‘See’ – Sam wavered back on track – ‘cowardice is the only reason I can possibly think of that makes any sense of why you still haven’t gone to speak to the person who might be able to get that little piece of bronze under your skin out so that you can leave the palace with us.’

I sobered. ‘Shazad told you about Tamid.’ I felt a little bit betrayed by that. ‘It’s not that easy.’

‘It’s certainly harder if you don’t try. And for all my many feats of bravery, I’m deeply afraid of your general, so I sincerely don’t want to bring back the news that you haven’t even tried yet. Because guess which of us will get blamed? It’s not the one she actually likes.’

‘Shazad likes you fine,’ I said offhandedly. ‘Why do you even care?’

‘She depends on you. You don’t see it, but she does.’ For just a moment he actually seemed serious. ‘And I don’t think you’re selfish enough to die on her just to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. Besides, if you die, I can’t be in two places at once any more.’

I ignored that last part. Sam annoyed me even more than usual when he was right.

*

I dragged my feet as we left the negotiations the next day, forcing Rahim to drop back with me.

The Sultan caught his eye, a question mark there. A spark of suspicion neither of us could afford. Rahim saw it, too. He leaned in towards his father, whispering low in his ear. ‘The Gallan ambassador has the look in his eye of a man about to do something very foolish.’ He wasn’t wrong about that. I’d torn down three of the Gallan ambassador’s lies in the meeting, as he got angrier and angrier. ‘If he were one of my soldiers, I would have him run drills until he cooled off. As he isn’t, I think it’s best to let him go ahead.’

The Sultan considered me before nodding, letting me and Rahim drag back behind the rest.

‘There’s a—’ Prisoner wouldn’t get past my tongue. ‘A boy. From the Last County. He only has one leg.’

‘I know him.’

‘Can you get me to him?’ I pressed.

‘Do you want to tell me what you need with him badly enough to risk going places my father doesn’t want you?’

‘Do you want to tell me why your sister so desperately needs to be saved from the harem?’

Rahim scratched the edge of his mouth, hiding a smile. ‘This way.’

*

I started to recognize this part of the palace as we came to the foot of a long winding staircase. My first day in the palace, I’d clambered down this, body aching with fresh wounds, fighting legs that couldn’t help but obey the Sultan’s order to follow him.

I heard voices as we got closer to the top. I recognized Tamid’s instantly. It was a voice that went with laughing ourselves stupid after we’d been sent out of the schoolroom for misbehaving. With nights falling asleep while he read me the Holy Books after my mother died. The other was soft and female. A part of me wanted to turn back. To avoid sticking my fingers in this wound. But Sam had been talking sense for once. I had no right to be a coward in this rebellion.

I pushed the door open.

Two startled heads looked up at me. Tamid was sitting on the edge of the same table I’d woken up on. The sight of him was so heartbreakingly familiar that for a moment I wanted to rush to him and pour everything out. His left trouser leg was rolled up to his knee. Or where there ought to have been a knee.

Instead there was a bronze disc hiding the place where his leg ended. It was secured to the scarred skin with a leather strap. There was nothing attached to it. The rest of Tamid’s leg – the hollow, polished bronze – was in Leyla’s hands, as she sat across from him. She gaped at me and Rahim with wide eyes, mouth moving open and shut in silent panic.

Well. I hadn’t been expecting that. I didn’t think Rahim had, either.

‘Don’t tell Father!’ she blurted out finally. It was exactly the wrong thing to say. Though the fact that she was suddenly flushed from neck to chin wasn’t doing her any favours, either. ‘I was just here to make sure it wasn’t …’ She trailed off.

‘Squeaking,’ Tamid filled in even as Leyla made a noise that sounded an awful lot like a squeak herself. ‘The joints were squeaking. Leyla came to tune my leg up. Seeing as she built it and all.’

‘I bet she did.’ Rahim eyed Tamid in that way that fathers and brothers eyed boys who looked at their daughters and sisters wrong. So this was the secret Leyla was keeping, which Shira wanted so bad. Shira thought she was sneaking off to plot against her with her brother, but she was just an infatuated girl leaving the harem to see a boy.

It might’ve been funny if I wasn’t certain that Shira could use this, too. More than once I’d gotten a beating for sneaking off to see Tamid. And I wasn’t a princess. And I hadn’t been in love with him. Was this why Rahim was so desperate to get Leyla out of the palace? Would she get punished for this as much as Tamid would? But there was something else passing between the siblings, skipping straight over Tamid. ‘You designed that, Leyla?’ Rahim gestured at the articulated bronze limb in her hands.

She nodded nervously. ‘I thought – it might be useful.’ So she didn’t just make toys for children in the harem. That was impressive, I had to admit.

But Rahim was angry in a way I didn’t wholly understand. ‘Come on, Leyla, I’ll walk you back to the harem. There are some things we need to discuss anyway.’ Good, it was long past time to tell Leyla about the plan for Auranzeb. The holiday was only a handful of days away now and she needed to know we were getting her out of there.