Mahdi looked sour. ‘Are you here to mock us or to rescue us?’
‘I don’t see any reason I can’t do both.’ I leaned my elbows into the cell door and propped my chin on my fist. ‘Remind me again how you told Shazad you didn’t need us to come with you, because women just couldn’t be taken seriously in political negotiations?’
‘Actually’ – a voice piped up from the back of the cell – ‘I think what he said was that you and Shazad would be “unnecessary distractions”.’
Imin moved to the door so I could see him clearly. I didn’t recognise his face but I’d know those sardonic yellow eyes anywhere. Our Demdji shape-shifter. Last time I’d seen Imin, leaving camp, she’d been wearing a petite female shape in oversized men’s clothes – to lighten the load for the horse. It was a familiar body I’d seen her wear more than once now. Though it was just one in an infinite deck of human shapes Imin could wear: boy, girl, man, or woman. I was used to Imin’s ever-changing face by now. It meant that some days she was a small girl with big eyes being dwarfed by the horse she was riding, or a fighter with the strength to lift someone off the ground with one hand. Other days he was a skinny scholar, looking annoyed but harmless in the back of a cell in Saramotai. But boy or girl, man or woman, those startling gold eyes never changed.
‘That’s right.’ I turned back to Mahdi. ‘Maybe I’d forgotten, on account of how amazed I was that she didn’t knock all your teeth in then and there.’
‘Are you done?’ Mahdi looked like he’d bitten into a pickled lemon. ‘Or are you going to waste more time that we could be using to escape?’
‘Yeah, yeah, all right.’ I stepped back, reaching out a hand. The sand answered, gathering itself into my fist. I pulled back my hand, feeling the power build in my chest, holding it for a moment before I smashed the sand down. The lock exploded.
‘Finally.’ Mahdi sounded exasperated, like I was a servant who’d just taken an unreasonably long time to bring him his food. He tried to shove past me, but I stuck my arm out, stopping him.
‘What—’ he started, outrage already rising. I clapped my hand over his mouth, shutting him up, as I listened. I saw the change in his face the moment he heard it, too. Footsteps on the staircase. The guards had heard us.
‘You had to be so loud?’ he whispered as I removed my hand.
‘You know, next time I may not bother saving you.’ I shoved him back into his cell, my mind already rushing ahead to how I was going to get us out of there alive. Imin pushed past Mahdi, stepping out of the cell. I didn’t stop him. I couldn’t have if I’d wanted to. He was already shifting as he went, shedding the harmless scholar’s body until he was two heads taller than me and twice as wide. I wouldn’t want to meet this shape of Imin’s in a dark alley. He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably inside his shirt, now tight across his body. A seam split at the shoulder.
Full dark had almost fallen by now. The cells were lit only by a dim gloom. I could see the swing of lamplight on the staircase. Good, that’d be an advantage. I flattened myself to the blind spot at the bottom of the stairs. Imin followed my lead, doing the same on the other side.
We waited, listening to the steps on the stairs getting louder. I counted four sets of boots, at least. Maybe five. We were outnumbered and they were armed, but they’d have to come single file, which meant numbers counted for nothing. Lamplight played across the walls as they descended. I had the element of surprise on my side. And, like Shazad always said, when you were fighting someone twice your size you had to make the first blow count. The blow they were never expecting in the first place. All the better if you could make it your last one, too.
Across from me the little girl in green had shifted so she was right up against the bars, watching us, fascinated. I pressed my finger to my lips, trying to make her understand. The girl nodded. Good. She was young but she was a desert girl all the same. She knew how to survive.
I moved the moment the first guard’s head came into view.
One violent burst of sand knocked straight into his temple, sending him careening into the bars on the little girl’s cell. She staggered back as his skull cracked against the iron. Imin grabbed the soldier behind, hoisting him off the ground and slamming him to the wall. His startled face was the last thing I saw as his lamp hit the ground, shattering. Extinguishing. And I was as good as blind.
A gunshot sounded, setting off a chorus of screams, inside the cells and out. Underneath I heard one voice shouting a prayer. I whispered a curse instead as I flattened myself to the wall. I was least likely to get hit by a stray bullet if I wasn’t out in the open. I had to think. They were as blind as we were. But they were armed and I had to figure they wouldn’t mind killing a prisoner with a stray bullet as much as I would. Another gunshot went off, and this time there was a cry that sounded more like pain than fear. My mind struggled to think through the sudden rising panic, as I strained to follow the sounds. It’d been a long time since I was alone in a fight. If Shazad were here she’d know a way out of this. I could fight back in the dark, but I was as likely to hit Imin or the little girl in green as an enemy. I needed light. Badly.
And then, as if in answer to a prayer, the sun rose in the prison.
Starbursts filled my eyes. I was still blinded, but this time by the sudden glare of light. I blinked wildly, trying to see through the sunspots.
My vision cleared dangerously slowly, my panicked heartbeat reminding me that I was useless and blind and surrounded by armed enemies. My surroundings came into focus one little piece at a time. Two guards on the ground. Not moving. Three more rubbing their eyes, guns loose in their fingers. Imin pressed against the wall, bleeding from his shoulder. And inside the cell, the little girl in green, with a tiny sun, no bigger than a fist, cupped in her hands. Her face glowed in the pale light, casting strange shadows over her face from below that made her look a whole lot older. And I could see now that those huge eyes she’d been watching me with were as unnatural as mine or Imin’s. The colour of a dying ember.