The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,97

someone here … someone who helps women.”

The man’s gaze swept over them. “If indeed your cousin said such a thing, you’d know to bring her so she could vouch for you.” He stared at Ali. “Is this your husband?”

“I didn’t tell her it was I who needed help.” Nahri lowered her voice. “And this isn’t my husband.”

The blood left Ali’s face. “I—”

Nahri’s hand darted out and she grasped his arm in a viselike grip. “Please …” She gasped, curling in on herself. “I’m in a lot of pain.”

The man flushed, glancing helplessly down the street. “Oh, all right …” He crossed the porch, swiftly pulling open the red door. “Come quick.”

Ali’s heart raced, his mind screaming warnings of entrapment—this was, after all, not the first time he’d been tricked into entering a crumbling shafit building—but Nahri was already dragging him up the steps. They creaked underfoot, the wood soft from Daevabad’s misty air. The shafit man shut the door behind them, throwing them into a gloomy darkness.

They were standing in a fairly simple entrance hall, with lacquered wooden walls and two doors. There were no windows, but the ceiling had been left open to the cloudy sky, making it feel as though they’d been dropped into a pit. The only other light came from a small oil lamp that sat burning next to a platter piled with sweets, in front of a garlanded rice-paper painting of a well-armed woman sitting astride a roaring tiger.

His patience with Nahri abruptly vanished. Someone had tried to kill him less than a week ago. He was drawing a line at lurking in some mysterious shafit house while pretending he’d impregnated his brother’s wife.

Ali turned on her, selecting his words carefully. “My dear,” he started. “Would you please explain what we’re doing here?”

Nahri was gazing about the foyer with open curiosity. “We’re here to meet a shafit doctor named Subhashini Sen. This is where he works.”

The man who’d brought them in abruptly straightened up. “He?” Suspicion blossomed across his face, and he reached for his waist.

Ali was faster. He drew his zulfiqar in a breath, and the shafit man stepped back, his hand frozen on a wooden baton. He opened his mouth.

“Don’t scream,” Nahri said quickly. “Please. We don’t mean anyone here harm. I only want to talk to the doctor.”

The man’s gaze darted nervously to the door on his left. “I … you can’t.”

Nahri looked baffled. “Excuse me?”

The shafit man swallowed. “You don’t understand … she’s very particular.”

Curiosity lit Nahri’s eyes. She must have also noticed the door the shafit man glanced at—because she was reaching for the handle in the next moment.

Ali panicked, not thinking. “Nahri, wait, don’t—”

The shafit man’s mouth fell open. “Nahri?”

God preserve me. Ali charged after her as she slipped into the room. Discretion be damned, they were getting out of here.

A clipped female voice with a thick Daevabadi accent cut him off the moment he passed the threshold.

“I have told all of you … at least a dozen times … if you interrupt me while I’m doing this procedure, I’m going to perform it on you next.”

Ali froze. Not so much at the warning, but at the sight of its source. A shafit woman in a plain cotton sari knelt before them at the side of an elderly man lying on a cushion.

She had a needle inserted in his eye.

Aghast at the grisly sight, Ali opened his mouth to protest, but Nahri clapped a hand over it before he could speak.

“Don’t,” she whispered. She’d drawn back her veil, revealing the open delight dancing across her features.

The shafit guard joined them, wringing his hands. “Forgive me, Doctor Sen. I would never have interrupted you. Only …” He glanced nervously between Ali and Nahri, his eyes seeming to trace Ali’s height and his zulfiqar anew. “You appear to have some guests from the palace.”

The doctor hesitated. But only for a moment, and neither her hands nor attention so much as twitched. “Whether that’s true or some symptom of madness, all of you can take a seat right now. I still have part of this cataract to remove.”

There was no room for disobedience in the woman’s stern voice. Ali backed up as quickly as the guard, dropping into one of the low couches lining the wall. He looked around the room. Full of light from an adjoining courtyard and copious lanterns, it was large enough to fit perhaps a dozen people. Three pallets were set low on the ground, the two not