It was Shira or everyone else.

‘But Ayet—’ I started to tell her that I was already done for. That I’d been stupid and careless and gotten myself caught. That it was over for me anyway.

‘You don’t need to worry about Ayet.’ Imin started to shape-shift, to fill out the uniform. He was a head taller than I was in a few seconds.

‘What do you mean?’

He didn’t answer, scratching at his chin angrily as it filled out with a beard. ‘I hate these things.’ Whichever soldier’s shape he was stealing had a voice for giving orders, deep and ponderous. ‘Navid has been growing a beard since we fled camp so now kissing him is like rubbing my face against burlap. You’re lucky Jin’s always been clean-shaven, you know.’

‘At least Navid doesn’t occasionally vanish to parts unknown on you,’ I offered back. I pressed my palms against my eyes, pushing back against the exhaustion. ‘So we’re supposed to just let Shira die?’

‘The way it seems to me, one of you has to,’ Imin said. ‘If you really wanted me to, I could save her. But I’d have to kill you here and now so that you couldn’t betray us.’ He drummed his fingers along the knife at his belt. I knew Imin meant it. He’d do anything for this rebellion, just like any of us. And that’d include killing me. ‘You can do a lot more for the Rebellion alive. And she—’ Imin hesitated, like he didn’t want to say it. But he was a Demdji. He had to be truthful. ‘She can do a lot more by dying.’

*

Even in summer it wasn’t warm in the palace prison. I felt the chill sink into my bones as Imin and I descended the worn stone steps. The guard at the door hadn’t even tried to stop us after one glance at Imin in uniform. We would be left alone down here.

Shira was shivering in a corner, wearing the same clothes she’d given birth in, her back turned to the door. I took a step toward her, but Imin stopped me, one hand on my shoulder. He pointed toward the cell neighbouring Shira’s.

It took only a few steps closer to the cell to realise that what I’d thought was a pile of discarded clothing was moving. Just barely. Only the faint rise and fall of breathing. It was a woman, collapsed on her side, dark hair spilling across her face. But I knew the khalat she was wearing, the colour of roses with stitching the same shade as overripe cherries. It was the same one she’d worn that day in the menagerie.

‘Ayet?’

‘It’s no good.’ Shira still had her back to us. ‘She doesn’t talk any more. She might as well be dead except she’s still breathing.’ Like Sayyida and Uzma. Driven mad. This was what Imin meant by saying that I didn’t need to worry about Ayet betraying me. Slowly Shira turned over, working her way to sitting with the help of the wall. ‘You wanted to know where girls disappear to.’ She waved one hand in a gesture so grand she might’ve been showing off a golden-domed palace. ‘This is where we go. I told you I had nothing to do with it.’ She dropped her arm; it fell limp to her side. ‘Good news is, only one of us has to die today.’

‘Shira—’

‘Don’t try to comfort me.’ Her tone was the same one she’d used when we shared a floor in Dustwalk, dripping with disdain. But she didn’t fool me that easy any more. She was a desperate girl. ‘And you,’ she shot at Imin, who was hovering behind me on the stairs, ‘you don’t have to watch us like that, you know. I’m already condemned to die. What else am I possibly going to get up to between now and sundown?’

Well, being condemned to death sure hadn’t made her any more polite. I thought about telling her that Imin was on our side. But that wasn’t what really mattered to Shira. I gave Imin the tiniest nod and he retreated back up the steps, out of earshot.

‘So.’ I slid down the wall next to the cell so we were sitting side by side. Seventeen years, I couldn’t think of a single time we’d sat together. Not in Dustwalk. Not in the harem. It’d been us facing off against each other every single time. Now we were sitting side by side with a row of steadfast iron bars between us. ‘You asked for me.’

‘Funny, isn’t it? The last person I ever want to see is the last person I get to see alive.’

‘You don’t have to explain, Shira.’ Half a year and I’d started realising every conversation I had with someone in the Rebellion might be our last. Sometimes it was. But it was harder to push that out of my head when I knew for sure that Shira was a dead woman. ‘Nobody wants to die alone.’

‘Oh, good God, don’t be so pathetic; it’s depressing.’ Shira rolled her eyes so far back I thought she might lose them inside her head. ‘There’s only one thing I want from you. Your rebel friends were here. They said—’ She swallowed hard, like she was trying to hide from me that she’d hoped, even just for a second, that this might not be the end. ‘They said they couldn’t get me out.’ A stab of guilt went through my heart. They could. But they were saving me over her. I was choosing my new family over my old. ‘But they said they would help Fadi.’ She opened her eyes, her fingers curling around the bars. ‘I didn’t become Sultima by trusting anyone and everyone. I want to hear it from you. You might not be much, but you’re still the only blood I’ve got here. Tell me my son is safe.’

‘Hala’s gotten him out of the palace.’ As the words spilled off my tongue I knew they were true. ‘We can protect him.’