Twenty-five

"Tell me everything." I leapt on Noor as soon as the carriage took off, trying to get the thought of Mazin pressing my hand to his lips out of my mind.

"Well, while you were making moon eyes at Mazin, I was gathering some useful information. The security in the palace is atrocious. I managed to get to the kitchens and gossip with the kitchen maids."

I leaned back as we hit a bump in the dirt road, the cloud of dust in our wake causing Noor to cough and rub her eyes.

"What did you hear?" I didn't wait for her to recover. I was eager to get back to the plan. Back to reality. Back to hating Mazin. I could feel myself slipping into familiar ways, and cursed myself for the hold he seemed to have over me.

"There is a group of rebels in the city," Noor said, still rubbing the dirt from her eyes, "fighting against emperor Vahid and calling him a usurper. They've caused significant problems throughout Basral, but apparently Vahid has tried to crush them with a crackdown on all protests."

"Hence his awful display today. Anam mentioned something similar—that there was a protest recently that turned into a bloodbath. And Mazin had been there."

Noor nodded. "Yes, Mazin was there. The rebels wanted to bring down Vahid and the control he has over zoraat in the empire. They say he doesn't belong on the throne, that he was only given it by a djinn."

"Not a terribly original argument," I said, looking out of the tanga at the red-gold city streets around us. The breeze from the speed of the tanga whipped through my hair as I watched people turn to us curiously. Most people kept their heads down in fear, scuttling through the streets as the noise of the carriage reached them. Of course they would; if they dared to protest against anything, the emperor would burn them alive.

Vahid had promised freedom, choice, a way out of poverty. Instead, the djinn power had corrupted him.

"Vahid himself tells the tale of being gifted zoraat from a djinn. He just acts like he was chosen to rule because of it, instead of being polluted so much by the magic of the unseen that he wanted to control it all."

I flexed my fingers, thinking of the last dose of zoraat I had taken just this morning. I thought of that black tendril of power curling around my finger like a snake under my skin. I still wasn't even sure if that was real, but if I wasn't careful, Vahid's greed might happen to me. I needed to remember that in all this, I couldn't allow myself to be taken by the djinn power too.

"You and I agree with the rebels' cause at least," Noor reasoned, and turned to look out to the city as well. The wind brushed the ends of her short curls, and she looked much younger in the afternoon sun. Something had changed about her, something I couldn't put my finger on. She seemed a little more focused after leaving the palace, and I wondered if being in Vahid's house had made her think of Souma.

"I think there is opportunity here," she continued.

"You mean work together with them? The rebels?" I leaned back against the plush seat and folded my arms over my chest.

It was a good idea. The seeds of antagonism were already there, we just had to add to it.

"Or at least help their cause. They want the same thing we do, to see this empire of lies fall." She hesitated and looked at me.

I noticed her nervousness. "What is it?"

"We can also use the zoraat in… other ways. Ways that Vahid won't see coming."

I looked back at the passing streets. A mother was on her knees clutching at her child who appeared ill. She wailed in distress, crying out for help. People walked past her doing nothing, leaving her to fend for herself. I signaled to our tanga driver to stop and handed him a bag of coins to give to the woman.

The emperor had the resources and power to help people, but he had chosen not to. In the end it would be his own actions that would bring him down, not ours.

I had been hesitant to use zoraat; the feeling of power flooding through my fingertips was far more seductive than I had thought. I didn't need its full power to achieve my revenge.

But perhaps it was about more than just my revenge. Maybe it was about giving Basral—about giving the empire—something different to hope for. And maybe it was time to step things up.

"Tell me how," I said to Noor, watching the sobbing woman clutch at the bag of coins with hysterical relief as she ran off with her child to visit a healer.

"When I was working under Souma, there were blends that we created to help the crops, to bring the rains, to flood the clay earth with growth. The emperor uses it all to help his own crops, to control the amount of food production and the prices of resources. But I can also do the opposite."

I chewed on my lip. "Target the crops, you mean?"

"Yes. The crops, the livestock. Creating a blight they wouldn't see coming."

"They'll think him cursed," I murmured, working it all out in my mind. "And more will rise up against him." I toyed with a tassel dangling from the edge of my sleeve. "But people will starve. They'll die."

"Not if we have our own food stores. We can purchase land bordering the city."

"It's a good plan."

She grinned. "Don't say I'm not useful just because I can't fight."

"I never said you weren't useful because you can't wield a sword, just that you weren't as useful," I corrected. "And besides, the beauty of a plan like this is we can take Vahid down while not looking suspicious, until his empire is crumbling around him."

"We can undermine his rule without even getting near him," agreed Noor.

I licked my lips, tasting the remnants of the rose petals from the chilled tea at the palace. I wondered briefly if Mazin's mouth would have the same lingering taste. I shook myself, not letting my thoughts fall further into the trap of him.

I didn't want to use zoraat more than I already had, but if I could undermine the emperor's rule using the magic, then it was worth the use.

My body reacted with dark elation at the thought of using the djinn power again.

It was like an itch at the back of my skull, a constant need that had begun to trickle out of a crack that was forming. But if I took more, it wasn't because I wanted to, it was only to put our plans into place. Once this was all done with, I would stop taking it.

An unsettling voice whispered at the end of my thoughts, that same voice that had spoken to me when I'd first touched the zoraat.

Revenge.

The word danced on the breeze.

More .

I leaned into it with a soft sigh.

That voice had known what I wanted, and it had tasted the anticipation on my tongue. It felt wild and troubling to listen to it, but it also felt as if I were about to dive off a cliff in the darkness.

The rush of using zoraat scared me, and whatever that voice was, whatever the zoraat was doing to me every time I consumed it, I didn't want to think about. But behind that fear was something darker, something more dangerous.

Want.

It was tugging at me like a consuming need, thrumming through my veins every time I breathed.

"Prepare the blend of zoraat to take Vahid down," I said to Noor, and turned to face her. She had the same look I felt in my heart. Not exactly happiness, but something a little closer to satisfaction.

"Give me something that will tear this city apart."

"What exactly am I looking at?"

"Just wait."

"Her?"

I pointed to the beautiful woman in front of the schoolhouse, the whitewashed building standing out in the wealthy neighborhood in the north end of the city. We were far from the dirt and stink of the shanties that brewed with discontent at the rising food prices and Vahid's control of healer magic.

Here the air smelled sweet, and the children and stray dogs were well-fed.

The woman I gestured to waited outside the school, her hair wrapped with an emerald dupatta, and she wore a simple white kurta. A loud bell rang and children began filing out of the schoolhouse, running to the nearby play park and scattering in all directions.

"Her," breathed Noor.

I followed her gaze to a young girl, no older than six, in a neat uniform, holding her book bag in front of her like a shield.

The woman in the green dupatta took her hand and together they walked away from the school and down a wealthy street near the palace.

"That girl is who Casildo values most." Noor crossed her arms over her chest and nodded.

"Casildo has a daughter." I exhaled at the information. "One who doesn't live with him."

"A daughter with his mistress. He keeps her hidden. What I've learned from tailing him the past few days is that he has more enemies than just you. He's cheated others in Basral. He's turned people in for bending rules that he himself bends."

"In other words, he keeps his daughter secret in case they come for him."

"But we are already here."

I stared at the girl's retreating form, her chubby legs not yet grown into her body. "Yes, we are."

Noor began preparing the blends we needed to damage the emperor's crops on the dressing table beside my bed, grinding up the different-colored seeds with a deftness that spoke to her doing this for a long time. She had to blend the zoraat in my room because it was off-limits to the servants. We couldn't risk anyone seeing the emperor's highly valuable djinn magic when it was so restricted in use. I eyed the ochre piles, knowing soon I would be consuming them, and a new power of zoraat would be at my fingertips once more. I tried to dampen the exhilaration my body felt at the thought.

Every time I ingested it, I felt the same burning pain, but also an acute wave of relief. By the end of the day the need for more was aching in the back of my teeth.

I knew what this feeling was. Baba had explained it when we came to Basral and I had seen men drowning themselves in bottles of dark liquor, or children dragging their mother to a healer after she'd drugged herself to oblivion.

If I wasn't careful, zoraat would consume me too. But as long as I had my revenge, I knew that need would always win out.

"You're not going to hurt her, are you?"

Noor's cautious voice broke through my thoughts. She didn't look up at me; instead she continued to crush the vibrant seeds and separate the powder into tiny piles.

I spun my dagger on the table, watching the glistening light against the blade. I didn't have to ask who she was talking about; my mind hadn't stopped spinning since I'd seen Casildo's daughter—two wide dimples, still trusting in everything and everyone.

"We are going to do to him what he did to me." I lifted the dagger and threw it at the well-worn spot on the wall by the door. "But don't worry. I'll give Casildo a choice."

"That didn't quite answer my question."

"He keeps her hidden for a reason, which means he's afraid." I chewed on my nails, the only thing on my body that felt familiar. "Probably afraid that someone will do to him what he did to my father. What he did to me."

I looked up at Noor. "The most frightened people are the ones that do the frightening. And no, I don't have plans to hurt the child."

"Well, right now we can't take him down when he has more guards than the palace."

"Do you know how many times I tried to escape prison?" I asked her, my mind going back to those days, and every route I had tried to take before Noor dug through my floor.

Noor shook her head.

"At least ten. But in each one I learned that nothing is impenetrable. You just need the right opportunity."

"And what is that?"

I picked up a new dagger, taking aim at the door again. "We are going to make one."

I visited an old friend of my father's in the south of Basral, another swordsmith who he would visit when supplying the emperor with weapons. I knew the man had a store of swords he didn't show anyone, ones that my father would marvel at. He didn't sell to anyone— and hardly any even knew of them. But as soon as I invoked my father's name, he unlocked his storeroom and pulled out the most beautiful scimitar I'd ever seen.

"It is said that this is the scimitar Naveed used to kill the azi," he whispered to me, encouraging me to examine the blade. I choked back a whimper as I held it in my hands and stared at it.

"Thank you," I said in a hushed whisper.

"It is you who I should be thanking. The swordsmith you spoke of gave this to me for my keeping. I've been waiting for someone to claim it since." He hesitated. "I didn't believe what they said about him. He cared only for his daughter. He wasn't going to commit treason."

I exhaled, my chest tight.

He gave me the scimitar with his blessing.

We spread a story that Sanaya Khara had found Naveed's own mythical sword.

I knew Casildo wouldn't be able to resist that, not with the fountain in the middle of his courtyard depicting Naveed's famed battle. Its worth and value surpassed any in Casildo's collection. It wasn't long until Noor spied one of Casildo's soldiers sniffing around the house.

He wouldn't buy it from me, I knew that. He knew I wouldn't sell it to him anyway, not if I was a collector. But most of all he had acquired my father's knives through theft. Why would this be any different?

"Tell our guards to have the night off for the festival," I said to Noor, the same night she told me we were being watched by Casildo's men. It happened at the perfect time, right before Ijal day, a festival celebrating the harvest in Basral. "And make sure Casildo knows about it. Sahiba Khara is so generous that she gave all her servants the night off."

By that evening, the sword was gone.

Noor stroked the empty case where the scimitar once lay. "It would be obvious that he took it."

"Casildo believes he is above reproach, that he has the emperor in his pocket."

"Luckily, there's someone who we can use to our advantage."

The second person on my list, and another way to gain the trust of one of my betrayers while destroying the other.

"Darbaran," breathed Noor. "He's now head of the city guard."

"Street thieves know all the city gossip. Yashem told me that Darbaran lost quite a bit of money to Casildo."

"Bad blood." Noor crossed her arms over her chest. "He'll want to clear that debt."

I nodded, my mouth pursed. "Contact the city guards tonight. I want an accusation of theft made against Casildo immediately. Then we will see where his loyalty lies—with his family? Or with himself?"