Muntadhir’s concerns about the state of the city’s treasury suddenly made more sense. “Can’t your mother object?” she asked. Queen Hatset thoroughly intimidated Nahri, and she couldn’t imagine the woman allowing her only daughter to be packed off to Malacca for any amount of gold.
Zaynab seemed to hesitate. “My mother has a more important battle to fight right now.”
They’d wandered down a quieter street that ran past the Citadel. Its heavy stone walls loomed high overhead, blocking the blue sky in a way that made Nahri feel nervous and small. Through a pair of open doors came the sound of laughter and the distinctive sizzling clash of zulfiqar blades.
Not certain how to respond, she handed Zaynab half of her orange. “I’m sorry.”
Zaynab stared at the fruit, uncertainty blooming in her gray-gold eyes. “You and my brother were enemies when you married,” she said haltingly. “Sometimes it seems like you still are. How … how did you …?”
“You find a way.” The words unfurled from a hard place within Nahri, one that she’d retreated to countless times since she’d been plucked from the Nile and dropped in Cairo, alone and afraid. “You’d be amazed by the things a person can do to survive.”
Zaynab looked taken aback. “You make me feel as though I should tell Muntadhir to keep a blade under his pillow.”
“I’d advise against your brother keeping anything sharp in his bed,” Nahri said as they continued walking. “Considering the number of visitors—” She choked, the orange falling from her fingers as a wave of coldness stole through her.
Zaynab instantly stopped. “Are you all right?”
Nahri barely heard the question. It felt as though an unseen hand had grasped her chin, turning her head to stare down the gloomy street they’d just passed. Tucked between the Citadel and the mottled brass of the city’s outer walls, it looked as though the block had been razed centuries ago. Weeds and dirt covered the broken paving stones and scorch marks scarred the bare stone walls. At the very end was a crumbling brick complex. Broken windows faced the street, the black spaces looking like missing teeth in a gaping mouth. Beyond the front portico were the lush tops of wildly overgrown trees. Ivy covered the buildings, strangling columns and dangling over smashed windows like so many nooses.
Nahri took a few steps in and then inhaled sharply, a buzz racing down her skin. She’d swear the heavy shadows had lifted slightly when she moved.
She turned to see Zaynab had followed her. “What is this place?” she asked, her voice echoing against the stone.
Zaynab gave the complex a skeptical glance. “A ruin? I’m not exactly an expert when it comes to moldering buildings in a three-thousand-year-old city.”
The street warmed beneath Nahri’s feet, hot enough to feel through her sandals. “I need to go in there.”
“You need to do what?”
But Nahri was already walking, thoughts of the princess, even fears of Ghassan’s gruesome punishments all falling away. She felt almost compelled, her gaze locked on the mysterious complex.
She stopped outside a pair of large brass doors. Pictograms were carved into their surface—a leaping oryx and a ship’s prow, a Daeva fire altar and a pair of scales—and magic all but simmered off the brass. Though Nahri couldn’t imagine anyone living in such a place, she raised a hand to knock.
Her knuckles hadn’t even grazed the surface when the door swung open with a groan, revealing a yawning black hole.
There was no one on the other side.
Zaynab had caught up. “Oh, absolutely not,” she said. “You’re with the wrong Qahtani if you think I’m about to go wandering into this haunted wreck.”
Nahri swallowed. Had she been back in Egypt, this might have been the start of a tale told to frighten children, one of mysterious ruins and terrifying djinn.
Except she was technically the terrifying djinn, and the icy grip the building had on her heart had only tightened. It was reckless; it was an impulse that made no sense—but she was going inside.
“Then stay out here.” Nahri dodged Zaynab’s hand and ducked inside.
The darkness instantly swallowed her. “Naar,” she whispered. Flames blossomed in her palm, throwing light on what must have once been a grand entrance chamber. Remnants of paint clung to the walls, outlining the forms of winged bulls and prancing phoenixes. Pockmarks were everywhere, places gems had likely been pried from the walls.
She stepped forward, raising her flames. Her eyes widened.
In fragments and shadows, the Nahids’ creation story spread on the wall before her. Suleiman’s ancient temple rising over the heads of its laboring daeva workers. A woman with pointed ears kneeling in a blue-and-gold chador at the feet of a human king. As Nahri stared in wonder at the mural, she’d swear the figures started to move and merge: a scattering of glazed paint becoming a flock of soaring shedus, the bare line drawing of veiled Nahid healers mixing potions filling with color. The faint sound of marching boots and cheering spectators whispered in her ear as a parade of archers trooped by, wearing ceremonial helmets crested with swaying feathers.
Nahri gasped, and as she did, the flame twirled away from her palm, pinpricks of light dancing away to illuminate the rest of the chamber. It was a burst of unconscious magic, the kind she associated with the palace, the royal heart of the Nahids whose power still coursed in her blood.
The murals abruptly stopped moving. Zaynab had entered and was gingerly picking her way over the debris littering the floor.
“I think this place belonged to my family,” Nahri whispered, awed.
Zaynab gave the room a wary look. “To be fair … I believe that could be said of much of Daevabad.” Her expression turned exasperated when Nahri glared. “Excuse me if it’s difficult to be diplomatic when I’m afraid the building is going to come down at any moment. Now can we please leave? My father will have me packed off to Malacca tomorrow if his Nahid gets crushed under a pile of falling bricks.”
“I’m not his Nahid, and I’m not leaving until I figure out what this place was.” The tingle of magic on Nahri’s skin had only increased, the humid heat of the city oppressive in the close chamber. She pulled free her veil, thinking it unlikely they would come upon anyone, and then, ignoring Zaynab’s warning, Nahri climbed over one of the crumbling walls.
She landed lightly on her feet in a long, covered corridor, a succession of sandstone arches separating a row of doors from an overgrown courtyard garden. The walkway was in far better shape than the foyer: the floor appeared freshly swept, the wall plastered and covered in swirls of colorful paint.
With a curse, Zaynab followed. “If I’ve not said it lately, I think I hate you.”
“You know, for a magical being, you have a terrible sense of adventure,” Nahri replied, touching one of the eddies of paint, a blue swell that looked like a wave. An ebony boat was outlined against it. At her touch, the wave rose as if alive, sending the boat careening down the wall.
Nahri grinned. Thoroughly intrigued, she kept walking, peeking inside the rooms she passed. Save for the occasional broken shelf and rotting bits of carpet, they were all empty.
Until
