“What do you mean?” My eyes swept the room, as if Noor was hiding somewhere.
“Noor came here, yes. But she betrayed you, my granddaughter.”
Something wasn’t right, and I shook my head in confusion.
I had been betrayed before, but the certainty that sat in my heart was unlike anything else—Noor wouldn’t do that.
“Nanu, what are you talking about?”
A muffled cry sounded from somewhere nearby, and I realized Maz hadn’t joined us in the room. I took a step toward the door, but Nanu’s hand shot out, gripping my wrist so tightly I let out a gasp of surprise. Her strength took me off guard, and I jerked my hand away, but she didn’t release it.
“Don’t go,” she said, her voice raspy.
My eyes scanned the room, trying to pin down the uneasiness flooding through me. “Nanu, let go.”
“Your friend has abandoned you,” she repeated in that detached voice. “Left you for Vahid.”
Something glinted from the corner of the room, something dark and smooth. My eyes focused on it, and I saw them then, like small oval pearls I couldn’t ever seem to escape.
Djinn seeds.
A small bag of zoraat rested on the nightstand. The same bag I had given to Noor before she left. My breath caught in my throat, and I whirled on my grandmother.
“Nanu, where did you get those from?”
Her gaze flicked behind her, and I wrenched my arm free. Everything in me said to draw my sword.
But could I? Could I pull a weapon against my own grandmother? Something splintered in my chest as I laid my free hand on my dagger.
But I couldn’t shake this feeling, this churning in my gut that something wasn’t right.
My gaze returned to the seeds. Why was the zoraat here?
And if it was here, it was entirely possible that the woman standing before me was not my grandmother.
“You aren’t my nanu, are you?”
She gave me a curious stare, as if she were confused by my question. I swept her body for anything else that could identify her—that one piece of physical evidence that a person needed to keep before they could transfigure themselves.
But nothing. She was exactly the same, her eyes, her weathered hands, each silvery wisp of her hair. Even her smell was the same—a woody, mountain scent with hints of crocus flower. Her skin was papery, her eyes bright—she was still my grandmother.
“Why would I have to pretend to be someone else? That didn’t get you your vengeance, did it, girl?” Her voice wasn’t cruel, but factual, as if she were merely curious.
I opened my mouth but the words dried on my tongue. Confusion warred with fear and the depths of something else thrumming through me.
Revenge. Revenge. Revenge,it whispered.
But the words were not for me this time.
“I saw your Mazin riding into town with you,” Nanu continued. “Wasn’t he the one who sent you to prison in the first place?”
I wrinkled my forehead, frustrated at the abrupt change of subject. “What happened to Noor?” I repeated.
And where is Mazin?I cast a glance to the hallway hoping to see him. I still had the djinn’s power leaping at my fingertips, but the less I could use it the better. And I certainly didn’t want to use it against Nanu. I eyed the seeds on the bedside table again.
If my grandmother had consumed any, there was no telling what she could do.
But what would she need djinn power for?
