The fight is over before it hardly began, without a single guard getting in a blow. The girls clean up quickly, dragging them all behind a stack of barrels between two buildings, where they’ll likely lie unnoticed till dawn. Ensi administers a few drops of clear liquid to the one with the snakebite.
“He’ll live,” she says. “But he won’t be visiting his pleasure houses any time soon.” She spits on him, then giggles.
Their leader sighs and nudges Aladdin with the toe of her boot. “Well, not exactly how I hoped things would go. We’ll have to hurry.”
• • •
Ensi, whose store of potions and powders seems impressively thorough, wakes Aladdin with a small bottle of white liquid that she holds under his nose. He comes to with a gasp and starts coughing. The girls stand in a close circle around him, their expressions grim.
After their brief fight with the guards, they carried Aladdin through the city, to an old storehouse near the south wall. Inside rests the partially constructed hull of a ship, but judging by the cobwebs collecting on it, no one has touched it in a while. It sits upside down, like the rib cage of a whale. The girls dumped Aladdin on his knees on the floor beneath it, his hands bound behind him. I sit nearby, in the form of a black cat with green eyes, watching. The lamp is still concealed, but for who knows how long.
I’m starting to feel a bit exhausted. First the prince in the desert, now these girl assassins or whatever they are—I will grant the thief this: My time with him has been anything but dull.
Aladdin blinks and groans, his head rolling. “Bleeding gods . . . What . . . ?”
He focuses on the faces around him and goes still, confusion crinkling the corners of his eyes. They watch him by the light of torches as he twists his bound hands, his fingers brushing against the hidden lamp. “What the . . . Who in the black skies are you?”
“We’ll be the ones asking questions, thief,” replies the girls’ leader.
His eyes roam the room searchingly, and I pad softly out of the shadows. When he sees me, he lifts a brow, and I blink slowly in response.
“Oh, look!” Ensi cries, following his gaze. “A cat! Here, little sweets!” She leans down and holds out a hand, and I run to her and rub against her ankle, purring when she picks me up and scratches my ears. Aladdin rolls his eyes just slightly. I hiss at him.
The leader removes her hood and pulls her braid over her shoulder. “You are Aladdin, son of Mustapha the tailor, are you not?”
“Finish that kiss you were about to give me, and I might tell you.” He tilts his head, studying her with fascination.
“I remember hearing of your rebel father,” she replies, drawing Aladdin’s eyes back to her. “As a child, I admired his courage, though my parents often cursed his name.”
He watches her closely, the corners of his lips turning slightly upward, as if amused. “You took down the Bull like he was no bigger than a goat. Who are you? Why haven’t I heard of you before?”
The girl drops to a crouch in front of Aladdin, pulling out a dagger and twirling it idly while she locks eyes with him. “A few weeks ago, I hired you to steal something. And now I want it.”
“What?” He looks around at the girls, bewildered. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never met you before. And I certainly didn’t steal anything—”
The girl presses the dagger to Aladdin’s cheek, and he stiffens.
“The ring,” she says softly. “Where is it?”
Aladdin lifts an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you work for Xaxos. I’d definitely have heard of you if you do.”
“I don’t work for Xaxos,” she replies, lowering the dagger. “Xaxos works for me.”
He digests this in silence, shock turning to skepticism. “Are you saying that you’re the Phoenix? You’re the mysterious rebel who set those prisoners free and stopped a plague?”
“We helped her,” says Ensi, pouting a little. “I don’t know why they couldn’t call us the Phoenixes. I’m the one who made all those little bottles of medicine, remember?”
“Hush, Ensi,” says the leader. To Aladdin, she replies, “It’s complicated, all right? But I am the one Xaxos works for, and I am the one you have to answer to for not giving me that ring!”
“The Phoenix,” Aladdin repeats, shaking his head a little. “The Phoenix. Does Xaxos know you’re a girl half his age?” He laughs. “I’d love to see his face—”
“How long is this going to take?” the archer asks suddenly. “They’ll notice we’re gone.”
“There are faster ways of interrogating someone,” says the one with the snake. She opens her cloak, and the viper coils down her arm, tongue flickering. I stiffen in Ensi’s arms, my hackles rising. The snake lifts its head and glares at me; animals are never fooled by jinn disguises.
“Hush, Khavar,” the leader is saying. “Raz, go stand outside, in case any guards get curious.”
The archer nods and heads to the door, looping her bow over her shoulder. Khavar keeps glaring at Aladdin, her snake coiling around her arm and resting its head on the back of her hand.
Aladdin swallows hard, his eyes fixed on the reptile. “Look, even if what you say is true, I don’t have the ring. Maybe Xaxos didn’t pass on the message, but I never had it to begin with. Not that I didn’t try.” He laughs and lifts a shoulder. “I am the best thief in—”
“You’re lying.” The leader stands up and crosses her arms. “Two nights after I had Xaxos hire a thief to steal the ring, Darian rode out like a madman in the middle of the night, his best soldiers with him. He hasn’t been seen for days. There’s only one object he would go to such lengths to recover. You did steal that ring, and now you’re going to give it to me.”
“What do you want with it?” he asks. “Who are you? A revolutionary? A thief? What’s your name?”
The girl only stares at Aladdin, her brow creasing. She seems to waver for a moment, then she looks up at one of her girls and nods.
“Nessa, tell him.”
Nessa, the quietest of the group, steps behind the leader and pronounces in a low voice, “Aladdin rai Mustapha, pay your respects to your king’s daughter, your princess, and your sovereign, Caspida nez Anadredca of Parthenia, Heiress to the Throne, Jewel of the Amulens, the Beloved of the Gods, and First Daughter of the Anadredcan Dynasty.”
Startled to my core, I stare with new eyes at Caspida. I have known an Anadredca before: Queen Roshana Mithraya nez Anadredca. This girl is your descendant, Habiba. Your heir. Could it be, after everything that happened that day, that your bloodline lived on? That your little daughter was saved from the destruction and smuggled out of Neruby and crowned amid the ruins of your empire?