“When did you encounter this magic? Where did it come from?”

“A year and a half ago,” I say. “When Martials broke into my home and I was trying to escape them. I didn’t realize I had it.” I pause, for I cannot say the magic came from Rehmat. The creature seemed adamant that its existence not be revealed.

“I—I thought I got it from an efrit I encountered when I was escaping Serra—”

The jinn’s jaw tightens. “Efrits,” she says. “Traitors and thieves. No efrit should have bestowed power upon you.”

I relax marginally—and far too soon.

“What of the darkness within?” She leans forward. “When is the first time you felt that?”

I lick my lips. Rehmat? But the creature cannot risk appearing. It made that clear.

My silence has irked the jinn. “Speak!”

“The first time was near Kauf Prison,” I say. “After I gave the Nightbringer my armlet.”

“Our armlet,” she informs me, a tightly leashed wrath stiffening her shoulders. “The Star was never yours, human.”

At the edge of the clearing, Novius turns and looks at us for a long moment. His hands fall to his scim, and the jinn swings her attention toward him. Almost immediately, he twists back around, his spine pulled unnaturally upright. Pride, he’d told me when I asked for the jinn’s weaknesses. Anger.

I try to memorize her movements, the play of emotion in her body. If the Nightbringer sent her after me, she must be close to him. But there is something about her that’s barely restrained. A volatile hatred for us that she’s not bothering to hide.

“Has the darkness within ever spoken to you?”

“Why—why would it speak to me?” When she doesn’t respond, I go on. “What is it? Did the efrits put it in me?”

“I ask the questions, girl,” she says. “Can you summon the darkness?”

I am thankful then that Rehmat has not responded to my appeals, because I can answer honestly. “No,” I say. “I could summon my magic if you took off these chains.”

The jinn smiles the way a hyena grins at its prey before it tears out its throat. “What good would that do you?” she says. “Even without the chains, your magic is weak. I would feel your presence, and hunt you as easily as a Mask hunts a wounded Scholar child.”

The image is a cruel one and I glare at her. She snorts dismissively.

“Bah, your knowledge wouldn’t fill a wight’s thimble. But no matter. In two nights, we will be in Aish. The Meherya will open you up. Dig the truth out of that weak mind of yours. And it will hurt, girl.”

“Please.” I let a bit of desperation enter my voice; I have an idea. “Don’t take me to him. Let me go. I will not attack you, I swear it. I would not harm you or kill you or use steel or summer rain against you—”

“Harm!” She laughs, but with that same cold fury. “Kill? Can a worm hurt a wolf, or an ant kill an eagle? We do not fear summer rain, and no blade forged by human or efrit, wight or ghul or wraith, nor any object of this world may kill us, rat. We are old creatures now, not soft and open as we were before. No matter how badly you want us to die, we cannot.”

She sits back, attempting composure. But her body trembles and she purses her lips. I consider what she said. It is not true. It is not true because—

“You will forget the words I just spoke.”

My mind blurs, and I find I am staring at the jinn, bewildered. She said something, I think. Something important. But the words slip away like sand through my fingers. Remember, some part of me screams. You must remember! Your life depends on it. Thousands of lives depend on it!

“You—” I put a hand to my temple. “You said something—”

“Sleep now, girl,” the jinn whispers. “Dream of death.”

As she rises, darkness closes over me. Mother walks through my nightmares. Father. Lis. Nan. Pop. Izzi. Remember, they say. You must remember.

But I cannot.

XXI: The Soul Catcher

Leaving the Waiting Place used to anger Mauth. But once he joined with me, he loosened the leash. Which is useful now, for Tribe Nasur trades in Aish, well south of the Waiting Place’s border. Their Fakira, Aubarit, is one I trust completely. She may know something about the rot plaguing the forest.

As I windwalk, a howling gale sweeps through the long stretches of parched land, peppered with dirt devils and the occasional dust storm. The last time I dealt with weather this unnatural, the Nightbringer was behind it. I have no doubt that he and his ilk are behind this too. Only a day after I set out, I must take shelter.

It’s been years since I traveled with a caravan, so I force myself to sift through my recollections of the Blood Shrike. We had plenty of hidey-holes out here when we were Fivers. One memory stands out: she dared me to burgle a massive pot of rice pudding bubbling in the middle of a Tribal camp. It was a stupid dare, but we were hungry and it smelled good. We escaped the Tribesmen who came after us only through sheer luck; we stumbled on a nearby cave and hid for three days.

As I make for that same cave now, I think about how, to this day, I’ve never tasted anything as good as that rice pudding. It’s sweeter because you almost died stealing it, Helene said, grinning as we stuffed our faces. Makes you appreciate every bite.

The cave was near a massive escarpment several hours north of Aish, and I’m relieved to find that not only is it still there, but that the stream nearby runs high. I don’t like being stuck—I don’t like anything that will keep me from carrying out my duty. But at least I won’t suffer from thirst.

I start a small fire just outside the cave and take in my reflection in the stream—my face, hair, and clothes are all a pale, sand-blasted beige.

“You might well be one of us, Banu al-Mauth,” a deep voice says. “Though we would not be fool enough to ride winds such as these.”

A diaphanous figure steps into the firelight. At first, I am confused, for despite its shape, it cannot possibly be human.

“Rowan Goldgale,” the figure says. “We have met before.”

I recognize the name. “Yes,” I say. “You tried to murder my friend and me during the Trials. Now you and your fellow sand efrits are burning Tribal wagons and ransacking villages.”

“All are actions we have been forced to take.” Rowan steps closer, and I look behind him, wondering if he’s brought his marauding fellows with him. But he shakes his sandy head.

“I come alone, Banu al-Mauth, in humility and sincerity, in the hopes that you might hear my plea.”

I bid him sit and he crosses his legs on the floor of the cave, his form growing solid enough that I can make out a beak-like nose and thin lips.

“The Nightbringer moves against the human world.” As Rowan speaks, he gestures. The sand on my face, hair, and clothes drifts into a cloud, dropping into a neat pile, leaving me looking marginally more human. “He has enslaved my kind and sworn us to silence, but his plans—”

The king of the sand efrits shudders and I lean forward. Efrits have always struck me as having a sort of malicious mischievousness. But Rowan couldn’t be more serious.

Human world. I think of Laia, of the Blood Shrike, and my curiosity gets the better of me.

“What are his plans? He’s already killing at will.”

“My vows prevent me from sharing his plans, but—”

“That’s convenient,” I say. “Then why mention them?”

“Because my people read the desert winds as the Augurs read their dreams. They see a great commander who—”

“Do they see anything about the Waiting Place?” I ask. Rowan appears taken aback. I suppose kings rarely get interrupted.

“There is rot in the forest and I need to know why. Do your wind prophecies mention it?”

“Nay, Banu al-Mauth. But—”

“If you have nothing to tell me about the Nightbringer’s plans or the Waiting Place,” I say, “then I’m uninterested in what you saw.” I stand, and the efrit, startled, rises as well.

“Please, Banu al-Mauth. You are destined for more than this—”

“Don’t make me sing, Rowan.” I think of a tune someone crooned to me long ago. Efrit, efrit of the sand, a song is more than he can stand. “I have a rubbish voice. Like a cat getting strangled.”

“You will wish—”

“Lady Cassia Slaughter was a wrinkled old hag,” I sing, “but it’s said that her daughter was a mighty fine sha—”

The foul little sea shanty is the first song that comes to me, and before I finish the verse, Rowan howls and disappears, leaving only a cloud of dust in his wake.

When the cave is silent again, I turn to my dinner. The efrit was likely a ruse sent by the Nightbringer to distract me from my mission. The creatures cannot be trusted. It was efrits, after all, who tried to kill the Shrike and me during the Trials. Efrits who burned down Shaeva’s cabin.

Still I feel uneasy. What if Rowan wasn’t a ruse? What if I should have heard him out?

For a long time, I do not sleep. I sit by the fire, carving shapes into Laia’s armlet. When I lay my head down, Mauth’s magic finally stirs and smooths the unease away. By the time I wake, the efrit and his warning are forgotten.

* * *