Dara paused, following her reasoning. “You are certain?”
“Quite,” Manizheh replied, a trace of bitterness in her voice. “Nahri slipped it on his finger, they vanished into the lake, and moments later, the veil fell and my abilities were gone.” She looked grim. “I watched the water. They didn’t resurface.”
“I checked the cliffs as well.” It had nearly killed Dara to do so, the prospect of discovering Nahri dashed upon the rocks too awful to contemplate. “I found nothing. But the fall is not long. Perhaps they swam back, and I missed them. They could be hiding elsewhere on the island, Alizayd using the seal to stop magic.”
Manizheh shook her head. “It was too sudden. Ghassan went into seclusion for days when he first took the seal and looked like he’d been on the wrong end of a plague when he returned. I do not think this could be Alizayd’s doing.”
Kaveh cleared his throat. “I will say what neither of you want to: they are just as likely dead. That is a fall that could kill a man. For all we know, they drowned, and their bodies sank beneath the water.”
Dara’s heart twisted, but Manizheh was already responding. “The ring-bearer being dead should not have affected magic like this. After all, how many hours did Ghassan lie slain with it?”
Dara pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nahri is not dead,” he said stubbornly. “It is not possible. And I do not believe for one moment that the marid let their little pawn drown.”
Kaveh looked confused. “Why would the marid care? From what Manizheh told me, I got the impression Alizayd was nothing to them, merely the first convenient body to jump in that night they cut you down.”
“For someone who was merely convenient, he’s certainly been well rewarded. That sand fly killed my men with water magic. Vizaresh said he found Alizayd controlling the lake as though he were marid himself.”
“You might have mentioned that a bit sooner,” Kaveh sputtered. “They jumped in a marid-cursed lake, Afshin! If Alizayd is under the protection of those creatures—”
“The marid told me they wouldn’t interfere with us again,” Dara argued. “I made clear the consequences.”
“Enough.” Manizheh raised a hand. “I cannot think with you two shouting like that.” She pursed her lips, looking troubled. “What if he didn’t need to be under their protection?”
“What do you mean?” Dara asked.
“I mean that it might not have been Alizayd,” Manizheh suggested. “We were the ones who insisted the marid restore the lake’s original enchantment, the one that let Nahids travel through the waters—it’s how we returned to Daevabad. What if Nahri somehow used it to get them away?”
Kaveh opened his mouth, looking even paler. Dara was genuinely surprised he hadn’t fainted yet.
“That … that could fit. Back at the camp, you both said there was no evidence Suleiman’s seal had ever left Daevabad. Maybe this is why,” Kaveh continued, gesticulating like an over-exuberant lecturer. “Because if you remove the seal from Daevabad, everything falls apart. Does it otherwise not seem strange the Qahtanis never took the seal back to Am Gezira? That they wouldn’t have tried to build an empire closer to their home and allies?”
“It’s a theory,” Manizheh said after a cautious silence. “One that might fit, but even so, if Nahri accessed that kind of magic, they could be anywhere. She would have merely needed to think of a place, and they’d be gone.”
“Then I will go find them,” Dara rushed, not caring how emotional he sounded. “Egypt. Am Gezira. Nahri and Alizayd are not fools. They’ll go somewhere familiar and safe.”
“Absolutely not.” Kaveh’s voice fell like a hammer. “You can’t leave Daevabad, Afshin. Not for a single minute. Besides the ifrit, you’re the only magic-user in the city. If the djinn and shafit thought you weren’t here to protect us …” He began to shake again. “You didn’t see what they did to the Navasatem parade. What they did to Nisreen. The dirt-bloods don’t need magic. They have ghastly human weapons capable of blowing people to pieces. They have Rumi fire and rifles and—”
Manizheh’s hand fell on Kaveh’s wrist. “I think he understands.” She glanced at Dara, resignation in her face. “I am desperate for my magic, Afshin, I am. But we took this city by blood, and now Daevabad comes first. We’ll need to come up with another way to get the seal back.”
If Dara had felt the weight of his duties before, it landed even more heavily now, tightening around his shoulders and throat like a barbed scarf. Manizheh wasn’t manipulating him this time. Dara knew damn well the price his people would pay for the violence their invasion had wrought.
It was not a thing he would let happen. “Then what do we do?” he asked.
“We finish what we started: we put Daevabad—all of it—under our control. And while we’ll need to find out if magic is gone beyond our borders, for now we keep news of what’s happened under wraps. I won’t have the shafit running off to bring magic to the human world or the djinn fleeing to their homelands. Have the ifrit burn any boats trying to cross the lake.”
Kaveh visibly started at that. “But there will be travelers trying to come for Navasatem.”
“Then we’ll deal with them. And on a more personal note”—Manizheh took a deep breath—“is there any news of Jamshid?”
The grand wazir’s face crumpled. “No, my lady. I’m sorry. All I know is that Ghassan said he was someplace secure. He might have been at the Citadel when it fell.”
“Stop saying that,” Dara demanded, seeing Manizheh pale for the first time. “Kaveh, you were the
