Kamran placed two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Within moments his horse came galloping toward him, the stunning beast rushing to a reckless halt at his master’s feet. Kamran placed a foot in the stirrup and swung himself onto the slick seat.
“Sire?” Hazan shouted to be heard over the wind. “Did you meet with anyone out here?”
“No.” Kamran grabbed the reins, gave the horse a gentle nudge with his heels. “I saw no one.”
Thirteen
ALIZEH HAD BROKEN NO FEWERthan seven different laws since fleeing the scene with the prince. She was breaking one right then, daring to remain invisible as she entered Baz House. The consequences for such offenses were severe; if she were caught materializing she’d be hung at dawn.
Still, she felt she was left with little recourse.
Alizeh hurried to the hearth, stripping her coat, unlacing her boots. Public undressing of any kind was considered an act of stateliness, one deemed beneath those of her station. She might be forgiven for removing her snoda late at night, but a servant was forbidden from removing any essential article of clothing in common gathering areas.
Not a coat, not a scarf. Certainly not her shoes.
Alizeh took a deep breath, reminding herself that she was invisible to Clay eyes. She suspected there were a handful of Jinn employed at Baz House, but as she’d not been allowed to speak with any of the others—and none had dared compromise their positions by reaching out—she’d no way of knowing for certain. She hoped that any who might come upon her now might be willing to look the other way.
Alizeh drew nearer the fire, trying as best she could to roast her sopping jacket and boots. Alizeh had a spare dress, but only one jacket and one pair of boots, and therewas little chance the articles would dry out overnight in the musty closet that was her bedroom. Though perhaps if she remained indoors all day tomorrow she’d not have need of her jacket—at least not until her appointment with Miss Huda. The idea gave her some comfort.
When the jacket lost the worst of its wet, Alizeh slipped her arms back into the still-damp piece, her body tensing at the sensation. She wished she could lay the article out by the fire overnight, but she’d not risk leaving it here, where it might be noticed by anyone. She picked up her boots then, holding them as close to the flames as she dared.
Alizeh shivered without warning, nearly dropping the shoes in the fire. She calmed her shaking hands and chattering teeth by taking steady, even breaths, clenching her jaw against the chill. When she felt she could bear it, she put her mostly wet boots back on.
Only then did Alizeh finally sink down onto the stone hearth, her trembling legs giving out beneath her.
She removed her illusion of invisibility—fully dressed, she’d not be reprimanded for taking a moment by the fire—and sighed. She closed her eyes, leaned her head against the outer brick. Would she allow herself to think about what transpired tonight? She wasn’t sure she could bear it, and yet—
So much had gone wrong.
Alizeh still worried over her treasonous comments to the apothecarist, and a bit about the man who’d tried to attack her—no doubt to steal her parcels—but most of all she worried about the prince, whose attentions toward her were sobaffling as to be absurd. Where had he come from? Why had he cared to help her? He’d touched her just as the devil had foretold, as she’d seen in her nightmares the very night before—
But why?
What had possessed him to touch her so? Worse: Was he not a murderer of children? Why, then, had he acted with such compassion toward a servant girl?
Alizeh dropped her head in her hands.
Her throbbing, bandaged hands. The medicine had been all but washed out of her wounds, and the ache had returned in full force. If she allowed herself to consider for even a moment the devastating loss of her packages, she thought she might faint from heartache.
Six coppers.
The medicine had cost her nearly all the coin she had, which meant she’d not be able to afford replacements without further work. And yet, without her medicine, Alizeh didn’t know whether her hands would recover quickly enough; Miss Huda would no doubt require the five dresses in short order, as the royal festivities would be arranged without delay.
Hers was a simple tragedy: without work Alizeh would not be able to afford medicine; without medicine she might not be able to work. It tore her heart to pieces to think of it. No longer was she able to conquer her despair. She felt the familiar prick of tears, swallowed against the burn in her throat.
The cruelty of her life seemed suddenly unbearable.
She knew her thoughts to be infantile even as they arrived, but she lacked the strength to stop herself from wondering then, as she’d done on so many other nights, why it was that others had parents, a family, a safe home, and she did not. Why had she been born with this curse in her eyes? Why was she tortured and hated merely for the way her body had been forged? Why had her people been so tragically condemned alongside the devil?
For centuries before the bloodshed between Jinn and Clay had begun, Jinn had built their kingdoms in the most uninhabitable lands, in the most brutal climates—if only to be far from the reach of Clay civilization. They’d wanted to exist quietly, peacefully, in a state of near invisibility. But Clay, who had long considered it their divine right—no, duty—to slaughter the beings they saw only as scions of the devil, had mercilessly hunted Jinn for millennia, determined to expunge the earth of their existence.
Her people had paid a high price for this delusion.
In her weaker moments Alizeh longed to lash out, to allow her anger to shatter the cage of her self-control. She was stronger than any housekeeper who struck her; she was capable of greater force, greater strength and speed and resilience than any Clay body that oppressed her.
And yet.
Violence alone, she knew, would accomplish nothing. Anger without direction was only hot air, there and gone. She’d seen this happen over and over to her own people. Jinn had tried to flout the rules, to exercise their natural abilities despite the restrictions of Clay law, and they’d allsuffered. Daily, dozens of Jinn bodies had been strung up in the square like bunting, more charred at the stake, still others beheaded, disemboweled.
