It had been the first thing she’d ever purchased for the jinn with her own means. She would always remember his delighted surprise, as well as the uncharacteristically fullmouthed grin that had been on his face when he accepted the blade from her. Those smiles of his were rare, and Loulie felt accomplished when she was able to coax them out of him. Never mind that the blade was mostly used as décor now. Qadir treasured it in his own way, and that was enough.
Loulie closed the door, made her way into the room, and threw herself on the divan by the window. “Home. Finally.” She sighed as she stretched out on the pillows.
“We could have been back sooner, but you insisted on chasing a man around the souk.”
She looked up and saw Qadir looming over her in his human form. As always, he looked unimpressed. “Last I recall, there was a vengeful jinn involved,” she said.
Qadir frowned. “What you did today was dangerous.”
“Yes, I know. You’ve told me a thousand and one times.”
“What did you gain by intervening?”
“I gained nothing, but a man got to keep his life. Though…” She sat up and brushed her curls out of her eyes. “I told you earlier that the shadow jinn said something strange.”
Qadir seated himself on a cushion beside their table. “About the cutthroats in black? It means nothing. Perhaps killers favor the color.”
Loulie glanced out the window. At this time of night, the streets were filled with drunken men—many coming from Dahlia’s tavern. She could hear them downstairs thumping tables and singing loudly, badly.
She swallowed. “Perhaps.” She could not shake the feeling that the jinn had been on the cusp of revealing important information. Loulie had watched her tribe’s murderers die, but no matter how much distance she put between herself and the past, the memories would always be there.
“They are dead, Loulie.” Qadir had been in the middle of organizing their relics; now he stopped to look at her. “I made sure of it.”
His confidence eased the tension in her heart, even if she was still wary. She nodded, then joined him at the table to help sort their inventory. Most of the relics in their bag were unspectacular: an hourglass filled with endless sand; a dusty mirror that offered a reflection of the person one loved most; and a string of beads that, when rubbed together, created a gentle sound that lulled one to sleep.
But there were other, more useful relics too. Loulie’s personal favorite was an orb cushioned between two luminous wings. It glowed when touched and became steadily brighter when she pressed her palm to it. She and Qadir used it to light their way through the desert.
Now she sat sullenly staring at the shadows it cast upon the walls, thinking of everything that had happened today. She considered Prince Omar. If he was so competent a hunter, why had he not captured the shadow jinn before she came to Madinne? Why had he not captured any of the jinn supposedly infesting the city?
“Princes,” Loulie grumbled.
Qadir raised a brow. “I hear Prince Mazen and Prince Hakim are not so terrible.”
“How would anyone know? Neither of them ever leaves the palace.” Loulie folded her arms on the table and set her chin atop them. “Do you think Omar knows the shadow jinn is in Madinne?” She couldn’t stop thinking of his comment about the shadows.
Qadir shrugged. “I hope for her sake he does not.”
Loulie watched as Qadir cleaned the relics with a rag. She thought about asking him how and why he was able to live in a world where jinn were persecuted for simply existing, but hesitated. She had asked many times and received the same cryptic answer. I am but a single jinn, he would say. I cannot change your land’s prejudices.
It was an infuriating answer because it wasn’t an answer. But she had long ago learned that Qadir was not like her. While she frequently stuck her nose into others’ business, Qadir never involved himself unless it was necessary. It was strange, how they could both be so distant from people yet have such different ways of coexisting with them.
“Hmm,” Qadir said. “You are suspiciously quiet.”
Loulie blew a loose curl out of her eyes. “I’m thinking.”
“About?”
“About you.”
Qadir frowned. “Now I’m even more concerned.”
“You should stop that. The worrying, I mean. It’s going to give your ageless skin wrinkles.”
The edges of Qadir’s lips curled ever so slightly. “I have aged more in the nine years I have known you than in the hundreds I lived before our meeting.”
Loulie grabbed a cushion off the floor and threw it at him. She grumbled when he caught it and set it on his lap. “How old are you, anyway?”
The half smile was still on his lips. “Ancient.”
“It’s no wonder you’re so cynical. You should take more naps; they might improve your temperament.” She gestured to the closed door on her right, behind which lay their sleeping chambers. There were two beds inside, though Qadir’s was rarely occupied. “What is it you are so fond of telling me? That even exasperating people become tolerable after a good night’s rest?”
Qadir snorted. “If you truly wanted to make my life easier, you wouldn’t leap so carelessly into danger.” He set one relic aside and picked up another: the string of sleep-inducing relic beads. “I do not need sleep. You, on the other hand, have been chasing trouble all day.”
Trouble that I would very much like to get to the root of.
When she’d first come to Madinne, Loulie had paid for her accommodations by delivering messages and tracking rumors for Dahlia. The tavernkeeper had taught her that knowledge was power. Blackmail, favors, connections—all of it sprang from a web of constantly shifting rumors. Not understanding the web increased one’s risk of becoming ensnared in it.
Loulie had taken that lesson to heart. It was why she always made it a priority to seek out gossip and why she still delivered and received messages for Dahlia when she was in Madinne. She hadn’t become so successful by ignoring suspicious people and occurrences.
This thought spiraled in her mind like an eddy until it mellowed to nothingness. Until she felt her eyelids drooping.
Qadir dimmed the orb with a touch of his hand. “You should get some rest. A tired merchant is easy to fool in the souk.” He was running the relic beads through his fingers.
“That’s why I have you as a bodyguard, fearsome old man.” She smiled as she closed her eyes, and when darkness came, she let it take her.
6
MAZEN
“A jinn!” Mazen threw open the door to his brother’s room. “There’s a jinn in the city!”
Save for a single lantern, there was no light in Hakim’s room. Mazen paused in the doorway. After the incident with the jinn, he was not eager to step into a dark room. But this was not the abandoned place of worship. This was Hakim’s room—a cozy if somewhat claustrophobic prison filled with towering stacks of tomes and maps. They surrounded even Hakim’s bed, making it impossible to spot from the doorway.
“Hakim?” He looked beseechingly at his brother’s back.
Hakim remained hunched over the scrolls and mapmaking instruments on his desk. “What’s this about a jinn? Is this from one of your stories, Mazen?”
“If only. No, I’m talking about a real jinn, Hakim.”
“Mm.” Hakim continued working on whatever he was working on.
Mazen blinked. Maybe I was not clear?
He drew closer until he could see what his brother was drawing: an intricate map of the desert that featured cities and oases so detailed they seemed to breathe off the parchment. It was stunningly beautiful, and for a few moments, Mazen let himself get lost in the landscapes he’d only ever visited in stories. The places he’d dreamed of traveling to since he was a child. He watched his brother work, and he forgot why he’d come.
And then, abruptly, he remembered.
“Hakim, the jinn was real. It ensnared me with magic! It was a woman, you see, and she put me under some kind of spell with her beauty.”
“That’s nice, Mazen.”
“She took me into an abandoned building and nearly suffocated me to death!”
“I must say, this story lacks the suspense of your usual tales.”
“It’s not a story!” Mazen gripped his brother’s shoulder. “This is the truth, Hakim.”
Hakim carefully set down his paintbrush and looked up. In this lighting, he could have passed as the sultan’s son, even with his hazel eyes. “You seem in one piece to me,” he said.