was raised in the human world. I will not hear abuse thrown at those who share their blood.”
Kartir brought his hands together in a gesture of peace, glaring admonishingly at the priestess. “Nor shall I. Those sentiments do not have a place in the Temple. But, Banu Nahida …,” he added, staring at her beseechingly, “please understand that what you suggest is impossible. You cannot use your abilities on a shafit. It is forbidden.” Fear filled his dark eyes. “It is said that Nahids lose their abilities upon touching a shafit.”
Nahri kept her face composed, but the words hurt. This from the gentle man who’d taught her about their religion, who’d placed Anahid’s original altar in her hands and put her doubts and fears to rest on more than one occasion—even he harbored the same prejudices as the rest of her people. As Dara had. As her husband did. As nearly everyone who was dear to her did, in fact.
“An incorrect assumption,” she said finally. “But I don’t intend to heal shafit myself,” she clarified, forcing the despicable words from her tongue. “We’d work and study alongside each other, that’s all.”
Another priest spoke up. “It is a violation of Suleiman’s code to interact with them in any way!”
Nahri was not unaware of Kaveh looking on, the grand wazir’s disapproval plain but unvoiced for now; she suspected he was waiting for the right time to strike. “It is not a violation of Suleiman’s code,” she argued, switching to Djinnistani for Ali and Zaynab’s benefit. “It is another interpretation.”
“Another interpretation?” Kartir repeated weakly.
“Yes,” she replied, her voice firm. “We are in Daevabad, my friends. A protected magical city, hidden from humans. What we do here, how we treat those with their blood, it has no bearing on the human world beyond our gates. Treating those already in our world with respect and kindness does not counteract Suleiman’s order that we leave humanity alone.”
“Does it not?” Kartir asked. “Would it not be condoning such future interactions?”
“No,” Nahri said flatly, continuing in Djinnistani. “Whether or not a djinn obeys the law outside our gates is a separate issue from how we treat those inside them.” Her voice rose. “Have any of you been to the shafit districts? There are children wading in sewage and mothers dying in childbirth. How can you call yourselves servants of the Creator and think such a thing is permissible?”
That seemed to land, Kartir looking slightly chastened. Ali was staring at her with open pride.
It didn’t go unnoticed, and Kaveh finally spoke. “The prince has put these things in your head,” he declared in Divasti. “My lady, he is a known radical. You mustn’t let his fanaticism about the shafit sway you.”
“I need no man to put ideas in my head,” Nahri retorted. “You speak out of turn, Kaveh e-Pramukh.”
He tented his hands. “I meant no disrespect, Banu Nahida.” But there was no apology in his voice; it was the way one would speak to a child, and it grated on her. “What you’re suggesting sounds lovely, it indicates a good heart—”
“It indicates a woman who learned her lesson when Ghassan lifted his protection from our tribe after Dara’s death,” Nahri said in Divasti. “It is kindness as much as pragmatism that moves me. We will never be safe in Daevabad unless we have peace with the shafit. You must see this. They are nearly as numerous in the city as we are. Relying on the djinn to keep us from each other’s throats is foolish. It leaves us weak and at their mercy.”
“It is out of necessity,” Kaveh argued. “My lady, respectfully … you are very young. I have seen plenty of overtures of peace to both the djinn and the shafit in my life. They have never ended well.”
“That’s my choice to make.”
“And yet you’re asking our blessing,” Kartir pointed out gently. “Are you not?”
Nahri hesitated, her gaze drifting to the icons of her ancestors. The Temple whose construction Anahid had overseen, the people she’d knit back together after Suleiman cursed them.
“I am not,” she said, letting the words fall in Djinnistani as she gazed at the elders around her. “I am informing you as a matter of respect. It is my hospital. They are my abilities, and I do not require your permission. I am the Banu Nahida, and believe it or not, Kaveh,” she said, deliberately leaving out his title, “in my few years in Daevabad, I’ve learned the meaning and the history behind that title.