‘When the troops start to leave the city, it won’t be so swarming with soldiers any more,’ I pointed out. ‘Shazad said half the Rebellion was short on things to do; well, this is a good chance to change that. Supply routes to the army, and I don’t know what this one is marking’ – I pointed out the red dots – ‘but seems worth looking into.’ I handed him the stack of papers and gave him as much as I could remember from the war council, each a precarious building block towards peace in Miraji that we could dismantle, that we could seize and use as a weapon in the Rebellion. And I tried to shake the feeling that I was a traitor to my whole country with every word I spoke.

Chapter 26

Now that I could leave the harem, I spent as little time as I could there. The palace could’ve been a barren wasteland to rival the Last County and I wouldn’t have cared, so long as it was free of Kadir and Ayet and the rest of the gaggle of wives.

I was required a few hours every day at the Sultan’s meetings. He met with each of the foreign delegations separately. The Albish ambassador was an ancient man with pale age-spotted hands that shook so hard he couldn’t hold a pen. I overheard him tell his scribe that I reminded him of his granddaughter. He didn’t lie as viciously as the Gallan but he didn’t come ready to hand over the truth, either. He might wear a kinder face but he wanted something from us, same as the Gallan did. The Xichian didn’t have an ambassador. They sent a general who eyed me with distrust with every word I spoke.

I sat behind the Sultan in each meeting, to his right, where he could catch my eye when someone was talking and know the truth of it. I kept the men negotiating the terms of the ceasefire honest. And I learned as much as I could while I was at it. I learned where the foreign troops were stationed along our borders. I learned who the Sultan trusted and what he knew about the Rebellion. His son Rahim, Leyla’s brother, attended every single meeting. He scarcely spoke unless his father asked him something directly. A few times I caught him watching me.

After a few meetings I learned that I couldn’t avoid Kadir entirely outside of the harem. Every so often, he would turn up at negotiations, too, forcing a place for himself at the table. Unlike his brother, he offered opinions his father didn’t ask for. Once I caught one of the ministers rolling his eyes as Kadir spoke.

Kadir was the only person who seemed to be able to get a word out of Prince Rahim unsolicited. The two princes sparked off each other like angry flint. I remembered what the Sultan had said, that Rahim would make a good choice for Sultim if he weren’t so ruled by his emotions. So far I hadn’t seen any emotion from him except hatred for Kadir.

I returned to the harem every night to meet with Sam at dusk and hand over what I’d gathered.

What was left of the days belonged to me to spend however I wanted outside the walls of the harem. I explored as freely as I could, while carefully avoiding the foreigners who were gradually invading the palace. There were a hundred more gardens that bloomed so thick with flowers I could barely get the doors open, or where music seemed to drift through the walls along with a breeze that smelled of salt and bright air. It wasn’t until I climbed a tower that looked out over the water, and the same air picked up my clothes and hair in a rush, that I realised it was the sea. I’d spent my short time on the sea drugged and bound. But that wasn’t the memory the sea air stirred up. It was sitting on a dusty shop floor, as far from the water as I could be, with my fingers dancing along the tattoos on Jin’s skin.

Once, I rounded a corner to see a figure ahead walking with a limp that was so familiar I was ready to turn and run. I stopped walking so abruptly when I saw him that the guard accompanying me that day walked straight into me. The shame on his face was the most expression I ever got out of one of them. It was nice to know they were human somewhere under that uniform, at least. It turned out it was only an Albish soldier, wounded by a Mirajin bullet before the ceasefire. Besides, Tamid didn’t walk with a limp any more, I remembered.

I was putting on a good show of wandering aimlessly. But the Sultan wasn’t stupid enough to give me complete freedom in the palace, either; a soldier waited for me outside the gates of the harem every morning and latched on to me like a silent shadow. The soldier changed every day, and none spoke except to tell me when I was wanted at a meeting. If I tried to take a turn I wasn’t supposed to, my guard just became a new wall between me and whatever door or passageway I was heading for. A heavily armed wall that just stared straight ahead until I took the hint.

But I wasn’t about to give up. I needed to get back to Bahadur. The Djinni. My father. The Sultan’s new hidden weapon. I had to find a way to free him before the Sultan could use him to annihilate us.

*

I wished I wasn’t so familiar with the feeling of waking up in trouble. But the harem was softening me. Used to be, an intruder’s presence would’ve woken me well before getting close enough to put a blade against my neck.

I wrenched myself to sitting, heart racing in panic, ready to face whatever threat the night was bringing. Soldiers. Ghouls.

Worse. Ayet.

The light of the mostly full moon shivered along the blade in her hand as she drew away from me. Not a knife, I realised: scissors. More dangerous was the smile on her face. In her other hand, her fist was curled around a long dark braid.

My hand flew to my scalp. The last person who’d bothered to cut my hair was my mother before she died. In the years since, it had reached close to halfway down my spine, though it spent most of its time twisted under my sheema. Now it ended bluntly, just above my shoulders.