She squinted. “Prince?”
The man stepped forward, and in the flickering firelight she saw it was not Prince Mazen. No, this man was badly burned and wounded, and barely standing upright.
Her heartbeat tripped. “No, but—you’re dead.” She scrambled back, only to find herself up against the cave wall, legs quivering with pain.
The man she had burned, the man she had killed, drew closer, knife raised. “If I must die,” Imad rasped, “I shall take you with me.” He lunged.
Loulie screamed as a hand came down on her shoulder. She gasped and tried to wiggle away. “No!” The word was a plea, a prayer. “No, no—”
“Loulie, you’re dreaming.” The voice was so soft it was barely audible, and yet it washed over her like a soothing wave, smoothing the edges of her panic. She eased her eyes open.
A red-eyed shadow sat before her. Another blink, and the shadow became a solid man with umber skin and faded tattoos. She focused on his eyes: soft and brown and human.
“You were making a face in your sleep,” Qadir said. “I thought it rude to keep staring.”
Loulie threw herself at him with a choked sob. Pain lanced through her ankles, but in that moment, the injury did not matter. She waited for Qadir to dissipate into smoke. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him. He didn’t say anything, just sat there quietly as she cried into his shoulder. For a time, they stayed like that, the silence broken only by her hiccups and, when she had quieted, the crackle of the campfire.
There was silence. Soft and comfortable.
Eventually, Loulie pulled away to look at his face. He looked perfectly human. She reached out to touch his cheek. Perfectly solid.
His expression softened. “You were dreaming, so I woke you.”
Loulie stared at him, daring the planes of his face to crumble to dust. But he remained. “You died,” she said at last, voice hoarse.
She did not realize she had pulled away until Qadir reached out to set his hand atop hers. “Never dead. Incapacitated, but not dead. I am sorry it took me so long to find you.”
“But the trap—”
“Enough to wound me. Slow me down.”
“You were smoke…”
“It is no simple thing, re-forming a body so badly damaged.”
Loulie swallowed. “But the swords were made of iron.”
Qadir scoffed. “Who do you think I am?”
Imad’s words wafted through her mind like poisonous smoke. It’s no wonder he lives! Do you know what he is, girl?
“I don’t know.” She could barely say the words over the knot in her throat.
A tangled web of memories unfurled in her mind: Qadir, confessing he could not return home. Imad, speaking of a relic so valuable any who saw it were ordered dead—a jinn king’s relic. She remembered the hunger in his eyes as the ruins collapsed. The way his voice had trembled as he approached her and Qadir. You. It was you we were looking for.
Her mother had told her stories about the seven jinn kings, who had power enough to sink their world. Ifrit, Qadir called them. But that was a word for terrible, fearsome jinn. For the creature that had revived Aisha with twisted dark magic. For the legendary jinn in the lamp.
Not Qadir.
She pulled her hand away. Qadir’s eyes dimmed. “Loulie…” He looked as if he were about to reach for her again when he turned, eyes narrowed.
Aisha bint Louas leaned against the cave entrance, arms folded over her chest, one ankle crossed over the other as she surveyed them with a catlike smile Loulie knew was not her own. The look made her heart thud nervously. She had barely trusted the thief when she was just herself. Now that she was hosting a deadly jinn, she trusted her even less.
But Qadir seemed unconcerned. “I see you made your deal.”
Aisha clicked her tongue. “You is not my name. Can you say ‘Aisha’？”
“My gods.” These words were spoken by Prince Mazen, who stepped into the cave, holding a bloody hare by its feet. He stared between them, bug-eyed. “How are you alive?”
Qadir frowned. “Who’s asking? Prince Mazen, or is this another disguise?”
The prince at least had the decency to blush. Loulie wanted to punch his embarrassed face. For so long, her anger at him had been muted by her grief. But now it was back, sparking inside her like an unruly flame. The first time he had lied about his identity, she had sympathized with his plight. Evidently, that meant nothing to him.
Aisha scoffed. “How delightful that we’ve all been keeping secrets.” She grabbed the hare from Mazen, strode over to the fire, and began to skin it with some shard she’d apparently acquired in the desert. “Perhaps we should have a heart-to-heart?”