Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands, #2)(94)

Except there were the statues. Among the guests and the musicians and the servants passing around wine and food, the garden was dotted with statues made of what looked like clay and bronze. They were frozen in agonisingly twisted shapes, buckled to their knees, arms up like they were protecting themselves.

‘I knew Prince Hakim when he was a boy, you know.’ The speaker was some Mirajin lord or other, talking to a young, pretty girl. He was gesturing at a statue.

They were the princes. Bronze sculptures of the twelve princes the Sultan had killed when he took his throne.

Someone had rested a glass in one of their upturned palms, leaving the dead prince’s agonised face to stare up at a half-finished wineglass smudged with oily fingerprints.

‘Well, those are in bad taste,’ a voice said in my ear, making me jump. A server was standing by my elbow with a tray piled with basbousa. I had an odd feeling of recognising him, only I didn’t. Until he rolled his eyes skywards.

‘Imin.’ I cast around carefully in case we were overheard.

‘Those colours don’t suit you at all, by the way.’ His eyes swept me appraisingly. If I’d had any doubt left in my mind that it was him, it evaporated at the disdain in those bright yellow eyes that betrayed him as a Demdji.

‘He’s one of yours?’ Rahim guessed. ‘How did he get in?’ He didn’t know the half of it and now wasn’t the time to explain that Imin was the same tiny female servant Rahim had helped abduct Shira’s baby a few days earlier.

‘I’ve got my ways.’ Imin took a piece of the sweet cake off his own tray and put it in his mouth. ‘Shazad is looking for you two.’ He licked his fingers clean and pointed. Shazad was a little way off, hair wrapped in tight braids around her head, like a crown. ‘She says it’s high time you kept up your side of the bargain and introduced us to whoever’s got this so-called army of yours.’

‘She’s with your rebellion?’ Rahim inspected Shazad sceptically across the garden. ‘General Hamad’s daughter? I always thought she was just a pretty face.’

‘So does everyone else,’ I said. ‘That’s how we figured she wouldn’t get searched too closely on the way in. Shazad’s the one who carried in enough explosives to free every Djinni down in the vaults.’

‘Explosives,’ Rahim repeated. He sounded nervous.

‘You didn’t tell him the plan?’ Imin asked, shoving more food into his mouth.

‘We didn’t even have a plan until a few days ago,’ I said defensively. ‘I’ve been busy since then.’ My hand drifted again to the tiny cut in my side.

Imin turned to Rahim. ‘According to Shazad, every Auranzeb, when the sun sets, the Sultan gives a speech, which means that all eyes will be on him. Using that as cover, Sam will sneak Amani and Shazad through the walls and out of the party.’ Imin jerked his head sideways, indicating our impostor Blue-Eyed Bandit. My eyes skated straight over him before I spied him. He was dressed in an Albish army uniform. So that was how he was getting around inconspicuously.

‘Isn’t it a crime to impersonate a soldier?’ My heart was starting to beat painfully in my chest now. There was so much that could go wrong tonight. Not being wholly sure I could count on Sam was just one of them.

‘I hear it’s a crime to desert the Albish army, too.’ Imin sucked on his teeth, moving around a seed caught there. He made a terrible servant. It was amazing that he’d gotten this far without getting caught. But he was right: the uniform fit Sam too well to have been stolen. Too well to be anything but tailored for him. My eyes went to the congregation of Albish soldiers, accompanying their queen here. It was a huge risk he was taking, as a deserter in their midst. And he was taking it for us.

Even as I watched him, his eyes dashed across the garden, landing on Shazad, who had started to cross the garden toward us. Sam’s eyes never left her. No, I realized, not exactly for us. Damn. I’d seen men fall for Shazad before but I’d never seen her fall back. This couldn’t end well.

‘Hala will meet you on the other side of the wall,’ Imin went on. ‘She’ll make you disappear long enough that you can get to the Djinn and set the explosives.’

‘And my sister?’ Rahim asked. He was casting around the garden for her. Come to think of it, I still hadn’t seen her, either.

‘You’re not a very patient man.’ Imin took his time, deliberately chewing. ‘If everything goes according to plan, Sam will get Shazad and Amani out of the palace straight from the vaults, and then double back through that wall for you and your sister.’ He nodded again, the other way this time.

‘You get Leyla, and wait for Sam in the southeast corner of the garden, away from the chaos that’s bound to come when something blows up in the palace,’ I said, shifting carefully as someone brushed past us, dangerously close to overhearing our conversation.

‘Then we figured Hala will get Tamid out under cover of an illusion, and I will get out in the chaos, just looking like another servant running from an explosion.

What could possibly go wrong?’

‘A lot could go wrong,’ Rahim pointed out.

‘It’s still far from being the worst plan we’ve ever come up with.’ I tried to comfort him.

‘No, the worst we’ve ever come up with ended with you flooding a prayer house,’ Imin offered, which was true but far from helpful right now. ‘So that’s not really saying much.’