Nahri set it next to the reed boat and the clothes she intended to bring back.
There was a soft knock. She glanced back.
Ali waited at the open door.
In the midmorning light, he seemed to stand apart, a quiet, roiling void. Ribbons of mist played around his feet, the yellow in his eyes glowing faintly, like a cat’s gaze. The sun caught on what was visible of his scars, the silver molten and dazzling against his black skin.
He came back different. Fiza’s parting words on the beach in Shefala, right before the pirate captain raced off with Jamshid, returned to Nahri. Nahri had been prepared, or at least, she’d tried to be, masking her shock as quickly as possible when she woke to see Ali at her side, the soft gray of his eyes replaced by Sobek’s reptilian yellow-and-black. But his stilted words—for they’d barely seen each other since the battle and had yet to be alone—had only provoked more questions.
I am to be an ambassador between our peoples. They changed me so I could speak for them.
And indeed, half hidden in the shadows, Ali looked the part. A visitor from the deep, the envoy of a mysterious, unknowable world at the bottom of the sea.
He spoke softly, greeting her in the way she’d taught him. “Sabah el hayr.”
“Sabah el noor,” Nahri replied, rising to her feet.
Ali crossed and uncrossed his arms, as if he didn’t know what to do with them. “I hope you don’t mind me intruding. I heard you were here and figured I should come by. I know it’s been a couple of days since we spoke.”
“A week, actually,” Nahri pointed out, trying to keep the emotion from her voice. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about us at the hospital.”
He kept his gaze on the floor, toying with the tail of his turban. “I knew you’d be busy. I didn’t want to bother you, and I thought—I thought I should give you some space.”
Nahri inclined her head skeptically. “‘Give me space’?”
“Yes.”
“Alizayd al Qahtani, there is no way those are your words.”
“It was Zaynab’s suggestion.” Ali’s voice thickened with embarrassment. “She said I could be smothering.”
And with that, he went from mysterious marid ambassador to the Ali she knew. A genuine smile tugged across Nahri’s face, and she joined him at the door. “I don’t need space from you, my friend,” she said, pulling him into a hug.
Ali clutched her close. “Please don’t ever stab yourself in the heart again,” he begged, his words muffled against the top of her head.
“I’m hoping it was a once-in-a-lifetime event.” Nahri pressed her brow to his chest. Ali felt cooler than usual, though not unpleasantly so. The smell of salt and silt was sharp on his skin, like she’d immersed herself in a stream on a chilly morning. The beat of his heart was different, slower and more drawn out.
He was changed. But it felt so good to be in his arms that Nahri didn’t care. They had survived, and that was all that mattered. She let out a shudder, feeling some of the tension she’d been bottling up for days finally escape.
“Are you okay?” Ali murmured.
“No,” she confessed. “But I think there’s a chance I might be one day, so that’s progress.” Nahri took another deep breath, running her hand down the soft cotton covering his back, and then stepped away. “Come, stay with me awhile—oh, don’t look at the door like that,” she said, fighting a blush. Nahri definitely hadn’t forgotten what happened the last time they were behind closed doors. “I’ll leave it open so the devil can escape, all right?”
Ali looked mortified, but he didn’t object as Nahri pulled him inside. “Your apartments seem to have come through the war in one piece,” he said, seemingly just to be saying something.
“One of the few things that did. I can’t even go into the infirmary here. Not after what Manizheh did in there. I feel like I can still smell the burned bodies of my ancestors.” She sighed. “God, Ali, it’s just all so much. There are so many people dead, so many lives ruined. What you said back in Cairo about it taking lifetimes to make peace—”
“Then let it take lifetimes. We’ll give it a good foundation, the best we can.”
Nahri rolled her eyes. “You always were a reckless optimist.”
Ali clucked his tongue. “Oh no. You don’t get to ever call me reckless again after threatening peris by puncturing your own heart.”
“They annoyed me.” Nahri