In a few moments, Thohfsa began to gag, and her legs buckled from underneath her. She clawed at her throat, her eyes bulging, sweat pouring from her face.
A line of guards parted as I walked through them. I crouched down to Thohfsa. “This time, youwilldie.”
“Dania.”
Noor stood at the edge of the square, her dark eyes wide at the crowd of soldiers surrounding me. I stood, facing her.
“What have you done?”
Forty-three
“The emperor will know we are here. Thohfsa wouldn’t have brought the soldiers without telling him.”
Noor crouched down to Thohfsa, who had stopped thrashing and moaning and was now motionless.
Dead.
Noor looked up at me, her mouth grim.
“What did you do?” Noor repeated, her voice so low I had to strain to hear her. Her eyes flickered to the soldiers, then slid back to my face. From her pained expression, she assumed something terrible.
And yet, it was so much worse than her imaginings.
I bristled at the censure in her voice. “I did what I had to in order to save you,” I shot back.
“Bullshit,” she snapped at me with ferocity.
I blinked.
“You did it for yourself.” Her eyes flashed with hurt, as if I had destroyed her instead of saving her.
“Why do you even care?” I threw up my arms. “You can go wherever you please now. You’re free.”
I felt a darkness eating at me, anger bubbling to the surface, the manifestation of frustration that Noor wasn’t even grateful for all Ihad done. There was a rage I couldn’t calm, a flood of dark emotion threatening to take me under.
“Why do I even care?” Noor looked incredulous. “Are you a fool? You think I’ve been helping you for weeks because I had nothing better to do?”
“I think you feel like you owe me for coming back for you at the prison. Well, now you don’t. I release you of any obligation you once felt.”
“Oh, you don’t think it was because I had nothing better to do, you think it was out ofobligation?” Her eyes were fire, her body vibrating with fury.
“Why are you shouting at me? I just saved your life.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And I am grateful. But I am not here with you because of obligation.”
I swallowed, my throat thick. “Then why?”
She gaped at me. “Because I’m yourfriend,Dani.”
Warmth filled my chest, contradicting the darkness inside me. But I looked away from Noor’s pleading face and thought instead of Baba’s smile, of his soot-smudged hands. Of the djinn-created ghost of him that had stood in front of me.
“Did you forget about your own revenge against Vahid?” My voice cracked, and I was desperate to hold on to something, even if it was vengeance.
“No revenge is worth this!”
“Worth what? My life? That was the plan all along. I knew what I was getting into.”
Noor huffed a bitter laugh. “It isn’t worth whatever you’ve done to yourself. The control you have on those soldiers is not due to zoraat. I know that better than anyone. Whatever you did to control human bodies, it isn’t worth it.”
