He slid through the murky water with practiced ease. Ali’s mother had taught him to swim; it was the only Ayaanle tradition she insisted he learn. She’d defied the king to do it, showing up unexpectedly at the Citadel one day when he was seven, intimidating and unfamiliar in a royal veil. She’d dragged him back to the palace while he kicked and screamed, begging her not to drown him. Once in the harem, she’d pushed him in the deepest part of the canal without a word. Only when he surfaced—limbs flailing, gasping for air through his tears—had she finally spoken his name. And then she taught him to kick and dive, to put his face in the water and breathe from the side of his mouth.
Years later, Ali still remembered every minute of her careful instruction—and the price she’d paid for such defiance: they were never allowed to be alone again. But Ali kept swimming. He liked it, even if most djinn—especially his father’s people—looked upon swimming with utter revulsion. There were even clerics who preached that the Ayaanle’s enjoyment of water was a perversion, a relic of an ancient river cult in which they’d supposedly cavorted with marid in all sorts of sinful ways. Ali dismissed the sordid tales as gossip; the Ayaanle were a wealthy tribe from a secure and largely isolated homeland—they’d always provoked jealousy.
He finished another lap and then drifted in the current. The air was still and thick, the buzz of insects and the twitter of birdsong the only sounds breaking the garden’s silence. It was almost peaceful.
An ideal time to suddenly be set upon by another Tanzeem assassin. Ali tried to put the dark thought out of his mind, but it wasn’t easy. It had been four days since Hanno tried to kill him, and he’d been confined to his quarters ever since. The morning after the attack, Ali had awoken to the worst headache of his life and a furious brother demanding answers. Wracked with pain, with guilt, and his mind still in a fog, Ali had given them, bits of truth about his relationship with the Tanzeem slipping out like water through his fingers. It turned out his earlier hopes were correct: his father and brother had only known about the money.
Muntadhir was decidedly not pleased to learn the rest.
In the face of his brother’s growing rage, Ali had been trying to explain why he’d covered up Hanno’s death when Nahri had arrived to check on him. Muntadhir had bluntly declared him a traitor in Geziriyya and stormed out. He hadn’t been back.
Maybe I should go talk to him. Ali climbed out of the canal, dripping on the decorative tiles bordering it. He reached for his shirt. Try to explain . . .
He stopped, catching a glimpse of his stomach. The wound was gone.
Stunned, Ali ran his hand over what had been a half-healed gash studded with stitches an hour earlier. It was now nothing more than a bumpy scar. The wound on his chest was still stitched, but that too looked remarkably improved. He reached for the third under his ribs and flinched. Hanno had driven the knife straight through him at that point, and it still hurt.
Maybe the canal water had some sort of healing properties? If so, it was the first Ali had heard of it. He’d have to ask Nahri. She’d been coming by most days to check on him, seemingly unfazed that he’d been dumped in her bedroom covered in blood only a few days ago. The only allusion she’d made to saving his life had been in her gleeful sack of his small library. She’d claimed several books, an ivory inkwell, and a gold armband as “payment.”
He shook his head. She was odd, to be sure. Not that Ali could complain. Nahri might be the only friend he had left.
“Peace be upon you, Ali.”
Ali startled at the sound of his sister’s voice and pulled on his shirt. “And upon you peace, Zaynab.”
She came around the path to join him on the wet stones. “Did I catch you swimming?” She feigned shock. “And here I thought you had no interest in the Ayaanle, and our—what do you like to call it—culture of scheming indulgence?”
“It was just a few laps,” he muttered. He wasn’t in the mood to fight with Zaynab. He sat, dropping his bare feet back into the canal. “What do you want?”
She sat beside him, trailing her fingers through the water. “To make sure you’re still alive, for one. No one’s seen you at court in nearly a week. And to warn you. I don’t know what you think you’re doing with that Nahid girl, Ali. You’ve no skill at politics, let alone—”
“What are you talking about?”
Zaynab rolled her gray-gold eyes. “The marriage negotiations, you idiot.”
Ali suddenly felt light-headed. “What marriage negotiations?”
She drew back, looking surprised. “Between Muntadhir and Nahri.” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you telling me that you didn’t help her? By the Most High, she gave Abba a list of percentages and figures that looked like some report from the Treasury. He’s furious with you—he thinks you wrote it.”
God preserve me . . . Ali knew Nahri was clever enough to come up with such a thing on her own, but suspected he was the only Qahtani who had an accurate measure of the Banu Nahida’s capabilities. He rubbed his brow. “When did all this happen?”
“Yesterday afternoon. She showed up at Abba’s office, uninvited and unaccompanied, to say the rumors were tiring her, and she wanted to know where they stood.” Zaynab crossed her arms. “She demanded an equal cut in patient payments, a pensioned position for her Afshin, a paid training sabbatical in Zariaspa . . . and by God, the dowry . . .”
Ali’s mouth went dry. “Did she really ask for all that? Yesterday, you are sure?”
Zaynab nodded. “She also refuses to let Muntadhir take a second wife. Wants it written in the contract itself in recognition of the fact that the Daevas don’t permit it. More time to train, no patients for at least a year, unfettered access to Manizheh’s old notes . . .” Zaynab ticked off her fingers. “I’m sure I’m missing something. People said they were haggling past midnight.” She shook her head, seeming both impressed and indignant. “I don’t know who that girl thinks she is.”
The last Nahid in the world. And one with some very compromising information on the youngest Qahtani. He tried to keep his voice smooth. “What did Abba think?”
“He felt the need to check his pockets after she left but was otherwise elated.” Zaynab rolled her eyes. “He says her ambition reminds him of Manizheh.”
Of course it would. “And Muntadhir?”
“What do you think? He doesn’t want to marry some conniving, thin-blooded Nahid. He came straight to me to ask what it was like to be of mixed tribes, to not be able to speak Geziriyya—”
That surprised him. Ali hadn’t realized such concerns had been among Muntadhir’s reasons for not wanting to marry Nahri. “What did you tell him?”
She gave him an even stare. “The truth, Ali. You can pretend it doesn’t bother you, but there’s a reason so few djinn marry outside their tribe. I’ve never been able to master Geziriyya like you, and it’s completely severed me from Abba’s people. Amma’s are little better. Even when Ayaanle pay me compliments, I can hear the shock in their voice that a sand fly accomplished such sophistication.”
That took him aback. “I didn’t know that.”