“Tavi was the first person I knew to reject the idea that we had to be what the Empire wanted us to be,” the Soul Catcher says. “I didn’t understand it fully until the Fourth Trial. Sometimes, it is better to die than to live as a monster.”

He takes my hand and I start. I expected his skin to be cold, but he rubs warmth into my fingers.

“We have to fight,” he says. “We have to give Laia a chance to kill the Nightbringer. But we don’t have to be monsters. We don’t have to make the mistakes of those who have gone before. I showed the jinn mercy. Perhaps they, too, might show mercy. Perhaps when they see what the Nightbringer intends, they will remember this moment.”

I think about his words all the way back to camp. The wraiths have withdrawn, and though the troops are in some disarray, order is restored swiftly.

“At least two hundred dead from the Martial forces.” Harper finds me as I return. “Another three hundred from the Tribes. Afya’s cut up, and Laia too.”

Bleeding hells. Five hundred dead out of ten thousand is not a small number. Not when we’ll be facing an army three times our size.

We bury the dead quickly. Laia triages the injured, and after a few hours, we’re on our way again. The Soul Catcher sets a punishing pace, but I glare at my soldiers, daring them to complain. They don’t. No one wants to be caught on the road again.

“We’ll reach the jinn grove by midday,” the Soul Catcher says to me and Quin as we lead the column through the darkness before dawn. “The jinn hate it there. They will not approach. At least, not right away”

“Banu al-Mauth.” A wind efrit appears, and I strain to catch her words. “The Nightbringer’s army is just east of us, across the river. They will reach the grove by dawn tomorrow.”

“Not possible,” Quin growls. “They could not move so quickly.”

“They can with his magic,” the Soul Catcher says. “It’s how they got to Marinn after leaving the Tribal lands. We’ll only have a day to prepare. How quick can the sappers get the trebuchets up, Shrike?”

“A few hours, according to the Ankanese,” I say. “Though”—I raise my eyebrows at him—“I’m surprised you want to use them.”

“We’ll use the war machines to deter.” His words are iron. “Not to kill.”

I bite my lip, trying to mask my frustration. Deterring the jinn won’t be enough. And if that’s the mentality we take into battle, we will lose.

“He’s no fool, Shrike.” Harper, riding on the other side of me, glances at his half brother. “Trust him.”

“It’s the Commandant I don’t bleeding trust,” I say. “That hag will find a way to use this against us. We need something on her. I was thinking”—I turn back to the Soul Catcher—“about how you said we don’t have to repeat the mistakes of those who have gone before.”

He glances at me askance. “And?”

“And the Martials who follow Keris do not do so because they love their empress.” My mouth twists around the word. “They follow her because they fear her. And because she wins.”

“You want to assassinate her.”

“She’ll see it coming,” I say. “Cook knew the Commandant better than anyone. She told Laia to learn Keris’s story. Said if we learned her story, we’d also learn how to stop her. She even told Laia to ask Musa about it—but he didn’t know much. No one knows Keris’s full story. No one living, anyway.”

The Soul Catcher catches my meaning and pulls in his horse, waiting for Quin to move out of earshot. “I’m not summoning Karinna for you to interrogate,” he says. “My duty is to pass the ghosts on. Not torment them.”

“I just want to talk to her,” I say. “And if she doesn’t talk to me, fine.”

The Soul Catcher shifts atop his mount, agitated. “I will not call her for you,” he says. “But—” He glances out at the trees, their tops visible now as dawn approaches. “She is curious about you. I’ve seen her watching you. I think you remind her of her daughter.”

I recoil at the thought of reminding anyone of Keris bleeding Veturia, but the Soul Catcher goes on.

“Her curiosity might be a boon, Shrike. Karinna has not looked at a single other living being here. Not even her own husband, who, presumably, she loved. You’ll need to be gentle. Patient. No quick movement. Let her talk. But offer her something to talk about. Find running water. She likes it. And wait until night. Ghosts prefer the dark. Last—”

He turns his gray eyes on me, and they are icy and stern, the glare of a Soul Catcher offering a warning. “She calls Keris lovey. Remembers her as a child. Knowing what Keris has become would distress her.”

For hours, I ponder what to say to the ghost. By the time I have figured it out, the sun is high and the troops grumble in exhaustion. The road curves upward through a thick patch of trees before flattening out into a broad, scarred plain.

“The jinn grove,” the Soul Catcher informs us.

It stretches for acres, flat as the Great Wastes, with only the occasional burned-out tree breaking the empty sweep. In the center, a great dead yew reaches its charred limbs to the sky, a chain hanging from the lowest branch.

“It feels haunted.” Laia shivers as we urge our reluctant horses out onto the field.

“It is haunted,” the Soul Catcher says. “But it’s big enough for the army. And”—he nods to a valley visible beyond the rim of the grove—“there lies Sher Jinnaat. The City of the Jinn. This is the best, most defensible place from which we can launch an attack.”

I dismount and walk toward the rim. It slopes sharply down a dozen feet.

“We can position our pikemen here.” The Soul Catcher comes up beside me, and we look over the valley. It is massive, hemmed in by the river to the east and south, and forest to the west. “Then archers and catapults.”

“It’s unlike Keris to attack from below,” I say. Despite the sun shining above me, the valley is cloaked in thick mist, similar to what seeped into our camp last night. “It’s unlike her to give us any advantage. Even if her forces outnumber ours.”

“She has jinn,” the Soul Catcher says. “They will bring fire to take out the pikemen and the trebuchets. It will be an ugly battle, Shrike. All we’re doing is buying time for Laia.”

“In all our years at Blackcliff,” I say, “I never imagined this was how you and I would draw swords. Fending off our old teacher while a Scholar hunted a jinn.”

“There is no one I’d rather have at my back, Blood Shrike,” he says, and there is a fierceness to his voice that makes my heart ache, that reminds me of all we have survived. “No one.”

Tents are erected, horses picketed, fires lit, and latrines dug. When it’s clear that everything is well in hand, I disentangle myself from the war preparations and make my way into the trees.

I head north, away from the Sher Jinnaat and the jinn grove. Spring has come to the wood, and the green of unending pines is broken by the pink-wreathed branches of the occasional Tala tree. An hour from the encampment, I reach a small stream. I sit. And then I sing.

It is a quiet song, for I do not want to draw the attention of creatures that will harm me. The song is one of healing. Of mothers and daughters. Of my own mother and her quiet love, which bathed me like the rays of the sun for as long as she lived.

A shiver of air against my neck. I am no longer alone.

Ever so slowly, I turn, and catch my breath. There she is, a wisp of a thing, just like the Soul Catcher said. She watches me and I do not speak.

“My lovey is close,” she whispers. “But I cannot reach her. Do you know how I can reach her?”

Elias’s warning echoes in my mind. “I do know your lovey,” I say. “But—she’s a bit—a bit different.”

“There is only one lovey.” Karinna sounds angry. “My lovey. My little one.”

“Tell me of her,” I say. “Tell me about your lovey.”

Karinna turns away from me, as if to leave, and I think of what the Soul Catcher said. To be patient. To offer her something to talk about.

“I just want to help you get to her,” I say. “My—my mother is gone.” My heart clenches in sorrow, an emotion that has chased me for far too long. An emotion I hate letting myself feel. “My sisters too,” I say. “My father. I know loss. I know pain.”

“Yes.” Karinna turns back, tilting her spectral head. “I feel it in you like I feel it in the other.”

“The other?” I reach for my scim, and the movement startles Karinna. She rears back, and I lift my hands, keeping my voice low. “What—what other? Who else have you been talking to?”

“A spirit.” Karinna flutters past me, and I think I feel her hands along my hair. “Haunted like you.”

She shifts behind me now, and I’m afraid to move, worried that when I look, she will be gone. But she returns, drifting in front of my face.

“Come, little broken bird,” she whispers. “Walk with me. I will take you to the other ghost. I will tell you of my lovey.”

LV: Laia

“Have you eaten yet?”