Rebel of the Sands (Rebel of the Sands, #1)(24)

The thought hit me all of a sudden. “Did you blow up the mines, too?”

If Xicha wanted to cut off our weapons, then it made sense to cut off the supply of metal, too. Factories could be rebuilt. Collapsed mines were harder. “Here?” He actually looked surprised. “No. I heard it was an accident.”

“Why should I believe you? Is Jin even your real name?”

“Well, around here they call me the Eastern Snake. But you know that”—he looked up at me from under the brim of his hat—“Blue-Eyed Bandit.” The shock made me pull back. Jin’s face split into a grin at my surprise.

“You knew who I was?” I asked, sounding a little breathless. “In Dustwalk?”

“Your eyes aren’t exactly inconspicuous,” Jin said.

“You knew who I was and you wouldn’t take me with you?” The frightened, humiliated feeling of returning to the empty store rushed back in. “Why?”

“Because you shouldn’t go to Izman.” He settled back in his chair. “No matter how well you can take care of yourself with a gun out here, the city’ll tear you apart.”

“I wouldn’t be alone,” I said. “My mother’s sister lives in Izman. That’s where I’m headed.”

“Do you even know how to get there?”

I shrugged. “How are you getting there?”

“I’m not,” he said simply, catching me by surprise. I reached back, trying to remember if he’d ever said he was. It just seemed like he must’ve been.

There was another crash and I reached for a gun that wasn’t there as Jin turned around, already tensing for a fight. The card table across the room was overturned, and the man in the green sheema was on the ground, clutching a bloody nose.

I had a moment of distraction to decide.

If I stayed with Jin, I wasn’t getting to Izman. He’d left me behind once already and he could just as easily do it again.

Besides, we only had one Buraqi.

I fished out the bottle Tamid had given me. The pills crushed up easily in my fingers and I put them straight into Jin’s drink. My fingers were back around my own glass by the time the fight got broken up and Jin faced me again.

I watched him drain his drink.





eight


I’d never seen so many people in my whole life as there were outside the train station in Juniper City. On my left, a man with a gray beard shouted through the steam rising from his stall as he shoved more skewers of meat into the fire; on the other side, a woman dressed in gold and bells sang with every step. The sound of someone preaching carried over the ruckus. A Holy Father stood on a small platform, his hands raised, the twin circular tattoos on each palm facing the crowd. The rise and fall of his voice as he preached reminded me of Tamid. A shot of guilt went through me thinking of my friend. I’d left him bleeding in the sand to keep myself alive.

The Holy Father dipped his hands at the end of each prayer, blessing the crowd huddled around his feet. Forgiving us our sins.

The stream of bodies pushed me past him through the tail end of the souk, under the soot-stained archway. Women carrying bundles on their heads slipped by me; men dragging trunks twice their size crowded me forward.

I moved with the crush of bodies into the shade of the station, stumbling as I took in the sight before me. I’d heard about trains, but I hadn’t imagined this. The huge black-and-gold beast stretched out across the station like some monster out of the old stories, breathing black smoke into the dirty glass dome. The crowd jostled toward it.

“Ticket?” A man in a pale yellow vest and cap reached out his hand, looking bored.

I tried to keep my fingers from clinging to the ticket as I handed it over. It had taken me two days to get from Sazi to Juniper City, even on the Buraqi. It hadn’t exactly helped that the compass I’d stolen from Jin while he was unconscious, along with half his supplies, was broken and steered me the wrong way, making me wait for sunrise to find my way again.

I’d reached the city in time to get ripped off selling the Buraqi for half of what it was worth. But half was better than nothing. And more importantly, it was enough to buy a ticket straight to Izman. Seeing the name printed in black ink on yellow paper made it seem like just another story in my fingers, ready to slip away at any second. I’d hidden the ticket under the mattress of the room I’d rented and checked it over and over again until I decided it was easier to just keep it against my skin.

The ticket man frowned at me, and I ran my palms over my new clothes self-consciously. I didn’t pass for a boy quite so easily in daylight, but I had to try anyhow. The ugly bruise on my cheek had gone down to a yellow-green that just peeked over the red sheema, and my new clothes were loose in the right places—what was left of my money and some spare Xichian coins and the battered compass that Jin had left jangling around the saddlebags were stuffed into the wraps around my middle that hid my waist. All it’d take was someone looking for too long to see through my disguise. But even a poor imitation of a boy was better than a girl traveling on her own.

I tugged the edge of the shirt where it covered the new gun I’d bought with the Buraqi money. I wouldn’t be able to fight my way onto the train, but I might be able to outrun men in yellow caps if I needed to.

I could be about to find out.

“This ticket is first class.” He shook it at me like a mother wagging a finger.