“Yes,” her father said softly. “We are going home.”
“Home?” The word was faint on her lips. She had given up returning long ago, because… because something had happened. She remembered fire and pain and death. She remembered loss and the denial of loss. She remembered not wanting to remember.
“Home,” her father said gently. “But first, we must bring everyone back.”
Loulie nodded slowly, deciding this sounded reasonable. Plausible, even. She could trust her father; he had never steered her in the wrong direction before. Had never…
A memory surfaced. Shattered and fragile, like broken glass. In it, she sat by a campfire, knee-to-knee with her father. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a flat disc made of wood and glass. A compass. There are many mysterious things in the desert, Sweet Fire. If ever you find such items, you must take great care of them, for they may be relics enchanted by jinn.
She remembered the warmth of his hands as he set the compass in her palms. Is this compass filled with magic, then? she’d asked.
He’d laughed. It does not work for me, but perhaps it will guide your way.
The memory dissipated. Loulie squinted, renewed her focus. They were just about to turn a corner when her eyes snagged on a particularly gruesome mosaic. In it, sailors sank beneath a blue-black ocean and reached fruitlessly toward the sky. Their mouths were agape, and their eyes bulged grotesquely from their skulls. Loulie arched her head and saw the god they were reaching for: a woman with unnaturally pearl-white skin and black eyes that gleamed like ink. Her hair was a mess of ashy flakes that burned like embers as they fell to the ground. A collar of golden bones circled her throat.
“Loulie?” her father called, but his voice was far away.
She put her hand to the mosaic. It was cold. Cold enough to remind her of her burning rings. Reality came crashing back. She remembered, suddenly, where she’d heard the song. Qadir. This is the song Qadir sings.
She turned, but the mirage had already gone on ahead. The light was a pinprick of blue in the darkness. And then it was gone. The fire died, and her surroundings vanished.
The humming in her head became a shrill buzzing that made her ears pop and her knees tremble. She tasted metal—blood on her lips. She was bleeding from her nose, and her head was pounding so hard she was beginning to feel faint.
Run, she thought, and the voice was sharp, like Qadir’s. Run or you die.
She turned and bolted without another thought. The darkness gave chase. It fell on her shoulders and grabbed her ankles and screamed in her ears. Jinn killer! Murderer!
She was too terrified to object.
If only the glowing orb hadn’t been shattered in the sultan’s diwan! It would have been useful now, would have at least illuminated her enemy. But no, she was alone; she was—
Suddenly pinned beneath something full of sharp edges and angles. She panicked and swung out with her elbow. There was a crack, and the thing hissed and drew back. She rolled to her feet and ran. When she looked back, the darkness had swallowed her assailant whole.
She was still running when the blackness fractured into fragments of blue gold. Too late, she realized it was someone holding a lantern. She crashed into them, and they both tumbled to the ground in a mess of limbs.
Loulie untangled herself and sat up. She was shocked to see Aisha bint Louas crouched in front of her, eyes shining like daggers. She had a blade angled toward Loulie’s neck but lowered it when she saw her face. There was a moment of tense uncertainty.
Truth or illusion?
Before Loulie could decide, Aisha raised her arm and threw the dagger.
It sailed past her shoulder. Loulie heard the sound of tearing cloth and then a shriek. Her bones rattled with the sound. It was a sound she’d never heard, and yet she recognized it.
It was her father’s scream.
She turned in place and saw the thing shrieking in her father’s voice. A doomed, sinewy, human-shaped creature with hollow eyes and tattered flesh, with too-long limbs and creaking bones that jutted from its too-thin skin like knives.
A ghoul.
Not my father. The thought sounded like an alarm as she pulled out Qadir’s dagger and rushed the ghoul. Her panic made her vicious, and she rent bloodless flesh from bone without stopping to breathe. She stabbed and slashed and smashed until there was nothing left to destroy. She was trembling as she crushed the last of the shattered, bloodless bones to dust.
She had faced ghouls before, but never one like this, never one warped by illusion. She had only ever known ghouls to be trackers: near-blind creatures that smelled magic from a distance and chased the humans bearing its source. They were stealthy creatures; muting sound was their most lethal ability. Often, an unnatural hush came over the desert at their approach.
Now, at least, she knew why the corridor had been so quiet before.
Aisha bint Louas walked past her with a sigh. “Salaam, al-Nazari.”
Loulie startled at her calm. A layer of sand still glittered on Aisha’s cloak and hair from the storm, but she was otherwise unbattered and uninjured. Loulie could not help her irritation. She had come here to save this woman, and she had the audacity to sigh as if Loulie had been the one to inconvenience her?
“Where in nine hells have you been? We’ve been looking all over for you!” Loulie didn’t bother softening her voice.
Aisha slid the knife into her belt. “I’d think the answer was obvious. I’ve been hunting a jinn. It was even nice enough to welcome me into its home.”
Loulie recalled the strange look on the prince’s face when he’d stood before the dune. He’d said something about hearing a woman’s voice. It occurred to her that maybe he had been under the voice’s spell before she had, and that there was a chance he still was. But it seemed unlikely. The Omar she knew was a killer, not a victim.
“Is that what you say when a jinn traps you in a buried ruin?” Loulie scowled. “It’s welcoming you into its home?”
Aisha frowned. “Careful, merchant. I have little patience for your snide remarks.”
“And I have little patience for thieves whose egos are so big they refuse to admit they’re lost. If you’re such a good hunter, why haven’t you already tracked this jinn?”
When Aisha turned and walked away, Loulie trailed after her. “Well?”
She was just about to reach out and grab Aisha’s shoulder when she paused, noticing the marks on her arms. Aisha usually wore her cloak closed, so Loulie had never noticed the henna patterns trailing up her arms: intricate floral designs that wrapped around her elbows and swirled past her shoulders. She would have thought them uncharacteristic if they had not featured so many thorns and razor-sharp leaves.
But it was not the pattern that gave Loulie pause, but the marks beneath the henna—layers of scars simultaneously veiled and accentuated by the ink on Aisha’s skin.
The thief turned. “Is there something you want to say, merchant?”
“It seems pointless to ask you another question when you didn’t answer my first.”
She and Aisha frowned at each other. Loulie forced herself not to blink.
Finally, Aisha turned away. “You want the truth? Yes, I’m lost. I got lost in the sandstorm, and now I’m stuck in this hellhole. I’ve been unable to find my way out since I was pulled in. If you’re so full of great ideas, why don’t you show us the exit?”
Loulie flushed. Other than the knife, she had only two other items on her. She supposed if there was any time to use them, it was now.
She took out the compass first but quickly abandoned the idea of using it when she saw the arrow spinning in a frenzied circle. Even a silent command would not calm it. The coin only ascertained that she was, indeed, lost and that yes, there was an exit. Somewhere.
Aisha snorted. “So even the legendary Midnight Merchant is at a loss.”