Then the sandstorm swallowed us.

‘Amani!’ Shazad’s voice shouted some order to me that was swallowed in the chaos. I turned to face her just in time to see an Abdal rising up behind her, raised hand glowing red. I swung my arm. I felt something tear in my side where my wound had been as the sand turned into a blade and crashed through the Abdal’s leg, cutting into clay flesh and metal bone and severing it, sending the thing toppling to the ground.

‘Watch your back!’ I shouted at her. I didn’t need orders for once. I knew what I was fighting for. I knew who I was fighting. I knew what I needed to do.

We needed the rest of the Demdji. And we needed them out. I couldn’t leave any Demdji in the Sultan’s hands. I couldn’t let him do the same thing to them that he’d done to me.

I slammed my arms down, severing the iron around Izz, then Maz. The twins burst into motion, flesh turning to feathers, fingers to talons as they plunged into the air, then back down. Delila was running for Ahmed as I freed him. And then Imin, who staggered forward, towards Navid.

A bullet caught Hala in the leg. She screamed, staggering forward. She would’ve hit the ground except Sam was there. He grabbed her, arms under her legs, and the two of them vanished through a wall. I turned my attention elsewhere. I’d lost Ahmed in the chaos.

We weren’t winning, but we didn’t have to. We just had to get as many people out as we could. I grabbed a fistful of sand and twisted hard. A stab of violent pain answered in my stomach. And then it was gone. The sand staggered, then dropped. And just like that our cover was gone.

The pain in my side doubled as I tried to grab hold of the sand again. And suddenly, it was blinding. My body was made of pain where it ought to have been flesh and blood. I staggered to my knees, gasping.

‘Amani.’ When I could see again I realised Shazad was kneeling in front of me. The way she said my name made me think it wasn’t the first time. She looked scared. Two other rebels were standing over us, covering her back while she had mine. ‘What’s happening?’

I didn’t know. I couldn’t even talk for the agony. Something my aunt had cut open so carefully inside me felt like it’d ripped in my side.

‘That’s it, you’re getting out of here.’

‘No!’

But Shazad was already helping me to my feet. I tried to pull away, to stand on my own. But she kept her grip.

‘Don’t argue. Last time you got left behind, this happened.’ She meant the Djinn and the Abdals and everything else. ‘Demdji get out first, and that’s an order from your general and your friend. Jin!’ She caught his attention across the chaos of the garden. He was with us in a second. ‘Get her out of here.’

He didn’t need to be told twice and I was in no state to fight an order. His arms were under my knees and shoulders, lifting me off the ground. I remembered the night of Auranzeb.

Are you saying you’re here to rescue me?

This was how to rescue a girl. I might’ve laughed if everything didn’t hurt so much. Shazad covered us as he lifted me towards Izz, who was wearing the shape of a giant Roc, carrying people to safety as fast as he could.

Jin and I were on his back and off the ground with one powerful wingbeat, carrying us high over the rooftops of Izman. Shots punctured the night behind us. They had a clear aim without the cover of the sandstorm. But Izz dodged expertly, moving too quickly to be a target. As we rose I could see Izman spreading out below us like a map, houses dotted with tiny pinpricks of light at the windows among dark streets. And just beyond the rambling walls and roofs was the sea, looking pink with the dawn. We were almost out of range. Even through the blinding pain I could tell. Almost. Just a little higher, just a little further, and we’d be out and gone and Izz could drop me and Jin somewhere safe and go back for the others.

I didn’t hear the gunshot that hit us. But I felt it. In the sudden jerking motion of Izz’s body as iron punctured his skin. In the scream that erupted from him. In a blur of pain, I realised they’d hit his wing. Jin’s arms tightened around me.

For a moment I was back in the harem, looking out over the water with the Sultan at my side, bow drawn as I took aim for the birds. The moment my arrow went through my kill. Watching it plummet to the ground and we were falling, too.

Izz was fighting not to plunge us back into the camp. To carry us further away. To get us out. The Sultan couldn’t capture another Demdji. I could feel the iron biting into him, and the pain hobbling his injured wing.

A last few frantic wingbeats carried us forward, the wind grabbing at us. And then we burst free of the city, of the roofs and streets and the walls that would shatter us when we crashed. We were out over the sea, a sheer drop of a cliff face from the city into the water.

We were falling. Izz’s body flipped, spilling us out as he screamed in agony, frantically beating his wings. Jin’s grip left my waist.

I had just a moment to catch sight of the water below as I slipped from his back, plunging towards it.

I didn’t even feel it when the water swallowed me whole.

Chapter 48

I’d never understood drowning.

I was a desert girl. The sea was made of sand where I was from. And that obeyed me. This. This was an attack.

Water invaded every part of me. Rushing to swallow my body hungrily. Rushing into my nose and my mouth. I was suffocating and the world was narrowed to black. Turned out I was good at drowning for a desert girl.

And then I was surging out of the depths of the water; air hit my face. Something slammed into my lungs. Light burst across my vision. It bloomed then faded to black. And then again. Pain and light wracking through me. Battling for my body.