“No, he was…” Tracking rumors of a killer. She had sent him away because of her own bravado, and probably doomed Ahmed in the process. No. She squashed the guilty thought. She had not been the one holding the relic. That had been the prince…
“Wali.” Loulie startled at the voice, which came from a guard who had materialized out of nowhere. Behind him, as if summoned by her thoughts, stood the high prince. In true high-prince fashion, he walked past the guard without waiting for his presence to be announced.
“I hope I’m not interrupting.” Omar looked pointedly at their joined hands.
Loulie pulled her hand away with as much pride as she could muster. Ahmed seemed to deflate without the contact. He sank to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground. “Sayyidi,” he mumbled. “You have my sincerest apologies for what happened last night. I did not mean—”
“Please, I require no excuses. You are a victim, Ahmed.” The prince crossed his arms. “I came to offer my condolences for the loss you suffered and to reassure you that I will personally write to my father and vouch for your innocence. And…” He looked away, brow furrowed. “I came to apologize for my carelessness. I will make sure the sultan knows I was the one to leave the relic in your manor.”
Loulie stared, startled by the prince’s admission. Even Ahmed looked up abruptly. His cheeks were flushed, though whether with embarrassment or relief, Loulie could not tell. “Please, sayyidi, there is no need for that. You did not submit to the jinn. I did.”
The apprehensive wrinkle between Omar’s brows became an irritated crease. “Are you disputing the importance of my account, bin Walid?”
Ahmed stiffened. “No, of course not. I am grateful for your honesty, sayyidi.”
Omar’s lips quirked slightly. “Humility doesn’t suit you.” The half smirk faded as he turned to Loulie. “You, on the other hand, stole the show, al-Nazari. I’m impressed. I’ve never seen anyone wield a dagger so well with an injured hand.”
Her heart halted, shuddered. Shit. She had forgotten about the nonexistent injury. All her focus during the fight had been on keeping her and Ahmed alive.
Why does he have to be so damn observant?
She noticed even Ahmed was looking at her curiously now, his sleep-shadowed eyes flitting to her hand. After a second of hesitation, she raised her bandaged hand and wiggled her fingers. “Jinn blood is always very useful to have on hand.” Her heart thundered so loudly in her chest it seemed impossible no one heard it in the silence. “You didn’t think I would have given the only blood I have to Rasul al-Jasheen?”
“I would think you had no reason to hide the existence of such blood.”
Loulie snorted. She hoped to the gods she wasn’t sweating as much as she feared. “Alert you to an invaluable stash of jinn blood so you could steal it from me? I’m no fool.”
Except she was a fool. She was so much a fool she wanted to laugh at herself.
Omar looked skeptical of her claim, but he mercifully let her excuse go. Their conversation moved from the courtyard to the diwan and then into the corridors as Ahmed offered them provisions for the rest of their trip. The next—and last—city they would pass through was Ghiban, and it would be at least a week before they reached it.
The talk between the three of them was stilted and awkward, filled with silences and forced niceties. Loulie noted a strange tension between the men. She had the impression they were dancing around each other’s words. She didn’t think on it for long; it was of no interest to her. She was, however, very interested in the high prince’s long pauses. They seemed more thoughtful than usual, as if he were carefully considering his reactions before he made them.
She was suddenly reminded of another thing that had bothered her: his behavior during the battle. The prince had not fought; he had watched. It was a perplexing epiphany, and Loulie was resolved to confront him about it.
She never got the opportunity, though.
Prince Omar excused himself before she could demand answers, explaining that he had last-minute preparations to make before they departed that afternoon. After saying his stilted goodbyes to Ahmed, he disappeared, leaving her and the wali alone.
By this time, the ease with which they had conversed had dried up, leaving them bereft of anything to say. So the two of them simply walked—back through the open-air halls and into the courtyard. Loulie noticed Ahmed glance warily at the trees. Most likely, he was remembering the blood that had been spilled beneath them last night. She suspected that even in the future, when those stains were washed off the grass, he would never stop seeing them. What had been an eerie but tranquil place was now a permanent reminder of a once-lived nightmare.
She could not conceive of the breathtaking shame that would warp Ahmed’s heart every time he entered his estate and saw these trees. Had Qadir been here, he would have told her the wali deserved to know the fear of his victims. Perhaps he was right. But still, that did not stop Loulie from pitying him.
They were nearing the edge of the copse when Ahmed at last turned toward her. “I am sorry your visit has been so unpleasant, Loulie al-Nazari.”
She blinked. “No, I should be the one apologizing. Had the prince and I not brought the relic to Dhyme, none of this would have happened.”
Ahmed shook his head. “I have no excuses for my incompetence.”
Loulie nearly said The high prince was every bit as incompetent yesterday! but held her tongue. It would not do to insult Omar bin Malik in front of one of his subjects.
Ahmed continued, “I have failed in my duties as your host, and I owe you an apology.”
Beneath that apology was another one: I am sorry I could not convince you to accept my proposal. Every time she came to Dhyme, the wali tried to win her over. Not with tokens or gold or flowers, but with honest conversation. He was the only man she visited for pleasure rather than business. The only man whose company she enjoyed. Whose company she missed.
Someday, she would have to face the reality that he could never be her future, but for now, she would keep dreaming that the circumstances of their lives were different.
“No apologies are necessary.” She held out a hand. “When I return, I’ll tell you about my adventure in full.” Because she had faith Ahmed bin Walid would be back. He was a hunter, and hunters were tenacious creatures.
She expected the wali to shake her hand. Instead, he grasped it and kissed her knuckles. “And we shall finally talk, lovely Loulie, of stars and stories.”
Loulie was too astonished to say anything.
It was not until she’d left his residence that she noted her clammy palms and racing heart. But then Qadir appeared at her side, and her anxiety vanished into thin air.
They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. Qadir was here because it was time to go.
She glanced back only once—and witnessed the disconcerting sight of the wali’s shoulders drooping as he walked away. He looked, in that moment, like a defeated general. She suffocated her foreboding and turned away.
36
LOULIE
Their return to the desert was a solemn affair. The prince no longer smirked when she looked at him, Aisha only ever spoke pointedly about the relic belonging to Omar, and Qadir was reticent and grim-faced. It was an abysmal atmosphere, one made drearier by the tension between them.
Their first night out, Loulie barely spoke to anyone, including Qadir. She trailed the jinn on a hunt, pointed out a warbler’s nest, and agreed to skin the birds with nothing but silent gestures. The words they did trade were perfunctory, limited to simple questions and one-word assurances as they set up camp and cooked their prey over a fire built by the thieves.
The second day, the tension intensified into a suffocating quiet, one so heavy it pressed on Loulie’s shoulders like a physical weight. “Unnatural,” Aisha bint Louas murmured, and Loulie realized she was right. Though the desert was normally quiet, this silence was so dense it was oppressive. But for all its strangeness, it was familiar.
“Ghouls,” Qadir said, speaking her mind.