“Full bellies mean nothing if we can’t protect our children from slavers,” Hanno snapped.
“And we already educate our people, Prince Alizayd,” Fatumai added. “But to what end? Shafit are forbidden from skilled work; if our kind are lucky, they can find a job as a servant or bed slave. Do you have any idea how hopeless that makes life in Daevabad? There is no betterment save the promise of Paradise. We’re not allowed to leave, we’re not allowed to work, our women and children can be legally stolen by any pureblood claiming they’re related—”
“Anas gave me the speech,” Ali interrupted, his voice more cutting than he intended. But he had believed Anas’s words before, and the knowledge that his sheikh had lied to him still stung. “I’m sorry, but I’ve done everything in my power to help your people.” It was the truth. He’d given the Tanzeem a fortune and even now was quietly delaying the harsher measures his father wanted to put in place on the shafit. “I don’t know what else you expect.”
“Influence.” Rashid spoke up. “The sheikh did not recruit you for money alone. The shafit need a champion at the palace, a voice to speak for their rights. And you need us, Alizayd. I know you’re stalling those orders your father gave you. The new laws you’re supposed to be enforcing? Hunting down the traitor from the Royal Guard who stole zulfiqar training blades?” A slight grin played on his mouth at that. “Let us help you, Brother Alizayd. Let us help each other.”
Ali shook his head. “Absolutely not.”
“This is a waste of time,” Hanno declared. “The brat is Geziri—he’d probably let Daevabad burn to the ground before turning on his own.” His eyes flashed, and his fingers again lingered on the hilt of his knife. “We should just kill him.” Bitterness crept into his voice. “Let Ghassan know what it feels like to lose a child.”
Ali drew back in alarm, but Fatumai was already waving him off. “Give Ghassan a reason to slaughter every shafit in the city, you mean. No, I don’t think we’ll be doing that.”
From out in the corridor, the little boy began to cough again. The sound—that hacking, blood-tinged cough, that sad little sob—cut deep, and Ali flinched.
Rashid noticed. “There’s medicine for it, you know. And there are a few human-trained shafit physicians in Daevabad who could help him, but their skills don’t come cheap. Without your aid, we can’t afford to treat him.” He raised his hands. “To treat any of them.”
Ali dropped his gaze. There’s nothing to stop them from turning around and spending whatever I give them on weapons. He’d trusted Anas far more than he trusted these strangers, and the sheikh had still deceived him. Ali could not risk betraying his family again.
A mouse darted past his feet, and a drop of rain landed on his cheek from a leak in the ceiling. In the next room, he could hear children snoring from their makeshift beds on the floor. He thought guiltily of the enormous bed back in the palace that he didn’t even use. It would probably hold ten of those children.
“I can’t,” he said, his voice cracking. “I can’t help you.”
Rashid pounced. “You must. You’re a Qahtani. The shafit are the reason your ancestors came to Daevabad, the reason your family now possesses Suleiman’s seal. You know the Holy Book, Alizayd. You know how it requires you to stand up for justice. How can you claim to be a man of God when—”
“That’s quite enough,” Fatumai spoke up. “I know you’re passionate, Rashid, but insisting a boy not even near his first quarter century betray his family lest he be damned isn’t going to help anyone.” She let out a weary sigh, tapping her fingers on her cane. “This is not a thing that needs to be decided tonight,” she declared. “Think on what we’ve said here, Prince. On what you’ve seen and heard in this place.”
Ali blinked in disbelief. He glanced nervously among them. “You’re letting me go?”
“I’m letting you go.”
Hanno gaped. “Are you mad? He’s going to run right to his abba! He’ll have us rounded up by dawn!”
“No, he won’t,” Fatumai met his gaze, her face calculating. “He knows the cost too well. His father would come for our families, our neighbors . . . a whole score of innocent shafit. And if he’s the boy of whom Anas spoke so fondly, the one on whom he pinned so many hopes . . .” She gave Ali an intent look. “He won’t risk that.”
Her words sent a shiver down his spine. She spoke correctly: Ali did know the cost. If Ghassan learned about the money, if he then suspected others might know it was a Qahtani prince who’d funded the Tanzeem . . . Daevabad’s streets would be flowing with shafit blood.
And not just shafit. Ali wouldn’t be the first inconvenient prince to be assassinated. Oh, it would be done carefully, probably as quickly and painlessly as possible—his father wasn’t cruel. An accident. Something that wouldn’t make his mother’s powerful family too suspicious. But it would happen. Ghassan took kingship seriously, and Daevabad’s peace and security came before Ali’s life.
Those weren’t prices Ali was willing to pay.
His mouth was dry when he tried to speak. “I won’t say anything,” he promised. “But I’m done with the Tanzeem.”
Fatumai didn’t look even the slightest bit worried. “We’ll see, Brother Alizayd.” She shrugged. “Allahu alam.”
She said the human holy words better than Ali’s pureblood tongue would ever manage, and he couldn’t help but tremble slightly at the confidence in her voice, at the phrase meant to demonstrate the folly of man’s confidence.
God knows best.
13
Nahri
It was as if they stepped through an invisible door in the air. One minute Nahri and Dara were scrambling over dark dunes, and the next, they emerged in an entirely new world, the dark river and dusty plains replaced by a small glen in a quiet mountain forest. It was dawn; the rosy sky glowed against silver tree trunks. The air was warm and moist, rich with the smell of sap and dead leaves.
Dara dropped Nahri gently to her feet, and she landed on a soft patch of moss. She took a deep breath of the cool, clean air before whirling on him.
“We need to go back,” she demanded, shoving at his shoulders. There was no trace of the river, though through the trees, something blue glistened in the distance. A sea, perhaps; it looked vast. She waved her hands through the air, searching for the way through. “How do I do it? We need to get him before—”
“He’s likely already dead,” Dara interrupted. “From the stories told about the peris . . .” She heard his throat catch. “Their punishments are swift.”
He saved our lives. Nahri felt sick. She angrily wiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks. “How could you leave him there? It was him you should have carried, not me!”
“I . . .” Dara turned away with a choked sob and abruptly dropped onto a large, moss-covered boulder. His head fell into his hands. The weeds surrounding him started to blacken and a hazy heat rose in waves above the rock. “I couldn’t, Nahri. Only those of our blood can cross the threshold.”