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“I need your help,” Ali said to Nahri. They were sitting in the palace garden; it was open to the public now, and they weren’t the only ones there, but both of them still loved to come back here on occasion.
“Hmm, alright.” Nahri turned a page of the medical tome she was reading.
“It’s really important.”
“Of course.”
“I’ve lost all my powers and the marid are going to attack the city.”
“In a minute.” Ali counted to five before Nahri’s head suddenly shot up. “What?”
He laughed. “Sorry! If you need to concentrate, concentrate. I just…thought you wanted to spend some time together.”
“I do!” Nahri sighed. “I just have this surgery tomorrow and I’m brushing up….what is it?”
“It’s, uh, Muntadhir.” Ali fiddled with the edge of his sleeve.
“He’s your brother. How can I help?”
“He still hasn’t told me about him and Jamshid,” Ali said, after a long pause. “It’s been months now. Months! I’ve been so patient and – still nothing.”
“Well, have you asked him?” Nahri said, which was reasonable and very unfair. “Or just told him you know?”
“I want him to trust me. To confide in me.”
“Ali.” Nahri put a hand on his arm. “You can’t will people into trusting you. You have to coax them. Show them you’re safe. It takes time.”
“Have I ever mentioned how disturbing it is that you frame everything as if it were a con?”
Nahri raised her eyebrows. “Who did you think you were asking?”
“My – closest friend,” Ali said. Nahri made an amused humming noise. Her hand was warm on his arm, and as she pulled away she trailed her fingers across his palm. Ali closed his hand for a second, before he let her go.
“It takes time,” she said again, rich and amused, not talking about his brother any more.
“I appreciate it,” Ali told her. Her smile was the most beautiful thing in the garden.
*
He asked Zaynab, who was back in Daevabad, a rare occurrence these days – Ali had never guessed his sister, freed from the constraints of being a princess, would have such a thirst for travel and adventure. She and Nahri would never be bosom friends, but they had found some kinship in the way Nahri drank up every word of her stories, and it made Ali glad to see it. And it didn’t hurt that Nahri would curl up next to him while Zaynab talked.
He made sure that Nahri was far away when he asked one question, though.
“Zaynab, has Dhiru talked to you about…you know…about Jamshid?”
“What – oh,” his sister said. “Yes. You mean you’re still pretending you don’t know?”
“I’m not pretending!” Ali said, stung. “He’s pretending! I’m just waiting for him to tell me.”
“Well, that’s your problem,” Zaynab said. “You can’t wait for things to come to you. You have to go out and make them happen.” She poked him in the arm. “Surely you don’t need me to tell you this. You raised a rebellion against our father. You made a deal with the marid. You are forever making things happen, whether other people want them to or not.”
“I had to do those things,” Ali protested. “I don’t have to do this, I just…I just don’t want any more secrets between us.”
“It isn’t a secret,” said Zaynab, rolling her eyes. “Just a thing not spoken. You know. Isn’t that enough?”
“He spent so much time when our father was alive hiding parts of himself. Trying to be good enough to be the heir, but not good enough to be a threat. I don’t want him to have to hide from me.”
“We are all the children our parents raised us to be, Zaydi,” Zaynab said. “The good bits and the bad.”
She hugged him, and then she made him come with her to the Ayaanle quarter and show some of the children his water tricks, in one of the fountains. Another thing that wasn’t a secret, but wasn’t spoken of, still, not exactly. At first they whispered wide-eyed. Then they giggled. After a while, one girl came forward to show Zaynab that she could make the water move, too. Just a little.
“Little changes, brother,” Zaynab murmured to him. Ali splashed her without moving a finger, and she laughed.
*
When his mother set foot in Daevabad for the first time since their father had sent her away, it was a cause for celebration. In the old days this would have meant a great feast at the palace; now, it meant a family dinner at Jamshid’s house, where Muntadhir was still living. He was also still insisting to Ali that it was a matter of bachelors sharing quarters as friends, and he wagered Ali would be a married man again before he was. Ali had meant to say something but had been distracted by Muntadhir’s implication – he had been very unsubtle about it. The moment had been lost.
There was nothing less conducive to trying to get Muntadhir to be honest with him about his lover, than having Muntadhir remind him of the years he had spent as Nahri’s husband. Ali refused to be worried about living up to the benchmark Muntadhir had undoubtedly set in the bedchamber, because what was important was love, and respect, and coming into a marriage with –
– well, alright, he was a little worried. But fortunately Nahri had no idea, and he was never going to tell her.
Of course, inevitably that meant that after the dinner, when everybody was sitting around comfortably talking, Ali overheard Jamshid and Nahri gossiping about Muntadhir in a way that made him blush to the tips of his ears.
“Do you mind,” he hissed to them. “How can you speak of such things! You’re brother and sister!”
“Cousins, if we’re being strictly accurate,” said Jamshid.
“We can define that however we like between us,” said Nahri. “And nobody asked you to eavesdrop.” She patted his arm. “Ali, you do not have to be comfortable with this, but we will talk between ourselves how we like.”
“Of course,” Ali said, blushing, and hastily went to the other side of the room. Which put him right next to Nahri’s grandfather, who was there because Jamshid had more or less adopted him as family as well; he was teaching both Jamshid and Nahri how to cook. Ali liked him a great deal. Despite everything, he never seemed overawed by Ali or his siblings, and he obviously loved Nahri more than anything. Ali had to like anybody who had such good sense.
In a strange way, a part of him was still more than a little angry at Muntadhir for having not had it. How could you be married to Nahri, of all people, and – but of course, he knew now that Muntadhir’s heart had been given elsewhere long before that. That made it much easier to understand.
“So, Prince Ali,” said Nahri’s grandfather. “It has been a year and more now. I have been wondering. When are you going to marry my granddaughter?”
“When she wants me to, sir,” Ali said. “We are both becoming different people than we were. She deserves to see who she can be without a Qahtani over her shoulder. I will not rush her, or myself.”
“Hmmm,” said the old man. “Don’t leave it forever, is all I’m saying. You are good for her.”
“I won’t,” Ali promised, touched beyond measure by this praise. “I won’t.”
*
“Dhiru!” Ali said, when Muntadhir opened the door. It was before noon but Muntadhir was awake and looked alert. Ali would have had a harder time believing that, a few years gone, than the rest of their new lives. “Dhiru, I had to tell you. We’re getting married! Nahri and me.”
“What, as if there would be anybody else for you?” Muntadhir scoffed, sweeping Ali up into a hug. “Congratulations! Come in, come in. Jamshid is at the hospital.”
“I know it is awkward,” Ali said as he stepped through the door. “And we will not expect you to –”
Muntadhir waved a hand. “Nonsense. Everybody knows how it was with Nahri and I. And who knows – maybe now you are finally marrying her, I will think about –”
Ali couldn’t let it go on a second longer, suddenly. “Dhiru, no. You don’t have to. I know about you and Jamshid. I know you aren’t going to marry again – that you do not need to.”
Everything froze, all of Muntadhir’s genial happiness, as if a sudden frost had struck.
Ali took him by the arms. “Please don’t. I didn’t mean to – I was waiting for you to – I am glad for you! You are so much happier now than you ever were. I like him for you.” He couldn’t help frowning. “Even if I cannot trust any Daeva saying he tells me –”
Muntadhir cackled, relaxing a fraction. “I cannot believe you fell for that more than once.” He laughed harder at Ali’s expression, then sobered. “Little brother. Do you…I know you…you don’t have to give us your blessing, or anything. Just – do not stalk around disapproving.”
“I have known for months, Dhiru,” Ali said, now a little exasperated. “Years. After everything, you think I would hold this against you?”
“I didn’t know,” Muntadhir said, quietly. “Nahri and Jamshid both told me you wouldn’t, but – I am sorry. I didn’t know, and I was afraid.”
“You do not owe me any apologies,” Ali exclaimed, then took a deep breath. “Be angry with me. Be disdainful, or annoyed, or exasperated; but never be afraid of me, brother, please. We do not have to be the sons our father tried to make us. I fought for that as much as anything else. And I am sorry if I did not let you know that, when I should have.”
“Always such a philosopher,” Muntadhir grumbled, but he put his arms around Ali again, exhaling relief into his shoulder, and Ali hugged him back.