying to hide that wound, one way or another. Like she always did.
For a moment as I sank, my eye caught on the broken Abdal. And I realised Hala looked the same, her glowing gold skin like their polished bronze. If she’d been left alive she would have been just like them, a thing to be used. A mechanical Demdji.
The floor rushed up and I shut my eyes again, like Sam had always taught me. When I hit solid ground again, I opened them. I was standing in the dark, broken only by the faint flicker of an oil lamp by Sam’s feet.
We’d found the tunnels Leyla had told us about last night and worked out an escape route, a way to get out when Fariha was safe, one the Sultan wouldn’t be able to anticipate. The floor was stone, which meant Sam could pass his arms through it and pull us down through the floor and out of the prayer house into the tunnels below. We’d marked the spot on the roof of the tunnel, figuring out which tile above corresponded to it. We’d been standing exactly where we needed to stand to get to safety. To get out of there alive. If it wasn’t for the iron-dust bomb.
Sam opened his mouth, a question in his pale eyes. Hala? But before he could ask it, I shook my head quickly.
He understood.
She had died so that others could live. So that we could save them. So that other girls wouldn’t die while we were gone. Maybe she had even walked in there knowing one of us had to die. Deciding it would be her. So that we could live. Escape.
So we did what she had died for. We ran.