Nahri winced. “It’s been a few days since I refilled the oil.”
“Nahri, we’ve discussed this.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Upon her arrival, the Daevas had gifted Nahri with Manizheh’s personal fire altar, a guilt-inducing piece of metal and water, restored and polished to perfection. The altar was about half her height, a silver basin filled with water kept at a constant simmer by the tiny glass oil lamps bobbing upon its surface. A pile of cedar sticks smoldered on the small cupola that rose from the basin’s center.
Nisreen refilled the lamps from a silver pitcher nearby and plucked a cedar stick from the consecrated tools meant to maintain the altar. She used it to relight the flames and then beckoned Nahri closer.
“You should try to take better care of this,” Nisreen admonished, though her voice stayed gentle. “Our faith is an important part of our culture. You’re worried about treating a patient? Then why not touch the same tools your grandparents once did? Kneel and pray as your mother would have before attempting a new procedure.” She motioned for Nahri to bow her head. “Take strength from the one connection to your family you still have.”
Nahri sighed but allowed Nisreen to mark her forehead with ash. She probably could use all the luck she could get today.
About half the size of the enormous audience chamber, the infirmary was a spartan room of plain whitewashed walls, a blue stone floor, and a lofty domed ceiling made entirely of tempered glass that let in sunlight. One wall was given over to apothecary ingredients, hundreds of glass and copper shelves of varying sizes. Another section of the room was her workplace: a scattering of low tables crowded with tools and failed pharmaceutical attempts, and a heavy sandblasted glass desk in one corner surrounded by bookshelves and a large fire pit.
The other side of the room was meant for patients and typically curtained off. But today the curtain was drawn back to reveal an empty couch and a small table. Nisreen swooped past with a tray of supplies. “They should be here any moment. I’ve already prepared the elixir.”
“And you still think this is a smart idea?” Nahri swallowed, anxious. “I’ve not had the best luck with my abilities so far.”
That was an understatement. Nahri had assumed being a healer to the djinn would be similar to being a healer among humans, her time spent correcting broken bones, birthing babies, and stitching up wounds. As it turned out, the djinn didn’t need much help with those sorts of ailments—purebloods anyway. Instead, they needed a Nahid when it got . . . complicated. And what was complicated?
Stripes were common in infants born during the darkest hour of the night. The bite of a simurgh—firebirds the djinn enjoyed racing—would cause one to slowly burn up from the inside. Sweating silver droplets was a constant irritation in the spring. It was possible to accidentally create an evil duplicate, to transform one’s hands into flowers, to be hexed with hallucinations, or to be turned into an apple—an incredibly grave insult to one’s honor.
The cures were little better. The leaves from the very tops of cypress trees—and only the very tops—could be boiled into a solution that when blown upon by a Nahid opened up the lungs. A ground pearl mixed with just the right amount of turmeric could help an infertile woman conceive, but the resulting infant would smell a bit salty and be terribly sensitive to shellfish. And it wasn’t just the illnesses and their associated cures that sounded unbelievable, but the endless list of situations that seemed entirely unrelated to health.
“It’s a long shot, but sometimes a two-week dose of hemlock, dove’s tail, and garlic—taken every sunrise outdoors—can cure a nasty case of chronic unluckiness,” Nisreen told her last week.
Nahri remembered her stunned disbelief. “Hemlock is poisonous. And how is being unlucky an illness?”
The science behind it all made little sense. Nisreen went on and on about the four humors that made up the djinn body and the importance of keeping them balanced. Fire and air were to exactly even each other out at twice the amount of blood and four times the amount of bile. To become unbalanced could cause a wasting disease, insanity, feathers . . .
“Feathers?” Nahri had repeated incredulously.
“Too much air,” Nisreen had explained. “Obviously.”
And though Nahri was trying, it was all too much to take in, day after day, hour after hour. Since arriving at the palace, she had yet to leave the wing that housed her quarters and the infirmary; she wasn’t sure she was even permitted to leave, and when Nahri asked if she could learn to read—as she’d dreamed of doing for years—the older woman had gotten strangely cagey, muttering something about the Nahid texts being forbidden before promptly changing the subject. Besides her terrified servants and Nisreen, Nahri had no other company. Zaynab had politely invited her for tea twice, but Nahri turned her down—she didn’t intend to consume liquids near that girl again. But she was an extrovert, used to chatting with clients and roaming all over Cairo. The isolation and single-minded focus of her training had her ready to burst.
And she sensed her frustration was curbing her abilities. Nisreen repeated what Dara had already told her: blood and intent were vital in magic. Many of the medicines Nahri studied simply wouldn’t work without a believing Nahid to produce them. You couldn’t stir a potion, grind a powder, or even lay your hands upon a patient without a firm trust in what you were doing. And Nahri didn’t have that.
And then yesterday Nisreen had announced—rather abruptly—that they were changing tactics. The king wanted to see her heal someone, and Nisreen agreed, believing that if Nahri was given the chance to treat a few carefully selected patients, the theories would make more sense to her. Nahri thought that sounded like a great way to slowly reduce Daevabad’s population, but it didn’t seem as if she had much say in the matter.
There was a knock at the door. Nisreen eyed her. “You’ll be fine. Have faith.”
Her patient was an older woman, accompanied by a man who looked like her son. When Nisreen greeted them in Divasti, Nahri sighed with relief, hoping her own people would be more sympathetic to her inexperience. Nisreen led the woman to the bed and helped her remove a long midnight-colored chador. Underneath, the woman’s steel gray hair was arranged in an elaborately braided nest. Gold embroidery winked from her dark crimson gown, and large clusters of rubies hung from each ear. She pursed her painted lips and gave Nisreen a distinctly unimpressed look while her son—dressed in similar finery—hovered nervously over her.
Nahri took a deep breath and then walked over, pressing her palms together like she’d seen others of her tribe do. “Peace be upon you.”
The man pressed his own hands together and fell into a low bow. “It is the greatest honor, Banu Nahida,” he said in a hushed voice. “May the fires burn brightly for you. I pray the Creator blesses you with the longest of lives and the merriest of children and—”
“Oh, calm yourself, Firouz,” the old woman interrupted. She considered Nahri with skeptical black eyes. “You’re Banu Manizheh’s daughter?” she sniffed. “Awfully human looking.”
“Madar!” Firouz hissed, clearly embarrassed. “Be polite. I told you about the curse, remember?”