Loulie grimaced. “But how? Has your brother been hiding this force all along? How did they get here?”
When she looked at him expectantly, Mazen just shook his head helplessly. The sultan had said there were multiple paths beneath the Sandsea, but Mazen did not know which Omar had used. His brother’s business had always been a secret; Mazen had no idea where to even begin unraveling his plans.
The jinn of the lamp strode past him, cracking their knuckles. “It does not matter if there is one or one thousand. I will burn them all to the ground.” They cast a look over their shoulder. Mazen shrank back at the violence in their eyes. “You may be able to command me, idiot human, but if you get in my way, I will murder you.”
Mazen blinked. He stared down at the lamp. An ifrit—his to command? It was a dizzying thought. One that had not quite sunk in.
The merchant reached out and stole her dagger back, startling him from his reverie. She looked at her bodyguard. “Qadir, fire?”
The blade obediently burst into flame, but Qadir looked wary. “What are you doing?”
Loulie scoffed. “Killing a sultan killer.” The words brought Mazen back to the present. He breathed in as Loulie rushed past him, Qadir limping after her. Rijah rushed to offer a hand, turning their back on Mazen and making it clear they would not wait for orders.
“How can I help?” he heard Rijah say.
“I do not deserve your help,” came Qadir’s weak response.
Loulie sighed. “But we could use it. If you’re the mightiest of jinn, prove it.”
She and the ifrit kept throwing heated words at each other until Qadir made them concede to watch each other’s backs. And then they headed into the battle, leaving him behind.
Mazen wanted to follow after them, but his body refused his commands. “I…” He felt eyes on him and looked up to see Omar. Omar, who had escaped his battle with Aisha by leaving her to deal with his reinforcements. Omar, who stared at him blankly from a distance, fingers brushing his ear.
Again, Mazen saw that strange, muted glow coming from Omar’s earring.
And then the world seemed to shudder. And break. The pale sand faded, the thieves disappeared, and everything fell into a darkness so complete Mazen had the distinct feeling he’d been plucked from the world like a thread torn from a tapestry. When his mind finally caught up to reality, he was no longer standing in darkness.
Mazen was in his mother’s chambers. At first, he was confused. Why am I here? But then he remembered: he was delivering a message from his father. “Uma?”
His mother lay on her bed, unmoving. He called her again, softly. When she did not answer, he drew close enough to peer at her face. Her eyes were open.
He drew back, heart beating in his throat. That was when the dread began to set in, when he realized her eyes were unseeing. He saw the blood staining her skin and the knife protruding from her chest, where a crimson stain was spreading.
He stumbled away from the bed, the body. He realized he was screaming. He heard footsteps, cries from the soldiers outside, but their voices were distant, unimportant. Mazen fell against the doorway, heaving, eyesight blurring, and—
He entered his mother’s chambers.
Again? He blinked.
His mother lay on her bed, unmoving. He hesitated. “Uma?” He took one step into the room before freezing, caught off guard when someone stepped past him. Omar.
“Omar!” he hissed. “Can you not see she is sleeping?”
But Omar was not listening. He paused in front of the bed, a vacant expression on his face. And then: a flicker of motion. A glimmer of silver up his sleeve. Mazen’s mother shifted, eyes twitching beneath the weight of sleep. Mazen reached out toward her. No. Omar’s knife came down. No!
Her eyes shot open with her pained gasp. A shudder racked her body as she looked at Omar. Her lips moved, forming soundless words. Omar leaned close enough for his lips to brush her ear and said, “The sultan stole my mother from me. Now I shall steal you from him.”
He stepped away and tore at the blankets, replicating a struggle. He sparked a match and singed the curtains, creating evidence of a nonexistent jinn fire. Then he escaped out the window without looking back. The sultan had claimed Mazen’s mother was killed by a jinn.
He had died without knowing the truth.
The vision shifted so that Mazen was in front of his father’s bed. His father, pale and sickly, looked at him with wide, glassy eyes. Mazen had seen his father angry before, heartbroken, even. But never fearful.
“You warned me never to trust anyone, yuba,” he said. The words were Omar’s, but the voice—he was horrified to realize he was in his own body, and that there was a black knife in his hands. “You ought to have heeded your own advice.” He cut a ribbon of blood into the sultan’s neck with his knife. No! Yuba. This isn’t me. This isn’t me! He wanted to reach out and shake him. Yuba, please. Please wake—