Shira pulled the mask of Sultima back on. ‘Say you’ll bring me information about Leyla and I’ll be your distraction.’ She stuck out one hand, heavy with new gold bangles. One of them no doubt already traded to Sam for the scissors that had cut my hair. They clattered impatiently together. ‘Do we have a deal?’

I took her hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘Let’s go.’

*

I had to admit Shira wasn’t a half-bad actress. Her screams were so convincing I worried a few times that fate really was cruel enough to send her into labour the same moment she’d been faking it. She sure slumped on me heavily enough as we staggered through the gates of the harem. Her cries and sobs covered my words to the guard waiting for me. He was young and his eyes went wide with panic as his Sultima collapsed into his arms.

And just like that, Shira had shifted from my shoulder to his, grabbing all his attention and weighing him down as I staggered back, out of his view. For a second his head turned to follow me, remembering his duty. But a new scream from Shira quickly drew him back.

And then I was gone, running as fast as I could. Shira’s screams faded behind me as I bolted across the courtyard and into the halls of the palace toward the mosaic of Hawa.

*

I’d been told that my eyes were the colour of the sea on a bright day. That they were the shade of the desert sky. Foreigner’s eyes. Traitor eyes.

But the truth was I’d never seen anything exactly the same colour as my eyes until I met Noorsham. We had our father’s eyes.

It was a foreign feeling for those same blue eyes to watch me from where Bahadur sat in the iron circle as I descended the steps into the palace vaults. He didn’t speak when I reached the edge of the circle. Neither did I.

‘You’re not meant to be here, are you?’ Bahadur finally spoke.

I’d only briefly wondered about my father in the years since I’d figured out that my mother’s husband wasn’t really my father. With my blue eyes, I’d always figured he was some foreign soldier, and I didn’t want to be half-foreign. So I didn’t think about it.

I’d been a bit more curious since finding out I was a Demdji. Since I’d learned my eyes were a mark my father left me along with my power. I’d wondered what I would feel when I finally came face-to-face with him, just the two of us.

I hadn’t expected that I’d feel so much anger.

‘I’m here because I need to know how to free you.’ I crossed my arms over my body, locking my anger inside my gut. There was no room for it here, no time. ‘Not because I especially care whether or not you ever get to go back to making me some more Demdji siblings who might destroy the world. But I might care if the Sultan uses you to burn all his enemies alive or bury their cities in sand.’

‘I only buried a city in sand once.’ He meant Massil, I realised. I’d been there, with Jin. Before I even knew what I was. Before we crossed the sand sea.

‘You didn’t think that might’ve been an overreaction?’ I asked.

Bahadur watched me carefully, never blinking those blue eyes. ‘I don’t need you to free me, Amani. I have existed since time began. This is not the first time I have been summoned and held by a mortal with more greed than caution. Eventually, I always find myself free, one way or another. When it happens doesn’t matter.’

‘Well, it matters to me.’ The words came out more violently than I’d meant them to. ‘You might live forever. But our kind is known for running out of time. This is all the time I have. This is all the time any of us has. And we’ve got a war to win before it’s over and lives that’ll get lost earlier if we don’t. So tell me, if you’ve been captured so many times before, are there words to free you?’

‘There are, though I do not know them. But there is another way. One you already know. Because you know the story of Akim and his wife.’

My mother had told me that story when I was young. I hadn’t thought of it in years. Akim was a scholar. A wise man, but a poor one. Knowledge did not often bring wealth, no matter what the holy texts said. And in his studies he stumbled across the true name of a Djinni.

He used this to summon the Djinni to him and trap him in a circle of iron coins.

One day while descending to get more sugar from the basement, Akim’s wife found the Djinni. She was much neglected by her husband in favour of his books. And so she was easily tempted by the Djinni. He told her that if she only freed him, he could give her the child she so desired.

So Akim’s wife broke the circle of coins that held the Djinni and freed him.

At this point in the story, my mother would usually pause dramatically before throwing a handful of gunpowder in the fireplace and letting it explode. Releasing the Djinni without banishing him with the right words was like releasing a dam of fire.

The Djinni burned Akim’s wife alive, and with her, the rest of the house.

‘You killed Akim and his wife.’ It wasn’t a question. It was a truth.

‘Yes.’ There wasn’t a hint of remorse there. ‘That might have been an overreaction,’ he admitted.

We would have to break the circle. Only this circle wasn’t made of coins. It was set into the ground. We’d need something powerful. Something like gunpowder.

Bahadur was my father. I didn’t think he’d burn me inside out. But there was no telling.

‘There were other ways for you to learn how to free me. There are others with this knowledge.’ Bahadur watched me from inside the circle. He was inhumanly still. He didn’t shift with restlessness or fiddle with his clothing as a human would. ‘Why did you really take such pains to come see me, Amani?’