Twenty-seven

The mix of zoraat that Noor blended burned down my throat like the aftermath of vomiting—sharp, acidic, and it coated my tongue with a bitter film.

I gagged. Noor stood beside me with a grim expression.

"I didn't think I would need another dose this soon."

"Remember that in order to keep the shape of another human being, the zoraat needs to be consistent. For anything else you generally just need to take what you need for the job at hand, just like a djinn healer might if they need to heal a specific ailment. But transfiguration is a very strong power. And it requires strong magic."

I collapsed on my bed, the embroidered coverlet bunching up under my prone body.

"And for the crops?" I murmured.

"I'm working on it. The blend should be ready soon, I just have to tweak a few things. But that one won't be as bad—this one is about changing the very essence of your body, your skin, hair, eyes, voice. Everything that makes you, you . In order to use that specific djinn power, it takes pain and exposure to zoraat."

I pressed my hands against the wall, shaking with the force of the poison coursing through my veins. I looked up at them, shocked to see the black veins covering my skin once more, this time spreading from my fingertips to my wrists.

Startled, I sat up and spread my hands wide in front of me—but the skin on my hands was now brown and unblemished. I blinked. My hands were the same, and entirely still mine.

I knew zoraat wasn't poison—that wasn't how anyone in this empire referred to it.

Magic .

That's what they called it. To wield the power of the djinn was a privilege. But it didn't feel like that. Every time I swallowed another mouthful of zoraat my body simultaneously recoiled and begged for more. It was like eating fire that burned you from the inside out, when you were so cold you'd do anything to get warm. I was made of clay and the djinn of fire, and consuming their power was to transform the human body into something other. Something unseen.

I gasped and doubled over, this dose taking my breath away.

"It wasn't this bad before." The words came out like they were being pulled from my mouth with a sharp hook.

"You already had some in your system, so it should be a little easier." Noor's voice was practical. "But I've never transfigured someone for this long before." Surprisingly, her frank honesty calmed me more than her sympathy.

"It feels like my blood has ignited." I coughed and my mouth held a slight metallic taste.

"That means it's working."

I raised my eyebrows. "Or killing me."

She inclined her head. "That too."

I huffed a laugh that caused my body to shiver with pain. "Don't make me laugh." I groaned and clutched at my stomach.

Something cool pressed against my head and Noor made a soft murmur.

I collapsed onto the floor as my vision blackened.

"You were sleeping for a while." Noor's voice cut through the haze in my brain. I coughed and sat up.

I was facedown on my bed, blood crusted to my nose, and my skull feeling like it had been split in half. I lifted my fingers up to feel my face—checking the bridge of my nose, the angle of my cheekbones. I exhaled in relief, though it was still disconcerting to be in another body.

I looked down at my hands, still mine, still scarred and still the thing that grounded me in all this. I examined them for any trace of the black spidery lines that had crawled up my hands earlier. Nothing.

Noor was sitting in a chair beside the bed, tinkering with the zoraat.

"How long was I out for?"

"Most of the afternoon."

"How often do I need to do that?" I couldn't handle something like that every day.

But that dark, wild part of me that rejoiced in the magic flooding through my system, at the power in my hands, came alive.

That scared me most.

She scrunched up her face. "This one was a stronger dose. It should last longer." She studied my face. "We can draw them out a little more. I just didn't want you in a situation where you started changing back into your real face without warning. I wouldn't want that to happen while you were in the palace."

I bit my lip, wincing at the pain of the small movement. "No." I grimaced. "We wouldn't want that."

I imagined what Mazin's expression would be if I suddenly turned into Dania before his eyes.

He would run me through where I stood. My hands curled as if gripping an imaginary dagger. I would welcome him to try.

Noor let out a low laugh. "I don't even want to know what you are thinking about right now with that look on your face."

"I'm thinking that I'm going to have to speed up my revenge plan so I don't have to consume much more of that."

And so black spidery veins don't appear on my arms, and so I no longer hear voices whispering about revenge.

That would be nice too.

I sat up in bed as Noor brought me a fresh cup of chai and put it on the nightstand.

"I told the servants you had taken ill," Noor murmured.

"That's not wrong."

Noor chewed on her bottom lip. "The amount of zoraat you have to consume for transfiguration is difficult, and I've never dealt with the repercussions of it before. I can see how hard you are taking it, and we don't have to do this. We can do something different to get our vengeance—or we can stop this plan entirely. We can just sell the seeds, or…"

"Or?"

"Or destroy them." She stood up and proceeded to pace around the room. "I thought about doing that while working for Souma. Just setting fire to the whole crop and letting the powers return to the djinn where they belong."

Something in my stomach recoiled at the thought of all that power being set aflame.

That was the last thing I wanted to do. Zoraat was giving me the chance to make those who had wronged me pay.

I wasn't about to give up this opportunity. And Noor shouldn't be about to either.

"Is that what you really want? To let Vahid get away with what he did?"

Noor ran a hand through her short curls. "No. That's not what I want. But this is destroying you. More than I thought it would. What good is revenge if we die while doing it? Then who is it for? Your father wouldn't have wanted you to die to avenge him. And Souma wouldn't have wanted me down this path."

I took a sip of the chai, the warm, milky tea soothing my ravaged throat. "Souma isn't here," I said quietly, my voice low. "And neither is my father. And we both know the reason why." This time I stood, my legs steadier than I predicted. "If we do nothing, their death means nothing."

Noor sat back heavily against the divan. "I could kill them," she said quietly. "Then you don't have to do this."

I snorted. "Noor, you didn't even want me to kill Thohfsa. You can't kill anyone." I sat beside her. "Why don't you want me to do this?"

She looked up at me. "You're the first friend I've had since Souma. I don't have anyone else. And yet I'm helping you destroy yourself. What kind of friend does that make me?"

"A friend who understands exactly what it feels like to lose everything." My voice rose a little too loud, but I couldn't control it. Or I didn't want to. I could feel my eyes burning. Rage was cold and dark in the back of my mouth. "To be imprisoned for a crime you didn't commit. To lose the person who cared about you the most. You know exactly what that's like."

Noor wiped a tear from her cheek. "And what will you do when it's over and you no longer have revenge?" she asked fiercely, the words ripping from her. "What will either of us do?"

I looked away from her.

"Then we'll be free." The words sounded hollow, like I was trying to be convincing instead of truthful.

The truth was, nothing else mattered if I didn't get revenge.

The truth was, I would destroy myself a thousand times if it meant getting retribution for my father.

"Free?" She laughed to herself, a bitter sound, before looking at the open window that framed Vahid's palace like a target. "We'll be free? Or broken?"

I shook my head, that black, dark anger rising in me once more, as if it were starting to take charge of me. Words spilled out of me, words I couldn't control, words that seemed dictated by something else.

"If you don't want to be here, you can leave." I pointed toward the door.

Noor stood up, her hands planted on her hips. "I'm trying to save you here. I'm trying to save us both."

"I don't need saving," I said, the voice not my own. It wasn't even Sanaya's. It was dark and deep and rageful. "I only need one thing. And it's clear you didn't care that much about Souma if you are willing to give up now."

Noor inhaled sharply, looking as if I'd stabbed her.

I blinked, and the rage melted away, replaced by shame at Noor's stricken face.

"How dare you?" she uttered, her voice low and vehement.

I stood up and held out my hands, guilt lacing my tone. "Noor, I'm sorry—I know you cared for Souma. I didn't mean that. I… I don't know what came over me."

I knew I couldn't explain it. Couldn't rationalize what I was hearing, seeing, feeling. I scrubbed my nails through my hair. I needed to take responsibility for this, but it felt a little like I was losing my mind.

Noor's eyes narrowed with seething anger I'd never seen before. "You know nothing about my relationship with Souma. You lost your father, yes. But I never really had one, not until I finally found Souma. He taught me how to fend for myself, how to do something no one else could do. You talk about revenge as if you are the underdog, but you were loved your whole life. I was nothing. Abandoned. Forgotten. He was the only one who ever gave me a chance." She pressed her arms to her sides. I looked down at her hands, which were shaking. She followed my gaze and clasped them together to still their movement, scowling at me. "And you still have your grandmother. You still have someone who loves you. I have nothing and no one. Vahid took the only person who ever gave a damn about me, and you say I don't care? I don't want revenge?"

She looked away, back to the open window, back to the palace. "I care what happens to you, Dani, because I know what it's like to lose everything. If you spend everything you have chasing this, you might not like what's left over."

"What's your solution, then? Just give up?" I threw my hands in the air. "I can't do that."

My words were edged with desperation, panic in my chest at the thought of no longer pursuing this.

At the thought of no longer consuming zoraat.

"I can't let them walk free, not after what they did." I rubbed the back of my head, still aching from the latest dose, now also ringing with Noor's words. "And you have me. We are in this together—you and me. Just don't give up now, not when we're so close."

Noor's shoulders sagged. For the first time in a long while I really looked at her. Shadows lined her eyes, and she was so pale. She wasn't consuming zoraat, but this was taking its toll on her too.

Noor sat on the edge of the bed, looking deflated. "I don't want to give up either." Her voice was more measured. "I don't want Vahid to get away with any of it. But I don't want to lose myself in the process." She took a steadying breath. "And I don't want to lose you. I'm here to help you, for whatever you need. I owe you that at least after you came back for me at the prison."

"You don't owe me anything." I shook my head. "We helped each other escape that place. We are both here because we have the same goal. And more than that, we want each other to succeed." My eyes met hers, hoping to erase my previous words. "I want to help you get revenge for what he did to Souma, just as much as I want revenge for my father."

"I want to do this, Dani. But I'm allowed to try to stop you if I think it's killing you."

I nodded. "I'm not going to take more zoraat than I need. We are going to finish this. For my father, and for yours. And after it's all over, we are getting as far away from here as possible. We'll leave the whole empire."

Noor exhaled, the fight draining out of her. "Well, we don't have to go that far."

I laughed, relieved that the tension had been dispelled, relieved that my awful words didn't drive Noor away for good. But the feeling I'd had when I'd said them stuck with me. It was as if the person who had said those awful things to Noor wasn't me at all.

"So." Noor's voice pulled me out of my thoughts, and I was thankful for the distraction. "Who's next?"