The City of Brass

Dara comes to Nahri’s room in the middle of the night with a plan to flee Daevabad. She denies his offer, saying that she will be safe here and is making a life for herself. Ali knocks on the door, his stomach still bleeding, and Dara and Ali begin fighting in the infirmary. Someone comes to the door, and instead of surrendering or leaving them, Dara puts a blade to Ali’s throat and forces him to convince Nahri to come with him. All three of them go through a small, dark tunnel to flee the city. As they leave on a magical, hidden boat, they encounter a fleet of warships waiting for them. Hundreds of arrows point at Dara, but he snaps and they all turn around to their hosts. His power is unlike anything they have seen before—there is no recognition in his eyes and his skin seems to burn from the inside like the ifrit. He boards the boat and rips down soldiers to get to Muntadhir. He shoots Jamshid in the process. Ali, hands bound by makeshift iron handcuffs, follows Dara and Nahri. Dara shoots Ali in the throat.

They watch Ali fall into the cursed water below and Nahri begs Dara to save him. Muntadhir begins pursuing Dara, but Muntadhir’s lack of training makes him easy to kill. Dara says that he is sparing him, but Muntadhir taunts him about the fact that he was not there to protect his little sister when the rebels wanted revenge for what Dara did to their people. Dara turns the sword into a whip and begins lashing Muntadhir, saying that they can turn him into a monster once again. Nahri grabs Dara’s wrist and tries to talk him down.

Ali emerges from the lake almost unrecognizable. He is covered in seaweed and other debris and dripping in water with a new scar carved into his face. He is whispering in a language only Nahri can understand, saying that the daeva must be killed. Nahri notices Suleiman’s seal on Ali’s face, and Dara kneels. Ali nearly cuts Dara’s head off and then pivots and instead cuts his hand with the ring off. Dara turns to ash in front of them.

Ali’s perspective picks up as he falls into the water. He pleads with the voices in the water to just let him die, but they demand his name, showing him visions of a ruined Daevabad and murdered family members as a consequence for disobeying. He tells the voice his name and then does not remember what happened after.

He wakes up in the infirmary to his father and Nisreen. He looks at his legs, feels himself sweating (which should be impossible for a pureblood djinn), and feels confused. His father tells him that the Ayaanle made a deal with the marid in order to win the war. They paid a great price, and the Geziri were taught never to betray them. Ali is shocked because that is a betrayal of their race, and his father says that that is why it must remain a secret. They conclude that a marid possessed Ali when he said his name and used his body to kill Dara.

Ghassan mentions that he has not yet decided whether to execute Nahri, and Ali tries to tell them that Dara forced her to come with him, but Muntadhir says that Ali is ignorant of reality when it comes to shafit and blames Nahri for the probable death of Jamshid. Muntadhir says that he is done protecting Ali.

Ghassan, looking old and tired, approaches Ali as Ali prays. He tells Ali the reason he is named Alizayd. When Hatset gave birth to Ali, most people thought that Ghassan would kill him. Hatset begged him not to and Ghassan says that he was so opposed to the idea that he killed those offering to assassinate Ali. He named Ali after a great hero, a rebel, so that everyone knew that Ghassan claimed him as his own. Muntadhir told Ghassan everything about Ali’s business with the Tanzeem and the execution attempt. Ghassan says that he fears that over time Ali will succumb to the people whispering in his ear who want him to be king to protect the shafit. For Ghassan, the fate of the city comes before anything else. He says, “I think you want to help the shafit so much that you’d be willing to bring the city down just to see them rise” (503). Unable to give the order to kill him outright, Ghassan is stripping Ali of his titles and sending him to Am Gezira. Ali himself gathers that he will eventually be killed for money when others realize that he is no longer under his father’s protection. He inquires about Nahri and his father says, “If she did not consider us enemies before, she most certainly does now” (505).

Nahri tries and fails repeatedly to recreate the ceremony that accidentally called Dara in the first place. Nisreen comes to retrieve her and begs her to tell the king whatever he wants to hear in order for him to grant Nahri mercy. Nisreen tells Nahri about the chaos occurring outside: Daevas are protesting, calling for justice for a murder of one of their own; their quarter is unprotected, and their women are being raped while the royal guard stands by. A soldier enters the bathing chamber and calls her the “Scourge’s whore.” Nisreen says that it’s always been this way for the daevas, but Nahri is all they have and she must stand strong.

The king and Nahri speak openly about what kind of lie will be told to the public about what happened. Ghassan proposes that they say that Dara raped Nahri in the infirmary and Ali heard her screaming. Nahri is appalled by the fact that they would slander Dara, and then Ghassan tells her why Dara is named the “Scourge.” It is a brutal story—he obeyed an order from the Nahids to sack a city and kill everyone in different, horrible ways. Nahri is devastated. Ghassan says that they could say that Nahri seduced Ali in the infirmary that night. He could paint her as a “whore” and a traitor to her people. In the end, she agrees to the first story and obediently reads the scroll to a gathering of daevas. She wears a veil, hiding the truth in her face, and a sky blue gown that represents her family. Nahri reads the scroll with a flat voice and growing emotion. As she finishes the scroll, the priest, Kartir, bows to Nahri and the rest of the crowd follows suit. She senses the king’s fear and discomfort at the unexpected sign of unity from the daevas, and she turns around and smiles at him. The sun shines through the window onto the Nahid throne on which the king sits.

Kaveh enters the infirmary, filled with hopelessness and despair, to find Muntadhir’s hand laced with Jamshid’s lying on a bed, barely breathing. Kaveh notices ash covering his son’s body. Ghassan refused to treat Jamshid until the daeva conspirator was found, so Kaveh gives Muntadhir the name of a soldier who worked with Dara to give him supplies and asks him to tell his father so that his son can receive treatment. Kaveh feels resentment toward Muntadhir, who does whatever he wants and breaks his son Jamshid’s heart while Jamshid waits obediently by his side.

Kaveh then uses a knife to begin carving out a sign tattooed into his son’s skin, but Nisreen enters before he can do it. Kaveh says that Jamshid may die if he doesn’t remove it, and Nisreen says that he will live because he has lived thus. If Kaveh removes the sign, Ghassan will torture him for information and put all that they have worked for into jeopardy—they are part of a daeva resistance. Nisreen takes out Dara’s emerald ring, which could bring Dara back to life, and tells Kaveh that Nahri does not yet know of the ring because she has enough to worry about. However, Nisreen believes that Manizheh can do anything. Kaveh leaves the infirmary feeling a “small flicker of defiance” and hope (526).