‘Yes.’ The captain looked faintly embarrassed. ‘There is more of their army coming, too, from Gallandie itself, headed for your northern shores.’ He sounded apologetic. ‘Your city will be surrounded.’

And they might all be annihilated for it. They had no idea what kind of force the Sultan could turn against them. Then again, even the Sultan might not be expecting two ancient enemies to join against him. The Albish magic, with the Gallan’s numbers, might stand a chance at fighting the Abdals.

One way or another, this would be a massacre. And it might be the end of Miraji before we even had a chance to take the throne for Ahmed. We would be a conquered country in the Gallan Empire.

‘However,’ the captain said, stepping into my churning thoughts carefully, ‘before your Rebel Prince was executed, it was made known to some that Queen Hilda might be prepared to offer her support to the Rebel Prince in his bid for the throne.’ Captain Westcroft toyed with one of the gold buttons on his sleeve. ‘If you were amenable, I could send word back to Albis today to find out if the offer of alliance still stands with young Queen Elinore. If perhaps she might prefer it to getting into bed with our enemies. So to speak. We would have word back by tomorrow, I expect.’ That didn’t make any kind of sense to me. Albis was oceans away, far beyond the horizon. They really must have magic that I didn’t wholly understand.

‘So, for an alliance you’d be willing to help us rescue Ahmed?’ He was offering me what we had come to Bilal for: an army. But I hesitated.

I remembered sitting across from the Sultan at the palace, over a duck I’d killed. He was chastising me, saying that the world was not so simple as the Rebellion would like to make it out to be. That Miraji was a country that couldn’t stand on its own. That it would be conquered if it did not ally. He had been toying with me then. But that didn’t mean he was wrong. To help us win our country, they wanted our country. And it wasn’t my country to give away.

But if we didn’t manage to rescue Ahmed, if I left the Albish to ally with the Gallan, it would never be his country either.

Before I could answer, a shout came from outside. There was a commotion in the hall where I’d left the boys and our traitor princess. I was on my feet in a second, the foreign captain close behind me. I wrenched the door open just in time to see an Albish soldier with pale brown curls take a swing at Sam, two of his compatriots looking on.

Amazingly, Sam managed to look sheepish while being punched in the face.

Sam hit the ground bleeding from his nose even as Captain Westcroft barked something that sounded like an order in Albish. The two other soldiers snapped to attention, but the one who’d hit Sam either didn’t hear or didn’t care. He moved as if to hit him again. I stepped to stop him, but Jin was closer. Faster than I could see, he had the soldier by the front of his uniform and slammed him back into the opposite wall. He said something to him in rapid-fire Albish. It sounded like a threat but the other boy didn’t take a swing at Jin. Possibly because Jin stood a head taller than him.

Only then did the soldier seem to notice his captain. He straightened quickly, even though he was wedged against a wall, and did his best to smooth down a uniform that was still twisted in Jin’s fists.

The captain said something in Albish that I could only guess was, What the hell is going on here? I wanted to know the same thing. Jin finally let the soldier go and reached down a hand to help up Sam, who was still lying on the floor, looking stunned.

‘I’m fine,’ Sam said, staggering to his feet. ‘I’ve just never been hit in the face before.’

‘I find that very hard to believe,’ Jin said.

‘I’m just amazed one of us didn’t get there first,’ I said, stepping away from the captain. ‘What did he hit you for?’

‘Jealousy,’ Sam said, dabbing at his bloody face with his sleeve. ‘Over my good looks. Do you think my nose is broken?’

‘Seems our friend with the decent right hook knows Sam from his days serving Her Majesty.’ Jin filled in the truth, quickly translating what the younger soldier was saying to his captain.

I groaned, looking at the ceiling. ‘So they know you’re a deserter.’

‘I would like to remind you –’ Sam did a very poor job of looking indignant with a bloody nose – ‘that I wouldn’t even be here to be recognised as a deserter if it wasn’t for you.’

‘No, you’d probably be flotsam outside the White Fish,’ Jin said before I could fire back.

‘Besides,’ Sam went on, ‘that punch wasn’t for patriotism. When I left the army, I needed some additional resources to finance myself. You know, until I got settled in Izman.’

‘So you stole from him.’ This was getting better by the second.

‘No.’ Sam looked outraged. ‘Not just from him. I stole from a lot of people.’

I pinched the bridge of my nose in exasperation. ‘Can you remind me when we get out of here to kill you?’

Before Sam had a chance to dig himself any deeper, the other two soldiers stepped forward, pushing past us almost apologetically to seize Sam by the arms.

‘What’s happening now?’ I asked. Captain Westcroft was looking unhappily on, hands interlocked behind his back as he gave his soldiers orders.

‘They’re arresting him,’ Jin said, translating, as Sam was led away, his mocking incredulity shifting to something more serious. ‘For desertion.’