Then she quirks an eyebrow at me. “Didn’t want to start without me?” she asks.

“Didn’t want to listen to you whining about it, more like.”

A collective exhale from both sides, and then everyone is dismounting and greeting each other. Laia steps past me and pulls the Shrike into a hug.

“Where’s my favorite tyrant?” Laia asks, but gently, for the wights brought news of Livia’s death. A shadow passes over the Shrike’s face.

“Zacharias is at a safe house,” she says, “with Tas and Uncle Dex and a full complement of Masks. Thought it was wiser than bringing him here.” Pink shadows nest beneath her eyes. “Another war. Will it ever end, Soul Catcher? Or will this be the legacy I leave my nephew?”

I have no answer for her, and she turns to greet Darin. Laia seeks out Musa, putting her hand against the tall Scholar’s face, speaking quietly with that sweet smile of hers. Though I had nothing against the man a moment ago, I suddenly find his face vexing. Laia spots me and grins.

“By the skies, Soul Catcher,” she says as Musa moves away. “Is that jealousy?”

“Do you want it to be?” Stop it, I tell myself. You idiot. But the old me, who appears to be cheekier by the day, shoves that voice into a bin.

“Still flirting at inappropriate times, I see.” Strong hands pull me around. My grandfather, Quin Veturius, regards the rows of Tribespeople behind me. If haughtiness could wither, both armies would collapse into dust. “At least you’re leading an army. Good at it too, I’d wager. Runs in the blood.”

As I meet his gray eyes, a mirror of my own, I consider walking away. We’re about to fight a battle, and even if we win, I’ll have to return to the ghosts and forget all of these faces once more. Even if I can persuade the jinn to return as Soul Catchers, Mauth made it clear that doing so would not mean my freedom.

But Grandfather pulls me into a bear hug, nearly breaking my ribs.

“I missed you, my boy,” he says, and my arms rise, for there is comfort in hugging one of the few people I know who is bigger than me. Stronger than me.

“I missed you too, Grandfather.”

“Right.” The Blood Shrike steps away from Mamie. Her face is stricken from whatever Mamie said to her, but she pulls herself together. “How do you plan to get nearly ten thousand troops, and their horses, wagons, and supplies, through that?” She nods to the gnarled forest.

“Getting through it isn’t the problem,” I say. “It’s what happens once we’re inside.” I look past her toward her massive supply train. “Did you bring the salt?”

“Wasn’t bleeding easy,” she says. “But we have a dozen carts’ worth.”

“Set extra sentries around it,” I tell her. “We’ll need every last bit.”

We reach the Waiting Place an hour later. Wary conversation dwindles to silence as we close in on the wall of trees. Low brush chokes the space between the trunks. I urge my skittish mount forward and bid the trees to open a path. The forest is reluctant, so I push harder. Mauth. This army is essential to my cause.

A shimmer in the wood and then, ever so slowly, it shifts. Where there was naught but a deer trail, there is now an earthen road, wide enough for ten wagons. When I attune myself to the map of the Waiting Place, all is as it usually is, just compressed, as if to make room for us.

For most of the day, we pass through the forest swiftly. I do not need to warn the army to be silent. The trees loom oppressively over the road, vines shifting and twisting just out of sight, as if considering whether they should make a meal of a passing human.

The place has never felt emptier. I fear for Karinna for a time, worried the Nightbringer has taken her too, until I spot her flitting near a stream. She flees when she sees the approaching army. Laia, riding beside me, sees her too.

“Who was that?”

“No one,” I say quickly. But the Blood Shrike, on my other side, snorts in disbelief.

“It’s the ghost of my grandmother,” I relent. “Quin’s wife. He doesn’t know she’s here, and it needs to stay that way. Knowing would only cause him pain. Stay away from her, in any case. She’s very shy and she’s been through enough.”

The Shrike seems taken aback by my vehemence and draws Laia into conversation as Avitas Harper comes up on my right.

“Banu al-Mauth,” he says. “The supply train sergeant has requested that we slow down. Says the horses need a rest.”

I nod and give the order, and as the Mask snaps his reins to move past me, I think of all the questions I quelled when I first met him months ago. The questions Mauth washed from my mind. I call out.

“Do you—” I probably should have thought this through. “I don’t know anything about our father. And I thought if you did—of course, if you don’t wish to—”

“He looked like you,” Avitas says. “I was only four when he died. But I remember his face. Had green eyes, though. Like me. Skin much darker than the both of us. Closer to Musa’s. He had big hands and a laugh that carried through a village. He was good.” Avitas cocks his head and looks me dead in the eye. “Like you.”

Avitas’s words fill a part of me I didn’t know was empty. For years, I did not care to reflect upon my father. Quite suddenly, I want to know everything.

“Do you know why he came to Blackcliff to teach? Usually Centurions are older.”

“According to my mother, it was that or be discharged. He was bad at following orders apparently.”

I smile at that, and the conversation comes easy, after. We talk until evening approaches and the Shrike rides up to us.

“Are we going to stop and camp?” she asks. “Or do you two plan on gossiping all night?”

Later, as everyone beds down on the road, I reflect on the day. On how it felt to see the Shrike and Grandfather, and to talk to my brother. On how it felt to learn about my father.

I have deadened my emotions for so long that it is jarring to feel so much in so short a time. Emotion will not serve you well, Mauth said. But there are no ghosts to pass now. And I am tired—so tired of telling myself not to feel.

So the next day, instead of holding myself aloof or immersing myself in battle preparations, I find Shan. We laugh over the tricks he pulled to avoid getting married. Later I wheedle a story out of Mamie and talk with Grandfather. I seek out the Shrike, and we speak of Faris and Livia, of the Empire, the jinn, and the coming battle. For the first time in ages, the angry voice within is at peace.

And then there’s Laia. There are fewer words between us, yet our conversation never ends. She touches my arms or shoulders as she passes, and smiles when she watches me with my family. If she catches me gazing at her, she stares back, a promise and a question in her dark eyes. At night, she wanders through my dreams, and I wake from them aching with need.

Years ago, when I was a Fiver at Blackcliff, I was sent into the Nevennes on a spying mission. It was deep winter, and one morning, I woke to find the fire I’d kindled the night before had gone out. I had no more flint, so I hunched over a lone ember. The deep red glow at its core promised warmth, if I was willing to give it time and air. If I was patient enough to wait until it was ready to burn.

Laia is far more patient with me than I was with that ember. But I struggle to open up to her. Because if we survive all of what is to come, I will return to the Waiting Place. I will forget her.

Or perhaps I won’t. Perhaps the memory of her will haunt me worse than any ghost, even as she returns to the world of the living and builds a life on her own, or with someone else. The thought brings me perilously close to despair.

All I can do is quell it. For three days, as we march through the forest, I focus instead on memorizing the music of her laugh, the poetry of her body. I savor every touch and every look.

Until, on the third night, I’m compelled to seek her out. I must at least try, for a few moments, to set the Soul Catcher aside and let Elias Veturius speak.

When the moon is high, I slip out of my tent and make my way toward Tribe Saif, where Laia usually sleeps. The fires burn low, and other than Mamie Rila, the Tribe is at rest. The Kehanni spots me. She smiles faintly, then nods at her wagon.

A lantern glows within and Laia’s silhouette moves past a window. My heart thuds faster. What will I say to her? I miss you. I’m sorry. I wish—

I do not complete the thought. For suddenly, the hair on the back of my neck rises.

Almost before I register the feeling, I’ve drawn my scims and turned to the forest, where something moves sinuously amid the trees. Ghosts? No—a fog, low and noisome, creeping slowly toward the army.

Above, the wind efrits shriek out a warning, their sudden cries sending a tremor through the slumbering camp.

“Jinn!” they scream. “The jinn have come!”