“Try not to look too excited to see him.”
“Speak for yourself. You’re smiling like a fool.”
Too late, Loulie realized she was blushing. She stood up and, scowling, made her way out of the room and to the hammam. When she returned, she was clean and dressed in her plain brown robes. “Well?” She looked at Qadir expectantly. “Are we getting iftar or not?”
In daylight, the city was lively and colorful, the winding streets filled with laughing children and gossiping adults wearing all manner of colorful robes and clothing. Pale, box-shaped houses loomed above them, their circular windows crisscrossed with latticed patterns. Clothing lines stretched between the upper floors, providing a temporary—and likely unintended—reprieve for migrating pigeons. On the ground, the city’s dirt paths were lined with palm trees and carts, the latter of which had sides decorated with bright paintings.
The shop Loulie purchased her pita and labneh from was in the main square and featured paintings of bakers spinning bread in the air. She admired it from afar as she broke off pieces of bread and offered them to Qadir, who sat on her shoulder. They had settled at their favorite eavesdropping spot, a simple fountain that had the names of famous poets carved into the stone. Loulie sat cross-legged on the lip, absently munching on bread as conversations drifted past her.
She caught many snippets of gossip, some pertaining to her. It did not surprise her that Dhyme’s citizens knew she was traveling with the prince—the cities received their news from hawks that traveled much faster than horses. The moment she’d left Madinne, she had been resigned to the fact that she would be expected in both Dhyme and Ghiban.
She had just scooped up the last of her labneh when she caught wind of a conversation that made her hold her breath. “… taken to calling him the Hunter in Black,” a turbaned man was saying to his mustachioed companion.
The mustachioed man laughed. “Nameless, is he? How enigmatic.”
“Melodramatic, if you ask me. But what’s important is his tally. His technique. They say he’s killed more jinn than the high prince.”
The mustachioed man slapped his friend on the neck. “Shh! If someone hears you…” His voice dipped into a whisper. Loulie strained to catch the rest of the conversation, but to no avail. The Hunter in Black. What if he was one of the cutthroats the shadow jinn had been referring to? What if he was one of the killers who had murdered her tribe?
“Al-Nazari?”
She whirled. The high prince stood behind her, looking bemused. “You look awfully suspicious. You aren’t plotting something nefarious, are you?”
Loulie bristled. “What do you want?”
The prince’s smile faded as he glanced at her injured hand. Loulie stuffed it into her pocket without thinking. She had bound it with fresh bandages this morning, but bindings would not hide the flexibility of her fingers.
Omar cleared his throat. “I wanted to apologize for injuring your hand.”
Loulie blinked. “What?”
His brow furrowed with something that looked startlingly like concern, but the expression was gone as quickly as it had appeared. The smirk returned. “I said—”
“Apology accepted.” She turned away, heart thudding. The truth was that the prince had saved her from herself. He had saved himself from her. She could hardly expect him to apologize for that. But I won’t thank him. No one in his crooked family deserves my thanks.
She was already walking away when he called after her, “See you tonight!” Loulie did not respond. Of course Omar had been invited to tonight’s gathering. She was filled with dread at the prospect of having to navigate a conversation with Ahmed bin Walid while he was there.
She made it to the inn before she realized she’d forgotten to follow the gossipers in the souk. Qadir sighed in her ear. “Off to a great start, aren’t you?”
Her mood had not improved by the time evening rolled around, and it only worsened when she stepped into the wali’s courtyard. It was both the most beautiful and the most grotesque garden she’d ever laid eyes upon—an evergreen labyrinth filled with flowering trees and glittering ponds. Lantern-lined bridges curved over the water while marble statues posed in various locations across a grassy field. She had no doubt Ahmed’s visitors thought it a serene place. But Loulie could never think it peaceful when the land was soaked with silver blood.
And the statues—they were awful. Sculpted to look like dying jinn, they were the most tasteless décor she’d ever seen. They seemed to reach toward her desperately, eyes bulging, mouths open in horror. Loulie was reminded of the drowning men in the mosaic from the ruins. She tried not to look at them as the wali’s guards led them through a jinn-made forest to the diwan. She did not want to mull over the fact that back when he’d been alive, Ahmed’s father had created the statues to commemorate his kills. Though Ahmed himself always grieved his victims, the statues were a reminder of the murderous legacy he carried on.