“He is the first of his kind,” she says. “Rain will turn to steam on his skin, and steel to molten metal. As for salt, he will simply laugh to see it used against him, for he has inured himself to its effects. No, the Nightbringer cannot be killed. Not by a human, anyway. But he can be stopped.”

“How?”

Rain thuds on the wooden roof of the wagon, and I’m reminded suddenly of the drums of the Empire, the way their tattoo echoed down into my bones, leaving me jittery.

“Come back tonight,” the Kehanni says. “When the moon is high. And I will tell you.”

Musa sighs. “Kehanni, with respect—”

“Tonight.”

I shake my head. “But we—”

“Our stories are not bones left on the road for any hungry animal that happens along.” The Kehanni’s voice rises, and I flinch back. “Our stories have purpose. Souls. Our stories breathe, Laia of Serra. The stories we tell have power, of course. But the stories that go untold have just as much power, if not more. I will sing you such a story—a story that was long untold. The story of a name and its meaning. Of how that name matters more than any other single word in existence. But I must prepare myself, for such stories are dragons drawn from a deep well in a dark place. Does one summon a dragon? No. One may only invite it and hope it emerges. So. Tonight.”

The Kehanni refuses to say anything more, and soon Musa and I retreat to the inn, exhausted. He disappears into his room with a half-hearted wave.

The Tribeswoman said the Nightbringer can be stopped. Will she tell me how? I shiver in anticipation. What sort of story will she sing tonight?

A story that was long untold. The story of a name and its meaning. I open the door to my room, still wondering. But at the threshold, I freeze.

Because there is someone inside.

XXIV: Elias

Without the cottage to protect me, my mind is vulnerable to the jinn. But though I try to stay awake, I am, in the end, only human.

Since becoming Soul Catcher I have not dreamed. I only realize it now, when I open my eyes and find myself in a dark alley on an empty street. A flag flaps in the wind—black with crossed hammers. Marcus’s sigil. I taste salt in the summer air, overlaid by something bitter. Blood. Smoke. Burnt stone.

Whispers ride the air, and I recognize the sibilant tones of the jinn. Is this one of their illusions? Is it real?

A whimper breaks the silence. A hooded figure slumps on the ground behind me. I watch for a moment before moving toward the figure. I’m wary as a pale hand emerges from a cloak, clenched tightly around a blade. But when I see the face beneath the hood, my caution disappears.

It’s the Blood Shrike. Blood blooms from her hunched body, staining the cobblestones around her, merciless and inexorable.

“I’m sorry . . .” the Blood Shrike whispers when she sees me. “For what I did to Mamie. The Empire—” She coughs, and I crouch beside her, a hand on her back. She feels warm. Alive.

“Who did this to you?” Some part of me knows this is a dream, but that part fades and I’m simply in it, living it, as if it’s real. The Shrike’s face is drawn and white, her teeth chattering though the night is clear and warm. When I run my hands over her arms, trying to find her injury, she shudders, lifting back her cloak to show a wound in her belly. It looks bad.

Very bad.

It’s a dream. Just a dream. Still, fear stabs through me. I was angry at her when I last met her, but seeing her like this transfers my rage to whoever did this to her. Plans fall into place. Where is the nearest infirmary? Get her there. No—the barracks. Which barracks?

But I can’t do any of that, for this is a dream.

“Are you here to welcome me to—what did she call it—the Waiting Place?”

“You’re not dead,” I say. “And you’re not going to die. Do you hear me?” A powerful memory hits me—the first Trial, Marcus attacking her, the Shrike’s too-light body against mine as I carried her down the mountain.

“You’re going to live. You’re going to find whoever did this to you. You’re going to make them pay. Get up. Get to safety.” Urgency grips me. I must say these words to her. I feel that knowledge in my bones. Her pupils dilate; her body straightens.

“You are Blood Shrike of the Empire,” I say. “And you are meant to survive. Get up.”

When she finds my eyes, her own are glassy. I catch my breath, for they are so real—the shape, the emotions, the color of them, like the violet heart of a quiet sea. The way her face changes beneath her mask, the stiffness of her jaw as she grits her teeth.

But then she fades, as does the city. Silence descends. Darkness. When I open my eyes again, I expect to be back in the Waiting Place. But this time, I’m in a room I’ve never seen. The smooth wood floor is swept clean and strewn with mirrored cushions. There is a faint, familiar fragrance in the air, and my heart thuds faster, my body recognizing the scent before my mind does.

The door opens and Laia enters. Her dark hair has fallen loose from her braid, and she chews on her lip as she always does when she’s deep in thought. The faint glow of a torch seeps in from the hallway behind her, lighting her face a soft gold-brown. Purple half-moons shadow her eyes.

The ocean thunders distantly, the creak of fishing boats a strange countermelody to that roar.