‘What happened?’ Shazad asked. ‘Why didn’t you tell Imin that Hala was back?’ Imin and Hala were siblings. They shared a Djinni father. If Hala hadn’t already been in Izman when Imin was captured, then there was no question we would have taken her instead of Delila. She would’ve torn through the mind of every inhabitant of Saramotai to get Imin out.
‘Is Sayyida with her?’ Mahdi butted in.
Sayyida. The reason Hala had been sent to Izman in the first place.
I’d never met Sayyida, but I’d heard plenty about her. She was the same age as me. She’d been married at fifteen to one of Shazad’s father’s soldiers. Shazad was the one who’d noticed she had more broken bones than her soldier husband. She was the one who had contrived to move Sayyida out of her husband’s home to the Hidden House, a Rebellion safe house in Izman. From there she had gotten tangled up with the Rebellion. And with Mahdi, from the sound of things.
In the early days, right after the Sultim trials, Sayyida had managed to manoeuvre herself into a position in the Sultan’s palace as a spy for the Rebellion. A month back, she’d missed sending her regular report. Ahmed waited a week. It was possible something else had gone wrong. And the last thing anyone wanted was to blow her cover if it was just a delay. A week of Mahdi nagging Ahmed every day to send someone for her before Hala finally went to find out what was happening.
‘Is Sayyida all right?’ Mahdi pressed. He sounded hopeful, though I could see the apprehension in his eyes as he looked over his prince’s shoulder at the shut pavilion.
Ahmed’s silence was answer enough.
*
Inside the pavilion Hala was kneeling on the ground, slumped over a pretty Mirajin girl, her golden hands resting on the girl’s head. Hala didn’t look up as we came in, and her eyes stayed screwed shut. She looked tired. Tired enough that she wasn’t using an illusion to hide her missing fingers like she usually did. Her Demdji skin moved like molten gold, as every shuddering breath she took shifted the lamplight across it. A thin sheen of sweat clung to her. Not from heat, I realised, but from effort. She was using her Demdji powers, just not on her own vanity. She was using them on the girl on the ground. Sayyida, I guessed.
Sayyida’s eyes were wide and unseeing, fixed on something far away that none of the rest of us could make out. Hala was inside her mind.
Mahdi dropped to his knees on her other side, across from Hala. ‘Sayyida!’ He gathered her up in his arms. ‘Sayyida, can you hear me?’
‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do that.’ Hala’s familiar clipped voice sounded strained. She still didn’t open her eyes. ‘It’s a little insulting to try to shake me out of her head like I’m a bad dream, seeing as I’ve been holding an illusion for the better part of a week to try to help.’ A week? That would explain why Hala looked like she was cracking. It was hard for any of us but the shape-shifters to use our powers for more than a few hours at a time. Let alone a week.
‘She was easy enough to find, waiting for me in a cell.’ Hala slumped on the ground. She was shaking visibly. Barely hanging on. ‘Getting in her head was the only way I could carry her all the way here quietly.’ She looked desperately at Ahmed. ‘Did you bring something to knock her out?’
Ahmed nodded, pulling a small bottle of something clear from his pocket.
‘What happened to her?’ Mahdi shifted so he was cradling Sayyida. I’d always figured Mahdi for a coward, but I realised now I’d never actually seen him look scared before. Not even on the wrong side of a prison door. And this fear wasn’t for himself. It was possible he did belong in this rebellion after all.
Hala glanced to Ahmed for permission. He hesitated for a second before nodding. The only sign Hala gave that she was letting go of her power was the small sigh that slid out between her lips before she sat back on her heels. But the change in Sayyida was like watching night fall at high noon. Her blank peace turned to screaming, her head arching back as she writhed out of Mahdi’s grip. She was thrashing blindly, like a trapped animal, clawing at Mahdi’s clothes, at the ground, at anything.
Shazad took the bottle from Ahmed’s hand and the sheema from her neck and poured the contents of the bottle into the cloth. Just the smell of it made my head spin a little. She latched one arm around Sayyida’s body, trapping the screaming girl’s arms against her sides, and pressed the soaked cloth against Sayyida’s nose and mouth. Shazad pushed slightly on the girl’s middle, forcing her to take a gasping, panicked breath, inhaling the full force of the fumes.
Mahdi hadn’t moved. He just stared with hollow eyes as Sayyida’s struggling got weaker until unconsciousness claimed her, making her go limp in Shazad’s grip.
‘Mahdi.’ Ahmed broke the silence finally. ‘Take Sayyida to the Holy Father’s tent. She can rest there.’
Mahdi nodded, grateful for the escape. He wasn’t a strong man; a scholar, not a fighter. His arms shook with the effort as he gathered her up. But none of us was about to insult him by offering him help.
‘Rest isn’t going to help her,’ I said as the tent flap closed behind him. ‘She’s dying.’ The truth came easily. Us Demdji couldn’t tell a lie. Whatever they had done to her, it was killing her.
‘I know,’ Ahmed said. ‘But trust me, it does very little good to tell someone that the one they love is dying.’ He looked straight at me when he said that. I wondered what had passed between him and Jin when I was at death’s door.