Thirty-two

"How many can you get?" I cracked my knuckles, finding familiar comfort in pressing my hands together. Because now I was standing in tepid wastewater, rats scurrying past my feet, with a face that wasn't mine asking a child if he could wrangle other pickpockets to do my bidding.

"As many as you need, sahiba." Yashem picked at his teeth as if he was barely paying attention to what I was saying, but I knew he was taking in every single word. His green eyes were pale in the darkness, and his face surprisingly clean considering the last few times I'd seen him he'd had dirt-streaked cheeks and artfully placed bruises to look more pathetic. Now he looked like a tidy young boy, not the usual bedraggled street urchin.

I scanned the alley, checking to make sure he was alone. If Mazin heard what I'd said to Darbaran in the garden he might be monitoring my movements even now—but this was a message that needed to come from me.

"I have thieves in all four quadrants and eyes and ears from every single tribal state. There isn't much we can't provide, information, persuasion, anything ."

He said that last part with a gleam in his eye, as if he knew I had come to him with something outside of the norm. But he didn't know how far I was prepared to go.

"And the hawk?" I said, letting Mazin's nickname roll off my tongue. "Do you still fear him?"

He inclined his head, considering. "I'd be a fool not to, sahiba. He pays just as well as he punishes, so there are always those willing to work for him. But you have something he does not."

"More money?"

The boy's grin was a flash in the dark. "If it were about money, sahiba, you would have been caught long ago. The hawk is willing to pay significantly for information about who snatched his sister."

I snorted. "If you turned me in, you'd have to turn yourself in." But something in his words caught my curiosity. "What else do I have?"

"You aren't working with the emperor. Vahid has starved this city with his greed, and there are many who want to see his rule fall."

"Well, I can help with that," I drawled, my voice steady, despite the blackness opening up in my gut. With Casildo it had been a little too easy—like a trial run for the rest of them. But now, I was starting down the path of destroying an empire. And if it didn't work, I could take all these people down with me—Noor, the pickpockets, the citizens of a city willing to revolt against an emperor for freedom, not knowing they'd be doing it to service my revenge.

"I need the whole city." My words fell in the stillness of the alley, taking up the rest of the space between us.

Yashem's eyes widened. I felt oddly satisfied at his surprise, to see someone as jaded as the young thief taken aback.

"I've got your attention." I leaned against the wall behind me, taking in the hint of fear in his eyes.

"Can you do it?" My tone indicated I didn't believe he could, but it was his arrogance that made him take the job in the first place. I needed him on board for the next steps too.

Yashem opened his mouth to speak, and then clamped it shut, his eyes narrowing. "What is this about?"

I swallowed, the lump in my throat becoming impossible to ignore. "Does it matter? I just need to know if you can do it. If you can control the city."

"You want to know if you can control the city, isn't that it? If you can command the people, manipulate them with a whisper in their ear and a coin in their pocket instead of those who possess the might of the djinn."

"Yes." I gritted my teeth.

He toyed with the cuff of his kurta. I waited, watching him.

"It's gonna cost."

"I can pay it," I said immediately, then chastised myself for responding too quickly.

His eyebrows rose. "You can pay enough for the whole city?" he scoffed. "Enough to pay off every pickpocket from here to the palace? Enough to incite a riot?"

I crossed my arms over my chest, unbothered by the fact that Souma's gold might be gone at the end of this, but what use did I have with money except to avenge my father?

"That's exactly what I can do."

He chewed on his lip for a moment, then shook his head. "It will take more than just suggestion. You'll need a reason to drive the mob. Something to incense them in the first place."

"We'll have that. I just need you to help spread the unease, to talk to the gossiping aunties in Basral about the cursed rule of Vahid and infiltrate the minds of the common people."

"We can do anything, sahiba, if the money is right."

I nodded, a sense of calm washing over me. "Then wait for my signal."

Noor stood at the edge of a lush field in the dawn light, her cropped curly hair in stark contrast to the fields of yellow behind her. "How long do we have?"

"There aren't many guards around the city crops, they mainly guard the cultivation of zoraat. Here, they just watch to make sure no one is stealing from the emperor's farmers. We have a little time before the next rotation comes through."

"Then we'd best get to work."

Noor pulled out a vial from her pocket, this time the blend a deep green instead of the mixture of the burnished red I'd been consuming to change my body. My stomach flipped with the anticipation of another dose, the insane urge to snatch it out of her hands nearly overcoming me. Instead, I tried to breathe through my nose to control myself.

"If you are worried about the pain, this won't be as potent as the one you've been taking," Noor said, misinterpreting my expression. It wasn't pain I was worried about, but the inability to not be a slave to the zoraat filling my body.

"It doesn't matter, it must be done." I bit my bottom lip so hard I tasted blood. "There isn't as much of it this time."

"It's a more basic mixture than what you've been taking. We only need it for one job after all, and not to transfigure a human body, so the magic is less complex. You shouldn't feel a thing."

I opened the vial and downed the blend in one, that familiar burn pricking my throat. But Noor was right, it didn't have the same piercing pain accompanying it. This time, it was just a frisson of energy to signify the djinn power had taken hold. There was a burst of power in my blood and I stared at the field before me.

Noor began explaining, gesturing to the fields in the distance. "Usually when we dealt with crop magic, we had the wielder—"

"I know what I need to do." The answer was thrumming through me, whispering in my ear, telling me what the next steps were without any prior knowledge.

The dawn rays glowed brighter as the sun rose, and Noor fell silent, waiting.

When I had transfigured my face, I concentrated on pushing the djinn power there, reforming my bones and skin and cartilage like clay under my fingers. That's what Noor taught me, that's what it took to transform a body into someone else.

But with the earth it was different. The soft dirt beneath my hands was like a deeper, pulsing life force. Something older and stronger than myself.

I extended the djinn's power into the dirt, like I was lighting a fire from below, and unleashing its molten core to the surface. My hands were hot, and there was a tugging sensation from under my skin as I poured the djinn magic into the ground. There was a rumbling sound, as if the earth had quaked. I felt the vibrant root system of the plants, healthy and pliant under the nurturing of djinn magic. They spoke to me as if they recognized me, my power descending past the surface and taking hold of them.

Too late they realized that I wasn't there to provide nourishment.

The roots screamed against the energy I was pumping into the soil and I felt the tips of them begin to shrivel and burn against my onslaught.

"I can already see the difference." Noor's quiet voice cut through my connection. I looked up, seeing the plants had already blanched, their life burned away.

A pit formed in my stomach, the certainty that soon the entire field would be turned to ash.

The guilt continued as tendrils of discoloration began to spread to the other nearby fields, the green leaching of color like someone bleeding out after they've been stabbed. Noor's gasp echoed across the now pale field.

I followed her gaze and watched as the blight traveled farther, to the fields beyond. As if I had poisoned the entire earth.

A bead of sweat formed at my temple, and I pressed my hands to my sides to still their shaking.

I had done this. I had taken away a food source for an entire city and done it all to foster a revolt against an emperor.

My mouth tasted like ash.

"They'll blame Vahid for this blight. They'll have to. No one has entire crops die on them overnight."

Noor sucked in a breath. "They'll say he's no longer favored by the djinn, but cursed."

I looked out over the fields, now a wasteland of shriveled plants.

"I'm counting on it." My voice was low, a promise.

"What are you doing?" A gruff voice cut between us, and we both whirled at the sound.

A large guard was heading our way, his uniform worn but tidy, his forehead creased in concern.

Noor leapt forward, her head bent in deference. "Saab, we were just out for a walk and got a little lost."

I bowed as well, skirting to the side of him, my hand on the hilt of my sword at my side.

The guard frowned, his eyes flicking between our dark cloaks and placid faces. I knew what he was seeing—we were in clothing too fine to be thieves and had manners too polite to be vandals.

He scratched the back of his head, his eyes narrowing on us. "I'm going to have to report this—"

The butt of my sword smacked the side of his head so hard he fell to the earth like a stone.

"I'm impressed, you didn't try to kill him." Noor put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the guard lying prone on the ground.

"Why get my hands bloody when we can make him look like a drunk instead?" I rifled through the pack that hung from his belt and pulled out a flask of beer. I doused him in it, throwing it on the ground beside him.

I crossed my arms over my chest and looked over the guard. "I'll spread the news that the emperor's fields have gone fallow. Then the panic will come."

Noor watched me with a grim face.

She didn't look like a woman who was getting revenge, more like one who had lost everything and was trying desperately to hold on. But then, maybe I did too.

I wasn't sure what either of us would be once this was all over.

Happy? Satisfied?

I couldn't fathom ever feeling either of those things right now, not with this dark hole in my chest where my heart once was.

But the only thing that kept me going was this drive, this physical need in my gut that couldn't leave them alone, that couldn't let them get away with what they'd done.

"Noor, let's burn his city down."