Chapter 20
The palace was humming when I returned, the halls uncharacteristically abuzz with whispering Khatti Ugalans.
Perhaps court had ended late or there was some other such gathering, but whatever all the excitement was about, it was enough to mask my arrival.
I quietly hunted the corridors as I headed for the apothecary, relieved to spot Dalila in an adjoining courtyard, chatting quietly with a knot of fellow healers.
All were unusually somber-faced, but the moment our gazes met, Dalila peeled off with a polite bow and headed straight for me.
“Where have you been?” she hissed, grabbing my elbow. Her critical gaze went from my disheveled headscarf to my dusty sandals in a brusque examination.
“I was on a walk.”
“You were supposed to be resting. And you were missed!”
Fear crawled across my skin. “Is that what everyone is gossiping about?”
A hint of trepidation flickered in Dalila’s eyes. “I hope not. Court was canceled mid-session and the queen pulled away. No one knows why.”
My heart skipped. “We need to talk,” I whispered. “Not here.”
That was all the warning Dalila needed, a guise of false calm slipping across her face as we discreetly left the bustling building.
Neither of us spoke until we were deep into a maze of ornamental trees and flower bushes bursting with fragrance.
A creek tumbled over a small waterfall, the noise loud enough to shield conversation.
Horribly thirsty after crossing the damned city—twice—I fell before the burbling stream, cupping my hands and drinking as much cold water as my teeth could stand.
“You look terrible,” Dalila said. “What in God’s name have you been up to?”
I splashed the icy water on my face. “I found another castaway.”
“Someone who was shipwrecked here?” Dalila asked. “From where? When?”
“A Persian. Twenty years ago.”
She let out a soft breath. “That’s a long time. Where did you find him?”
“In the forest.” When her brows rose, I added, “He was not . . . well. From the look and sound of things, he’s been living—barely—as a hermit in the woods.” I swiftly filled her in on Hasan’s tale, but the more I spoke, the more skepticism washed over her face.
“I cannot believe you spent all day running around in the hot sun,” she muttered when I was finished. “By God, it’s as though you’re trying to kill yourself.” She plucked a fold of parchment from the pleats of her garment. “Snort this. And drink more water. You should be lying down.”
I waved the parchment away. “I am not snorting anything. Nor am I lying down! Did you not hear anything I just said? We are trapped!”
“Amina.” Dalila’s voice cut through my fervor.
There was an odd expression. Concern, yes—but also pity.
“My friend . . . I believe that you believe this happened. But you are not well. And if you dash off, shouting that the woman helping us rebuild our ship and shelter our people is an evil demoness that made this man’s companions—‘fall apart,’ he said?
—while also causing the forest to bend around you?
They are going to think you mad. Too mad to hold our part of the deal, let alone sail away. ”
It took me a moment to untangle her words and when I did, they left me incredulous. “You think I invented this?”
Dalila reached for my hands, uncharacteristically empathetic. “No, I think you’re sick. Sicker than you realize and it’s causing—”
“Hallucinations?” I spat the word. “Dalila, I am married to a chaos spirit. I can fight with the strength of a dozen men and converse with djinn in the streets of Baghdad.” I tapped my chest where Khayzur’s feather lay hidden beneath my tunic.
“I know magic. We are—you are—literally on a supernatural quest, and the stories that Khayzur and Jamal related about Lab—”
“And what, Amina, do people say about you?” Dalila cut in. “About me?”
“What are you talking about?”
Dalila crossed her thin arms over her chest. “Are there not similar stories of how you are married to a djinn king and enjoy a different man each night on a bed of stolen treasure? Do our enemies not hiss that I am a witch who uses the bones of murdered children in my elixirs? Could it not be possible that an independent, impressive line of queens might attract similar exaggerations from the rare, dazzled man who made it out over the centuries?”
“Yes, but . . .” I pulled at my garments, gesturing to the garden that surrounded us with its unusual plants and fanged deer.
In the canopy of the willow tree, golden butterflies with a distinct metallic gleam floated among the flowers.
“Does an element of all this not feel unnatural? The people’s stupor and compliance?
The language with no similarities to anything we know, the lack of faith—”
“Or perhaps they have faith,” Dalila interrupted, heat in her voice. “It is just one different than that with which you are comfortable.”
I shot her a dark look. “You are too clever to believe the fact that they worship only their leader an innocent, unintentional act. The same leader who forbids them to leave.”
“That is not all they believe,” Dalila defended.
“Do you not spend time among the people? They simply focus on their day-to-day existence, their births and their deaths. They honor their queens as capable leaders, not divinities. It’s different than our beliefs, but that doesn’t make it unnatural.
Would you find it unnatural to be in Constantinople under Christian law? ”
“I have been under Christian law,” I argued.
Dalila had taken me to task before when it came to our religious differences, but this was different.
“I lead a crew with members of every faith who call the Indian Ocean home and have spent time in lands where all their religions rule. Whatever this place is . . . it is not that.”
“Because you find it strange? Fine, Amina. You’re correct: this place is bizarre. It’s refreshing. To not be constantly defined by my creed, by my sex, by my past? It feels like a dream.” She seemed to falter. “And there is opportunity here. Unlike anywhere else.”
It was such an oddly genuine and personal response from my most tight-lipped companion that I halted, staring at my friend.
Dalila looked at ease in the native garb, in the circle of scholars I had pulled her from, but I’d thought little of it, for she was nothing if not a professional con artist, able to blend in anywhere, adapt the language, the dress, the customs of her marks. She could pull off any guise, any role.
But it didn’t sound like she had much desire to give up this mask.
An irrational fear chased through me, one I didn’t know how to diplomatically express.
Hasan had warned that his people had been seduced by the magic of Khatti Ugal, lured and led astray.
Dalila and I shouldn’t be arguing; the woman I knew was paranoid, suspicious of everything and everyone.
That woman would already be in the woods with me.
“Dalila . . .” I started, uncertain how to proceed. “Is there something else going on?”
Her eyes flashed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“We came here in service of a con, recall? None of this was meant to be real. I understand that after Sarilaglag—”
“You understand nothing about Sarilaglag.” Her voice was harsh.
“You accuse me of being blind, but perhaps it is you, nakhudha, who refuses to see. I understand you are looking for proof of Khayzur’s story, of Jamal’s story, of hope rather than what is staring you in the face: the peris tricked you and it is very likely none of us will see home again.
” Frustration blossomed in her expression.
“So let me at least try and save you in this realm.”
“Save me?” My voice rose in an angry, disbelieving pitch—so loud I had to check myself.
We were going to be discovered if we kept arguing, but I didn’t seem to be able to get through to my friend.
“Save me from what?” When she refused to answer, I tried another tack.
“Just come to the border with me. Try and pass beyond the banners.”
Doubt was writ across her face. “And if we can’t leave?”
I pulled free Khayzur’s feather, unsticking my sweaty shawl. “I think I should try and summon Khayzur.”
“Oh, now you want to summon Khayzur? Were you not the one who warned how risky it could be to summon the peri without the spindle? To insist that he would not—could not—help us?”
“I don’t know what else to do!” I snapped. “We need to find the crew. Maybe if I summon him, it will break the spell and we can try and run to the Marawati . . .” It was an admittedly poor plan and I was rambling, but it was all I had.
New alarm blossomed in Dalila’s expression. “So you would leave Khatti Ugal?”
“Yes! Obviously.”
“No.” It was Dalila who now sounded slightly panicked. She closed the distance between us, putting her hands out like someone trying to calm a spooked horse. “I cannot leave. We cannot leave. I am too close.”
“Close?” I asked, flabbergasted. “To what?”
She was quivering now, the determination in her gaze reminding me of the mad hermit in the woods. “My work in the apothecary. The tonic. I’ve finally made a breakthrough—”
“This is about your experiments?” It was a mark of our friendship that I did not hurl Dalila into a thornbush.
Instead, I let out a stream of profanity and threw up my hands.
“To hell and back with your work!” I snarled.
“You think a blow to the head has affected my thinking? I am but a picture of reason in comparison to you!”
Dalila rushed to press a hand to my mouth, but I’d been ranting too long and too loudly for either of us to detect the silent steps approaching.
“Captain al-Sirafi.” The steward stepped out from behind a willow like a djinn from a rock—along with a dozen armed guards. “Doctor,” he added, nodding in Dalila’s direction. His voice was friendly, but there was an undercurrent of suspicious hostility in his eyes.
“Steward.” There was a tug on my neck and then Dalila stepped away from me, her expression calm. “What may we do for you?”
Her feigned politeness did nothing to soften Mitanni’s countenance. “Her Resplendency has urgent business with you both.”
“What sort of business?” I demanded, suddenly thankful I had refused the constant requests to stop wearing weapons.
“Nakhudha, I doubt the queen would summon us without cause,” Dalila chided, already returned to her role of the good doctor. She bestowed a gracious smile on Mitanni and walked toward the guards, leaving me little option but to follow. “Come.”
Stunned, I stared at her retreating back. Why was she agreeing so readily? I put a hand to my waist, itching to draw a blade.
Then noticed the sudden absence of a tickle at my chest. Khayzur’s feather was gone.
Dalila had taken it.
“Captain?” Mitanni prompted, clearly irritated at constantly having to deal with this foreign barbarian. “Will you be joining us?” he asked, with a nod to the guards surrounding me.
What choice did I have? Silently cursing my companion, I followed.