He sipped his coffee.
And promptly choked on it. The guards stopped mumbling to stare at his back.
Today is a cursed day.
One guard approached Mazen to ask if he was okay. Mazen tried to laugh and failed. “Fine,” he managed. “I’m fine. Thank you for your concern.”
His heart trembled with panic. Turn around, turn around.
Thankfully, the man returned to his conversation. “There’ve been more jinn in the city recently.”
“More? I thought the high prince’s security measures were meant to keep them out.”
Mazen gripped his cup. Walking into Madinne was a death sentence for jinn—what reason did they have for invading?
“Who needs complicated security measures?” One man waved a dismissive hand. “They ought to have public killings. Bleed the creatures out, then pick the flowers from their blood and give them to the audience. That will scare them away.”
Mazen thought of the terrible silver blood on his brother’s clothing. He wondered where Omar had killed his marks and what sort of life had sprung from their blood. Had they begged his heartless brother to spare their lives? Or had they fought futilely until the end? Mazen did not like to imagine them pleading. Did not like to think of their lives being cut short with bloodshed.
It was amazing—horrifyingly amazing—that the silver blood spilled in that violent struggle could provoke nature into existence.
Unlike human blood, which only ever signified loss. Pain. Absence.
Unbidden, Mazen recalled the last time he’d seen his mother. It had been ten years ago; he’d been only twelve years old. He remembered she had been sleeping. Or so he’d believed. He’d gone to deliver a message from his father—and found her lying limp on her bed, staring blankly at the ceiling with a crimson stain on her chest.
Mazen breathed out slowly as he forced the memory away. Every once in a while, it resurfaced with a vengeance. A jinn had killed his mother—it was the reason his father forbade him from leaving the palace without guards.
He lifted his head, desperately seeking a distraction. He did not have to look far; only feet away a woman stood frozen in the crowd, smiling at him. She was tall and fine-boned, with generous curves and long legs accentuated by the thin layers of silk and gossamer she wore.
Desire flared in the pit of Mazen’s stomach as he took in her radiant appearance. As he looked into her hypnotizing eyes, which shifted color in the light, fading from coffee black to amber.
Vaguely, he recognized that the lascivious shudder running through him was unnatural, but the more present part of him did not intend to think about it.
The woman fluttered her lashes, turned, and walked away.
Some strange tension hung in the air like a taut string.
And snapped.
Mazen stood, a slow smile stretching his lips as he followed the goddess into the chaos of the souk. Because what else could she be?
He had never felt such a deep concupiscence take hold of him. Of course he had to follow her. He had to… had to…
Make her mine.
3
LOULIE
“What say you, talking lizard—would you prefer sugared almonds or roasted pistachios?”
No one could hear Loulie whispering to the jinn lizard beneath her head scarf, and no one heard his response: an exasperated sigh.
Qadir had been in a sullen mood since they docked in Madinne an hour ago, suggesting at every opportunity they return to Dahlia’s. Loulie had ignored him. Why rush back to the tavern when they had coin to spend?
“Roasted pistachios it is.” She approached the stall with two bronze coins. The owner, a kindly old man who smelled of sesame, was happy to trade her for a bag of nuts.
“What a wonderful thing it is to see you again, Layla. Arrived on the Aysham, did you?”
Layla. Over the years, her birth name had become an alias, one she offered to people she didn’t trust to keep her identity as the Midnight Merchant a secret. She preferred it that way—a buried identity, a buried past.
“That I did.” She popped a pistachio into her mouth and sighed. As always, they were perfection. The only thing that would have made them better was the shells, and that was just because she enjoyed cracking them open to annoy Qadir.
“Any news from around the souk?”
The old man beckoned her forward. “Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but…”
She let him speak, nodding occasionally to show she was listening. The stall owner liked to gossip, and she was happy to indulge him. Sometimes he unknowingly gave her leads on potential customers or filled her in on governmental rumors. Qadir especially was interested in the latter; he cared more for politics than she did.