“Not fast enough.”
“I can help him,” Hind says, the green of her Shawafa reflecting in her white-cast eyes. “You pull it out. I'll close the wound.”
“Just do it quickly,” Shadi groans, his lips drawn thin and beaded by sweat.
Shay cuts the material away from the leg of his trousers with her pocketknife, both to see the wound better and for staunching the initial gush of blood. It takes more force to remove the icicle than she's prepared for.
She feels the tearing of flesh and muscle, as though the spear causes as much damage coming out as it did going in. Shadi doesn't scream, not out loud. His face contorts in a silent agony that rivals any laboring mother's expression Shay has ever witnessed.
What small relief she feels as Hind takes over is short-lived.
The world above them has gone silent, indicating they are no longer being hunted, at least not in the immediate vicinity. They are safe for the moment. She hopes Walid will be spared, since the Moulay who saw him with them is dead. She wonders what that young man was like before he enlisted. Of the friends and family who will mourn him. His parents.
And then there's Khawla.
All Shay can see are Khawla's eyes frosted shut. All she can think about is the terror Khawla must have felt, being sightless, not knowing where they were taking her. She imagines the moment Khawla's finally able to pry her eyes open again and finds herself alone.
That's the thought that breaks her.
25
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Hind is not well. Her tolerance to Snow has become so high, she's rebounding faster. They make their way through the damp and putrid tunnels below the medina. Every step feels like a betrayal of Khawla.
“Walid will help her,” Shadi says, as they slosh through ankle-deep murk.
Shay can't tell how much of the conviction in his voice is real and how much is him trying to convince himself. Him wanting to believe Walid himself is not in any immediate danger. That they haven't made things worse for him. “Is he your brother?”
“Yes.” Shadi sighs, and the sound is layered with grief. “They've made him a Moulay. I mean, thank God he's alive, and we can certainly useinformation from someone inside, but I would have rather he had chosen to come home.”
Shay palms the center of his back. “May God protect him.”
“He'll be well,” Shadi says, less certainly this time. “As long as Al-Mukhtar doesn't realize exactly who his mother is. Then they might …”
Use him to get at her, she thinks, and she understands too well the confusing mix of joy and pain that comes with finding out your loved one is alive but trapped, whether that be in a physical location or a prison of their own making.
“So, who's Yassine?” Shay asks, as much out of curiosity as to nudge the conversation in another direction.
Shadi nods, as if expecting this question. “Shadiis an alias. Anyone in the Sisterhood who lives in Nezjar has to have a false identity and backstory.”
Shay thinks about the words Walid spoke in Waheeli, the tattoos on the Morchidat's face. “You're not from Umm Chanala, are you?”
