Hala groaned, cutting him off. ‘While someone might be fascinated by this, they are not people currently trying to get you across a palace unseen. Do you mind?’
I led the way.
We stayed close to Hala, moving as slowly as we could. It made it easier for her to fool the minds of the soldiers we passed standing guard inside the palace. They were few and far between. Resources were spread thin tonight. But not a single one of them blinked as we walked straight in front of them; their minds were twisted firmly by Hala’s power so all they saw was empty hallway. We moved quietly down now-familiar hallways and around corners until finally we came face-to-face with Princess Hawa’s mosaic. Sam didn’t wait for me to speak, grabbing our hands again, pulling us through the wall.
We came out, half stumbling, at the top of the old stone stairs that I’d walked down the first time I’d woken in the palace, the Sultan holding a lamp in front of us, so I could see only one step in front of me at a time.
Only I could see the bottom of the steps now. We weren’t alone in the palace vaults. My arm shot out, stopping Shazad from going any further. She understood the signal instantly, pausing where she was.
We moved carefully, lowering ourselves on the stairs like ghouls in the night, crouching until we were at the edge of the shadows, until we could see clearly into the crypt.
The vaults flickered with the movement of the captured Djinn. There were eighteen of them now. Eighteen names that I had called one by one to be trapped. And though they’d all taken the form of men there was still something unnatural about them. They stood like pillars of immortal power around the vaults, sometimes catching light that couldn’t come from anywhere. The sheer force of their presence felt like a physical blow.
A half dozen men in uniform carrying torches were huddled around Fereshteh. He was exactly where I had left him after calling him, trapped inside the iron circle. Only somebody had placed what looked like a cage over him. It was made of brass and iron and gold and glass all interlocking in complicated patterns, jointed in a thousand places, arches of metal curving into each other.
The other captured Djinn looked on curiously from within their own circles, like parents watching something their child had made and they didn’t wholly understand. For a fraction of a second Bahadur’s eyes darted up our way before going back to the other immortals.
Something shifted in the circle of soldiers and the figure who had been working at the machine came into view. I knew Leyla instantly, even from this far away.
So this was why I hadn’t been able to find her in the gardens. She was moving anxiously, hands dancing across complicated-looking pieces of machinery as easily as they ever did with the little toys she made in the harem.
She twisted something, stepping back suddenly. The whole circle of soldiers took a step back with her.
For two heartbeats nothing happened.
And then the machine came alive.
The bars of the cage started to move, slowly at first. Then faster.
Inside the machine, Fereshteh watched curiously as the blades moved. He didn’t look afraid, but panic was starting to rise in my chest. The machine whirred faster and faster, huge blades swinging in evenly paced circles, like each one was a moving horizon across a huge globe. The bronze blades rising like dawn, the dark iron blades cutting across bringing the sunset. Faster and faster. Until it was a blur of machine around the Djinni.
A sense of dread filled my chest. We had to free him. We had to free him now before it was too late. I started to move forward, blind to the danger. And then one of the pieces of the machine, an iron blade, snapped into place. It swung suddenly, arching upwards towards the sky. It froze there for a moment. I saw what was going to happen a second before it did.
It drove straight through Fereshteh’s chest.
Inside, the immortal Djinni, one of God’s First Beings, who was made at the same time as the world, who had seen the birth of humanity, who had watched the first immortals fall and seen the first stars born, who had faced the Destroyer of Worlds, died.
Chapter 37
The Djinn were made from a fire that never went out. An ever-burning smokeless fire that came from God. And in the early days of the world the First Beings lived in an endless day.
Then the Destroyer of Worlds came. And with her she brought the darkness. She brought night. And she brought fear.
And then she brought death.
Wielding iron, she killed the first immortal Djinni. And when he died, he burst into a star. One after another, the Djinn fell that way, filling our sky.
Watching Fereshteh die was like beholding a star on earth. White burned across my eyes, and I was blinded. I heard someone scream. I heard Shazad shout something I couldn’t make out.
Slowly the light retreated from under my eyelids, leaving me blinking but able to see again. Inside the machine, Fereshteh’s body was gone. What was left was burning bright as a star, and the metal of the machine around him was blazing incandescent. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up painfully. I knew where I’d felt this before. The metal door, before the Gallan tried to kill me. Even as we watched, the light whipped up a wire I hadn’t seen before, igniting, racing along the ceiling, darting above us.
There was a shout from below as the flash of light above our heads illuminated us too sharply to miss. The time for subterfuge was over. Sam grabbed us both by the hand, wrenching us up the steps and back through the door so fast I barely had time to take a breath before we plunged through.
Hala staggered back as we stumbled through.
‘Hala.’ I tore my hand out of Sam’s for a moment. He stumbled to a stop, but Shazad didn’t. She was a few paces ahead of us, already running back towards the garden. ‘Leyla – she’s down there. Get her out.’ groaned, cutting him off. ‘While someone might be fascinated by this, they are not people currently trying to get you across a palace unseen. Do you mind?’
I led the way.
We stayed close to Hala, moving as slowly as we could. It made it easier for her to fool the minds of the soldiers we passed standing guard inside the palace. They were few and far between. Resources were spread thin tonight. But not a single one of them blinked as we walked straight in front of them; their minds were twisted firmly by Hala’s power so all they saw was empty hallway. We moved quietly down now-familiar hallways and around corners until finally we came face-to-face with Princess Hawa’s mosaic. Sam didn’t wait for me to speak, grabbing our hands again, pulling us through the wall.
We came out, half stumbling, at the top of the old stone stairs that I’d walked down the first time I’d woken in the palace, the Sultan holding a lamp in front of us, so I could see only one step in front of me at a time.
Only I could see the bottom of the steps now. We weren’t alone in the palace vaults. My arm shot out, stopping Shazad from going any further. She understood the signal instantly, pausing where she was.
We moved carefully, lowering ourselves on the stairs like ghouls in the night, crouching until we were at the edge of the shadows, until we could see clearly into the crypt.
The vaults flickered with the movement of the captured Djinn. There were eighteen of them now. Eighteen names that I had called one by one to be trapped. And though they’d all taken the form of men there was still something unnatural about them. They stood like pillars of immortal power around the vaults, sometimes catching light that couldn’t come from anywhere. The sheer force of their presence felt like a physical blow.
A half dozen men in uniform carrying torches were huddled around Fereshteh. He was exactly where I had left him after calling him, trapped inside the iron circle. Only somebody had placed what looked like a cage over him. It was made of brass and iron and gold and glass all interlocking in complicated patterns, jointed in a thousand places, arches of metal curving into each other.
The other captured Djinn looked on curiously from within their own circles, like parents watching something their child had made and they didn’t wholly understand. For a fraction of a second Bahadur’s eyes darted up our way before going back to the other immortals.
Something shifted in the circle of soldiers and the figure who had been working at the machine came into view. I knew Leyla instantly, even from this far away.
So this was why I hadn’t been able to find her in the gardens. She was moving anxiously, hands dancing across complicated-looking pieces of machinery as easily as they ever did with the little toys she made in the harem.
She twisted something, stepping back suddenly. The whole circle of soldiers took a step back with her.
For two heartbeats nothing happened.
And then the machine came alive.
The bars of the cage started to move, slowly at first. Then faster.
Inside the machine, Fereshteh watched curiously as the blades moved. He didn’t look afraid, but panic was starting to rise in my chest. The machine whirred faster and faster, huge blades swinging in evenly paced circles, like each one was a moving horizon across a huge globe. The bronze blades rising like dawn, the dark iron blades cutting across bringing the sunset. Faster and faster. Until it was a blur of machine around the Djinni.
A sense of dread filled my chest. We had to free him. We had to free him now before it was too late. I started to move forward, blind to the danger. And then one of the pieces of the machine, an iron blade, snapped into place. It swung suddenly, arching upwards towards the sky. It froze there for a moment. I saw what was going to happen a second before it did.
It drove straight through Fereshteh’s chest.
Inside, the immortal Djinni, one of God’s First Beings, who was made at the same time as the world, who had seen the birth of humanity, who had watched the first immortals fall and seen the first stars born, who had faced the Destroyer of Worlds, died.
Chapter 37
The Djinn were made from a fire that never went out. An ever-burning smokeless fire that came from God. And in the early days of the world the First Beings lived in an endless day.
Then the Destroyer of Worlds came. And with her she brought the darkness. She brought night. And she brought fear.
And then she brought death.
Wielding iron, she killed the first immortal Djinni. And when he died, he burst into a star. One after another, the Djinn fell that way, filling our sky.
Watching Fereshteh die was like beholding a star on earth. White burned across my eyes, and I was blinded. I heard someone scream. I heard Shazad shout something I couldn’t make out.
Slowly the light retreated from under my eyelids, leaving me blinking but able to see again. Inside the machine, Fereshteh’s body was gone. What was left was burning bright as a star, and the metal of the machine around him was blazing incandescent. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up painfully. I knew where I’d felt this before. The metal door, before the Gallan tried to kill me. Even as we watched, the light whipped up a wire I hadn’t seen before, igniting, racing along the ceiling, darting above us.
There was a shout from below as the flash of light above our heads illuminated us too sharply to miss. The time for subterfuge was over. Sam grabbed us both by the hand, wrenching us up the steps and back through the door so fast I barely had time to take a breath before we plunged through.
Hala staggered back as we stumbled through.
‘Hala.’ I tore my hand out of Sam’s for a moment. He stumbled to a stop, but Shazad didn’t. She was a few paces ahead of us, already running back towards the garden. ‘Leyla – she’s down there. Get her out.’