the door that led to the winding staircase.
She could hear shouting from the roof before she got to the top.
“Then let me see her!” Jamshid. “Please! If Nahri and Muntadhir are safe, let me see them!”
Nahri opened the door a sliver, just enough to press her eye to the light now spilling in. She could see Mishmish, trapped under a net, and Jamshid in irons, pleading with their mother. Ice glimmered at Manizheh’s waist—the peri’s dagger, still in her belt.
“Banu Nahida, please!” It was Dara, unseen from Nahri’s vantage point. “You need to control your magic. I cannot protect our people and fight at the same time!”
With a screech, a vicious, bloated locust—as large as a dog—landed on the parapet near Jamshid and Manizheh. Nahri saw Dara and another Daeva soldier lunge to protect them, Dara cutting the locust in half as his warrior drew its attention. A gash had torn through Dara’s armor, exposing his chest and revealing more of the cracking lines of light. Screams in Divasti came from the garden the next moment, and Dara spun around, firing a blur of silver arrows downward before jumping back to the parapet to kick a marid in the shape of a giant purple lobster off the wall.
No matter what curse Manizheh had used to enslave her weapon, Dara looked ready to break. He was gasping for air, liquid fire seeping from the jagged lines crossing his body. Even so, he was still fast enough to leap from the parapet and knock his soldier out of the way of a globule of smoldering blood. Dragging the young man away, he yelled for Manizheh again. “Banu Nahida, stop this!”
Manizheh didn’t seem to hear him, her attention on her distraught son alone. “The ifrit are keeping Nahri and Muntadhir secure in the dungeon,” she insisted. “The way isn’t safe right now, but I promise after the battle …”
“I don’t believe you!”
A wise decision, brother. Nahri watched as Dara rushed across the pavilion to slay another marid and then, shouting orders to his warrior, thrust up his hands to keep a storm of bloody rain from lashing them.
He was distracted. So was Manizheh.
Nahri made her move. With every thief-honed instinct, with the protection of the palace, she slipped from the doorway, raised her knife, and rushed at her mother.
Jamshid’s eyes went wide. He shouted no warning, but it was tell enough.
Manizheh whirled around, seizing Nahri’s wrist as she tried to bring the knife down. But Nahri had not spent her time in the company of warriors for nothing. She kicked out Manizheh’s legs, sending them both tumbling to the ground.
“Nahri, don’t!” Jamshid cried. “She’s still our mother!”
Jamshid was right, but that was a fact that didn’t slow Nahri in the slightest. Not after the devastation Manizheh had visited upon Daevabad. Not after she’d enslaved Dara again, given Nahri to the ifrit, and sold out the poor souls who’d been resting in the Grand Temple. It didn’t matter what blood they shared. Nahri’s family was out there on the marid boats. They were working in the hospital and imprisoned in the dungeon.
And there was nothing she wouldn’t do to save them.
But Nahri had underestimated how strongly her mother felt about her own goals.
Manizheh’s grip tightened on Nahri’s wrist, and then it was Nahri’s turn to cry out, a burning pain scorching where her mother touched. As they wrestled for the knife, boils erupted across her skin, rolling out in waves from Manizheh’s fingers. Then, with a strength she shouldn’t have possessed, her mother threw her off. Nahri went flying, losing her grip on the knife and smashing the back of her skull against the stone of the parapet.
“You unworthy little brat,” Manizheh snapped, climbing to her feet. “I have been nothing but patient with you. I’ve extended mercy multiple times, been willing to embrace you as my own, and now you think to put a knife in my back like a common street thug?”
“Mercy? You gave me to the ifrit!”
If Nahri had ever considered herself a talented liar, the scornful toss of Manizheh’s head put her to shame. “Yes! To be held until after the battle since you clearly can’t be trusted!”
“Liar!” Nahri clutched her wrist. The boils had stopped spreading, but the imprint of Manizheh’s fingers could be seen in the burned flesh. “You gave them my name and told them to use me to free themselves from Suleiman’s seal!”
Still bound in irons, Jamshid had lurched to Nahri’s side. “Are you okay?” he