Her wide-eyed gaze met Mazen’s. “What are you doing? Run!”
Loulie’s grip on him tightened as he ducked out of the room and rushed after Aisha, back into the halls blessedly lit by torches. He turned back only once, to witness Imad’s companions giving chase. The moment he and Aisha turned the corner, she stopped him and said, “You’re not moving fast enough. Give me your shadow.”
Mazen frowned. “I can’t just give you my shadow—”
“You can peel it off the wall, can’t you?” She gestured impatiently. “Hand it over.”
Mazen reached for the shadow. He pried it from the wall and, shoving aside his hesitation, threw it at Aisha. He was shocked when she actually disappeared. She seemed just as surprised, though her reaction was short lived, fading as she shifted the shadow cloak onto her shoulder. She held out a hand to the merchant. “I’ll take your dagger as well.” Loulie’s glare turned murderous. She shook her head.
“If I’m going to buy you time, I need a weapon. Give me the dagger.” Aisha reached for the weapon. Mazen yelped when it burst into flame in Loulie’s hand.
Aisha pulled her hand away. “Shit.”
Loulie stared at the fire, blinking rapidly. For a few moments she was still, her gaze unfocused as she looked at the blade. But then she seemed to come back to herself. She shoved the dagger at Aisha without comment. The thief gasped when she wrapped her fingers around the hilt. “It has a voice?” She paused, face paling. “Wait, is this—”
“Yes.” Mazen backed up a step. “It’s Qadir. Don’t lose him.”
Aisha nodded, pulled the shadow over her head, and disappeared. Mazen heard the soft patter of her footsteps and then the surprised yells of men falling to an invisible wraith.
He resumed fleeing. For the first time since escaping the chamber, he glanced at the compass. The mental arrow in his mind had disappeared when Loulie put the compass on her lap, but he could still read the compass in her cupped hands. The twitching arrow guided them down a flight of stairs, pointing decisively ahead. He remembered what Imad had said about its power.
“This—is this a king’s relic?” He glanced down at the merchant.
Loulie shrugged. Mazen paused, realizing she had yet to speak. He glanced at her throat. At the shackle and the chain hanging from it.
His heart clenched at the sight. “The reason you can’t speak…”
She touched a finger to the band.
“And can’t walk…”
She pressed her lips together and said nothing.
Imad. Mazen swallowed his anger. He focused on following the compass, on moving through the ruined corridors, pushing in flimsy wooden doors with his foot, and—
Why was the relic leading him deeper into the ruins?
He stopped, noticing for the first time the way the walls pressed in on them. The gaps and holes he’d become so accustomed to were absent. They had reached a dead end.
“Al-Nazari,” he said softly. His voice was barely a croak. “Where are we?”
But the merchant looked just as confused. She shook her head, face pale.
“I should have gone out the way I came in. But the Sandsea…” He fell back against the wall, despair and exhaustion washing over him. The merchant tugged on his sleeve, a silent question in her eyes. He realized she didn’t know that they were surrounded by the Sandsea. That if there was an escape, he didn’t know where it was.
He looked frantically around them, but there were no doors, no passages. No escape.
His gaze fell to the floor. And snagged on his shadow. Mazen blinked. If his shadow had returned, then Aisha…
“End of the line, Prince.”
Mazen whirled to see Imad standing behind him, still in Omar’s body and flanked by human men. One had Aisha pinned to his chest and held a knife to her throat. Though she struggled against him, his grip was unshakable. The blade at her neck was beaded with red. Mazen stared in horror. He glanced between the men, searching for an opening, for…
He paused, realizing who—what—was missing. “Where are your ghouls?” he said weakly.
Imad stepped forward and pulled open his cloak. Mazen flinched back, but the underside of the cloak was empty. The amulet he had been wearing was gone. “Running amok.” The thief’s voice took on a shrill edge. “Your jinn rendered my relic useless. She took control of my ghouls and clouded my mind with her terrible song.”
A memory flashed through Mazen’s mind of the Queen of Dunes’ song. He recalled the fissure that had opened in his mind to let in memories that were not his. Where had she come from? How was she here?