فصل 14

fourteen

I could see the mountains from Fahali, like ragged teeth in the afternoon haze. Amonpour was across those mountains, on the other side of the Dev’s Valley. And the border meant soldiers. We were stopped at the gates by the city guard, bored-looking Mirajin men in pale yellow, who flipped through our saddlebags lazily, chatting to Parviz as they did. Most of the caravan sank down to sit in the sand, leaning just inside the city walls while the bags were searched.

We’d walked with barely any rest since Dassama, only stopping in the darkest hours of the night when continuing might as well mean death by ghoul instead of by thirst. I remembered what Jin had said our first night in the desert: the desert didn’t let weakness live.

And we were still alive. We were Mirajin and we survived. Even as my legs gave out below me, I’d never been prouder to be a desert girl, among the Camel’s Knees.

A coin danced across Yasmin’s knuckles absently, catching the sunlight. Worry danced across her face quicker than the sunlight off the coin and vanished just as fast. Her palm tightened around the half-louzi piece. Parviz’s eyes veered away once too often as the guard rummaged through his belongings, his back too stiff. My hand drifted to my gun without really being sure what I was afraid of.

I looked around for Jin. I spotted him a good twenty paces away, pulling his hat low as he headed away from the caravan. My tiredness and my stiff legs forgotten, I pulled myself to my feet and dashed to catch up to him.

“Hey!” I shoved him in the shoulder, closing the distance a moment before he would’ve disappeared around a corner. In one movement, his hand was on my wrist, halfway to reaching for his gun before he realized it was me. He was jumpier than a barefoot beggar on hot sand.

“You ought to know better than to sneak up on a man like that, Bandit.” He dropped my arm, trying for lightness. I didn’t rise to the bait.

“And you ought to know better than to think you can sneak away from me.” We were far enough from the Camel’s Knees to not be overheard, but I kept my voice low all the same. “You’re hiding something.”

Jin laughed, though not like it was actually funny. Like he didn’t even know where to start. When he pushed his hand through his hair his sheema fell back. I was seeing him unobstructed, in the light of day, for the first time in weeks. “There are a lot of things you don’t know, Amani.”

That was probably true. Jin didn’t tell me much. There were just the moments when the walls he kept around himself cracked and I saw a hint of something through them, when he slipped and mentioned a brother, or a dead mother, but he closed those up fast enough.

“So what don’t I know about Dassama?” The memory of the scorched sand hung between us uneasily, ending any attempt at a joke he might’ve tried to make. We’d both seen a whole city gone up in flames. And he’d barely said a handful of words to me since then. Like he was avoiding me.

“Amani—” He reached for me, his hand dropping away just in time to hide a gesture that didn’t seem to belong to a brother in view of the caravan. I glanced behind me. They were still being searched at the gate. Colorful scarves unraveled in one of the guards’ arms, making Isra scold him as she snatched them back off the ground.

“You don’t have to carry on through the desert from here if you don’t want to.” My full attention came back to Jin. That wasn’t what I’d been expecting. He was watching me close, gauging my reaction.

“How do you reckon?” I asked warily.

“There’s a train. It runs from an outpost a few hours’ walk outside Fahali. It goes straight to Izman. You could be drinking arak in the shade of the palace walls in fewer days than I have fingers, if you wanted.”

A train. Like the one he’d pulled me off all those weeks ago on the other side of the desert. A straight shot to the capital, after sixteen years of aiming for it, and he was offering it to me. And I’d never see Jin again. That was what he was really offering me: a way out of this. To turn my back on Dassama and what he knew and walk away to the life I’d always wanted. Or always figured I did.

“And if that’s not what I want?” I had traitor eyes and there was no way he could mistake my meaning.

He took a deep breath. I couldn’t tell whether it was relief or resignation. When he inhaled I could see the Xichian sun over his heart rise just above the horizon of his shirt collar. “I told you in Sazi that the Sultan was building weapons for the Gallan. But it wasn’t just guns.”

“What do you mean?” The factory outside of Dustwalk had made nothing but guns my whole life. Jin’s jaw worked, like he was testing the words. I’d watched him cross paths with death and dodge it with a wry tilt of the hat a half dozen times now. This was something different. This was something more than just him in trouble.

“There were rumors of another weapon,” he said finally. “Something they were making far down in the south. A bomb that could level whole cities like the hand of God itself. Whole countries even.”

Whole countries like his. He’d told me other things about the Gallan: That they were building an empire at the borders of countries around them as their magic faded. A weapon like the one that had destroyed Dassama would let them swallow other countries whole.

“We thought it might just be something being spread to scare folks,” Jin went on. “But in the end better safe than dead.” He let out a long exhale, but my own breathing was feeling shallow. “So I was sent down to the end of civilization to see what I could find. And lo and behold there’s a monster of a weapons factory. I figured even if there was no great leveler of civilizations, this was something. Something that might be able to cripple the Gallan for a little while, stem their supply of guns to their armies overseas. When I blew it up I thought any great weapon that could slaughter cities would go up with it. Judging by the burnt Oasis, Naguib got it out first. If the Sultan’s made a weapon like this for the Gallan, they won’t need a single bullet to bring the whole world to its knees.”

I thought I understood fear. I’d grown up in Dustwalk. But that was a restless fear, the kind that made me want to run. This was the kind that crawled up from the bottom of your gut and told you there was no running. The kind that made you go still from it.

“And Dassama was—”

“A testing ground,” he filled in grimly. “Commander Naguib must’ve taken the weapon up to Izman to hand it over. But they would’ve needed a testing site. Some place where the Gallan would be able to see it for themselves.” And the Sultan had given them one of his own cities, with his own people, so they could test a bomb that would cripple the rest of the world. “Dassama was a large Gallan base, but rumor had it they were losing control of the city to the rebellion.” I remembered the night we’d met in Deadshot. A new dawn, a new desert. The rebellion. The Sultan was allied with the Gallan. Holding his power depended on them. I’d never figured that the Rebel Prince might mean getting rid of the Gallan as well as the Sultan. I supposed the Gallan had.

“And you think the weapon is here?” I said. “In Fahali?”

“This is the only city within spitting distance of Dassama,” Jin said. “Rumor has it the Gallan have doubled their numbers here in past months, searching for the Rebel Prince.” He smiled, like at a private joke.

It’d be petty to yell at him about this. About not telling me. About turning around and walking away from the caravan without a word. “You’re going to get us both killed if you go off looking for it on your own, you know. And if I was going to die on account of you, I’d rather have done it weeks ago before I had to do all this walking.” So maybe I was a little petty.

“Amani, you are not a part of this if I—” Jin stopped abruptly. My eyes followed his behind me. I saw a flash of blue uniforms. It was all I needed to see.

Jin grabbed my hand as I moved to run, pulling me sideways instead, into a narrow side alley. The cool of the shade folded over me, and we both flattened ourselves in the shadows as the Gallan soldiers descended on the Camel’s Knees.

“All caravans must submit to inspection.” The Gallan soldier spoke Mirajin with a thick accent that came from the back of his throat and made it sound like he was gargling water while talking.

“We’ve already searched them.” One of the Mirajin guards stepped forward. “They have nothing. We were about to release them, sir.”

“We are to search again. Orders of General Dumas.” The Gallan soldier waved his men forward even as the caravan drew back.

The city guard had moved through the caravan’s bags like a lazy desert heat, but the Gallan soldiers tore through like a storm, only with more ill will. I stared as bags were ripped off of camels’ sides, what was left of our supplies emptied into the street. Yasmin was forced to raise her hands above her head while the Gallan soldiers searched her slowly.

Then there was a shout. A young Gallan held up what was left of one of the saddlebags. He’d sliced into it with a knife, peeling the layers of leather apart, and he was holding what looked like a thin silk bag. He tipped it sideways and something fell out, scattering in the afternoon wind. It looked like fine blue thread, almost like hair. Jin swore.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Medicines.” Jin said. “Only ones made from magic, not science.” That couldn’t be right. There were plenty of desperate charlatans across the desert who sold red water and claimed it was cure all Djinni blood, but nobody believed in that. But then, they didn’t hide it in the linings of their saddlebags, either. “Magic’ll cost anyone his head,” Jin said grimly. “Figures that Parviz wanted to avoid the city.”

I watched as Parviz was dragged forward and shoved to his knees in front of the soldier who’d spoken Mirajin. My hand flew to my gun at the same moment that the Gallan soldier pulled out his. My anger was sudden. They didn’t belong in our desert. They didn’t belong in my bloodline, either. I was a desert girl. I hated that half of me came from these foreigners.

I could shoot him.

The thought slid into my mind as neatly as a bullet slotted into a gun. It might not save Parviz, but I could try. Before I could move, Yasmin burst forward, shoving her way past the Mirajin guard. She flung herself between her father and the soldier, straight into the line of my shot. The soldier’s gun didn’t drop; it just stayed trained on Yasmin now instead of Parviz. His finger went to the trigger. Mine was already there.

“Stop.” The Mirajin guard stepped forward. “You will not shoot him here.”

“It is law that he be executed,” the Gallan soldier said. “General Dumas’s orders.” He said the name again, as if it carried the weight of God’s own command.

“It’s law for smugglers to stand trial before execution,” the Mirajin guard countered. “Prince Naguib’s orders.”

I felt Jin stiffen behind me at the name the same time as I did. Naguib was here. Commander Naguib, who had held a gun to my head and shot Tamid through the knee. Of all the people to save them. The pistol was reholstered.

I sagged back against the cool wall as the caravan was rounded up to be imprisoned. Jin and I stayed still in the mouth of the alley. When we couldn’t hear footsteps anymore, his body relaxed against mine.

“You know, I never believed in fate until I met you,” he said, tipping his head back against the wall with a deep sigh. “Then I started thinking coincidence didn’t have near so cruel a sense of humor.”

“You’re a real charmer, anyone ever tell you that?”

“They have, actually, but usually they say it without rolling their eyes.”

We leaned back in silence. A line of laundry drifted lazily above us in the afternoon heat as I took stock of the situation. We were stuck in a city with the Gallan, their great destroyer of cities, and Naguib, and now the caravan was gone. “We need to get out of here,” I said.

“And what about everyone else, Bandit?” Every time he called me that it made something inside me pull toward him that I couldn’t quite shake. “Planning to leave them all behind?”

I wasn’t planning on leaving you behind. “I’m not planning anything,” I said instead. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.” But now that I did think about it, Jin was right. I knew what most of the Camel’s Knees would do if they were me. This was the desert. You took care of yourself and your own. The rest got left in the sand to die. Like Tamid.

“There’s a train straight to Izman tomorrow,” Jin said. “That’s about as far ahead as you need to think.”

“So come with me.” The words were out too quick. “You’re not going to find the bomb here without getting yourself killed. You’ve got to know that. And if we stay much longer, both of us are going to wind up dead.”

Something between us seemed to still. I watched the slow rise and fall of his shoulders as he took a deep breath. Then a second one. A third. “All right.”

“All right?” I’d been ready to argue and drag him out of here. But all the fight had gone out of him with those two words. “That’s it? You’re not going to smart-talk your way around me?”

“All right,” Jin repeated. He spread his hands wide like he was surrendering, though the grim set of his mouth made it seem like he’d rather do anything but. “You’re right. So what do you suggest we do?”

I was feeling bolder than I ever had. “We could just keep running, Jin. If we had to.”

“You mean if I wanted to.” His eyes searched mine, and for one second they looked as dark and focused as they had in the few moments after he’d kissed me on the train. My eyes were probably as wild as that second, too. The last time we’d really stood this close. On the edge of living or dying. Of wanting and needing.

“Tell me we couldn’t do it.” Jin interrupted my thoughts. “Tell me that the two of us together, we couldn’t get every one of the Camel’s Knees out of the city alive if we really tried. Hell, tell me you couldn’t do it on your own if you set your stubborn head to it.” A small smile was creeping back. “Tell me that and we’ll walk away. Right now. Go and save ourselves and leave them to die. All you’ve got to do is say the word. Tell me that that’s how you want your story to go and we’ll write it straight across the sand to the sea. Just say it.”

My story.

I’d spent my life dreaming of my own story that could start when I finally reached Izman. A story written in far-off places I didn’t know how to dream about yet. And on my way there, I’d slough off the desert until there was nothing left of it to mark the pages.

Only Jin was right. I was a desert girl. Even in Izman I would still be the same Blue-Eyed Bandit with a hanged mother, who left her friend dying.

He didn’t need me to answer, not really. I gave myself away too easily. Or maybe he just knew me too well. “Any ideas, Bandit?”

And that easily we were a team again.

I tilted my head back. Between two windows, laundry drifted lazily in the hot desert wind. “Some.”

• • •

I WAS DRESSED as a girl for the first time since I’d left Dustwalk. The plain blue khalat we’d stolen off a clothesline was too tight around my arms with my boy’s clothes on underneath.

“I’d almost forgotten you were a girl under there.” Jin looked me over, hands hooked above his head. He still looked rumpled from sleep. Exhaustion had gotten the better of us while we waited for the cover of dark, and we’d both fallen asleep slumped inside an alleyway narrow enough to hide us. I’d woken with a stiff spine and Jin’s arm slung across me like he was trying to keep me from running out on him in his sleep again. But there was no chance of that. I was done leaving people behind.

“Did you want to be the girl?” I asked, readjusting the red sheema I’d wrapped around my waist like a sash.

“You make a prettier girl than I do.” He winked at me, and I rolled my eyes at him.

The plan was simple. I was going to walk into the city barracks and walk back out with information on where the prison was. The city barracks housed the Mirajin guard most of the time, but it seemed like half of them were camping in tents while the Gallan army housed their soldiers. Once we knew where they were we’d be able to work on getting the Camel’s Knees out. If anyone questioned me I was to say I was there to get water, just like the stream of women going in and out all day.

As it turned out, rumors were running freer than the pumps in Fahali. The Camel’s Knees weren’t the only caravan to turn up lips cracked and gasping out news of Dassama. The city’s supplies were stretched thin under the weight of the extra people, caravans and soldiers alike. Water was being rationed, and half the wells and pumps were closed. But not the one in the barracks.

“I’ll be nearby if you get in trouble. Just stay in sight.” He nodded above at a rooftop with a decent overview of the barracks—decent enough that a good shot might be able to hit a soldier on the inside. I was the better shot. But he was right: I also made the better girl. Which meant I was counting on Jin to cover me.

It was a short walk to the army barracks, but the streets were busy in the cool just before dusk. I kept my eyes low as I fought my way through the crowds in the last of the setting sun. I’d near forgotten what it felt like to be a girl in Miraji. I was inconspicuous, but not the way I’d been as a boy. Not because I was the same as everyone else. Because I didn’t matter.

Nobody in Miraji had ever thought enough of a girl to imagine I might be a spy.

The barracks were four long, low buildings painted in white around a dusty square. Besides the prison there’d be sleeping quarters, kitchens, storage, and the stables. That’s what Jin had told me, at least. All I had to do was figure out which one was the prison and get back out.

I tried to look like I was keeping my eyes on my feet as I walked through the dusty yard. There were soldiers practicing with guns and various targets. One of the Gallan soldiers had a gun with a sharp end like I’d never seen before. He fired at a cloth figure of a man before ramming forward, driving the sharp tip through the dummy’s stomach.

In the middle of the square was the water pump with three Gallan soldiers stationed at it, taking coin from anyone who wanted to use it. A line of women holding pails on their hips snaked out from the pump. They all kept their eyes low, like they were trying not to be noticed by all the armed men around them. I didn’t have a bucket. I just had to hope nobody noticed, or there’d be more questions than I was fit to answer.

The girl at the front of the line was about my age and dressed in a dusty pink khalat. A small child was hanging off the hem, sucking her fist. The girl in pink’s hands were empty of coin, but she was begging, her eyes red from crying. I heard a sliver of her conversation as I passed. Her family, they were thirsty, she was saying. Thirsty and poor. She couldn’t pay the new tax on water, but she was begging for their pity. The soldier’s eyes swept her with the same look the parched women were given the water pump.

Two Gallan soldiers leaned in and said something to each other in their ugly foreign language. Then one of them with pale eyes like mine and unnaturally yellow hair gestured to the girl to follow him. The girl knelt down and pried the child from her khalat, handing her the bucket. I was too far away now but I guessed she was telling the little girl to stay put. The little girl took a staggering step to follow all the same, but one of the other women in line grabbed her, holding her back. Even holding the child, she spat at the girl in pink.

“Foreigner’s whore!” she called, loud enough for me to hear. The girl in pink shrank away.

I thought of my mother. Anger spurred me toward them before I could think better of it. I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t even have a weapon, but I’d figure that out on the way.

I was five steps behind them when two figures I recognized emerged from a doorway, making me stop short. Commander Naguib was wearing a golden Mirajin uniform with twice as many buttons as when I’d seen him in Dustwalk the first time. He looked like he was trying to stand straight enough to make it fit him right. The Gallan next to him, on the other hand, seemed like he was born in his uniform. He was old enough to have been Naguib’s father, and a head taller. Red tassels hung off his uniform, but instead of making him look like a cushion, they reminded me of scars. The soldier dropped the crying girl’s arm and snapped into a salute of his commanding officer. “General Dumas, sir.”

So this was the Gallan general. The one whose name they spoke like it carried the weight of the law. Who’d moved half an army here to hunt the Rebel Prince. Who’d had a whole desert town razed as a testing site for a weapon to conquer the world.

I might be inconspicuous as a woman, but Naguib was bound to recognize me. I turned away quickly, eyes searching for an escape. There was a doorway to my right. Holy words were etched into the wood in a deep scrawl. That could only mean one thing: a prayer house. The Gallan did not worship the same god, Jin had told me that. The door came open under my hand and I plunged through blindly, slamming the door behind me.

The sound of praying greeted me, mingled with sobbing.

The last of the day’s light was trickling in between the lattice of the windows. It was uneven where the wood had rotted away. Where the light hit the floor I could see that the tiles had been smashed to dust. As my eyes adjusted to the dark I realized the praying was coming from a girl, sprawled on her knees, her hands shackled to the wall. Her face was pressed to the ground, hidden behind matted hair that looked almost red-tinted in the dying sunlight. Like dye. Or blood.

Something else shifted in the gloom. And then a golden army uniform stepped into the light. I pulled back, toward the door, but it was too late. He’d seen me.

“Here to pray?” the soldier asked, a tinge of sarcasm in his voice. Something rattled on his wrists. More chains. This wasn’t a prayer house after all, not anymore at least. It was part of the prison. “We don’t have a Holy Father, but you’re welcome to join us all the same.”

For one stupid moment I could’ve sworn the words came from Tamid. I stumbled back to a hundred dusty days kneeling side by side with Tamid, saying holy words. Then I found my footing in the present, where Tamid was dead. It was just the accent, I realized. It was tainted with something that sounded like the Last County. But there was something else familiar about it, something that wasn’t quite Dustwalk but that I knew all the same. Finally his face caught the light, with its unnaturally pale eyes, and the memory came fully formed.

“I know you,” I said. From the other side of the desert, in my uncle’s shop, when Jin hid below the counter and Commander Naguib stepped inside. This desert is full of sin. The smart-talking scrawny kid with eyes like mine who’d flanked his commander.

“And I know you.” He frowned as he dropped his hands, the manacles rattling over the sound of the girl’s praying. His sallow face twisted in thought before he hit on it. “You’re the girl from the shop.”

“So is this where smart-talking your commander lands you?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself.

“No.” His accent seemed to get thicker from talking to me, and I heard my own dropping back into the Last County lilt. “I’m just special.”

“You’ve got a mighty fine opinion of yourself.” The girl’s praying got louder. “And what about her?”

“She’s special, too,” the soldier said.

I supposed they must’ve made Commander Naguib angier than most to warrant being locked away here instead of with the rest of the criminals. “And where would you two be if you weren’t special?” I asked.

The young soldier looked straight through me. “You wouldn’t be trying to find the prison, now would you?”

I ran my tongue over my dry lips nervously. I shouldn’t trust him. He was a soldier. But he was a prisoner, too. And that ought to mean we were on the same side. Or at least that we had the same enemy.

“If I helped you get out of here, would you tell me where it is?” I touched the manacles on his hands. His wrists felt feverish. I’d promised Jin I wouldn’t do anything stupid. But if we were getting the caravan out, we might as well get everyone else out, too. Jin could pick a lock. He’d told me that in the desert. One of those times he’d started to talk about something he’d learned along with his brother before cutting himself off.

“And where would I go?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. We were both an awfully long way from home. “Wherever you wanted.”

A gunshot from outside made me jump. Then everything went quiet again. Everything but the girl’s praying.

“Amani.” My name in the young soldier’s mouth caught me off guard. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

“How do you know that?”

“Your cousin talked about you a whole lot. The pretty one with the dark hair.” Shira, selling me out on the train. Who they must’ve brought along to find me and, through me, Jin.

“What happened to her?” I asked. She’d tried to get me killed. I shouldn’t care. “Is she alive?”

“She wasn’t as useful as she made herself out to be to the commander. Though maybe it was more that you weren’t where you ought to be. She got left with the Sultan in Izman.” The Sultan had once beaten a woman he’d loved to death. What’d happen to a girl who meant nothing to anyone in Izman?

“I’m Noorsham,” he said. “Since you didn’t ask and all.” And what would happen to this poor scrawny kid from the end of the desert with too smart a mouth to be a soldier?

Voices came from the other side of the door. The girl’s praying doubled. I stood up sharply.

“You ought to hide,” Noorsham said, his blue eyes locked on mine seriously.

Heart pounding, I rushed away from the lamplight. There was no light at the back of the huge prayer-house-turned-prison. I pressed myself into the shadows just as the door opened. Naguib and General Dumas entered. Jin had said he didn’t believe in fate until he met me, and I was starting to think he was right. The only thing between me and getting caught was a thin veil of darkness and Noorsham not selling me out.

But Naguib and General Dumas paid no mind to Noorsham. They stopped in front of the praying girl instead.

“This is her?” General Dumas’s Mirajin was cleaner than the soldier’s who’d arrested the Camel’s Knees, like it’d been worn smooth by years of practice. His eyes flicked to Noorsham, “And this one?”

“Just a soldier who cannot obey a simple order,” Naguib said. Even I knew disobeying a direct order meant execution in the army. If I didn’t get Noorsham out, he’d be dead at dawn.

“Disobedient soldiers are a failing of their commander,” General Dumas said. Naguib’s jaw twitched. “It means they do not respect you.” The general drew his gun. The girl’s head was still pressed to the ground. General Dumas grabbed her hair, yanking her up. Her prayer turned to a scream of pain.

“Please,” she begged. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

“Unlock her fetters,” the Gallan general ordered. Naguib bristled at the command, but the general either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Naguib did as he’d been told, turning the lock on the girl’s manacles.

The moment the manacles dropped away something happened to the girl. The features in her face started shifting. Her chin changed to a longer point, her nose flattened itself, her eyes pushed further back into her head before dropping again. She was frantically going from one face to another, like she was shuffling through a deck, trying to find the right card to play to save herself. Was she a Skinwalker? She sure as hell wasn’t human.

The general watched with disinterest before he finally pressed the gun to her forehead. Her shape-changing stopped instantly, and she was frozen as a girl with round cheeks and a high brow, her hair still wrapped painfully around the Gallan general’s fist.

I felt helpless. Standing in the dark, invisible, as someone else was about to die in front of me. The same way I had when Tamid was held across from me, a gun to his leg.

The prayer for the dead echoed loudly off the walls. It reached its crescendo as she called out for forgiveness of her sins. I squeezed my eyes shut.

Then a gunshot. I felt it down to my gut.

The praying stopped abruptly. I bit down on my thumb, trying not to scream.

“You will have her body burned.” The general’s voice swirled out of the dark. “And tell any who asks we have taken her prisoner.”

When I opened my eyes again she was slumped on the ground, motionless, blood pooling around her ruined forehead. Noorsham had drawn away against a wall, as far as his chains would go, and was staring at the body, too.

“Why?” Naguib said. His voice was flat for once—it had lost that clipped edge. “She’s already dead. What’s the point in pretending?”

“It is one of the games we play, young prince. Your father and I.” The Gallan general holstered his pistol. “I was there, the night of the coup, you know. The night your father took the throne. I was only a young soldier then. But I stood behind my general as your father made an agreement with him, and I know what was said better than most. Even my king, perhaps. I know that in public, the Sultan agreed to our authority, but he did not agree for us to strip your country of its sinful demon worship you call religion. But I also know what went unspoken but understood.”

Naguib took a breath like he was going to respond, but the general barreled on, seeming to gather momentum as he spoke.

“My mother, too, lay with a demon, much as your father’s wife did—the mother of that rebel son he cannot seem to control. My mother gave birth to this squalling and green creature instead of a baby. My father did as he should do. He had my mother bound in iron and thrown into the sea to drown. The baby he gave to me to deal with. It looked like it came from the ground. So I returned it to the ground. It was still screaming when I shoveled dirt over it.”

I saw Naguib’s throat constrict, as if he were swallowing his reply.

“When that demon child was born in the Sultan’s palace, I admired your father for taking it upon himself to kill his wife by his own hand, following Gallan law. I remember thinking we had made the right choice in this man who saw eye-to-eye with Gallan values, though not all of your country agreed. And so, to keep the peasants quiet, we pretend these children of demons will be tolerated, and quietly, they are handed over to us and forgotten about. But your city guard tried to hide this prisoner from us and deliver her to you instead.”

“The city guard is unused to such a large Gallan presence here. They do not know your ways.” Naguib sounded like a kid quibbling with a parent.

“This desert is wavering,” the Gallan general ignored him. “Your rebel brother’s foothold is getting stronger. And Dassama is a great loss to us.”

“He’s not my brother,” Naguib spat. “My father has rejected him.”

“You are a greater insult to him as a brother than he is to you,” General Dumas snapped. “Rumor in Izman is that your father speaks often of how he wishes his faithful sons were as strong and clever as his dissident one. Do you think I do not know that you scorned him by coming here on your demon-breed sand horses?”

Sand horses. He meant Buraqi. My heart jumped.

One Buraqi was all it had taken to distract Dustwalk enough for Jin to slip out and blow up the factory. If there was more than one, that could be one hell of a distraction.

“There is no law—” Naguib began.

“No, just the games we play,” General Dumas interrupted him. He took a step forward, and Naguib faltered back. “I earned my first rank because I killed three of your uncles the night of your father’s coup—men who had supported the sinful ways of magic and demons like your grandfather. I am very good at disposing of princes. I am here to find and kill your brother, but I decide who my enemies are, young prince.”

“My father—”

“Your father has more sons than there are hours in the day. I wonder whether he would even notice you were gone?”

General Dumas turned on his heel and walked away. Naguib lingered, and he and Noorsham both watched the general go. When his steps had faded. Naguib spoke again, to Noorsham, too low for me to hear. And then Naguib was gone, too.

I leaned against the wall for a long time, shaking, the last of the light fading around us.

“Amani?” Noorsham called into the dark. I didn’t have much time. Jin would try to come after me soon.

“Noorsham.” I stepped out from the shadows. I could just make him out in the lamplight leaking through the cracks of the door from the yard outside. He looked scared. “Tell me where the prison and the stables are, and I’ll get you out of this.”

• • •

I WONDERED IF Jin could see me on my rooftop perch from his. It was dark now, and even the light of a full moon wasn’t enough to make out a single form plastered on a roof above the barracks with a gun. He’d told me not to do anything stupid. But it was damned stupid of them to leave a window open in the stables. And I’d be damned stupid if I didn’t take advantage of it.

I gripped the edge of the roof and eased myself off slowly, my foot looking for purchase on the windowsill. More than once, I’d climbed in and out of Tamid’s window with a bruised-up back to trade him one of my hoarded books for some of his pain pills. I could hang on to the edge of the roof the same way I used to hang off Tamid’s window ledge and do just fine. Or at least have about the same chance of cracking my skull open as I did then.

The window was barely wide enough for a body. I had to slide through it like I was trying to thread a needle with a piece of wool. Stone scraped across my hips.

I took a breath and let go.

For one wild second all I could see was the stars and all I could think of was the foolishness of immortal things who’d never seen death and so didn’t know to fear it.

The windowsill scraped across my back, taking skin with it. My elbow cracked against stone a second before my feet hit the ground hard enough to buckle every joint I had.

I let out a string of profanities in Mirajin and every language Jin had taught me to curse in as I dragged myself to my feet. There were a dozen stalls facing each other on either side of me, wooden doors with iron bolts.

The air in the stables felt like the desert sky before a sandstorm. I could feel it down to my bones. Dozens of bodies shifted audibly, penned into their stalls, magic chafing against iron. As I stood to my full height, I could see them now, heads peering out over the doors of the stalls curiously.

Buraqi.

I’d never seen this many immortal creatures in my whole life, let alone in one place; all but a handful of the two dozen stalls were full. But I supposed since they lived forever, the Sultans of Miraji had had plenty of time to stock the palace stables over the years. I wondered if any of them were the Buraqi from legends. The ones ridden by hero princes into battle or across the desert to save a beloved before night fell.

The iron bolt on the first stall door slid back with the sort of clang that ought to have woken the dead. Instead it seemed like everything stilled all around me. I took a deep breath, my fingers pressing against the cold iron. I pushed the door open before I could lose my nerve.

The head that rose to look at me was the color of sun at high noon over a sand dune. I stepped forward carefully. I was raised a horse trader’s niece; I’d learned to take a shoe off a horse almost as young as I learned to shoot a gun. Even in the dark, the familiar work came to my hand easily. The Buraqi shook its head restlessly as the fourth shoe dropped to the ground. Might take a while to peel the taste of iron from its skin and shake off its mortal shape, but I didn’t have time to wait. I was on to the next stall already, to a Buraqi the color of cool dawn light over dusty mountains. The next one was the endless dark of the desert at night.

All the Buraqi were moving now. Starting to raise their heads beyond the iron doors of their stalls. Starting to shift from flesh to sand and back again, like they were gathering themselves up into a hurricane while I crawled like the heat on a windless day until they were all freed.

Buraqi might be immortal creatures, but that didn’t mean they liked gunshots any more than a regular horse. I pressed myself against the wall as I raised the barrel of my gun skyward and fired.

The Buraqi exploded from their stalls, shattering them in their wake. I flinched, squeezing my eyes shut as flesh, sand, and wind churned around me. They were so far from mortal now, more like desert storms in the shape of horses, and nature had torn down more walls than men’s hands ever would. Hoofbeats rang around the stables, making my teeth clatter. And then a noise like an explosion. When I opened my eyes the wall into the barracks had collapsed.

I raced through debris into the chaos I had created. The Buraqi had torn into the training ground, taking half of it with them—most of one wall had already caved in and what was left looked like it had a mind to follow. Soldiers in every color of uniform, and some out of uniform, were pouring out. The Gallan were drawing guns, but the Mirajin knew better. There was no fighting a sandstorm with pistols. A man with a blue shirt half buttoned raised a pistol, taking aim, only to disappear below the hooves of one of the Buraqi. Soon, human screams joined the Buraqi’s.

The Buraqi were beasts of the desert, and they’d make their way back into the sand. Sure enough, even as I watched, two of them ripped through another wall, bursting free into the streets. In the chaos I noticed more people pouring into the yard now. Women and children, folks in desert clothes. I recognized Yasmin first; she was frantically pumping water into a huge leather skin hanging from the camel, trying to resupply before the desert.

Noorsham. I’d near forgotten him in the chaos. I turned toward the prayer house and slammed straight into Jin.

“What did I say about not causing any trouble?” There was a laughing glint in Jin’s eyes and he was holding me off balance, close enough that he could tug and I’d fall straight into him.

“It worked, didn’t it?” I fired back.

“No arguing with that.” He let go of one of my arms. “And now we’ve got to run while we’ve still got a distraction.” He eyed the path of destruction created by the Buraqi. “I’d say now’s the time.”

“No.” I went to tug him the other way. “There was a soldier. I promised I’d help him.”

Even as I pulled toward the prayer house, a Buraqi tore across my path, narrowly missing trampling me. Jin yanked me back. “Amani, we don’t have time. We need to go now while we’ve got a shot or we might not get out at all.”

I hesitated. I couldn’t leave behind another stupid desert kid too weak to survive the desert. Not when I could save this one.

“Amani,” Jin said again. “You’re damn good at keeping yourself alive. Don’t lose that now.” He was right. Noorsham wasn’t Tamid. I was too late.

I ran.

The streets were fast flooding with men and women from the caravan crowding each other for space, camels groaning, folks from Fahali shouting as they ran for safety.

We plunged in with the rest. One second I was staring into a terrified face, the next I was shoved against a wall. One second Jin was there, then his hand was torn from mine. And then I was alone, running in a crush of strangers. I stripped off my khalat as I went, turning myself back into a boy.

Gunshots sounded far behind us. I took a corner hard, my hands busy with tying my sheema, and I stumbled and went down. Hands were there, on my shoulders, pulling me to my feet. I looked back to see a man I didn’t know, keeping me from getting trampled.

I didn’t even have time to thank him before the crowd swallowed him and forced me on down the streets.

Open gates. The sight made my heart take off faster than the Buraqi had. My legs picked up speed, pumping twice as fast, carrying me forward like I was running on the winds and the sand, too. Forward. Forward. Out of the walls. Out of the trap. A shout of pure relief and joy and life on my lips.

And then all I could see was the sand and I forgot about everything. About fear. About bombs. About Jin. The desert reached out for us all with huge open arms. The churning mass that was chaos in the streets became order in the sand, welcoming us home.