If you looked past his outfit, Vahid was a plain, average sort of man. Still, beneath his graying hair, his sallow skin with a yellow cast and unassuming short stature, were the glittering black eyes of a usurper.
It was always his eyes I was most wary of.
Those were the eyes of someone who had been eaten up by their desire for power.
He moved through the people and spoke a few words to members of his court, those sycophants who had kissed his feet when he’d come to the capital. He walked closer to me, and I gripped my dagger tight, tucked into the pocket of my kameez.
I could just end it now. My knife could pierce his heart, stab through his brocade coat, and bleed out all the zoraat from his veins.
It would be over.
He walked closer, the throng parting around me, and I had assumed Vahid would pass right by me. However, he paused, his sweeping gaze holding my own. Then his eyes slid over my head, landing on someone else behind me.
Mazin.
I didn’t want to face him. Not after how I’d just reacted, what I’d just nearly done. I steeled myself to meet his eyes, taking a long breath and straightening my shoulders. Then I turned my head.
And came face-to-face with Thohfsa.
Thirty-nine
“I wasn’t expecting you here yet, warden.”
The emperor’s voice rumbled behind me, but I barely acknowledged his words, nor her response. In front of me was Thohfsa, the woman I’d stabbed clean through the stomach with a rusty sword. The one who had tortured and terrorized both me and Noor.
Noor.
A jolt of panic shot through me at the realization that I had a disguise, a new face carved from djinn power, but Noor did not.
And Thohfsa knew exactly who she was.
I tried not to react, not to change my expression in the slightest at seeing Thohfsa standing close enough to touch. But it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because she barely acknowledged me. Instead, she was staring at the emperor with an unhinged gleam in her eyes, as if she were a hyena and the emperor a butcher with a bucket of fresh cuts. I knew a devotee when I saw one.
Vahid had given Thohfsa power, something she’d never had before, and she had gotten drunk off it.
My eyes swept her body, trying to find some evidence as to how she could be standing before me. Her black hair was oiled back, andthe permanent sneer she usually wore was replaced with a beatific smile.
She looked like she was in excellent health, which shouldn’t be humanly possible.
Because it isn’t humanly possible.
My mind searched back to the day Noor and I escaped. Thohfsa had brought a djinn healer to the prison that day to heal Noor. Thohfsa could have healed herself that way too—if my blow to the stomach hadn’t killed her, then she would have had time to summon the healer before the blood loss became fatal.
I curled my fists against my palms, watching her greasy smile as she spoke to the emperor, remembering the last time she beat me, and the welts I’d had from the leather of her belt.
I would just have to kill her all over again.
“Is there a reason you’re staring at me, sahiba?” Thohfsa’s nasal voice pierced through my thoughts. She had turned her unbalanced gaze on me.
“I thought we had met before,” I said calmly, my face a still mask as I reminded myself that she had no idea who I was. “But I can see I was mistaken.”
She tilted her head, a sly look entering her eyes. “Are you so sure?”
I inhaled sharp panic. It wasn’t possible she knew. The emperor stood behind me and cleared his throat.
“I have an update for you on the situation we discussed,” Thohfsa said to the emperor, her eyes not leaving mine.
He narrowed his eyes. “Not here.”
