This wasn’t a train.

I was on a ship.

Wooden steps rose to meet me in the spot of sunshine, and I bashed my shin into a step as I scrambled upwards, the ground tilting yet again. And then I was up in the sunlight and fresh air.

I was momentarily blinded by the sudden glare after the dark. But I’d never been the sort to stop running just because I couldn’t see where I was going. As my vision cleared I bolted forward, focusing on the place where the ship seemed to end.

Shouts followed me, but I didn’t stop. I pushed my legs forward into one last violent whip of speed. I crashed full force into the rail at the edge of the ship. My escape.

Only there was no escape.

I’d once asked Jin if the sand sea was like the real sea. He’d given me that knowing smile he used to use when he knew something I didn’t. Before I stripped all his secrets away and that smile became mine.

But now I knew.

There was water as far as the eye could see. More water than I’d seen in my whole life, more water than I’d known even existed in the world. I’d seen rivers and I’d seen pools, and I’d even seen some desert cities that had the luxury of fountains. I’d never seen anything like this.

It was as vast as the desert. And it kept me as trapped as I ever had been in Dustwalk by the miles and miles of burning sand.

Hands grabbed me from behind, yanking me away from the railing like someone thought I might throw myself off and into the mouth of the sea.

The haze of the world was starting to fade, and I was becoming aware of other things around me now. The strange smell that I could only guess was the drowned, endless stretch of sea around me. Shouts and cries, someone asking how the hell I’d gotten out.

It was a rabble of men who surrounded me. Mirajin, and no mistaking it – their skin was desert dark, and darker still for some of them. Bright sheemas covered their faces, and their hands were hard from work and raw with welts. I held on to my handful of sand, even though I knew I couldn’t take down half their number before someone would shoot me. Not when there were already three pistols aimed at me.

And then there, standing among the crowd of men in a white khalat so brilliant it hurt my eyes, was the reason Jin was still alive. It wasn’t the Sultan’s army who’d taken me after all.

It was my aunt Safiyah.

‘You drugged me.’ My voice sounded scratchy. My aunt whose hands danced with practised ease through the medicines in the Holy Father’s supply chest. She’d made the food. She could have slipped anything into it to knock out the rebels so she could escape. How easy would it have been for her to grab me as I stormed to Jin’s tent, and knock me out with something stolen when I’d left her alone with his supplies unlocked. Twice she’d tried to push bottles that would put me to sleep. For the pain.

Shazad always said I was bad at watching my back. That was why she did it for me. Shazad would’ve also said this was one of those times to keep my mouth shut. But Shazad wasn’t here. Because this woman had kidnapped me. ‘You know, last time I drugged someone who trusted me,’ I said, ‘I had the decency to leave him where he was.’

‘God, I wish you didn’t sound so much like her, too.’ She spoke low enough so I was sure I was the only one who heard. Safiyah circled around me, to where the sailor was still holding my arms. I felt her touch the strip of torn shirt still stuffed between my skin and the manacle. ‘Clever.’ She almost sounded proud of me. ‘So you can use your Demdji tricks.’

I tried to pull away but the sailor held me fast. ‘You know what I am.’ It wasn’t a question, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want answers.

‘I’ve been trading medicines in Izman since before you were even born.’ She pulled the cloth free from my wrist almost gently. ‘Do you really think you’re the first Demdji I’ve ever come across? Your kind are a rare breed. And worth a small fortune each. People in my trade learn to recognise the signs. I guessed because of your eyes, but I knew when that sandstorm saved us out in the desert. And your mother was always so secretive about you in her letters.’

She was in Saramotai for no good reason. No good reason except that the Emir of Saramotai had just started bragging to the world he had a child with eyes like dying embers who wielded the sun in her hands. Ranaa had been worth something. But my aunt had missed her chance to take the little Demdji girl. So she’d taken me instead.

‘It’s not true, you know.’ I remembered what Mahdi had told me, his knife held to Delila’s throat. ‘What they say about carving us up like meat to cure your ills.’

‘The thing is,’ she said, not quite looking at me as she twisted the piece of cloth back around her own hand, ‘what really matters is that they’re saying it at all.’ She was right. Stories and belief meant more than truth. I knew that as the Blue-Eyed Bandit. But I wouldn’t be the Blue-Eyed Bandit any more after she took my eyes.

Then to the man holding me, she said, ‘Put her with the other girls for safekeeping.’

*

We went deeper into the ship than I’d come from. Far deeper. Back down into the deepest dark of its heaving wooden stomach and then down further still. I didn’t know where we were going, but I knew we were getting close. I could hear the crying long before I could see them.

The room where the other girls were being kept made the tiny cell I’d woken up in look like the lap of luxury. They were chained to the wooden walls by both arms, and a shallow swamp of water sloshed around where they were sitting, lapping in the dark at their shivering bodies.