And besides that, no one but the shah and the high priest knew where the feather was.
“I can’t do that,” she said, her voice hoarse.
Parvaneh shook her head. “That’s my only offer. Bring me the feather, and I’ll tell you how to lift your curse.”
Soraya’s skin prickled. She was suddenly too aware of everything around her. The smell of esfand in the stale cavern became overwhelming, and the smoke blurred her vision. In the dim light, the div’s eyes were too bright, too piercing. I should never have come here, Soraya thought. I should never have trusted a div to tell me anything true. Because this was a trap—she saw it now. Parvaneh would try to buy her trust by making her think her mother had lied, and then she would lure Soraya into betraying her family. Why else would a div ever agree to help her?
And the worst part was that she was still tempted to accept.
But she had to be wary. She couldn’t let the force of her wanting overcome all reason. “How do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain? Or that you even have the answer at all?” She had meant to sound determined and authoritative, but she only sounded defeated.
Parvaneh hesitated, and then the lines of her face sharpened so that she looked like she was made of the same stone as the walls that imprisoned her. The cold blaze of her eyes shone as brightly as the torch, and in that moment, there was no mistaking her for human. “I swear on the lives of the pariks, my sisters, that if you bring me the feather, you will have the answer you seek.”
There was nothing mocking or sneering in her voice as she spoke, and Soraya found to her surprise that she believed her—which made this impossible bargain even more frustrating. “Why do you even want the feather?” she demanded. “Are you planning to destroy it?”
“No, I have a use for it. Don’t bother asking—I won’t tell you.”
“Would you be able to return it to me, when you were finished with it?”
“If I’m successful, then yes, I believe so.”
Soraya shook her head. She shouldn’t even have asked. She shouldn’t be considering this trade at all or trusting anything Parvaneh told her. “It doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t you destroy it? You tried to kill my brother. Any div would want to destroy it.”
“I’m not any div,” Parvaneh snapped. “I’m a parik, and my purposes are my own.”
The answer took Soraya by surprise, and she wondered if she could still emerge from this conversation with something useful. She tried to keep her voice light as she said, “And yet I heard the divs were more united than ever. Or is there discord among you?”
A slow, knowing smile spread over Parvaneh’s face. “You heard that, did you? And I’m sure whoever told you that is currently waiting to see what answer you bring back. Is that why you were allowed to come back here?”
Soraya answered with silence, and Parvaneh nodded. “Well, I can’t send you back empty-handed, can I? You’re my favorite visitor. Here’s something for you to take back with you—you’re right that the divs are more united now than they have been. The question you should be asking is who united them.”
“Who—”
“That’s all I can tell you. But I want to make something clear. Whatever you choose to report back, you will not speak a word of our arrangement. If you tell anyone I asked for the simorgh’s feather—your brother, for example, or certain handsome soldiers I’ve seen in your company—then the deal is off. And I promise you that I will know if you’ve told anyone, and I will never speak to you again. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Parvaneh reached her arm out through the bars. “Shall we shake hands? Isn’t that what humans do to seal a promise?”
She didn’t mean it, of course—Soraya knew she was only teasing her. But still, the sly look in Parvaneh’s eyes made her want to play along, to show Parvaneh that she wouldn’t be rattled so easily. And so, holding her gaze, Soraya stepped forward and extended her gloved hand, close enough for Parvaneh to reach.
In a single movement too fast for Soraya to predict, Parvaneh’s hand shot through the bars and grasped Soraya’s, pulling her forward until she felt the metal of the bars against her shoulder. They stood face-to-face, both of them daring the other to be the first to back away. Her grip on Soraya’s hand was relentless.
This close, Soraya more clearly saw the patterns on Parvaneh’s face—the scalloped waves along her chin and jaw, the whorls on her cheeks, the stripes along her forehead, like a moth’s wings were laid out over her skin. Soraya had the strangest urge to trace those lines with one fingertip, to see if her skin would be as soft as a moth’s wing too. But then she flinched at the thought, remembering the last time she had touched a butterfly’s wing.
Parvaneh noticed the way Soraya had recoiled, and she responded with a slight shake of her head. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. She wasn’t looking Soraya in the eye, and Soraya realized that while she had been studying the patterns on Parvaneh’s face, Parvaneh had been studying the green lines on her own face.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Soraya whispered.
Parvaneh’s eyes sparkled, not with their usual mockery, but with something like hunger. “Of course not,” Parvaneh said. “You could kill me with a single touch. Why should you ever be afraid of anyone?” She peered closer, tilting her head. “No, it’s only yourself that you fear.” Parvaneh’s hand slid out of hers—taking Soraya’s glove with it. The unexpected feel of air on her bare skin always made Soraya’s heart race, but her panic quickly subsided into irritation when she saw the victorious smile on Parvaneh’s face as she dangled the glove out of Soraya’s reach.
“Give that back to me,” Soraya said.
Parvaneh shook her head. “You’ll have to return for it.”
And before Soraya could protest, Parvaneh had disappeared into the shadows again, taking a piece of Soraya with her.
8
A week after Nog Roz, Soraya met Sorush in the fire temple, as planned. The fire temple was not within the palace itself, but on a low hill behind the palace, so Soraya couldn’t take any tunnel or hidden passageway to reach it. Instead, she woke early, well before dawn, and made her way in the darkness before anyone else had risen.
She hadn’t returned to Parvaneh since receiving her impossible bargain. It was pointless—a dead end when the path had barely begun. She didn’t know where the simorgh’s feather was, and even if she did, she could never hand it over to a div.
She tried to put it out of her head, but every time she pulled on the new, unfamiliar pair of gloves that was slightly too large for her hands, she would remember the glow of Parvaneh’s eyes, and the price she had demanded. And she knew that even though she couldn’t move forward, she could no longer go back, either. She could never return to a time before she’d spoken to the div, a time before knowing that there was a way to remove her curse.
I could ask Sorush, she thought for the hundredth time as she climbed the hill to the fire temple. Sorush knew where the feather was, and so did the high priest, who even now was probably in the fire temple. It made her want to scream a little, knowing she was about to be alone with the only two people who could tell her what she needed to know, and yet she couldn’t ask either one of them without explaining why.