says Eshe, her raised eyebrows clearly indicating exactly what she thinks of this idea. “Well cut my legs off and call me short.”
“I don’t have to cut your legs off to call you short,” I reply without thinking, drawing my blade faster across the stone in my hand. “If there’s someone who wouldn’t be short without their legs cut off, it’s me.”
I glance up. Eshe looks at me in surprise, then throws back her head and chortles.
“Anyway,” I say, blinking, as if that will get my scattered thoughts to focus. Bit by bit, I tell her my theory, about the magic filling this palace, about the things the Neverseen King said to me.
Eshe manages to only spout off a few sassy comments throughout my discourse. At one point, she tries to take one of my knives and start cleaning the blade. I take it back. The last time I let her do that, she dented the blade and no matter how many hours I spent trying to fix it, it was never quite the same.
Since she cannot sit still, I set her on the task of preparing the parchment and sketching tools she managed to pilfer.
“It makes sense,” I say, “based on everything that I’ve seen so far of this palace. Two days, and I’ve already seen two portals in two rooms. It’s not a logical leap to assume the many strange doors all over this place lead to more portals.”
“And how does knowing this help us escape?”
“Because if we know what the sultan is hiding from us, what he wants from us, and so forth—if we understand him—it’ll be easier to escape.”
“I thought we just had to understand the layout of the palace and the guard patterns.”
I shake my head, not even bothering to give an answer to that. This would be why I always made the plans for our heists, and not her. “Every unknown is a risk,” is all I reply. “The more things known, the less risk, and therefore the higher the likelihood of succeeding.”
Finished with my knives, I slide off the bed and crouch beside Eshe before the low table as she uses her sandals and mine as paperweights. I take up the bit of charcoal she nabbed and begin my rough sketch on the top layer. Eshe helps me, telling me about parts of the palace she has explored that I haven’t seen yet. I go back and forth from my window, leaning out and trying to see beyond the courtyard to the arrangement of buildings around us to get a better idea of the exterior arrangement of the palace. I’m not convinced the layout of the palace isn’t magical, and I don’t dismiss the possibility that the inside doesn’t quite fit what it looks like on the outside.
We work for hours. During those hours, no tray of food is delivered. It’s sundown when we’re forced to give up from the lack of light. I’m starving, but it’s a feeling I’m rather accustomed to these days. The thought of food makes me a little queasy anyway.
Eshe is flung over the back of my settee like a quilt, her hair trailing on the ground, her backside in the air, while she whines that it is only with the settee’s back digging into her stomach that she’s able to tolerate being so famished.
I sigh, frown at my sketch of the palace, at the vast unknown parts that neither of us have visited. Tomorrow, if all is resolved with Mahja, we’ll have to explore those. As it is, much of the area around the courtyard is fully sketched and scouted. I need only to draw it more precisely on the final version.
I glance through the different sheets of parchment, looking through what we have so far.
And then I pause. Something about these floor plans strike me as strange. I can’t quite put my finger on it.
I sit up straighter.
This tower that Eshe and I have marked but haven’t explored . . . Eshe estimated it to be six stories. My attention sharpens like a blade. The rest of this section—it’s just like the incomplete floor plans Jabir gave me.
Coincidence?
I’m a little terrified to think of what it would mean if it wasn’t a coincidence.
It would mean that one of Jabir’s clients was trying to get into the palace. At least that would explain why Jabir hadn’t given me complete plans and why he’d refused to let me scout. He didn’t want me knowing that his client was aiming for the palace.
With an unsteady breath, I roll up the parchments, fasten them with a bit of twine, and shuffle the rest of the supplies into the best hiding place I can find—on top of my bed’s canopy. This involves more shimmying up unsteady bedposts than I prefer, which convinces me no one else will want to do it either.
It’s almost dusk before the air quickens, and I sit up straight, my gaze shooting toward the door. Eshe, oblivious, keeps moaning from her undignified position on the settee while she braids her hair upside down.
The Neverseen King doesn’t open the door, but rather appears inside of it, invisible save for the large silver tray he holds in his hands. My mouth opens, my heart picking up its rhythm, and I stand, about to ask what is going on, if everything is alright. But apparently everything isn’t alright, considering that he’s the one delivering our food.
He sets the tray on the table before the settee, seems to hesitate slightly at the sight of Eshe’s arrangement on the furniture, and only a second later, he vanishes. Without a word.
I stare dumbfounded at the steaming tray. My stomach roils.
Why do I feel snubbed that he didn’t address me? Didn’t give me a chance to speak to him?
No. I give myself a firm shake. I’m letting his attentions go to my head. I’m believing that I’m somehow deserving of them, and that is much too dangerous of a notion for me to espouse, even unintentionally.
Resolving myself, I make my way over to the tray and find quite a large dish of what seems to be stew after I remove the filigree lid. Alongside it is a stack of flatbread, a side of hummus topped with roasted pine nuts and some kind of green swirl. There’s also a dish of sweet, shredded coconut lokum and two baklava pastries filled with pistachios.
“It smells delicious,” moans Eshe.
“Want a lokum?” I ask.
“You’re cruel, you know that? Asking questions like that to a starving woman.”
“I’m an assassin, Eshe. Cruel is my middle name. Stop hanging upside down and come eat. The food will get cold.”
Eshe chokes on a surprised laugh and slides off the back of the couch. “Cruel is your middle name? Truly? That is what you decided to say? Nadira Cruel al-Risya. I’ve got to admit, it has a nice ring—oh, there is food! Sands, why didn’t you say so? I’m starving!”
I sigh, but can’t help smiling just a little bit as I ladle a dish of stew for her. The Neverseen King must have known she was in my room, because he’s brought enough for both of us—which is saying something, since Eshe eats a lot.
I eat my bowl of stew, dipping my flatbread in it, while Eshe downs all the lokum and both the baklava first—dessert for two—and then slathers almost the entire dish of hummus on one flatbread and eats that. Only then does she take yet another piece of flatbread and use it to eat the stew I’ve given her. She finishes everything in the pot, and I let her.
“You won’t be competing in the competition tomorrow,” I say, breaking the silence.
Eshe looks up, and I can barely make out her face as the sun slips behind the horizon, plunging our world into night. This was the one thing I hadn’t told her earlier, but I’m telling her now, and watch as her brow furrows deeper.
“Why?” she asks.
I guzzle down one of the two glasses of goat’s milk on the tray and wipe my sleeve across my mouth. “The sultan bargained with me.”
She starts nodding, still frowning and looking a little crazed. “Um . . . makes perfect sense.”
A loud groan rips through the air. Eshe’s gaze whips to mine, and I stop breathing. It came from outside our room. It sounded like creaking wood, but it could be anything. We stare at each other, listening, waiting.
Then there’s a distant yell. We probably wouldn’t have heard it if we weren’t being so quiet, if the fountain hadn’t stopped gurgling and the outside world gone quiet in the wake of the sunset.
We wait for several long minutes but hear nothing else. I chew the inside of my lip, then get to my feet and pace to the window. The world is blanketed in night, and I have a sudden thought.
The sultan dismissed the servants for the day. Does that mean . . .?
Is it possible that his guards are no longer on duty?
My hand goes to the jurbah rope on the inside of my waistband. My heart quickens, my mind reeling. This might just be the most daring thing I’ve ever considered doing.
“Aren’t you going to sleep?” calls Eshe from the settee. “Out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll even let you have the floor.”
“I wish I had a candle,” I say.
“Candle? Why didn’t you say so? I snatched one earlier. Along with fire.”
I can’t help closing my eyes and smiling as I shake my head. “Of course you did. What else did you find?”
Before I know it, she’s reaching into her clothes and pulling out two tall, thin wax candles—without their holders, unfortunately—a fire box, a leather-wrapped sewing kit complete with both straight and rounded bone needles, an iron skin scraper, a roll of bandages, a silver dinner knife, and a knot of string. They come out of all sorts of places from her person.
She’s good at what she does. She always had deft fingers. If she hadn’t been so upset by Hulla’s death, she would never have missed when Itr poisoned her glass.
I’m so relieved she’s not competing tomorrow.
As I watch Eshe bring out all these trinkets, I catch sight of a peeking white bandage near her elbow. I tilt my head to the side as she quickly draws her sleeve lower, flashing me a grin as she shows off the string she pilfered. My gaze goes past the string to her sleeve. I wouldn’t have noticed it before, and it’s especially hard to see in the dark, but now I see a tight line of mending. I swallow and grit my teeth.
“Who hurt you?” I ask.
Eshe just rolls her eyes, sits on the ground cross-legged, and picks up the fire box. She slides it open, takes out the tinder, a small wooden rod, and a slab of limestone with a hole drilled in it. She inserts the rod in the hole, lines up the tinder to catch the spark, and begins rubbing her hands together around the wood rapidly. Eventually the spark lights the tinder, and she lifts it to the wick of one of the candles.
The light is sparse and flickering, just illuminating our faces and Eshe’s haul on the ground between our laps. She flashes me a quick grin and hands over the candle. I take it, but don’t move.
“Who hurt you?” I ask again.
She waves a hand, and the shadow of it leaps upon the bed behind her. “Oh, it’s nothing. Fathuna and I just got in a little scrape.”
I sit up straighter. “When? How? What did she—”
She’s still shaking her head, trying to tell me to drop it, probably because she’s embarrassed that she managed to get hurt. After all, she’s a thief, not an assassin. She’s not as well-trained in combat as I am.
“She was just prowling here and there with Gaya and Kanza. They saw me poking around, and Fathuna demanded to know what I was doing, why was I ignoring them and what was wrong with me at the competition.” She mimics Fathuna’s voice, tossing it a pitch higher. “Gaya said something about how she wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing anything that would harm the Neverseen King. Nonsense like that. They were just trying to intimidate me and make sure I know they’re on top of the pecking order.”
“They’re not,” I say.
Eshe snorts. “I probably shouldn’t have slipped Fathuna’s bracelet off and then dangled it in front of her face. I was wearing Gaya’s sash though, before she realized I’d taken it. I didn’t take anything off Kanza, because she was telling the other two to stop being mean.”
I want to laugh and cover my face at once. “You ask for too much trouble.”
She grins at that. It’s a grin I think I might do anything to protect. It was gone this morning, and I never want that to happen again.
“So that’s what the bandage is about.” Eshe shrugs. “Fathuna just nicked me with her knife. Payback for the bracelet and the attitude.”
“Do I need to look at this nick?”
“Nope!”
“Do I need to go show Fathuna and her crew what happens when people hurt my friends?”
Eshe laughs, grabbing hold of her knees and rocking back. I believe her assurance that Fathuna didn’t nick her badly, which is good. Good for Eshe, for me, and definitely good for Fathuna.
“You’d win,” she says, still laughing. “You’d win against everyone here.”
I don’t answer because I’m not so sure. I’m very intimidated by Safya, more than a little terrified Raha will discover my identity, and I do not want to be guilty of underestimating Dabria. She seems the type of person who takes advantage of the fact that she doesn’t look like she could wield a weapon. There’s also the Neverseen King’s comment about her adjusting quickly to magic. Her voice drifts into my mind, light with her sweet, tinkling laughter.
“Haven’t you thought of what it would be like, to be the one person in all Arbasa to discover the face of our Neverseen King?”
The back of my neck feels strangely warm.
I don’t want to underestimate any of them. They’re all risks I don’t fully understand, people whose personalities and interests and motivations I don’t know.
“If you are not hurt,” I say, climbing to my feet and taking the candle she’s lit, “then let’s explore.”
Her eyes widen. “You want to leave this room? What about sleeping? I’m exhausted! And besides, what if something eats us? What about the sultan’s warning to never leave our rooms?”
“About that warning,” I say, walking toward the window and peering out at the night-blanketed world. “Has anything struck you as odd about the way he and the steward always issue that warning?”
“Um . . . no?”
“Up until this afternoon, when he was panicking, they always said the same thing.” Something had itched in my mind about that warning, especially since the sultan’s specific warning this time had changed. Not intentionally, I think. Accidentally.
Eshe looks at me blankly. “Not to leave our rooms?”
“That’s what we heard, but that wasn’t what he explicitly said.”
Now she’s glaring at me. “Stop teasing me and just tell me, stars above!”
I smile—a slow, devious smile. “He said not to unlock our doors.”
“I fail to see the point,” Eshe grumbles, but the moment the words are out, her eyes widen. “The doors.”
My smile widens. I tap the sill I stand beside. “He didn’t say we couldn’t leave through the window.”
Even the sparse candlelight illuminates how pale Eshe has gone. “But what about Hulla?”
“She opened her door. That’s what the maid said this morning.”
Eshe rubs a hand up and down her arm. “I don’t know, Nadira.”
I step away from the window, my tight shoulders dropping a little lower than before. Even my daring friend thinks this idea is too risky. Am I being blinded by my own desperation to be free? Have I latched onto an idea that is questionable at best, downright dangerous at worst?
Still, I cannot shake the feeling that the sultan was being intentionally specific about ordering us never to unlock our doors.
The only respite from the suffocating darkness are the twin flames dancing atop the candles we hold. They cast freakish shadows that, combined with the occasional groan of wind and wood, make my arm hairs stand tall.
I drop onto the settee, staring at what I can make of a painting on the far wall to avoid looking at my friend. “Maybe we should just sleep then.”
“We should scout the grounds tomorrow,” Eshe says, probably to make me feel better. “We’ll get out of here soon. Preferably before Raha tries to murder us.”
I huff a silent, mirthless chuckle as my eyes trail over the unremarkable fresco of a desert with sprinklings of acacia trees and a silhouette of a camel caravan on the ridge of a dry wadi. The gold filigree frame is pretty, though. “Watch your back when you’re scouting. Don’t let any of them get too close to you.”
“The only one I’d consider trusting is Kanza. She seems to be sweet spirited.”
“Safya seemed timid,” I growl. “Don’t trust any of them.”
“Yes, Mother.”
I sit upright. Eshe startles. “Does something about that frame look odd to you?”
She frowns, then follows my gaze and squints at what is visible of the painting on the wall. “About the frame? Of the fresco?”
I step closer, lift my candle, and slide my fingers along the golden filigree. There, so subtle it’s almost impossible to feel, is a hairline crack.
“Hold my candle,” I say, handing it back without waiting for a response. Once both my hands are free, I take a footstool, set it before the painting, and stand atop it. I run my nails along that crack up the sides—the painting is so large I barely have any arm span left to spare—until I find what I’m looking for.
A tiny latch.
It clicks when I flip it. The hairline crack parts just enough for me to slip in my fingernails and pull.
The top layer of canvas and frame comes off smoothly, lightweight and clearly custom made for what is hung on the wall beneath it. I carefully lower it to the floor. Behind me, Eshe gives a soft intake of breath. I look up at what the desert fresco was hiding.
I am stunned.
It’s the portrait of a beautiful woman.
