While I waited for someone to fetch me, I peered around the room. I hadn’t been in the daughters’ tower before. After Saalim left, Nika quickly retreated back downstairs with a harried demand that I not move. How long had it been since she left?
The chairs around me had a swirling pattern both embroidered on the fabric and carved into the wood. The table held a single metal basin with decorative petals that rendered the lip jagged. The water inside was rose-scented, and five smooth stones sat at its base.
Now there should be only four.
With Saalim’s declaration still ringing in my ears, everything began to make sense. Why Kas had been strangely familiar, why he had known so much of the palace, of Saalim, why he had taken so much interest in Saalim and me, why he was colluding with the Darkafa: He was Saalim’s brother. He was the king’s second-born son, but he was the first of the king and queen.
I clutched at my chest. The second-born Son will put the first-born to death. It was not about Eiqab and Wahir at all. Kassim planned to kill Saalim, because he believed he was the rightful heir to the throne.
Could Kassim, then, be responsible for the attack on Madinat Almulihi that had resulted in the deaths of his family? I remember Saalim telling me how Zahar had turned him into a jinni. Was she involved with Kas? Had he somehow recruited Zahar to his cause? It seemed impossible, yet how many times had Kas boasted to me about the ease of rallying an army?
A garbled sound came from behind me. More than one set of footsteps clapped down the stairs from the room overhead.
“Don’t rush,” a soft voice said. “That is how we fall.”
I turned just as Mariam and a small person—a child?—arrived in the sitting room.
“Oh!” Mariam exclaimed when she saw me. The child, who I quickly realized was blind, startled at Mariam’s cry and pulled a metal box to her chest.
“It’s nothing to fear,” Mariam said to the child, her voice calm. “A friend is here to see us. Emel is her name.”
The child made a strangled sound.
“Yes, Emel,” Mariam nodded as she led the girl to a chair.
I pressed my back into my own seat, watching this child as I would a predator.
“This is Bilara.” When Mariam said her name, the little girl’s face morphed into the most beautiful joy. Her eyes, despite being as white as the healer’s back home, glowed with happiness. Her mouth opened in a wide smile.
And then I saw that her tongue was not whole.
I had to look away.
Mariam must have seen the change in my face. “I don’t know how I guessed it; it was like a bird whispered it to me. But her response confirms it.” So the girl could not speak.
“Hello,” I squeaked. She seemed uninterested in me, staring only in the direction of Mariam.
“Are you well?” Mariam glanced at my blackened night dress. “I smelled the fire.” She put her hand on Bilara’s back.
“I am uninjured,” I confirmed. I still did not understand how I was so lucky. Nodding to Bilara, I asked, “Is this . . . family of yours?” Her fustan was too big on her, and its dark color made her pale skin even paler. The way she held her head, the way she curled her shoulders in . . . the box . . . there was something eerie about her that felt too familiar.
Mariam shook her head. “Someone the Darkafa kept. They left her unwatched. Two women found her at the docks. At first I thought they had taken her from her mother, but she has been so happy here. I cannot think a child well-tended would be this glad away from her family.”
The girl dug in her pocket and pulled out a sack. From it she retrieved sugar-coated dates similar to those I had with Kas what felt so long ago. Though those memories were happier, too, they were drenched with ignorance and lies.
“You had those with you all night?” Mariam flapped her hands and tried to take the sack away. “I swear this sack is always full, and I can’t figure out where she is getting them.” The girl popped a date into her mouth with a gleeful smile that even I could not resist returning with a smile of my own as she pulled both sack and box tighter to her chest.
“What is that?” I asked, gesturing at the box.
Mariam shrugged. “We found it chained to her, and she carries it with her always. I don’t know what is inside.”
Standing, I said, “Can I see your box? I will give it right back.”
Bilara swiveled her head toward me and hesitated, at first holding the silver box close to her. Then she slowly held it out.
Mariam’s mouth fell open in disbelief.
The box was warm in my hands, and I turned it carefully, looking at the tarnished swells and depressions. There was some kind of pattern to it. An ocean, I realized, set in front of a city. Madinat Almulihi?
A broken chain was attached to one end. The rings, imperfect circles.
I tried to open the box, but it did not shift. The metal rang with my effort. Bilara began wailing at the sound. She pocketed her sweets and reached in my direction.
“Give it back to her,” Mariam said, concern clouding her eyes. She shushed the child and cooed calming words. As soon as the box was back in Bilara’s hands, she soothed.
“It happens every time,” Mariam said as the child buried into her chest. “I’m sure we could find a way to get it open, but . . .” She petted the girl’s head, short wisps of hair as it grew back in. “It is hers. What good would it do us to upset her so?” I could tell this was not the first time she was discussing this. If the Darkafa kept a child who kept a silver box, I would also want to know what was inside.
Walking around the circular room, I could make sense of Edala and Nadia living here—the tapestries on the wall, the books on the shelves, the small trinkets. I glanced up the stairs, but that room belonged to Mariam and Bilara now. A pang of grief struck with the realization there were lives that had once walked this floor as I did. Lives that were snuffed out by . . . I prayed not by a jealous brother.
On one shelf was a small portrait. I had never seen anything like it. Two faces were framed in wood. The man’s face was familiar.
“Nadia or Edala?” I asked Mariam, pointing at the woman’s portrait.
“Edala. They’re unusual, aren’t they?”
There were likenesses of the royal family all over the city, but they were often similar to the tapestry presented at the parade. I had seen nothing so realistic before in my life.
“Oh!” Mariam said. “We were going down for morning meal, and I had completely forgotten. Bilara, no more dates. Let’s go to the kitchen.” Together, they left the tower.
Morning meal? Was it morning already? The sky through the windows dotting the room was indeed a deep blue. My eyelids were heavy, and hunger gnawed at my insides, but I had promised Nika I would stay.
As I lay on the bench, my mind whirled with all that had happened the day before: Kas with the Darkafa, the parade, the firepaint, the storm, Kas at my door, the fire.
Jerking upright, I remembered my things hidden by my bedside at Altasa’s.
“No!” I cried. They could not be burned. They could not be missing. It was all I had. “No, no, no.” I ran down the stairs. When I didn’t stop at the guard’s request, he followed me out to the gardens, where there were far fewer people now. The fire, it seemed, had died. I swerved around the people sweeping and shoveling.
A man tried to stop me when I ran through the burned remains of Altasa’s gardens.
“It is hot!” he called.
The man was right, the ground still smoldered. But I did not care of my feet; I wanted my things. Smoke was still heavy around Altasa’s home when I climbed into the ruins. I prayed to Eiqab, to Wahir, that my memories of Saalim, my life, were whole.
“Please,” I begged aloud.
When I turned into my room, black smudges marked the walls. I coughed from the smoke as I took in the surroundings. My bed was whole. My side table, too. Dropping to my knees before it, I slid open the drawer.
It was there.
It was all there.
I nearly cried in relief, pulling everything out one by one, uncaring of the smoke. I had to see it all, account for everything. Saalim’s gold-petaled cuffs—one of the first things I had noticed on him—which had once wrapped his wrists. Decorative bracelets, I had thought they were. I had been wrong. They were manacles.
My focus blurred. I now saw Kas, sitting across the table from me at the restaurant. His fingers laced through one another, the chains on his wrists hanging down on the tabletop. I never saw him without those chains.
Twin bracelets, they seemed.
“What would you wish for?” he had asked me, eyes flashing silver.
Suddenly it was all there: the cowrie on the nose of the snake, the empty table in the crowded drink house, the impossible light in the cave, the fire that sparked in Altasa’s home.
They weren’t bracelets on his wrists. They were manacles.
The brothers shared a common fate.
Kas—Kassim—was a jinni.
Nika found me in the gardens.
“The king and his men request your presence.”
“Why me?” I could not think of a place I belonged less than at the royal table with men speaking of war plans.
Her face was pinched in annoyance as she dragged me to the dining room, where Saalim and the others were already seated.
“Emel,” Saalim said. The chair scraped across the floor when he stood. He gestured to an empty seat, and I sat quickly. “She saw him, confirmed that it is my brother. That he started the fire.”
“Ah,” I said. “About that, Saalim—”
“How could she know it was Kassim?” Azim asked, with a mixture of relief and pain.
Saalim explained. “The name, the scar.” He hesitated. “The motive. We know he is colluding with the Darkafa. We need to find out how they know Kassim, and too,” he took a deep breath, “we need to find out if he is connected to the attack on the city.”
I nodded.
“He would never!” Azim stood, outraged. “He is your brother! King Malek’s son!”
Saalim was taller than Azim, and in the way the fury rolled off of him, he seemed stronger, too. “He was not here when Almulihi was attacked. Where was he? I refuse to believe the timing was pure coincidence. We know he disagreed with my father’s decision to make me his successor.”
There was silence now. Only the occasional swallow of wine or clunk of a shoe against the floor as legs shifted.
“I will go with you,” Saalim said at last, looking at Tamam.
“You cannot leave the throne empty again,” Azim said.
“And what of the wedding today?” Nassar said, exhausted.
The wedding. I had forgotten that was today. Where was Helena?
Saalim looked at Azim. “I can leave the throne. I will join the search for Kassim and Edala until they are found. I am their brother; it must be me who confronts them about their disappearance while our city was attacked and our family killed.”
Edala?
Then to Nassar he said, “This is no time for a wedding. I have spoken already with Helena.”
Nassar pressed his chin to his knuckles. “Saalim . . . the entire family is here. The arrangements, the guests that have traveled . . .” I heard the worry building as he considered how he was going to restore the celebration that had been so long in the making.
There was only small guilt for the relief I felt at hearing that the wedding was canceled.
Saalim looked at Nassar like he was a fool. “Our home was attacked by my brother. And somewhere out there, my sister is alive. Right now we face more pressing matters. Her family has a ship prepared. They depart today, and will wait until things have settled to return. You cannot be naïve to the possibility that they, too, do not wish to involve themselves in such affairs.”
“I will see that their departure is smooth,” Nassar said with saccharine obedience.
There was no amount of tacit begging I could do to make Saalim understand I wanted to speak with him. In fact, none of the guards seemed to pay me any attention. The only one who noticed the head-tilting and widening of eyes that I kept using to command Saalim’s attention was Nika, and she appeared as curious as ever.
“We will leave tonight,” Tamam said. “He cannot be allowed to travel far.”
Kassim had been seen leaving the city with a woman no one knew.
“We will continue to search for the Darkafa here,” Azim said, leaning his elbows on the table.
They were all sitting around that table, the great room draped elegantly as though it were a stage for this dramatic play. There was food in front of them all—a prop none touched.
“Emel,” Saalim said. Our eyes met, then his gaze dropped to the sack in my hands. A question passed across his face like a shadow, but it was gone as quickly. “I want you to come with us.”
There was murmuring. My mouth dropped open, and I clutched the sack more tightly.
Why?
“Is it wise?” Kofi asked, gaze flitting to me before looking back to Saalim.
“She has spent the most time with Kassim, was attacked by him. And,” he continued, holding out his hand as though it were obvious, “she knows the desert best of all of us.”
Nassar frowned, and for once, I agreed with him. I wanted to shake my head. I knew nothing of the desert, nor of Kassim.
But I was sure that I knew the most about jinn.