Aya looked as if she wanted to reach for him, before she remembered who he was and smiled instead.
“This fight is no ordinary battle,” she placated softly. She drew a careful, trembling breath. “We must do what is required of us.”
Seif shook his head and gestured to the empty bottle he had brought in. “We had blood. I’ve used the last of it to protect the house, and it will wear out quickly. The Silver Witch is on her way to the Hessa Isles. In the time required to reach her and extract a vial of her blood, the Lion may very well come to us. Worse, every moment the hearts spend outside the minarets puts them at risk of perishing. An entire journey with the woman, and you did not think to ask her?”
“An eternity of magical knowledge, and you didn’t think to acquire more of it yourself?” Zafira fired back. Skies, this safi.
“What about Bait ul-Ahlaam?” Lana asked, and Zafira paused, the name familiar. The House of Dreams. Nasir had asked the Silver Witch of it on the ship, and Zafira remembered her vexed reply. She felt like an idiot, knowing nothing of it when her little savant of a sister did.
Seif closed his eyes and released a slow, exasperated exhale.
“I’ve seen drawings of it in a book,” Lana hurried to explain. “It’s in Alderamin, isn’t it? You can find anything there.”
Aya canted her head. “The House of Dreams thrives because of its exaggeration, little one. I do not think anyone there will have a vial of si’lah blood.”
“No. Bait ul-Ahlaam is an exaggeration to those who aren’t looking for anything in particular,” Kifah said, to Lana’s relief. “My father’s made the trip from Pelusia more than once, and he always finds what he wants. Every daama time. Unfortunately.”
“I thought your father didn’t like magic,” Zafira said.
“He doesn’t,” Kifah said bluntly. “It’s a shop full of oddities, magical and non. Every tincture and herb once readily available in Demenhur. Soot from the volcanoes of Alderamin. Black ore. And it’s ancient. If any place would have a vial of si’lah blood, it’s one that’s been around as long as the Sisters.”
“It is possible,” Seif ceded, and Lana couldn’t contain her wide grin. Something in his gaze said he knew the place more intimately than through hearsay. Possibly been there himself, like the Silver Witch. “The keeper is known to … bargain.”
He spoke with the same hesitance, too. As if they had both discovered what they had needed and given far more than they had expected to.
Still, as much as Zafira loved magic, she wasn’t certain she wanted to commit the crime of dum sihr for a short burst of it. The last time she had slit her palm, she’d bound herself to an immortal book. Seif started pacing again, and she struggled to breathe. She headed for the foyer, feeling for the Jawarat in her satchel.
You fear, bint Iskandar.
“Should I not?” she mumbled. Speaking to the book aloud made her feel infinitely less insane than when she spoke to it in her head and the daama thing responded.
We are of you. We will protect you.
As if a book could protect her from anything. According to the Silver Witch, she needed to protect it, or she’d die with it.
Fear is but a warning to heed.
“A book that literally spews philosophy. Yasmine would love it,” Zafira said dryly, realizing a beat too late that the others had followed her.
“Mortals. Their lives are so short, they resort to speaking to themselves,” Seif drawled to Aya.
Zafira nearly growled. “My name is Zafira.”
“Don’t bother,” Kifah interrupted. “He sees our round ears, and we’re suddenly walking corpses. At least we know when it’s time to get in our graves.”
Useless talk will take us nowhere, bint Iskandar.
“Are we going to try the market?” Lana asked.
Breathe.
“Which of us will make the journey?” Kifah’s voice distorted.
Inhale.
“The bridge across the strait remains intact.” Aya’s words floated from far away.
Exhale.
“Give us the hearts and the Jawarat,” Seif said as Nasir watched her, only her. “We’ve put too much trust in mortals, and—”
Something inside Zafira snapped. A scream raged through her veins. Her hand twitched for an arrow.
We
are not
mortal.
Everyone and everything stilled.
She flinched at the sudden, piercing attention. Blood rushed through her ears and the fluttering curtains laughed.
“Okhti?” Lana asked.
Zafira blinked. Kifah made a strangled sound, but the first to take a cautious step toward her was Nasir. As though Zafira were an animal he was afraid to startle.
“Are you certain you’re all right?” He looked at her as if not a single other soul existed on the earth.
She could not meet his eyes. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You—” Nasir started. “You referred to yourself as we. As two people. You said you aren’t … mortal.”
“I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything.”
There was a sinking in her stomach. The five of them stared as if she were on some sort of stage, making a fool of herself. She stepped back toward the entrance, the long handles of the double doors curving into her back.
Nasir took a step closer. “Give me the Jawarat.”
“I don’t have it,” she lied. It was in her satchel; they couldn’t see.
“Zafira.” Nasir’s tone was meant for a disobedient child. “It’s in your hands.”
She looked down. Slants of light set the lion’s mane on the Jawarat’s cover ablaze. She tightened her grip around the book that had used her mouth to speak senseless words. Sweet snow below, what was happening to her?
She looked from Aya’s curiosity to Seif’s smugness, then to Kifah’s confusion and Lana’s worry, and finally to Nasir. It was the pity in those gray eyes that did it.
Her resolve fractured. Fell.
Leave them. Freedom rests beyond these doors.
Zafira threw open the doors and ran, recalling this same panic from when she raced through the oasis on Sharr. Wind against her limbs. Blood loud in her ears. Fragile sanity threatening to unravel.
She was ashamed that Lana had been there to witness it. Kifah, too.
“This is all your fault,” she hissed.
Stop.
Like a fool, she listened, stopping just beyond the gates of the house, and the reminder that she was in Sultan’s Keep hit her with a force. The cobble of hewn stone was warm beneath her bare feet. Sweet snow, the western villages of Demenhur were slums compared to this. It was a masterpiece of time and diligence, from the detailing on the ground to every carved bit of the sprawling houses surrounding her. Even the sky looked richer, the blue clear and vast. There was no difference between her and an urchin hiding in the richer end of the sooq. Her blue-black qamis, shorn from a dress that had cost one too many dinars long ago in Demenhur, felt like rags.
They—
“Stop,” Zafira hissed. “Don’t tell me anything.”
The sudden silence was filled with the Jawarat’s petulance and a guilt-inducing shame. Perfect. Shadows stretched, warning her that she wouldn’t be alone for long. Voices carried. Farther down the road, she could make out the stalls of a sooq tucked between buildings for shade, and the last thing she needed was for someone to demand who she was.