“I’m not sure the arrows were activated by noise.” I gestured to her hand.
“They aren’t, I just didn’t want to listen to any more of your idiotic jokes.”
“I have to provide some use here, besides throwing you into a lake and fighting off jaiparis on your behalf.”
“Stay here. Anddon’t move.”
“I await your command.”
She crawled backward down my body, which was aninterestingexperience to say the least and went back to sliding her puzzle along the bottom of the warning at the start of the corridor.
“Almost got it—yes!” As soon as she’d said the words, the sounds of more neem arrows whistled along the corridor, triggered by her solving the puzzle. “I knew it would have a fail-safe trigger.”
She stood over me and offered me a hand-up, a satisfied smile on her face.
“Thanks for saving me from becoming a pincushion.”
“I had to repay the favor at some point. Just have to save you a few more times to make it even.”
“Get me that crown, and we’ll call it even.”
“I’m working on it,” she said, but her eyes slid away from mine, as if she didn’t want to meet them.
We walked side by side to the end of the corridor, to see what other torments awaited us.
Chapter 37
Dear Amma,
The Citadel raided us again today, looking for peri gold—or gold of any kind. I hid your bangles under the floorboards, and prayed they wouldn’t find them. They found a fae object hidden by an Astolan excavator and fired him, but I don’t know what it was. I tried to find out, hoping it was a way to get over the wall.
Every day I search for a way to cross the River to find you, and every day I fail.
—Letter from Yaseema Nazir to Mahira Nazir, unsent
Yaseema
At the end of the hall was a door, carved with the same jasmine symbol I’d seen over and over again. On the map, on the book from the palace library, engraved on my mother’s jewelry, on Kiyan.
We all have a signature, a stamp of our magic. Most of River’s is the jasmine flower.
Kiyan reached for the handle and turned, pushing at the door. I’d expected it to be locked, but it swung open easily. After the arrows and the mermaid creature, I braced myself for a new attack.
But the door opened to another darkened chamber, silent and still.
A pedestal stood at the end of the hall, lit from a hole in the rock above.
“Could that be the crown?” Kiyan asked, his voice tentative. “I don’t see any pixies here to peck out my eyes, maybe they got tired of traps?” He said the words hopefully, but I was skeptical.
“We’ll find out. I don’t see any others.”
I walked hesitantly forward, examining each step carefully for any more deterrents. I couldn’t see any, but that didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be any magical barrier preventing us.
But nothing happened, and by the time we’d made it to the pedestal I released a heavy exhale of relief. Until I saw what awaited us.
Queen Azari’s crown wasn’t in sight.
Instead, a black oval bowl filled with liquid stood before us.
