Nahri gritted her teeth. Nisreen’s words had found their mark, but she refused to concede such a thing.
Instead, she threw her apron at the older woman’s feet. “Good luck finding a replacement.” And then—avoiding the sight of the man she’d just killed—she turned and stormed out.
Nisreen followed. “His wife is coming. You can’t just leave. Nahri!” she shouted as Nahri flung open the door to her bedchamber. “Come back and—”
Nahri slammed the door in Nisreen’s face.
The room was dark—as usual, she’d let the fire altar go out—but Nahri didn’t care. She staggered to her bed, fell face-first on the lush quilt, and for the first time since she arrived in Daevabad, probably for the first time in a decade, she let herself sob.
She couldn’t have said how much time passed. She didn’t sleep. Nisreen knocked on her door at least a half-dozen times, begging softly for her to come back out. Nahri ignored her. She curled into a ball on the bed, staring vacantly at the enormous landscape painted on the wall.
Zariaspa, someone once told her, the mural painted by her uncle, although the familial word felt as false as ever. These people weren’t hers. This city, this faith, her supposed tribe . . . they were alien and strange. She was suddenly tempted to destroy the painting, to knock over the fire altar, to get rid of every reminder of this duty she’d never asked for. The only Daeva she cared for had rejected her; she wanted nothing to do with the rest.
As if on cue, the knocking started again, a lighter tap on the rarely used servants’ door. Nahri ignored it for a few seconds, growing silently more enraged as it continued, steady as a dripping pipe. Finally she flung her blanket away and flew to her feet, stomping over to the door and yanking it open.
“What is it now, Nisreen?” she snapped.
But it wasn’t Nisreen at her door. It was Jamshid e-Pramukh, and he looked terrified.
He staggered in without invitation, bowed under the weight of an enormous sack over his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, Banu Nahida, but I had no choice. He insisted I bring him straight to you.” He dropped the sack on her bed and snapped his fingers, flames bursting between them to illuminate the room.
It wasn’t a sack he’d dropped on her bed.
It was Alizayd al Qahtani.
Nahri was at Ali’s side in seconds. The prince was unconscious and covered in blood, pale ash coating his skin.
“What happened?” she gasped.
“He was stabbed.” Jamshid held out a long knife, the blade dark with blood. “I found this. Do you think you can heal him?”
A rush of fear swept through her. “Take him to the infirmary. I’ll get Nisreen.”
Jamshid moved to block her. “He said just you.”
Nahri was incredulous. “I don’t care what he said! I’m barely trained; I’m not going to heal the king’s son alone in my bedroom!”
“I think you should try. He was most adamant, and Banu Nahida . . .” Jamshid glanced at the unconscious prince and then lowered his voice. “When a Qahtani gives an order in Daevabad . . . you obey.” They’d switched to Divasti without her noticing, and the dark words in her native tongue sent a chill through her veins.
Nahri took the bloody knife and brought it close to her face. Iron, though she smelled nothing that would indicate poison. She touched the blade. It didn’t spark, burst into flames, or evidence any sort of godforsaken magical malice. “Do you know if this is cursed?”
Jamshid shook his head. “I doubt it. The man who attacked him was shafit.”
Shafit? Nahri stayed her curiosity, her attention focused on Ali. If it’s a normal injury, it shouldn’t matter that he’s a djinn. You’ve healed wounds like this in the past.
She knelt at Ali’s side. “Help me get his shirt off. I need to examine him.”
Ali’s tunic was so badly destroyed that it was small effort to finish ripping it open. She could see three jagged wounds, including one that seemed to go all the way through to his back. She pressed her palms against the largest one and closed her eyes. She thought back to how she’d saved Dara and tried to do the same, willing Ali to heal and imagining the skin healthy and whole.
She braced herself for visions, but none came. Instead, she caught the scent of salt water, and a briny taste filled her mouth. But her intentions must have been clear; the wound twitched under her fingers, and Ali shivered, letting out a low groan.
“By the Creator . . . ,” Jamshid whispered. “That’s extraordinary.”
“Hold him still,” she warned. “I’m not done.” She lifted her hands. The wound had started to close, but his flesh was still discolored and looked almost porous. She lightly touched his skin, and foamy black blood rose to the surface, like pressing on a soaked sponge. She closed her eyes and tried again, but it stayed the same.
Though the room was cool, sweat poured from her skin, so much so that her fingers grew slick. Wiping them on her shirt, she moved on to the other wounds, the salty taste intensifying. Ali hadn’t opened his eyes, but the rhythm of his heart stabilized under her fingertips. He took a shaky breath, and Nahri sat back on her heels to examine her half-completed work.
Something seemed wrong. Maybe it’s the iron? Dara had told her on their journey that iron could impair purebloods.
I could stitch it. She’d done some stitching with Nisreen, using silver thread treated with some sort of charm. It was supposed to have restorative qualities and seemed worth a try. Ali didn’t look like he was going to keel over and die if she took a few minutes to retrieve some supplies from the infirmary. But it was still a guess. For all she knew, his organs were destroyed and leaking into his body.
Ali murmured something in Geziriyya, and his gray eyes slowly blinked open, growing wide and confused as he took in the unfamiliar room. He tried to sit up, letting out a low gasp of pain.
“Don’t move,” she warned. “You’ve been injured.”
“I . . .” His voice came out in a croak, and then she saw his gaze fall on the knife. His face crumpled, a devastated shadow overtaking his eyes. “Oh.”
“Ali.” She touched his cheek. “I’m going to get some supplies from the infirmary, okay? Stay here with Jamshid.” The Daeva guard didn’t look particularly pleased by that but nodded, and she slipped out.
The infirmary was quiet; the patients she hadn’t killed asleep and Nisreen gone for now. Nahri set a pot of water to boil on the glowing embers in her fire pit and then retrieved the silver thread and a few needles, all the while studiously ignoring the sheikh’s now-empty bed.
When the water came to a boil, she added a sludgy spoonful of bitumen, some honey, and salt, following one of the pharmaceutical recipes Nisreen had shown her. After a moment of hesitation, she crumbled in a prepared opium pod. It would be easier to stitch Ali up if he was calm.
Her mind ran rampant with speculation. Why would Ali possibly want to hide an attempt on his life? She was surprised the king himself wasn’t in the infirmary to ensure that his son got the best treatment, while the Royal Guard swept the city, breaking down doors and rounding up shafit in search of conspirators.
Maybe that’s why he wants it kept quiet. It was obvious Ali had a soft spot for the shafit. But she wasn’t about to complain. Just a few hours earlier, she feared Ghassan would punish her for accidentally killing the sheikh. Now his youngest—his favorite, according to some gossip she’d overheard—was hiding in her bedroom, his life in her hands.