She didn’t even argue with me. I didn’t give her time. I was running, chasing on Shazad’s heels back towards the gardens. I glanced over my shoulder before we rounded a corner, just in time to see the door in the mosaic open, unsuspecting soldiers spilling out towards a waiting Hala, who grabbed hold of their minds before they’d taken a step. And then Shazad wrenched me around the corner. Hala and Leyla were on their own.

Sam grabbed hold of me as we approached the wall, dragging me towards it.

We burst through the wall, gasping, just as the Sultan’s speech ended. Applause burst around us and for a moment I felt destabilised, plunging away from what we’d just seen, chasing the starlight, back to the normality of the palace.

And then, all around the darkened garden, lights started to come on. Not oil light. Not fire and flickering torchlight. Just light. Fire without heat. And it was coursing out from the machine that had just killed the Djinni, and then getting trapped in the crystal birds that I’d seen earlier, hanging from strings and staying there, flaring to life.

Bottled starlight.

Awed sounds filled the garden as the lights illuminated the amazed faces of the Auranzeb guests.

And then, in the corner of the garden, something moved. I snapped around in time to see one of the statues shift. One of the figures of the Sultan’s dead brothers straightened his head. And then the one next to him. And the one next to him.

The metal men straightened up and took a step. And another. The crowd started to turn around, expecting another party trick. But this wasn’t a trick.

‘What are they doing?’ I heard the fear in Shazad’s voice. It was rare to hear her afraid. But I knew she was remembering the same thing I was. A train. A boy in a metal suit. Burning hands. Bahi’s screams.

A foreign man in the crowd was forced to stagger back as a statue advanced on him.

I was sitting across from the Sultan in his study when he spoke about the servants of clay the Djinn made before humanity. The Abdals. Creatures of clay who obeyed any order. I was listening when he talked about the first time he had made a mistake thinking he could control a Demdji. That our power wasn’t worth the risk of disobedience.

It didn’t mean he’d given up on having that power.

It meant he’d given up on disobedience.

The metal things were stepping past the Mirajin, towards the foreign guests. Penning them in.

I heard the Sultan telling me Mirajin forces alone couldn’t stand against the threats on our borders.

It was a trap. Auranzeb. The ceasefire. Everything. It was a trap to lure them here.

I knew what was going to happen the second before it did. One of the Albish soldiers lunged between the metal man and his queen. The statue raised one hand.

I was watching his face when he burned. He burned like Bahi had burned in Noorsham’s hands. He burned like something lit with Djinni fire.

Chapter 38

The screams started, some of them snuffing out before they could start, as the Abdals turned their stolen Djinni magic on them. Mirajin soldiers were pouring into the gardens now, too, cutting off anyone who tried to run. The smell of blood mingled with the smell of burning.

I realised that I was waiting for an order from Shazad that hadn’t come yet. That she was frozen next to me. Pressed against the wall, watching men and women burn the same way she’d watched Bahi burn. If she wasn’t going to take charge, someone else would have to. My eyes darted around the garden for Jin. I couldn’t see him.

‘Sam,’ I ordered, ‘you need to start getting people out from our side. As many as you can, and then you get out. Shazad—’ She jolted as I grabbed her arm. I did my best imitation of her. We needed someone to be Shazad and she wasn’t herself just now. ‘I need you to pull yourself together.’ She was pale, but she nodded. ‘How do you feel about using that gunpowder to blow the gates?’

The gates were on the other side of the garden, chaos and death blooming in between us. I saw her mind working. The Abdals were attacking only the foreigners. They wouldn’t cause her any trouble, seeing as she was Mirajin. But there were too many soldiers. There was no crossing that. ‘I need a weapon,’ Shazad said, finally sounding close to normal. She was wrapping a sheema around her face, hiding her identity.

‘I might be able to help with that.’ Rahim appeared by my elbow. There was already blood on his uniform. He held out a foreign-looking sword to Shazad. ‘Are you as good as Amani says you are?’

‘No, I’m even better.’ Shazad grabbed the blade out of his hand. ‘Together?’

The Sultan had been right. They were a well-matched pair. They burst into movement as easily as if they had been trained as one person their whole lives. Soldiers’ bodies fell around them as they moved, fighting their way across the chaos. At the same time, Sam turned, plunging into the crowd, discarding his Albish uniform jacket as he went.

Tamid.

He darted across my mind all of a sudden. Hala was supposed to get him out. But the plan had changed. She was getting Leyla now. I had to get to him. I couldn’t leave him behind again.

I was running before the thought had even finished, dodging around the chaos in the garden. I plunged into the hallways, headed for Tamid’s rooms, the noise from the garden fading into the distance.

The sound of clattering feet in pursuit replaced it. I glanced over my shoulder as I ran. My escape from the gardens hadn’t gone unnoticed. A handful of soldiers were behind me. A gunshot sounded just as I flung myself around a corner. The bullet hit where my head would’ve been. Plaster sprayed like blood, peppering my skin. Orders must not be to capture me, then.