The Blood Shrike looks at me in surprise. As the rest of our men realize what I am saying, an angry mutter rises.

“We cannot let what they’ve done stand, Soul Catcher,” the Blood Shrike says. “Their leader is dead. Their human minions are dead or scattered. This is our chance.”

“They are not the Nightbringer,” I say. “The Augurs imprisoned them for a thousand years for doing nothing more than defending their borders. Unless you wish to punish yourself for defending Antium against invaders?”

“You saw what they can do at full strength. Such a threat—”

“We can treat with them,” I say. “This is what the Augurs worked toward, Blood Shrike. The foretellings, the raising of Blackcliff, the Trials. All their machinations were to bring us to this moment. They knew there was going to be a war years ago. Ever since they stole the jinn’s magic, they’ve been trying to make up for the evil they did. But they are not here to see it through.” I look at Laia and the Shrike in turn. “That falls to us.”

As I regard them, I wonder at the strange twists of fate that have led us here. The impossibility of this outcome, of the three of us alive, together, and standing before a host of the creatures desperately needed to restore balance to our world.

“Right.” Laia takes my hand in her left, and the Blood Shrike’s in her right. “Let’s get on with this.”

Hand in hand, we make our way down the escarpment and to the waiting jinn. We stop at a far enough distance that they don’t feel threatened.

“Where is he?” Umber steps forward, recognizable only by her wrathful voice and the glaive in her hand. Even her eyes have dimmed, her fire a bare flicker of what it was in the battle.

“He is gone.” Laia steps forward. “Bound by Rehmat, who gave her life so yours might be spared. For he would have destroyed this world, and there is yet much good in it.”

“No.” Umber crumples, weeping, not in rage as I expected, but in desolation. “No—he loved us—”

But the other jinn are silent, for they bore witness. They saw what he became.

“You are needed in this world,” Laia goes on. “You should not be driven into hiding or to war by the greed of a human king from a thousand years ago. The jinn were wronged. The Nightbringer avenged that wrong. Let it end now.”

“What do you wish us to do?” The jinn called Faaz steps forward, brown-haired and dark-eyed in his human form. “Serve your kind again? You will only return to thieve our powers.”

“We will not.” The Blood Shrike steps forward. “I am Blood Shrike of the Martial Empire and Regent to Emperor Zacharias. In his name, I vow that no Martial shall cross the border of the Waiting Place unless you will it, and no Martial shall raise arms against you, unless in defense. We will make no treaty with any nation that does not agree to do the same.”

I look at the Shrike in surprise, but then consider what she said to me only days ago. Another war. Will it ever end, Soul Catcher? Or will this be the legacy I leave my nephew?

“We cannot go back.” The crowd parts to let a jinn through. He is thin and stoop-shouldered, heavily cloaked, but I recognize him instantly. Maro—the jinn who siphoned the ghosts for the Meherya, who did nothing as thousands upon thousands of humans died. “Not after all we have done,” he says. “Not after all that has been done to us.”

“You can.” I think of my father. “I have saved lives and taken them. I have been whipped and beaten and broken down. I have failed the world, failed in my duty. My mistakes will haunt me until I die. But I can still do good. I can pass the ghosts. I can vow to never make the same mistakes again.”

In that moment, something shifts in the air, as if a door has opened on a long-shut room. Spirits flow from Mauth’s realm into the Waiting Place. Hundreds—no, thousands. All those who died here, those who fed the Sea of Suffering this day.

The force of their presence nearly brings me to my knees. They will stay away from the jinn grove, for they dislike it as much as the jinn themselves. But soon enough, their cries will require the humans to find some sort of refuge.

As one, the jinn look to the trees. Maro steps toward them, perhaps feeling the same compulsion that is upon me. Then he shakes himself and turns, walking back into the Sher Jinnaat. Most of the jinn follow him.

But not all.

The jinn Talis stands alone, his human body slowly slipping into a deep carmine flame with a cerulean heart. He raises his hand to the trees, beckoning.

A group of spirits emerge and flow to him. The red of his flame deepens, and he walks with them into the Sher Jinnaat, head tilted as they speak their pain. When he reaches the first buildings, he stops and turns.

“Leave the bodies, Banu al-Mauth,” he says. “They will not be tampered with. I will see them buried.” Then he is gone, the knot of ghosts trailing after.

As he leaves, jinn voices rise on the air, a chorus with layer upon layer of melody, hair-raising and beautiful. The air quivers with the force of their song, and Mauth speaks.

A lament for the Meherya, he says. An elegy for their fallen king.

“Only one returned out of hundreds, Mauth.” I glance toward the city, where Talis has disappeared. “I failed you.”

Without you, all would have been lost, Banu al-Mauth. One is a beginning. And for now, that is enough.

* * *

???

Hundreds are injured and thousands are dead. The ghosts call to me, begging to be seen, heard, sent to the other side. But I must speak with Mamie and Shan, with Afya and Spiro, with Gibran and Aubarit. I must spend time with the Fakirs and Fakiras and give them guidance on how to move forward with so many of their elders lost. Quin, bleeding from a dozen wounds in the infirmary, demands my presence, and it takes hours to persuade the Paters to leave the bodies of the dead.

But by dawn the morning after the battle, the army is ready to march, and I have spoken with everyone I need to.

Well. Almost everyone.

Laia finds me near the road that will lead the army out of the Waiting Place. The Blood Shrike, Musa, and I are discussing how the troops should handle any rogue ghosts. When Laia appears, Musa kicks the Shrike in the ankle.

“What the hells, Musa—oh—”

The Shrike gives me a dark look—Don’t you hurt her, Elias—and disappears with the Scholar man.

“You will not ride with us?” Laia pulls me toward the trees, for though Rehmat is gone, Laia’s magic remains. Some part of the jinn queen still lives within her—within Musa and the Blood Shrike. Enough that most of the ghosts leave them be.

“The spirits call.” I want to take her hands but restrain myself. Nothing will make this easier. There’s no reason to make it more difficult. “Even with Talis, there are too many ghosts to pass.”

I reach into my pocket. The armlet that she returned months ago is still with me, though far more intricately carved than before, as I’ve been working on it in every quiet moment I’ve had. Do I give it to her? Will she reject it? It’s not done yet. Perhaps I should wait.

“Laia—”

“I do not—”

We speak at the same time, and I gesture for her to go first.

“I do not want you to grieve what we have, Elias.” She lifts her hand as a Tala blossom drifts into it. “You are alive. Wherever I am, I will know that somewhere in the world, you exist, and that you are at peace. That is enough for me.”

“Well, it might be enough for you,” a voice rasps from the shadows of the forest, “but it’s not enough for me.”

Laia and I both stare for long moments at the figure that emerges from the shadows, small and white-haired, with ocean-blue eyes that are hard as agate, but that soften at the sight of her daughter.

“How—” Laia finally manages to choke out. “The Karkauns—”

“Didn’t bother checking my body,” Mirra of Serra says. “And I touched the Star, remember? We’re tough to kill.”

“But why did you not come to me?” Laia says. “Why would you not try to find me?”

“Because revenge mattered to me more than you,” Mirra says. Laia, stunned, steps back. “I was never a good m-m-mother, girl. You know that. I knew no one would have a shot against the Bitch of Blackcliff unless she wasn’t expecting them. Her spies told her I was dead. So I stayed dead. The only ones who knew I lived were Harper, who gave me a place to sleep in Antium, and the Blood Shrike.”

At the outrage on Laia’s face, Mirra holds up her hand. “Don’t go getting angry at her now,” she says. “Helped her in the tunnels of Antium, but she didn’t know it was me. She didn’t know I was alive until the night before the battle. After I’d had a little chat with Karinna.”

“I didn’t sense you—” I begin, and Mirra laughs.