Against all odds, Hala and Tamid seemed to get along decently enough. Maybe because they were both angry at me – Tamid for dragging him into this rebellion, Hala because I couldn’t save Imin. I knew they’d been talking about me behind my back. How else would Hala know he didn’t want to see me?
Tamid looked back down at the book sprawled open on the desk in front of him. He was sitting at an uncomfortable-looking angle, his amputated leg propped on a stool. His fake leg was leaning up against a wall, not even in reach. He’d been using crutches instead. The beautifully engineered bronze leg that Leyla had made for him was lost when we escaped the Sultan. After our exalted ruler had taken it off him, revealing the device Leyla had hidden inside to guide her father to our hiding place. His new leg was a simple piece of wood, measured and cut to the right length to fit into the gap where his articulated bronze leg had been, designed to be attached by a crude system of leather straps. It was far from as sophisticated as Leyla’s. But then it had the advantage that it couldn’t be used to sell us out to our enemy. I’d call that an even trade.
I glanced down at a book cast aside on the corner of the desk. It was open to an illuminated picture of the fall of Abbadon, in all its glory of flames and tumbling stones. ‘Any luck?’ I asked, trailing a finger absently along the outline of the flames consuming the city.
‘It’s not about luck,’ Tamid said sharply. ‘If I had any of that, I wouldn’t be here.’
‘I’ll take that as a no,’ I said. Tamid had been scouring the books for weeks now, looking for the words we needed to free the Djinn.
Words in the first language, which existed before lies were invented. And a Demdji tongue that couldn’t tell a lie.
It was a powerful combination: with the right words in the first language, a Demdji like me could make anything happen. By just saying it like it was the truth, I could make money fall from thin air, or topple kings, or raise the dead.
But the first language was fragmented and lost. So I would settle for the words to disable the machine and stop our army from being burned alive. Once we had an army.
We’d had the shape of a plan before the ambush and the execution and the city being locked down around us: to get Rahim to Iliaz and take control of men that were once his. They were still loyal to him as their one-time commander.
And then, once we had them, we could get me inside the palace to disable the machine and deactivate the army of Abdals. And from there we had a real chance of taking on the Sultan’s army, and taking the throne. One mortal army against another.
Except, for the plan to work, we needed the right words in the first language. And judging by the ever-growing library in Tamid’s room we were no closer to finding them than we’d been a month ago. I wondered whether those words might’ve been lost forever. It seemed very human that we’d have managed to hang on to the words to capture a Djinni and compel it to do our bidding, but not the ones we’d need to return the Djinni’s freedom. It was as shortsighted as we usually were as a species. But all we could do was search.
‘You’re not here to ask me about that.’ Tamid rubbed his eyes tiredly. ‘What do you want, Amani?’
‘We’ve got a prisoner.’ I ought to choose my words carefully here, but there wasn’t a whole lot of time for subtlety. ‘It’s Leyla.’ Tamid winced at the name of the princess. We’d both been fooled by her, both been betrayed. We’d thought she was an innocent, helpless girl stuck in the harem. But she’d meant something more to Tamid once. And Leyla had used that relationship to get Tamid out of the palace with her and lead her father straight to us. She might’ve taken a whole lot of people from me, but I was far from the only person she’d hurt.
‘Because bringing Leyla to a rebel hideout worked out so well for you the last time?’ Tamid asked, sharper than he needed to.
‘I know,’ I said. I felt suddenly exhausted, like I wanted to slump down, but there was nowhere to sit among the books, so I just leaned against the door. ‘But she knows things. Things we need to know.’
‘Unless she knows the right words to free a Djinni from their bonds, I’m not interested,’ Tamid said.
‘She doesn’t have those,’ I said. ‘But she might have a way to get us the hell out of this city.’ Tamid finally looked at me, interest sparked. ‘But she’s not talking. Leastways not to me. Any chance you think she’d talk to you?’
‘Doubtful,’ Tamid scoffed, too quick to make me believe he had even given it any consideration.
‘I wouldn’t ask you if we weren’t desperate. But the Sultan is going to start killing people if we don’t give her back to him, and we need a way out. Can you at least try before telling me it won’t work?’ I tried to draw his gaze back to me, but he’d returned to his books, angry at me all over again. ‘Tamid.’ I heard the desperation creeping into my own voice. ‘I need your help.’
‘Of course you do.’ Tamid scowled at the book. ‘Because everything is always about you. Everything in my life has been about you since you came into it. I’m here because of you. Leyla used me to get to you. Even this –’ he waved at his books – ‘is about you.’
Tamid’s sudden outburst left silence in its wake. I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t true. That it wasn’t fair. That if his life in Dustwalk had been about me, that was his fault, not mine. Then again, I’d been the one who’d always wanted to drag him out with me into the great, wide world. He’d been the one who’d tried to hold me back there. In the end, I’d pulled stronger. But Leyla – that was something he couldn’t lay at my door. ‘Am I wrong? –’ I tried to keep the accusation out of my voice, lest I sound like a wife jealous of a husband’s lover –‘or did she make you that leg before I ever came around? If you want to be a martyr, Tamid, I can’t stop you, but don’t let other people die who haven’t gotten to make a choice.’
Tamid stared at the page for a long moment. ‘I’ll talk to her. But I have a condition.’
Name it. But I didn’t say that. ‘What is it?’
‘If she does have a way out of this city, I’m coming with you. I don’t want any part of this. This rebellion, or this suicide mission of a rescue you think you’re going to go on. I never did. I just want to go home.’ Home. Back to Dustwalk. ‘I never wanted to leave in the first place.’ I’d never understood what made him want to stay there. All he’d ever hoped for was to train as a Holy Father and take over the prayer house in Dustwalk one day. But I’d give just about anything not to have to go back to Dustwalk with him. It felt like a trap still waiting for me at the end of the desert. Like if I returned to the place I was born, the town might close its iron jaws around me and never let me go again.
‘And where that does that leave us?’ I asked. ‘Nobody else knows how to read the first language here.’ Nobody else had been trained by the Holy Father down in the Last County, where old traditions and old languages had hung on better than in the northern cities. ‘We don’t stand a chance against the Sultan if we can’t find a way to disable that machine.’
‘So what, then? You keep me locked up here on the off chance that I’ll find something?’ Tamid retorted. ‘I hate to tell you this, but if I was going to find the words we need, I think I already would have.’ He waved around the room angrily. ‘Because believe you me, I’ve been trying.’
He wasn’t wrong.