“Where’d he go?”
Kifah shrugged. “I’m not his mother.”
Altair scowled and left the war room with its collection of unfurled maps and plans that had once been used to thwart him and his armies. Or to attempt to do so, at least. Altair wasn’t a prize general for nothing. Oh, how the tables had turned. Here he was in Demenhur, bumping noses with the caliph’s wazir and befriending generals he’d once leveled swords with in battle.
The Demenhune palace was thick with fear. The dignitaries were adamant in their attempts to leave, fearful that ifrit were coming for them, that they were next on the Lion’s list to be halved like fish on a board. Altair had almost laughed. If only they knew the truth.
“We need to discuss Zafira,” Kifah said, somehow following his line of thought.
“She’s not some … thing to be discussed.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Just as you know that there’s nothing we can do,” Altair said tiredly.
Kifah sighed. “We can’t shut her away. If it was really the Jawarat that made her kill him, she needs us.”
She needed them regardless. She was their friend. A small girl stepped into the hall and stopped short at the sight of him. He recognized her sharp features—she’d been in the room the night before, staring unflinchingly at the caliph’s mutilated corpse. There was something about the way she held herself that reminded him vaguely of Aya, but he brushed it away.
“Peace unto you. How’s Zafira?” he asked.
“Why do you ask?” she replied defensively, studying him with warm brown eyes.
“I’m her friend.”
“A friend wouldn’t have abandoned her the way you did.”
Shame burned his neck. He’d been meaning to see her. To make sense of what she’d done. He hadn’t—sultan’s teeth.
“She left,” the girl continued.
“Don’t lie.”
“Lying is dishonorable,” she said in dismay.
If he’d had any doubts before, he was utterly certain now that the girl was Zafira’s sister, and he was this close to demanding an answer at swordpoint.
He crouched. “If you tell me, little one, I’ll ask the kitchens for an extra piece of kanafah just for you.”
She lifted an eyebrow at him. “I’m fourteen, and I can weave a needle through your remaining eyelid.”
Altair burst out laughing and threw a glance at Kifah. “As Iskandar as they come. She’s … quite small for fourteen.”
“My name is Lana. And you are quite large,” she replied.
“Not an insult,” he said with a grin, and Kifah groaned. “What do you mean ‘she left’？”
“She’s going to find a lion.”
It took him a moment to realize that Lana had said “the” and not “a,” and that this lion was decidedly not a cat. Altair was suddenly very, very tired.
“So she’s heading to Sultan’s Keep?”
Lana nodded.
“Alone? She shouldn’t even be able to—” He stopped at her wide-eyed look and dragged a hand down his face. Khara. “I should have kept that boy on a leash.”
“He’s the crown prince.” Lana sniffed, offended on behalf of a fool she didn’t even know.
“Crown prince my—”
Kifah cleared her throat.
“My what?” Lana asked sweetly.
Altair growled. “Ask your sister.”
“She also took the dagger from your room. The one wrapped in a turban and wedged between the bookshelves. A terrible spot, really.”
Altair blinked, disbelief slowing his brain. “You—she—what?”
“Lana? Where are you?” A voice called from the hall to their right. Lana gulped, eyes as wide as qahwa cups. She darted a glance to Kifah and fled down the hall before he could stop her.
Altair stomped after her with a frown, but only caught the fluttering end of a blue shawl and heard the swish of a falling curtain. That voice. It had been strangely familiar in cadence, but alluringly melodic and—Now is not the time.
Kifah was watching him with mild amusement and his frown deepened.
“What?” he snapped.
She shrugged.
“Sayyidi?”
Altair spun around with a snarl. Zafira was gone, Nasir was gone, the black dagger he had lost an entire eye to retrieve was gone. He forced air through his nose. Panic and stress never helped a soul.
“We—we found you the—a falcon,” the perplexed guard stammered.
“Well, where is it?” Altair snapped, the boy’s gray eyes reminding him of Nasir.
As the guard led them back to the war room, Altair let his thoughts roam. He and Kifah were bound to leave for their third of the plan soon enough, but they were meant to leave together with Nasir. Not like this. Without a farewell. Without even a note. Oddly enough, it stung.
A blur of brown and cream swooped past the double doors, and the guard ducked with an inhuman squawk. Altair stopped in his tracks. Is that…？ He held out his arm and the bird perched on his gauntlet.
“We found him sitting on the gates, and someone thought he was one of ours,” the guard explained.
No, not one of theirs. His.
“Hirsi?” Altair couldn’t keep the strain from his voice. “Akhh, boy, did you follow me all this way?” With a contented, answering thrill, the bird rubbed his golden beak against Altair’s brow.
Kifah laughed. “Is there anything you don’t love?”
“My father,” Altair said simply, but at some point during his captivity, he had felt something for his father. Not love, but understanding, in the smallest of morsels. He snatched his letter from the desk, giving it one final read.
His mother was the last person Altair wanted to address, but Kifah was nowhere near as skilled a miragi as she was, and the Silver Witch was an integral part of making this plan work.
“Are we certain this will work?” Kifah asked. “How do we know she’ll even be in the Hessa Isles to receive it? How do we know she’ll agree to an illusion on that large a scale? What if she’s still injured? What if we don’t arrive in time?”
Altair finished tying the note to Hirsi’s leg.
“I am forever humbled by your unwavering faith in me, One of Nine. Here’s another question for your list: Why couldn’t Nasir tell us he was leaving with Zafira?”
Kifah pursed her lips. “If there’s one thing the Prince of Death is known for, it’s following orders. He’ll do his part.”
“A thousand questions for me, and somehow you believe in him without a sliver of a doubt,” Altair said.
“You believe in him,” Kifah said, meeting his gaze. “That’s enough for me.”
Altair smiled, taken by the warmth in her dark gaze. A man could get lost in them for days.
Kifah lifted her brows. “Well? Shall we?”
Akhh, the woman was not one for sentiment.
“Wait,” Altair said, remembering something he once never left without. He opened his trunk and drew two blades, strapping on his sheaths and sliding the scimitars snugly into the leather grips. He straightened with a heavy breath.
This time, Kifah did smile. “Just like old times, eh?”