“Indeed! I have spent the past months gathering tales from the Bedouin tribes of the eastern plains. Tomorrow will be the first time I share them. These are tales from Dhahab.”
Mazen gasped. Tales from Dhahab! It was a rare treat to hear about the jinn cities. They were said to be filled with magic and mystical beasts no one had seen for hundreds of years.
Old Rhuba chuckled. “You are an appreciator of such stories, Yousef?”
“Yes,” Mazen admitted with a sheepish smile. “I was hoping to hear you tell them earlier today. But then something, ah, came up.”
“You speak as if there is a specific time for stories.” Old Rhuba’s eyes twinkled with mirth. “Please, sit awhile and listen to an old man prattle on about legends.”
Mazen needed no further convincing. He ducked into the storyteller’s tent while Layla stood outside at the entrance. Old Rhuba began by asking questions. Did Mazen know anything about the ghouls of the White Dunes? What about the Queen of Dunes, the powerful jinn said to command them?
With each question, Old Rhuba’s voice grew louder and clearer, until he’d drawn quite a crowd to his space. Marketgoers both old and young all gathered around him, and once he’d quieted everyone, he began: “Desert folk, allow me to enlighten you! I shall tell you the story of the bone ghouls and their keeper, the Queen of Dunes. Neither here nor there, but long ago…”
Mazen was at the mercy of the story the moment it started. It was like being in the middle of a storm. He was barely able to catch his breath as he was buffeted by words. Time got away from him, and when the story eventually ended, stars glinted in the sky and the souk’s thoroughfares were lined with lit lanterns. Mazen came back to himself abruptly. Old Rhuba had made him forget about the jinn, his brother, and tonight’s meeting. He had to leave now.
After ascertaining the location of tomorrow’s performance from the storyteller, he stepped out of the stall and found Layla at the crowd’s outskirts.
“Tired, Yousef?” She cocked a brow. “You’ve had a long day.”
Mazen shook his head. “I just realized what time it is. I have a curfew, you see.”
Layla looked skeptical. “Ah.”
“Will I see you tomorrow at Dahlia’s tavern?” He’d already decided he would do whatever was necessary to attend. He would feign sickness and pay off as many guards as needed.
Layla simply shrugged. “Perhaps.”
He was a little disheartened by the noncommittal answer, but he had no time to convince her to be there. Not while the sun, undeterred by his indecisiveness, continued its descent. “Perhaps, then.” He smiled. “It would be an honor to speak with you once more.”
He thanked her one last time before hurrying back to his gilded cage.
5
LOULIE
The minute Yousef left, Loulie tailed him. A grown man with a curfew? More likely a man with secrets. Even if he was not a hunter, there was something suspicious about Yousef, and she intended to find out what it was. She did not believe his nebulous backstory, and she refused to let him remain a mystery after she had rescued him.
“Do not forget it was I who saved him,” Qadir said.
Loulie suppressed a sigh. Qadir had already explained this to her. While she’d been suffocating beneath the jinn’s magic, Qadir had pulled Yousef from his trance and led him to the doors and to the sunlight that had—temporarily—vanquished the jinn. He’d returned to Loulie’s shoulder before they exited the place of worship.
“You couldn’t have helped me yourself?” she’d asked him earlier, at Old Rhuba’s stall.
“And reveal myself to another jinn? Never.”
“I could have died.”
“And it would have been your own damn fault for ignoring me.”
And so here they were, chasing after Yousef in the hopes of discovering why the jinn had mistaken him for a hunter in the first place. Loulie’s gold was on family ties.
Eventually, the dirt paths of the commoners’ quarters gave way to paved cobblestone streets, and the ramshackle houses became small box-shaped manors with impressive gilded doorways and beautiful latticed windows. The more extravagant homes had multiple floors and fenced-off gardens. One especially lavish dwelling even had two balconies.
Loulie shifted her attention away from the ostentatious buildings and back to Yousef, who was seamlessly ducking into the alleyways between them.
Definitely a man of secrets.
She had just followed him around the corner of a particularly narrow alley when she saw a man leaning against one of the walls and stopped. The moment he looked up, her heart jumped into her throat.