him into darkness.
The smells of linseed oil and chalk were so thick he struggled not to cough. Paintbrushes were poking into him, his injured shoulder throbbing, but a small crack in the wood let in a fraction of light. Dara pressed an eye to it, glimpsing the Sahrayn woman covering a patch of blood on the floor with an old rug. He shifted, trying to get a better look as the footsteps stopped outside the door.
The movement cost him. A wave of fresh pain stabbed through his shoulder, and Dara’s vision blurred. He fell back against the chest’s interior.
There was an impatient knock, followed by the sound of the door scraping open. A man barking in Djinnistani, the words weaving in and out. Scourge. Escaped. Elashia. The Sahrayn woman didn’t seem to be saying anything.
And then Aqisa’s rough voice. “She’s shaking her head. That means she knows nothing, so you can stop badgering her.”
There was a protest and then the rather distinct thud of something—someone—being shoved into a wall.
“—and I said let her be,” Aqisa snapped. “Let’s move on. He’s probably hiding down the other way.”
Darkness was shutting in, hot blood running down his arm. Wetness on his cheeks that could have been tears or more blood.
Dara closed his eyes and let the blackness take him.
THE CHEST ABRUPTLY OPENED, PULLING DARA FROM unconsciousness. Two faces swam before him, both with emerald eyes. One belonged to his Sahrayn savior and the other to an older Tukharistani woman.
Half dead, insensible with pain, and sitting in a pool of his own blood mixed with paint cleaner, all Dara could think to do was croak a greeting. “May the fires burn brightly for you.”
The Tukharistani woman groaned. “This was not the sort of surprise I was hoping you had for me in your studio.”
The woman named Elashia gave her an imploring look, gesturing between the three of them.
“He’s not one of us,” the Tukharistani woman said fiercely. “Being enslaved by the ifrit is no justification for what he and Manizheh have done.” She touched Elashia’s face. “My love, what were you thinking? I know you have a tender heart, but these people have allowed us to stay here in peace and protected us, and now you hide their enemy?”
Dara tried to sit up, wheezing out a plume of smoke. “I mean you no trouble. I can leave,” he added, gripping the edge of the chest with his good hand.
The Tukharistani woman kicked the chest, sending a ricochet of pain through his body. Dara gasped, falling back.
“You can stay put,” she warned. “I won’t have you leaving a trail of blood back to us.”
Blazing pinpricks of light danced before his eyes. “Yes,” he agreed weakly.
She sighed. “Fire or water?”
“What?”
“Fire or water,” she repeated, as if speaking to a dense child. “What revives you?”
He squeezed his eyes shut against the new throbbing in his shoulder. “Fire,” he rasped. “But it does not matter. They shot me with some sort of iron projectile—”
“A bullet. Come now. I’ve got a millennium on you, and I keep up with the modern words.”
Dara gritted his teeth. “The bullet is still in my shoulder. It is interfering with my magic and keeping me in this form.”
The woman regarded him. “And if I removed it from your shoulder, do you think you could escape?”
Dara stared at her in shock. “You would help me?”
“That depends. Did you kill them?”
“You need to be more specific.”
Her expression grew hard. “Banu Nahri and Prince Alizayd.”
Dara’s mouth fell open. “No. I would never harm Nahri. I was trying to save her.”
“Then what happened?” the woman demanded. “And don’t give me this nonsense about Ali kidnapping her. That’s not them.”
“I do not know,” Dara confessed. “They jumped in the lake with Suleiman’s seal. We think they were trying to get away, but they vanished.”
Anger crept into the woman’s gaze. “I am very fond of that girl, Afshin. If what happened in the palace was enough to convince her that jumping in a cursed lake was safer than staying with you, I’d say you’ve done quite a bit of harm.”
“I know.” Dara’s voice broke. “I know I have wronged her, but I was trying to set things right. Manizheh had a plan—”
“To rule over a city of corpses? How was killing more people going to help Nahri?”
“I serve the Nahids,” he whispered. “The Daevas. I wanted them to be free.”
There was a long moment of silence before she spoke again. “Baga Rustam used to whisper of freedom too. But