But then there was a charge in the air, and a sudden chaos overtook the souk, enveloping the space so quickly there was no time to understand it. One moment all was calm, and the next, there was shouting from flustered, panicked marketgoers as a young boy sprinted down the thoroughfare, screaming at the top of his lungs.
He was nothing but a blur, a flash of color that darted in and out of Mazen’s vision. Some of the audience members surged forward to investigate while others drew back with anxious mutters. Aisha brushed past them all to the front of the crowd. Mazen rose and followed, breath trapped in his lungs as he stared at the quickly emptying square.
“Please!” the running boy shouted. He glanced around desperately at the nervous onlookers. “Please, help me! I—”
Something flashed through the air and hit the boy in the back. His words collapsed into a gasp as he crumpled to the ground. Mazen stared, uncomprehending, at the arrow protruding from the child’s back. His confusion only deepened when he saw silver blood pooling on the ground. A jinn. He stared numbly. A jinn child?
The souk was so quiet Mazen didn’t dare breathe. When he tried to inch closer to the road, Aisha grabbed the hem of his tunic and pulled him back. There was a warning in her eyes. Mazen looked again at the boy, then at the witnesses hiding in alleys and peering out windows. The crowd was frozen in shock or fear. No one approached the boy.
That was, until a lone man strolled down the thoroughfare. He walked until he reached the dying jinn, then plucked the arrow from his back as easily as if he were plucking a rose from a garden. He sliced the boy’s throat before he could scream.
“Nothing to worry about!” the killer called in a singsong voice. “The monster is dead.”
He slung the body over his shoulder and turned to walk back. The souk came alive at his proclamation, suddenly filled with a cacophony of voices as marketgoers piled onto the streets to watch the murderer stride off with the boy. Mazen felt the inexplicable urge to hide as the killer passed—then stopped to look at them. He had bright, shiny teeth and eyes dark as buttons. “Aisha! Beautiful, poisonous Aisha! I knew I saw a familiar face. How have you been? It’s been months since we spoke.”
“Tawil.” Aisha’s voice was stiff, cold.
Tawil laughed, an infuriatingly loud sound that made Mazen’s blood boil. “Only you would give a fellow thief such a cold reception, bint Louas.” His smile faded when he saw Mazen. “It seems we have much to discuss. Wait for me, eh? I have a corpse to bleed.”
The smile returned as he walked away, as the marketgoers thanked him for ridding Ghiban of a filthy jinn. Blessed thief, they called him. Savior. Hero.
“Killer,” Aisha murmured. Her eyes—both brown and black—shimmered with rage.
54
LOULIE
The compass led them to a rocky incline a two-hour hike from Ghiban. Loulie climbed up steep pathways littered with gravel and red dust, meandered along crooked trails, and inched past drops running with rushing water.
It was not the most perilous journey she’d ever made, but it was easily the most difficult on account of the pain that shot through her injured ankles with every step. By the time they were near the top, her legs trembled and sweat coated her forehead and neck.
Truly, she should not have taken this journey. But she had to. To prove to herself she was capable. That she did not need to rely on Qadir.
And yet here they were. Both of them. Qadir had refused to let her go alone and was trailing her from a distance, watching silently as she struggled. He did not try to help her, and because it was clear she was in no mood for conversation, he did not speak to her. Even yesterday in the souk, he had been quiet, content to accompany her just to make sure neither she nor the prince “did anything stupid,” as he put it.
Loulie was so trapped in her thoughts, she did not notice the dip in the cliff ledge. She stepped too hard and would have slipped off the edge had Qadir not grabbed her from behind. She realized only belatedly that she had reached for him at the same moment.
The two of them stood there, trembling, staring at each other.
And then Loulie pulled away, curled her fingers into a fist, and kept walking.
She was still shaken when they reached the top of the cliff, a plateau so high she could see the entirety of Ghiban: the winding streams, the patches of green, and the vibrant souk in the center, filled with crowds of people and charming displays. She glanced at the water crashing down the cliff, then looked at its source: a large lake only steps away.
“The water is infinite,” Qadir said when he saw the confusion on her face. “Created by jinn blood, no doubt.”