“She can’t send him. Issa says the Afshin appears to be the only one left with magic. Manizheh must be relying on him to hold Daevabad.” Hatset’s voice grew more fervent. “Child, it buys you both time. A degree of safety.”
But Daevabad doesn’t have time. Issa’s words ran through Nahri’s head again. How long could the city survive, isolated and cut off, with the tribal quarters at one another’s throats? How quickly would people run out of food, out of patience? If anything, Nahri was filled with a new urgency to return.
“I can’t abandon Daevabad,” she said. “My people are there, my friends, my allies at the hospital.” She considered the second part of Hatset’s suggestion and found it uncharacteristically impractical. “And to establish a court in Ta Ntry? You were just telling me how much the djinn here distrust Daevas. Why would they ever accept some Banu Nahida ruling over them?”
“Because of the other reason I don’t want Ali to learn about Muntadhir yet. You won’t just be the Banu Nahida here. You’ll be the queen. Ali’s queen.”
Nahri’s mind abruptly went blank.
“Forgive me,” she stammered, feeling like they’d leapt past several critical steps in this conversation. “But we’re not … I mean, he’s not—”
“King? No, not yet—but he will be. And once Ali declares his kingship, he will marry you, preserving the alliance between our families and tribes.”
Hatset said it all so plainly that Nahri almost felt foolish for being stunned, as if the queen was merely planning what they were having for lunch.
“Just to be clear,” Nahri started again, “you want me to lie to Jamshid and Ali about Muntadhir—a man they love—being alive and then abandon my people and home to a mass-murdering tyrant, all so I can force my rule on a foreign land whose djinn would then really have a reason to hate me?”
“If that’s what you’re taking from ‘make a pragmatic political alliance’—with a man who happens to be utterly smitten with you—instead of going to die in Daevabad in an unwinnable war, then yes.”
Nahri stared at her. If she’d thought she was struggling with her emotions earlier, Hatset might as well have sauntered in, gathered all Nahri’s feelings, stuffed them in a barrel, and then blown it up with human explosives.
Stay focused, be calm. This was like any negotiation, and now was the time to wear her opponent down and find flaws in their offer.
But it wasn’t a deal they were negotiating, it was Nahri’s life and her future. Which was why Nahri—who was normally more careful—chose the wrong part to argue first.
“Your son isn’t smitten with me. Ali has never said anything, done anything—”
“And he won’t,” Hatset said. “He’s devout, Nahri. He follows the rules, and he’s not going to overstep. But surely you know why Ghassan chose you, of all people, to use against him.”
Nahri had no response to that. Ghassan had been as good as she was when it came to reading a mark.
And then Nahri suddenly saw—through new eyes—the longing in Ali’s face when she spoke about them having a life together in Cairo. His nervousness when she touched him. His shy grin as they sailed down the Nile and talked about everything and nothing.
She saw herself. How Nahri felt … better in his presence. Like she could breathe. Like a more open, more honorable version of herself, the Nahri she might have been in a world that hadn’t tried so hard to crush her. Before she could stop herself, Nahri went to a very dangerous place. A place where it was Ali, and not Muntadhir, on their wedding night, Ali burning her marriage mask.
But it wasn’t a vast royal apartment she saw or matching thrones in Shefala’s majlis. It was a book-stuffed bedroom over a tea-scented apothecary closed for the night. A modest home filled with laughter and ease, a place where Nahri wouldn’t need to perform. A person with whom she didn’t need to wear a mask.
Stop. A rush of energy punched through her like it had back on the ship, an instinct of self-preservation. That was not the kind of future Hatset was offering.
That was not the kind of future Nahri would ever have.
Because the queen’s words were untangling. How fiercely she loved her children. How reckless she knew her son could be in pursuit of doing the right thing. How her dead husband, another cunning ruler, had planned to bring Ali down with a single letter written in Nahri’s hand.
“You’re not interested in making me queen,” Nahri finally said. “You’re interested in ending this war before it truly begins, and you want to use me to keep Ali in Ta Ntry where he’s safe.”
The silence that fell in the corridor was deafening. Ah. Nahri could always tell when she’d called a mark true.
Hatset clasped her hands together, a very imperial gesture. “Do you know what it’s like to wait for news that your child is dead? To wonder if every letter, every visitor hesitating on your doorstep, is going to be the one to shatter your world? Because I’ve gone through that twice now, Banu Nahri. So you will forgive me for not wanting to watch my son rush into a war he cannot win against the only person who’s ever truly frightened me.”
“You don’t know that we can’t win,” Nahri said vehemently. “And what about your other child? Have you forgotten—”
“There is not a second in the day I forget where Zaynab is.” True fury—the kind Nahri had never heard from the always calm queen—scorched in Hatset’s voice. “Ali killing himself in Daevabad won’t bring her home.”
That was not ground on which Nahri was going to win. She changed course. “You can’t truly be asking me to continue lying to Ali and Jamshid about Muntadhir. That’s a cruelty beyond you.”
“So tell them both and divorce Muntadhir,” Hatset replied, launching into what must have been her backup plan with a speed Nahri envied. “There’s not a sheikh in Ta Ntry who would deny
