“About what?”
“About Suleiman’s seal and the fact that our magic isn’t returning.”
Nahri was already shaking her head. “Muntadhir said it could take a couple of days—”
“It’s been five. And Nahri, nothing’s changed. I don’t feel anything of my djinn abilities, or of the seal.” Ali touched his chest. “There’s pain in my heart when I call upon my water magic, but that’s it. Unless you’ve …”
“No.” Nahri woke every morning reaching for her healing magic, aching for its return.
“Then I think we need a new plan.” Ali reached for the bag he’d been carrying. “Maybe Manizheh and Dara have been stripped of their magic, maybe everyone has, but we don’t know for sure, and we can’t just wait here. It’s not safe for us or any of the humans we associate with. We need to find a place where we can reconnect with our people and start building alliances, an army …”
Alliances. An army. A buzz was growing in Nahri’s mind. She cleared her throat, suddenly finding it difficult to speak. “Where?” she managed.
“Ta Ntry.” Ali pulled a bundle of papers from his bag—no, not papers, maps.
“That’s why you were looking at maps?”
“Yes. And look—” He gestured to a spot on the map, somewhere in the golden lands beyond the Sea of Reeds. “Am Gezira is close, but I don’t think we should risk Manizheh bringing her plague to any more Geziris in case she still has her powers. But if we were to go south …” He ran his index finger much farther down, tracing the coast along the ocean. “My mother is from Shefala—here.” Ali tapped an invisible point. “She should be home. Ta Ntry is a power in its own right; it has money, warriors, enough resources to be largely self-sufficient.”
Ta Ntry. Nahri blinked, trying to take that all in. Her rocky relationship with the queen aside, Nahri could not deny the wisdom in going to Hatset—the cunning matriarch seemed a natural match for Manizheh.
But leaving Cairo … “Would we even be welcome in Ta Ntry?” Nahri asked. “Muntadhir always made it sound like the Ayaanle were plotting against us.”
“There might be something to that.” When Nahri lifted an eyebrow, Ali swiftly added, “But the library at Shefala is said to be extraordinary. They have a lot of texts taken from Daevabad during the original conquest, and we might find something about Suleiman’s seal in those books. Maybe there’s a part we’re missing, a way to fix all this and restore our magic.”
Creator, Nahri wanted her magic back. But another meddling court of djinn—who apparently had kept her family’s stolen archives—ruled by a sovereign she didn’t trust … “We can’t. We have no way to get there.”
“We do.” Ali again gestured to the map. “We sail.”
Nahri gave him a skeptical look. “You know how to sail?”
“I know a bit. But more importantly, I can do this.” Ali leaned over the balustrade, gesturing to a fallen palm tree drifting in the river’s languid current. It abruptly stilled and then reversed course as if being pulled by an underwater chain, moving toward Ali’s hand. He let it go, and it continued spinning away.
He grimaced, rubbing his chest. “It’s not going to be painless.” He glanced at Nahri, and for the first time since Daevabad fell, she saw hope in his eyes. “But I think it could work.”
Nahri stared at him, trying to act like a cage wasn’t closing around her. “It’s too dangerous. It’s too far. We’re all but powerless, and you want to set off on some trek through deserts and jungle because you can make a log go upriver?”
Ali deflated. “Then what would you suggest?”
Nahri hesitated but only for a moment. “That we consider staying longer.” She held his gaze, feeling more vulnerable than she liked. “Yaqub wants me to take over the apothecary.”
“Take over the apothecary?” Ali repeated, sounding bewildered. “What do you mean?”
“He’s offered to train us as apprentices,” Nahri explained. “We’d inherit it when he retires, and I could see patients there as well. I could be a doctor, or something like one, treating people who can’t afford anyone else.”
Ali was visibly shocked. “You’re not talking about staying in Cairo longer. You’re talking about staying permanently.”
“And if I am? Would it be so bad? We could have a good life here. We could help people!”
“Nahri.” Ali was already shaking his head and rising to his feet.
“Would you just consider it?” She followed him, hating the plea in her voice. “We could just be us: Nahri and Ali. Not Nahid and Qahtani, locked in some murderous feud.” Feeling desperate, she continued, “You like it here, don’t you? You’d get to ogle all the human toys you want; you could clean Yaqub’s shop and play accountant with his books—all with the added benefit of not being killed in some reckless plot. We could be happy.”
“We can’t stay here. We can’t—” Ali repeated when Nahri turned away, hating the pity in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I wish we could, but Manizheh is going to come for the seal. You know it. I know it. It’s only a matter of time.”
“We don’t know it,” Nahri countered fiercely. “For all we know, she thinks we drowned in the lake. And even if she has magic, so what? Will she search the whole world?”
“She doesn’t need to search the whole world.” Ali hesitated. “You didn’t hide your love for your human home. Surely if asked, Darayavahoush would—”
“Dara doesn’t know anything about me.”
A tense silence followed that. Ali paced away, linking his hands behind his head, but Nahri didn’t budge from her spot on the roof. If she could have, she would have rooted herself there.
Breathing hard, she fought for control of her churning emotions. Nahri had always done best when she was cold. Pragmatic. “Maybe it won’t be forever,” she said, trying to find a compromise. “If magic comes back, wonderful. We’ll consider going to Ta Ntry then. But if it doesn’t? We have a
