off a roof and cracked my head,” he whispered. “The doctors told my wife that blood was swelling under the bone and that removing part of the skull might relieve the pressure and save my life.”
Nahri blinked. “The doctors?” She looked at the tree he’d been taking the cuttings from. Willow. Of course. Both the leaves and bark were valuable, easily distilled into medicine for aches and pains … for human aches and pains. “Did they ask you for this as well?”
He shook his head, still trembling. “I offered. I saw a picture in one of their books and thought I remembered seeing a tree like it when I worked on the roof here last year.” He gave her an imploring look. “They’re good people, and they saved my life. I wanted to help.”
Nahri was having trouble containing her excitement. Shafit doctors who could do surgery and had medical books? “Who?” she asked eagerly. “Who are these doctors?”
He dropped his gaze. “We’re not supposed to talk about them.”
“I don’t mean them any harm.” She touched her heart. “I swear on my ancestors’ ashes. I’ll bring them some willow myself, and more. I have plenty of medicines that are safe for shafit in my apothecary.”
The man looked torn. Nahri studied him again, noting his bare feet and ragged galabiyya. His heavily calloused hands.
Hating herself a little, Nahri pulled a gold ring from her pocket. She’d forgotten to remove it before starting work in the infirmary and had settled for slipping it in there. Small rubies, set in a floral pattern, were embedded in its surface.
She placed it in his hand. “A name and a location.” His eyes went wide, locking on the ring. “I’m not going to hurt them, I promise. I want to help.”
Longing filled his face; Nahri imagined the money a ring like that could fetch would go a long way for a shafit laborer.
“Subhashini Sen,” he whispered. “The house with the red door on Sukariyya Street.”
Nahri smiled. “Thank you.”
A SMALL ARMY OF SERVANTS WAS WAITING FOR NAHRI when she finished her work, and she’d no sooner set foot in the steamy hammam than they descended, taking her blood- and potion-splattered clothes away to be washed and then giving her a thorough scrub, rinsing her skin with rosewater, massaging her limbs with precious oils, and attempting to coax her wild curls into an elegant crown of braids.
Never one content to give up control, Nahri had, however, insisted on picking out her own clothes. Tonight she’d selected a gown cut from the finest linen she’d ever touched. It was sleeveless, falling to her ankles in a pale buttery sheath and held together by an ornate collar of hundreds of beads: lapis lazuli, gold, carnelian, and topaz. It reminded Nahri of home, the pattern looking like one that might have been copied from an ancient temple back in Egypt.
A servant had just finished clasping the delicate collar when another approached, bearing a discreet ivory cosmetics pot. “Would you like me to powder your skin, my lady?” she asked.
Nahri stared at the vessel. An innocent question, but one that always caused her stomach to tighten. Instinctively, she glanced up, catching sight of her reflection in the polished silver mirror perched on her dressing table.
Though the line between the shafit and the purebloods in Daevabad was a hard one, carved by centuries of violence and enshrined in law, the differences in their appearances were not as great as their divide in power suggested. The purebloods had their pointed ears and metal-toned eyes, of course, the color varying by tribe. And their skin had a gleam to it, a shimmer and a haze that reflected the hot, jet-colored blood that simmered in their veins. Depending on ancestry and luck, shafit had a mix of human and djinn features: human hazel eyes paired with perfectly pointed ears, or perhaps the tin-toned gaze of the Agnivanshi without the glimmer to their skin.
And then there was Nahri.
At first glance, there was nothing magical about Nahri’s appearance. Her ears were as rounded as a human’s and her skin an earthy matte brown. Her black eyes were dark, to be certain, but she’d always felt like they lacked the same shining ebony depths that marked one as Daeva. Hers was a face that had once convinced Dara she was a shafit with the barest drop of magical blood in her veins. And it was a face that was apparently a lie, the product of a marid curse—or so the ifrit who’d hunted her had claimed, a claim Ghassan had seized upon in order to publicly declare her a pureblood.
Privately, of course, he’d said something very different. Not that it mattered. Nahri suspected she would never fully discern the truth of her origins. But the laissez-faire approach to her appearance had changed when she married Muntadhir. The future queen of Daevabad was expected to look the part, and so hairdressers arranged her braids to cover the tips of her ears. Ash was mixed into her kohl to make her eyes look darker. And then the cursed ivory pot appeared. It contained an incredibly expensive powder made from the Creator only knew what that when brushed upon her skin gave Nahri the shimmer of a pureblood for hours.
It was an illusion, a waste of time and an utter facade—and all for a future queen who couldn’t even protect her tribesmen from being beaten and robbed in front of her. And the fact that it was her shafit servants who were forced to create an image of the blood purity that circumscribed their lives … it made Nahri feel ill. “No,” she finally replied, trying not to let her revulsion show. “I don’t need that.”
There was a knock on the door and then Nisreen entered.
Nahri groaned. “No. I need a night off. Tell whoever it is to heal themselves.”
Her mentor gave her a wounded smile. “It is not always work that I seek you for.” She glanced at Nahri’s maids. “Would you mind leaving us?”
They obeyed at once, and Nisreen joined her at the dressing table. “You look very pretty,” she said. “That dress is beautiful. Is it new?”
Nahri nodded. “A gift from a Sahrayn seamstress happy to no longer have silver-pox.”
“Your husband will be hard-pressed to take his eyes off you in that.”
“I suppose,” Nahri said, fighting embarrassment. She wasn’t sure why she was even bothering. Muntadhir had married her for her name, not her face, and her husband was so constantly surrounded by djinn who were breathtakingly gorgeous—men and women who had voices like angels and smiles that could lure humans to madness—that it seemed a waste of time to even attempt to attract his eye.
Nisreen’s gaze darted to the door before she set down the small silver chalice that had been casually concealed in the folds of her shawl. “I’ve prepared your tea.”
Nahri stared at the chalice, the sharp scent of herbs wafting from pale green liquid. They both knew what kind of “tea” it was: the kind Nahri drank only when she visited Muntadhir. “I still worry we’re going to get caught.”
Nisreen shrugged. “Ghassan probably has his suspicions, but you’re a Nahid healer. On this, he’s going to have a hard time outmaneuvering you, and it’s worth the risk to buy you a bit of time.”
“A bit of time is all it’s buying.” Ghassan hadn’t overly pressed on the topic of grandchildren yet. Djinn didn’t conceive easily, and it was entirely reasonable the emir and his wife had yet to be blessed with an heir. But she doubted he’d hold his tongue for long.
Nisreen
