Thirty-five

If I thought the party at our town house was opulent, the emperor's put it to shame. There were street performers folding themselves into small boxes, tigers on golden leashes, and zoraat entertainers that pushed beyond the bounds of imagination.

I suppose when you held the key to a djinn power, you could imagine anything.

"I just watched a woman transform herself into a cobra and then eat a man she had just turned into a white-bellied rat. Who even wants to see that? I nearly threw up." Noor shuddered.

"The emperor and his cronies, apparently." I looked around distastefully.

Noor surveyed the room with a scowl, as if she could conjure the emperor with her eyes.

"Vahid likely won't reveal himself until later," I said with a low voice. "The emperor always did have a flair for the dramatic." The few times I'd seen him he was with my father, looking at his swords. I didn't understand why he even wanted to own swords in the first place if he held djinn power. He had told my father he liked the way it felt, to hold something not forged from magic but by human hands.

"I've never seen the effects of so much zoraat in one place." Noor swept her gaze over the crowd.

"The emperor controls the use of it, but he likes to show off. He likes everyone to know the power that only he has access to."

Noor raked her hands through her short hair. "Which is why he killed my father."

I pressed my hand to her upper arm. "Just remain calm. He doesn't know who you are, and he can't hurt you."

We both paused in horror as a man who had just consumed a vibrant yellow dose of zoraat split himself in half and then fused his body back together again.

"Oh, I think he can hurt me." Noor's was voice low and bitter as she watched it too. Sweat formed on the edge of Noor's brow and she shifted on her feet nervously. She looked terrified.

I grabbed her wrist and dragged her away from the performers. "Don't focus on that." I scanned my eyes over the crowd, checking Mazin wasn't nearby either.

"You telling me not to focus on all this is like saying to ignore the sun on a hot day. It's all around us." She waved her hands at the grotesque performances.

I huffed a breath. She was right. But I needed her headspace clear right now for what we needed to do next. "Vahid uses this to show his power. To assert his control. But we have one thing he doesn't."

"And what is that?"

I touched my hand to the dagger held in an opulent sheath at my waist, as if the weapon was used more for decoration than murder, beautiful, not dangerous. Exactly how I wanted to appear.

"Me."

Noor rolled her eyes and huffed out a laugh.

"Walk around. See if you hear anything about the rebellions or the crops we destroyed. We need to be able to plan our next steps."

Noor nodded and then faded into the crowd, purpose replacing the fear that had been on her face.

I watched her disappear before glancing down at my hands and jerking with a start. Curling tendrils of black spread up from my palms to the inner part of my wrist. And this time I wasn't imagining them. They were there, imprinted on my skin like dark ink stains. I pressed my fingers to my cheeks, feeling to make sure Sanaya's face was still there, that the djinn magic hadn't somehow worn off.

What was happening to me?

I searched for Noor in the crowd, but she was already gone.

She might no longer be afraid, but fear was now locked away in my heart, threatening to burst free and ruin us all.

I wove through the crowd, moving upstairs away from the zoraat performers and to where it was quieter. I needed to get my head on straight before the emperor came. A pair of black dress gloves were left on a banister, forgotten by a zoraat performer, and I shoved them on my hands to cover the dark veins. I walked over to an alcove hidden by a brocade curtain where I could figure out what was happening to me.

But a hand grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

I spun on my heels, my knife out of my sheath faster than I could breathe. A stark inhalation paused my blade.

"I thought you just liked to collect knives. Seems like you do know how to use them as well."

My stomach flipped as I met Mazin's dark, unreadable eyes. We watched each other for a moment, the tension between us thick, my dagger still pressed against his skin. Until his mouth quirked up in one corner. My shoulders relaxed, and I dropped my arm, resheathing my dagger.

"I know a few ways to protect myself," I said, forcing a smile in my voice.

"You think you need protection at the emperor's feast?" His mouth was still tilted in amusement and his eyes flitted away from me. He gestured at the guards standing against the nearby pillars, surrounding every inch of the palace. Luckily, they hadn't seen me pull a knife on the emperor's second, but Mazin didn't seem particularly bothered by that.

"It doesn't matter how much zoraat is here, the emperor still would not risk a single seed leaving the premises."

"Just because he protects his magic doesn't mean he'll protect the people inside," I said archly, realizing too late how I sounded—close to treasonous.

But Mazin didn't look aghast. Instead, he seemed to be assessing me—his eyes sweeping my form and coming to rest once again on my face. "That's very true."

I lifted my chin in surprise, but if Mazin noticed he didn't let on. Instead, he leaned against the rail, surveying the crowd below, his forearms braced against the wood.

I bit the edge of my lip. "I didn't expect you to agree."

He turned his head. "How can I not?" He smiled faintly, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I see how much value the emperor places on his magic. How obsessed he is with the cultivation of it." He gave a twist of his lips. "And it's grown worse this past year."

Goose bumps rose on my arms at how honest he was being with me.

"Worse?" I breathed the word out, not wanting to stop him from this thread of conversation.

"He's become a slave to his need for magic," Mazin said bitterly. He looked as if he were going to say more but thought better of it. Then his eyes softened. "But I do not wish to discuss him with you tonight."

I do .

I needed the conversation to stay on Vahid. If I could get Mazin to talk more, then perhaps he would reveal more of the emperor's secrets. "We are here at his behest, are we not? It seems fitting to discuss him."

"Even if we are insulting a man in his own home?"

I arched a brow. "Is it his?"

Mazin drew air sharply through his teeth and I felt a rush of exhilaration in my chest.

Even I knew that was too far. I had all but proclaimed Vahid a usurper.

"It's his home if you want to keep your head."

"I've always rather undervalued my head."

"But it's such a pretty one."

I gave him a sidelong glance, my heart flipping. But again, I had to remind myself, he wasn't talking about me, but another girl.

"Are you flirting with me about getting beheaded?"

His eyes lit up. "I can't think of anyone else who might even consider it flirting."

"And yet, after our kiss, I can't think of anything but."

We hadn't seen each other since we'd kissed, and I took a risk mentioning it. I flexed my fingers, stopping myself from reaching up and touching my lips, stopping myself from remembering his being pressed to mine.

Not mine. Sanaya's.

He straightened, an uneasy look flickering over his face.

Had I pushed too much?

"I think about it too," he admitted, as though he didn't want to.

I smiled inwardly. If he was thinking about Sanaya, then it was a step closer to having his heart. And I wanted it, badly. I wanted to feel it beating in my hand, to feel his love, his emotions, his trust, before I crushed them beneath my boot.

"And yet here we are, two people standing around, discussing execution, when we could be really doing what it is we both want."

His mouth dropped open and a surprised laugh came out, a throaty, deep sound that rumbled through his chest.

I closed my eyes, and for a second I was back where we used to be, in the training field, his laugh echoing through the mountains, warming the pit of my stomach like fire.

"You never cease to surprise me, Sanaya."

"At least I'm never boring."

"No. Never that." He huffed out another laugh and then looked at me again. "I have something to show you. Will you come with me?"

He held his hand out, and I stared down at it, the calluses as familiar as my own, the long fingers perfect for holding the hilt of a sword, or for interlacing between mine.

I placed my gloved hand in his and he clasped it tightly, like we were already lovers, like he was taking me to a clandestine meeting spot, like I wasn't going to deceive him as he did me.