“This is it,” she said, plucking the drill free. “How fortunate you’re descended from a surgeon.”
Yaqub shook his head fiercely. “You’ve lost your mind. That thing is a hundred years old. You’re going to kill that boy and get us all arrested for murder.”
“No, I’m going to save his life.” She beckoned to Ali and then handed him the drill. “Al Qahtani, you owe me. Go boil this and get me the scalpel already in the water.”
“Nahri, are you—”
She was already turning Ali around, pushing him in the direction of the cauldron. “Less talking, more helping.”
Yaqub stepped in front of her. “Nahri, in all the time I’ve known you, you’ve never done anything like this. What you’re talking about is surgery that people train for years to master.”
Nahri hesitated. She actually agreed with him—she’d practiced on some coconuts and melons with Subha, but that was it. Contrary to the pandemonium that characterized the rest of her life, she was typically cautious with healing, and her years in the infirmary had only made her more careful. It was a responsibility and a privilege to be entrusted with a patient’s life, not a thing she took lightly.
But Nahri also knew the disregard with which people like this family were treated. Peasants and migrants, girls with no name and parents with no coin to convince a reluctant doctor.
“They don’t have time to go around Cairo begging for a surgeon to take pity on them, Yaqub. This boy could be dead by dawn. I know enough to try and help.”
“And if you fail?” He moved closer, lowering his voice. “Nahri, you know how things are here. Something happens to that boy in my shop and his neighbors will come for my family. They’ll run us out of this neighborhood.”
That stopped her. Nahri did know how things were—it was the same fear that had haunted her back in Daevabad. When emotions got high, the lines that divided their communities grew deadly.
She met his gaze. “Yaqub, if you refuse, I’ll understand, and I won’t do this. But that child will die.”
Emotion swept his lined face. The boy’s parents had taken up a vigil on either side of their child, his mother clutching one of his hands to her tearstained cheek.
Yaqub stared at them, indecision warring in his expression. “You chose a very inconvenient time to develop a conscience.”
“Is that a yes?”
He grimaced. “Don’t kill him.”
“I’ll try my best.” Still seeing reluctance in his eyes, Nahri added, “Would you mind making some tea for his parents and keeping them back? They don’t want to see this.”
She scrubbed up with soap. Ali had returned and laid her tools out on a clean cloth.
“Go wash your hands,” Nahri ordered.
Ali gave her an alarmed glance. “Why?”
“Because you’re helping me. The drill takes some strong-arming. Go.” As he walked away, muttering under his breath, she called, “And use plenty of soap.”
Straining to recall everything Subha had taught her, Nahri measured a spot about a hand’s breadth behind the boy’s brow and then carefully shaved his hair, scrubbing the skin with more soap before making a precise cut in the scalp. Dabbing away the blood that instantly blossomed from the cut, she pinned back the small flap of skin, revealing the bone underneath.
Back at her side, Ali rocked slightly. “Oh. That’s what that looks like.”
“Hand me another cloth,” Nahri replied, swapping out the blood-soaked one. “Now the drill.”
His hands were shaking when he gave it to her, and as the weight of the drill fell into hers, so did the staggering prospect of what she was about to do. Was Nahri mad? Who was she to take this boy’s life in her hands and drill a hole into his head? She was a thief, a con artist.
No, you’re the Banu Nahida.
When Nahri placed the drill against his skull, her hands had stopped trembling.
Later, she could not say when the eerie hush of calm descended, a feeling like what she’d been told proper prayer was supposed to invoke. There was the steady grinding of the drill and the wet, chalky smell of bone dust and blood. When her hands and wrists began to throb, she carefully coached Ali through a few rounds, sweat beading on her skin. She stopped him as soon as she saw the last bit of bone begin to give way. Nahri took over, her heart nearly stopping as she carefully withdrew the drill, removing a bloody coin of bone.
She stared at her work, too awed to speak. She’d just put a hole in a skull. Excitement buzzed beneath her skin, layering in with fear and anxiety.
Breathe, she reminded herself, Subha’s words coming back to her. There’s a membrane just below the skull. Beneath is where the blood builds. That is what you must puncture.
Nahri picked up her scalpel. The silence of the room was smothering, her heart beating so fast it felt ready to burst. She took a deep breath, offering a prayer to the Creator, Anahid, and anyone else willing to help tip the scales in her favor.
Then she pierced the membrane. Blood sprayed directly into her face. It was thick and dark, purple, with an oily cast.
That caught the other woman’s attention. “What have you done?” the boy’s mother cried, lunging up from where she’d been sitting with Yaqub.
Ali stepped between them, catching her before she could grab Nahri. Nahri had frozen, staring at the bloody incision. As the dark fluid dribbled out, she could see the pinkish-yellow brain beyond begin to pulsate with the boy’s heartbeat.
He stirred.
It wasn’t much, just a sigh and a slight twitch of one hand. But then there was movement beneath his closed eyes. The boy mumbled in his sleep, and Nahri let out a choked breath, fighting not to collapse.
She glanced back. Every eye in the room was on her, staring with a mix of horror and awe.
Nahri grinned. “Would someone hand me my sutures?”
IT TOOK THE REST OF THE NIGHT TO STITCH HIM UP. Nahri waited until the boy opened his eyes, and then another relative came by with a board to move him. His home was only down the block and Nahri gave his parents thorough instructions on how to care for him, assuring them she’d come by around noon for a checkup.
His father was an apologetic, grateful mess when he left. “May God shower you with blessings,” he gushed. “We’ll find a way to pay you, I promise.”
Nahri shook her head, watching as the mother cradled her son. “You don’t need to pay me,” she said, holding open the door. “I was happy to help.”
She watched them depart as dawn softened the sky. It was quiet save for the song of birds, a breeze bringing the scent of the Nile. Nahri took a deep breath, feeling a sense of peace and purpose she hadn’t felt since the morning of the Navasatem parade.
She still had it. Her magic might be gone, but Nahri had just saved a life, doing a procedure she suspected trained physicians would be lucky to pull off. She leaned against the apothecary door, trembling as the buzz of anxiety and excitement drained from her body, and then she wiped her eyes, embarrassed to find them wet.
I am who I always wanted to be. Forget Daevabad’s politics or the lack of whatever certificates the human world would never grant a woman like her. Nahri was a healer, and no one could take that away from her.
She went back inside. Ali and Yaqub were sitting across from each other, both looking stunned amidst the bloody tools and rags.
No, not just stunned—Ali looked as close to vomiting as she’d ever seen him. Nahri had to bite back a smile. “You’re the last person I’d think squeamish.”
“I’m not squeamish,” he said defensively. He raised a shaking finger at the drill. “I do not ever want to touch that thing again, but I’m not squeamish.”
Trying not to laugh, she laid a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you get some sleep while I clean up? I’m far too jumpy.”
Relief lit his face. “God bless you.” Ali was gone the next moment, lighting out of there like he was being chased by a karkadann.
“Let me help you,” Yaqub offered. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep after watching brain surgery being performed in my apothecary.”
They got to work, Nahri piling the bloody rags in a sack to be washed, and Yaqub wiping down his instruments.
Nahri rolled up the cloth she’d used to cover the table. “I’m sorry for not asking your permission first. I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”
Yaqub clucked his tongue. “First she takes a risk for a stranger, now she apologizes. Where is the rude girl who tried to swindle me so many years ago?”
Gone, for a long time now. “I can steal those instruments if you’d like to feel nostalgic.”
He shook his head, clearly not buying it. “You’ve changed for the better, whether or not you want to admit it.” He hesitated before meeting her gaze. “You did it somehow, didn’t you? You went and trained as a doctor.”
“You could say that.”
His eyes didn’t leave hers. “Where were you, Nahri? Really?”
A dozen excuses ran through her head, but God forgive her, she was so tired of lying.
Nahri took a deep breath. “Would you believe me if I said I came from a long line of djinn healers and was being held captive in a hidden magical kingdom on the other side of the world?”
Yaqub snorted. “Not even you could sell that story.”
Nahri forced a nervous laugh, the blood leaving her face. “Of course not,” she said, fighting disappointment. “Who would believe such a crazy tale?”
Yaqub set a kettle over the fire again. “It was an astonishing feat wherever you learned it,” he said, spooning tea leaves into two glass cups. “You’ll have stories spreading about you.”
“Especially since I didn’t make them pay.”
“That does sweeten the pot.”
Nahri dried the instruments, wrapping them in clean cloth, and then Yaqub motioned for her to sit. “You have ruined my night, so now take some tea with me,” he ordered, handing her a glass. “I would talk to you.”
She was instantly anxious. “If this is about us moving on, I can find other lodgings—”
He shushed her. “I’m not asking you to leave. I’m asking the opposite. I want you to stay.”
Nahri frowned. “What do you mean?”
He blew on his tea. “It’s hardly a secret that I’m getting old—you yourself have made any number of obnoxious comments to that effect—and no one in my family is equipped to take over the apothecary. My wife and I had discussed selling it, but I wonder if you and your friend would be interested in staying on and taking over.”
She stared at him in astonishment. That was frankly the last thing she’d expected Yaqub to say. “I haven’t trained as an apothecarist,” she sputtered.
“You haven’t trained as an apothecarist … for God’s sake, you just did brain surgery on the table! You could build your own sort of practice here and let your reputation speak for itself. And if you’re so concerned, I’m not yet ready to retire. I’d be perfectly happy to take the two of you on as apprentices for a few years.”
The offer was so kind and perfect that all Nahri could do was find reasons to push it away. “I’m a woman. No one will take me seriously as an apothecarist, let alone as a doctor.”
“Then to hell with them. You know perfectly well there are women practicing in the city, particularly on female patients.”
“Rich women. Daughters and wives of doctors who work alongside them.”
“So lie.” Some of the tea sloshed out of Yaqub’s glass at his exuberance. “Every other word out of your mouth used to be a lie to further your ambitions. Surely you can craft a suitable background for yourself. Claim you studied medicine in whatever mysterious island kingdom your not-husband is from.”
Nahri sat back. Before she could stop herself, she could see such a future spinning out before her. She was a good healer. Maybe rich nobles and fancy foreigners would turn up their noses at a so-called female doctor with no degree, but people like that boy’s family? Like the people she’d grown up among? Someone like Nahri would be a blessing. And who cared if they couldn’t pay much? She’d have the apothecary, and she’d always been good at finding ways to hustle. Ali was clever with numbers. They’d make enough to have a comfortable life.
Except …
Except the future Yaqub was offering was the one she’d wanted growing up in Egypt. She had new responsibilities now and people back in Daevabad waiting for her. And while Nahri felt the thrill of having saved that little boy, that wasn’t all the power at her disposal. She could save so many more with her magic, and until they found a way to restore it, she’d never truly be who she felt herself capable of being.
Yaqub must have seen the emotion in her eyes. He set down his tea and reached for her hand. “Nahri, child, I don’t know what the two of you are running from. I don’t know what you’re planning next. But you could have a life here. A good one.”
Taking a shaky breath, Nahri squeezed his hand. “That is … an incredibly kind offer. I need to think about it.”
“Take the time you need,” Yaqub said warmly. “Talk to your friend.” He smiled. “But I think Cairo could use someone like you.”
Nahri didn’t disagree.
But she wondered if Daevabad might need her more.
9
ALI
Ali would be having nightmares about open skulls for months, but the marvelous market Nahri took him to the next day more than made up for it. It was the human bazaar of his dreams, and Ali wandered through with open delight, grateful that humans seemed inclined not to see him because he wasn’t even trying to check his curiosity. Instead, he raced from shop to shop, stall to stall, touching everything he could get his hands on and examining embroidered tapestries, carpentry tools, mirrored lanterns, glass spectacles, and shoes with unbridled enthusiasm.
“Oh,” he gushed, catching a glint of metal in the distance. “Swords.”
“No,” Nahri said, tugging on the sleeve of the extremely ill-fitting galabiyya he’d borrowed from Yaqub. “I almost lost you to toy chickens. We’re not going to look at swords. We’ll never leave.”
“Those ‘toy chickens’ were marvels of mechanical ingenuity,” Ali defended himself, relishing his memory of the captivating device that had made a pair of tin chickens bob their heads when he pulled a hammer, appearing to “eat” grains of painted glass. He had desperately wanted it, aching to take the device apart and see how it worked.
“Yes. Marvels of mechanical ingenuity … for children.”
“I refuse to believe you weren’t equally enchanted by your first encounter with Daevabad’s bazaar.”
Nahri gave him a small, confessional smile that made Ali feel warm all over. “Maybe a bit. But”—she pulled the coffeepot he had been examining from his hands before dragging him away—“I have something better to show you.”
The next alley was covered, the narrow path snaking under a ceiling carved into a geometrical honeycomb. They turned a corner, and there, spread upon rugs and chests, was a sea of books and scrolls.
“Oh,” Ali said again. “Yes. Yes, this is better than swords.” He immediately went for the first shop, his eyes going wide as he took everything in. Besides books, there were rows and rows of maps and what appeared to be nautical scrolls laid out on blue velvet.
Ali knelt to examine them. The maps were beautiful, richly illustrated with miniature cities and tiny boats. He traced the bright blue line of a river, studying hand-drawn hills and a trio of islands.
“Is this Cairo?” he asked.
Nahri peered over his shoulder. “Maybe? I’m not very good with geography.”
He stared at the map, tugging absentmindedly at his beard. “How far south does the Nile go?”
“Pretty far, I suppose. I had the impression the southern parts ran through Ta Ntry.”
“Interesting,” he said softly.
“Why?”
Ali didn’t miss the guarded tone in her voice. “Just thinking,” he murmured, scanning the maps to see what else was available.
“Well, you can stay here and ponder rivers. I remember a man who used to sell medical texts down a ways. Catch up when you can.”
He muttered an assent, rifling through the pile of maps. Here was another showing the Nile. Ali traced the southern reaches, studying where the river branched and trying to make out what he could of the Arabic notes, most of the names unfamiliar.
But the land beyond … that he’d heard plenty about. The lush mountains and hidden castles built among human ruins, the desert peninsula seeming to nearly kiss Am Gezira and the humid, monsoon coast Ali had grown up listening to stories of at his mother’s knee.
Ta Ntry.
Amma.
Hatset would be home by now, right? It seemed so impossibly far, but … Ali brushed his thumb over the painted lands, his mind spinning with possibility. He was still struggling with his grief, but he hadn’t stopped quietly contemplating ways to return to Daevabad, turning their circumstances over like a puzzle in his mind.
And here was a new piece.
Ali rose to his feet, still holding the maps. A glance revealed Nahri several stalls down, immersed in her own perusing. He opened his mouth to call her name, then stopped.
No, let her be, he told himself, a rush of tenderness stealing through him at the sight of his friend. He wouldn’t get her hopes up, not yet. On the surface, Nahri seemed to be doing better than he was, but Ali wasn’t sure he believed it. Ali’s pain was bonedeep, but simply rooted: his loved ones had been murdered and his home conquered. Nahri had had her entire world turned upside down for the second time in six years, betrayed by seemingly everyone close to her, including the mother and Afshin she’d believed dead.
Besides, surely Ali could do this part on his own. He approached the bookseller.
“Peace be upon you … Peace be upon—excuse me!” Ali shouted, snapping his fingers in front of the human’s face.
The man blinked, a dazed look slipping across his features as he tilted his head. “Hello?” he said, sounding uncertain of the word.
“I would like to buy these,” Ali announced. He fumbled in his bag for the coins Yaqub had given him this morning. The apothecarist had wept, admiring his newly polished workbench. “You are a blessing. You … whatever your name is again,” he’d added, beause every night he seemed to forget anew Ali’s name and, on occasion—his very existence.
Ali held out the coins. “Is this enough?”
The bookseller glanced down at the coins and abruptly blinked again. “Yes,” he said, sweeping them from Ali’s hands. “The exact amount, yes.”
“Oh,” Ali replied, not missing the glee with which the merchant shut his money away in a small chest. He knew it was frowned upon to assume the worst of others, but he was pretty sure he’d just been cheated.
“What are you doing?”
Ali jumped at Nahri’s voice. “Nothing!” he said swiftly, turning around and hoping she wouldn’t figure out how easily he’d just been swindled. “So where to next?”
“Lunch. It’s time I repaid you for the feteer you brought me back in Daevabad with a proper Egyptian meal.”
10
NAHRI
Nahri lay back on the roof beside Ali, the remains of their feast surrounding them. “I concede defeat,” he admitted. “Human food is better.”
“Told you,” she replied, finishing the last slice of watermelon and tossing the rind aside. “Conjured spices have nothing on fried street dough.”
“And yet the place you’ve chosen to enjoy our meal is very djinn of you,” he teased, gesturing to the crumbling building they’d climbed. It looked like it had been a khanqah, a Sufi lodge, abandoned as the city’s heart shifted away. “Humans believe we haunt ruins, don’t they?”
“Exactly. It was a great place to hide when I was younger, and it has an excellent view,” she said, gazing at the spread of brown domes and minarets set against the glint of the Nile.
Ali pushed himself into a sitting position. “It does.” But then sorrow swept his face, obliterating the brief levity he had seemed to be enjoying. “There was a view of Daevabad like this from the Citadel tower,” he said softly, running his fingers over the broken bricks. “It’s still hard to believe it’s gone. The Citadel was my home for so long, the other soldiers like my family.”
His words struck close. “That’s how I felt about the infirmary and Nisreen. Jamshid too,” she added, guilt clawing through her. Jamshid was family, and Nahri couldn’t help but recall that one of the last things she’d done in Daevabad was refuse Ghassan’s attempt to use her brother’s life to blackmail her. Had Ghassan lived a few hours more, he might have taken it—killed Jamshid before Nahri’s very eyes.
And she’d been ready to let it happen: all to save the life of the man sitting next to her now in the hopes he’d take down his father. Not that she dared tell Ali any of this yet. Nahri didn’t think they were ready for that conversation.
“Kaveh might be a traitorous snake, but I’m sure he had a plan to keep his son safe.” Ali’s face fell. “Though when Jamshid finds out about Muntadhir … they were so close.”
Please tell him I loved him. Tell him I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for him sooner. Nahri squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to talk about any of this. She survived trauma by suppressing it, by shoving back the grief and rage that would otherwise swallow her whole.
She was saved from having to respond by the sudden bang of a large drum. Ali jumped, reaching for the khanjar at his waist.
“Relax,” she said, easing his hand down. The strains of singing were already following. “It’s probably a wedding.” She peered over the wall, searching the maze of lanes below. “A decade ago, I’d have hunted it down and pretended to be a guest for the food.”
“Believe it or not, back in Bir Nabat, we did the same. We used to stalk human festivals and bring back their scraps. People skilled at the magic can re-create the whole feast.” Disappointment colored Ali’s voice. “Well, others went. I was never allowed. No one thought I could be discreet.”
Nahri grinned. “You, not discreet around humans? I could never imagine it.” She paused, feeling another question build in her. “But you liked it there. Living something like a normal life.”
“I loved it.” Ali leaned on his elbows, staring out at Cairo. “It got a little lonely on occasion, and I didn’t completely fit in. But I liked feeling useful, you know? Like I could do some good.” He sighed. “It was so much easier to do that in Bir Nabat than in Daevabad.”
“Yes,” she muttered. “I think I know how that feels.”
Ali turned to face her. “How is your patient doing, by the way?”
“Good, thank God.” Nahri had checked on the boy this morning. His incision looked great, and though he had some weakness on the left side of his body, he’d survived. “His mother wouldn’t stop crying and kissing me.”
“I thought the cookies you brought back were damp.” But there was a seriousness in Ali’s eyes that the jest didn’t touch. “I’m glad to hear he’s going to be okay. Because we need to talk.”
“About what?”
“About Suleiman’s seal and the fact that our magic isn’t returning.”
Nahri was already shaking her head. “Muntadhir said it could take a couple of days—”
“It’s been five. And Nahri, nothing’s changed. I don’t feel anything of my djinn abilities, or of the seal.” Ali touched his chest. “There’s pain in my heart when I call upon my water magic, but that’s it. Unless you’ve …”
“No.” Nahri woke every morning reaching for her healing magic, aching for its return.
“Then I think we need a new plan.” Ali reached for the bag he’d been carrying. “Maybe Manizheh and Dara have been stripped of their magic, maybe everyone has, but we don’t know for sure, and we can’t just wait here. It’s not safe for us or any of the humans we associate with. We need to find a place where we can reconnect with our people and start building alliances, an army …”