Nahri glared at him, looking freshly betrayed. “Would you do it?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Could you do it to me if the situation were reversed? Or did your father read you correctly that night?” Nahri lifted her chin. “Look me in the eye, Alizayd, and tell me the truth. You promised no more lies. If saving Daevabad had meant likely killing me, would you have done it? Could you take a blade to my heart and hope for the best?”
Ali stared back at her, shame slicing through him.
But he had promised not to lie. “No.”
“Then how can you ask it of me?”
“Because you’re better than me,” he said. “Because if you wanted it, you would be a good queen. Because you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, and you’re clever.” Ali inhaled. “And because if you can look at this and see another way, I’ll trust you, I will. But if not, then, Nahri, I need you to be the Banu Nahida. Because in a couple of hours, Daevabad’s mortal enemy is going to have me, and Anahid’s ring can’t be in my heart when she does.”
Nahri stared at him, a dozen emotions passing across her face. Her black eyes glimmered, wet with the tears she so rarely let fall.
Ali wanted to throw himself at her feet. To beg her to save him and beg for forgiveness. To tell her he loved her and tell her to run back to Cairo and be free of yet another responsibility.
And then the emotions left her face, one by one, like a series of candles flickering out, leaving nothing to read, nothing to seize. The face of the woman who had stared down his father and deceived her mother. The Banu Nahida he’d watched pray at the seaside and pick herself up once more.
“I will need to get my tools.” Her voice had chilled. “And go speak to Jamshid—I’ll need his assistance.” Nahri stepped away, her entire demeanor changed, and Ali felt a wall crash down between them. “Prepare yourself.”
33
NAHRI
Nahri tapped on the sketch before her. “Go through it again.”
Across from her, Jamshid was ashen. He’d been getting paler since Nahri ordered him to her room, briskly told him the whole truth of Suleiman’s seal, and then unrolled Yaqub’s tools, announcing he was about to take part in some unplanned chest surgery.
“Again?” he repeated faintly. “We’ve talked it out ten times.”
“Were it possible, I’d have us practice twenty times. Again.”
“All right,” Jamshid muttered, visibly nervous. “We have Ali drop the seal while we’re touching him, and then I manage his pain while you work.”
“How?”
“By dulling the nerves like you showed me,” he answered. Ali was gone now, making final preparations, but they had quickly practiced that part, letting Jamshid get familiar with how his magic would feel. “And by talking to him, keeping him calm and awake so he can maintain his link with the seal while you carve into his heart.”
“While I make an incision in the outer membrane,” Nahri corrected, pointing to the sketch she’d made while examining Ali earlier. “The ring is right beneath it. I suspect our magic will fail the moment I remove the ring, and if that happens, Ali’s going to be in a lot of pain. It will be enough to knock him out, but you should ready yourself for his reaction.”
“And then you’re planning to suture the incision, correct? Do you think that will be enough to save him?”
I don’t know. Nahri was skilled, and she suspected that free of Suleiman’s ring, the marid strength swimming in Ali’s blood would help his recovery—it had when he’d been stabbed by an assassin back in Daevabad. But they were so firmly in the realm of the unknown that it seemed foolish to pretend this plan was anything more than hope.
“It might not be,” she replied. “Which is why we’re going to do something else as well: you’re going to take the seal.”
Jamshid started. “What?”
“You’re going to take the seal,” Nahri repeated, hating everything about this. “Because I’m not certain I can. Back in Daevabad, Manizheh claimed doing so would kill me since I’m shafit. That’s why I gave it to Ali.”
He stared back at her, looking uncertain. “So what the monsoon marid said—”
“Is true, yes. I have human blood, and it’s very much not the time to discuss it. Manizheh might have been lying, but I’m not going to risk it. Not now. If there’s even a slight chance that taking the ring will give you healing abilities, we’re going to do it.”
“It doesn’t feel right,” Jamshid protested. “I just found out I’m a Nahid. I have no experience with the magic, and you’ve been serving our tribe for years as Banu Nahida.”
That line of objection made her feel slightly better—Nahri didn’t think her heart could take it if her brother’s first instinct was to agree with their mother that shafit were weak. “I know. And if we were doing this in circumstances that did not involve Ali’s open chest, I’d entertain the possibility. But we’re not.”
Jamshid paled even more. “Creator help us.”
“And here you thought you’d left the priesthood behind.” Nahri looked over the space she’d prepared: a waist-high table covered with clean cloth; her surgical instruments freshly scoured and laid out; suture supplies, boiled water, and linen. Every oil lamp and candle they had was blazing, filling the room with light, and a tin tub of water rested nearby so Ali could use his marid abilities.
The door to her room opened softly. Ali stepped through, and Nahri’s heart crashed to the floor. She could still feel his hands in her hair and how badly he’d been shaking when their lips finally touched. Nahri hadn’t known she could have that effect on him.
She hadn’t known until Ali all but begged her to kill him, the effect he had on her.
He’s your patient, she reminded herself. Right now, Nahri was a doctor first, and they would both
