No. There had to be some explanation. And then she remembered. Master, he had called that man his master.
He’s a slave. All the stories Nahri had heard about the djinn raced through her mind, and her mouth fell open in shock. A wish-granting djinn slave.
The realization didn’t improve her situation. “Dara, please . . . I don’t know what happened, but I didn’t mean to hurt you. I swear!”
His left hand was pressed to his chest, the ring next to his heart—if daevas had hearts. He held the dagger out with his right, circling her like a cat. He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them, some of the wildness had dissipated. “No . . . I—” He swallowed, looking close to tears. “I’m still here.” He took a shaky breath, relief flooding into his face. “I’m still free.” He leaned heavily against one of the marble columns. “But that city . . . ,” he choked out. “Those people . . .” He slid to the floor, dropping his head into his hands.
Nahri didn’t lower the sword. She had no idea what to say, torn between guilt and fear. “I . . . I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I just wanted the ring. I had no idea . . .”
“You wanted the ring?” He glanced up sharply, a hint of suspicion stealing back into his voice. “Why?”
Telling the truth seemed safer than his assuming some type of magical malice on her part. “I was trying to steal it,” she confessed. “I am—I was,” she corrected, realizing there was no way she was getting free now, “trying to escape.”
“Escape?” He narrowed his eyes. “And you needed my ring for that?”
“Have you seen the size of it?” She let out a nervous laugh. “That emerald could get me back to Cairo with money to spare.”
He gave her an incredulous look and then shook his head. “And the glory of the Nahids continues.” He climbed to his feet, seemingly unaware of how quickly she backed away. “Why would you even want to escape? Your human life sounds dreadful.”
“What?” she asked, offended enough to momentarily forget her fear. “Why would you say that?”
“Why?” He picked up his robe and whirled it around his shoulders. “Where do I even start? If simply being human isn’t wretched enough, you had to lie and steal constantly to survive. You lived alone, with no family and no friends, in unceasing fear you’d be arrested and executed for sorcery.” He blanched. “And you’d return to that? Over Daevabad?”
“It wasn’t that bad,” she insisted, taken aback by his answer. All those questions he’d asked about her life in Cairo—he really had been listening to her answers. “My abilities gave me a lot of independence. And I had a friend,” she added, though she wasn’t certain Yaqub would agree with that definition of their relationship. “Besides, you act as if I’m facing something better. Aren’t you turning me over to some djinn king who murdered my family?”
“No,” Dara said, adding somewhat more hesitantly, “it was not . . . technically him. Your ancestors were enemies, but Khayzur spoke correctly.” He sighed. “It was a long time ago,” he added lamely, as if that explained everything.
Nahri stared. “So being delivered to my ancestral enemy is supposed to make me feel better?”
Dara looked even more annoyed. “No. It’s not like that.” He made an impatient noise. “You’re a healer, Nahri. The last of them. Daevabad needs you as much as you need it, maybe even more.” He scowled. “And when the djinn learn I was the one who found you? The Scourge of Qui-zi forced to play nursemaid to a mixed-blood?” He shook his head. “The Qahtanis are going to love it. They’ll probably set you up in your own wing of the palace.”
My own wing of the what? “The Scourge of Qui-zi?” she asked instead.
“An endearment I’ve earned from them.” His green gaze settled on the sword still clasped in her hands. “You don’t need that. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“No?” Nahri arched an eyebrow. “Because I just saw you hurt a whole lot of people.”
“You saw that?” When she nodded, his face crumpled. “I wish you hadn’t.” He crossed the floor to retrieve her bag, dusting it off before handing it back. “What you saw . . . I didn’t do those things by choice.” His voice was low as he turned back and picked up his turban cloth.
Nahri hesitated. “In my country, we have stories of djinn . . . djinn who are trapped as slaves and forced to grant wishes to humans.”
Dara flinched, his fingers fumbling as he rewound his turban. “I’m not a djinn.”
“But are you a slave?”
He said nothing, and her temper flashed. “Forget it,” she snapped. “I don’t know why I bothered to ask. You never answer my questions. You let me panic over this Qahtani king for an entire week just because you couldn’t bother to—”
“Not anymore.” His reply was a whisper, a fragile thing that hung in the air—the first real truth he’d offered her. He turned around; old grief was etched in his face. “I’m not a slave anymore.”
Before Nahri could respond, the ground trembled beneath her feet.
A nearby pillar cracked as a second rumble—far stronger—rocked the temple. Dara swore, snatched up his weapons, and grabbed her hand. “Come on!”
They raced through the temple and out onto the open stage, narrowly avoiding a falling column. The ground shook harder, and Nahri gave the theater a nervous glance, looking for signs of the recently risen dead. “Maybe this one’s an earthquake?”
“So soon after you used your powers on me?” He searched the stage. “Where’s the carpet?”
She hesitated. “I may have burned it.”
Dara whirled on her. “You burned it?”
“I didn’t want you to follow me!”
“Where did you burn it?” he asked, not even waiting for an answer before sniffing the air and racing toward the edge of the stage.
By the time she caught him, he was crouching in the glowing embers, his hands pressed against the carpet’s ashy remains. “Burned it . . . ,” he muttered. “By the Creator, you really don’t know anything about us.”
Little worms of white-bright flame crawled out from under his fingers, reigniting the ash and twisting together into long ropes that grew and stretched under his feet. As she watched, they quickly multiplied, forming a fiery mat roughly the same size and shape as the carpet.
The fire flashed and died, revealing the tired colors of their old rug. “How did you do that?” she whispered.
Dara grimaced as he ran his hand over the surface. “It won’t last long, but it should get us across the river.”
The ground rumbled again, and a groan came from inside the temple, the sound all too familiar. Dara reached for her hand. She backed away.
His eyes flashed with alarm. “Are you mad?”
Probably. Nahri knew what she was about to do was risky, but she also knew the best time to negotiate was when your mark was desperate. “No. I’m not getting on that rug unless you give me some answers.”
There was another loud, vaguely human shriek from inside the temple. The ground shook harder, and a crack raced across the high ceiling.