He scraped at the silhouette. Relief crashed through his veins when it curled beneath his fingers. Imad may be able to take my knives, but he could never steal my shadow.
The ghoul whirled, sniffing at the air. Too late, Mazen remembered it could smell magic. When the ghoul faced him, Mazen had the shadow—now very much a magical relic—clenched in his fingers.
The ghoul stared. Mazen stared back. He thought of Aisha’s crimson blood on the sand, and Qadir’s silver blood on the swords. And he came to a decision.
His relief sharpened into determination. If no one is coming to help me, I have no choice but to save myself.
“Ah!” He held the shadow up with a dramatic gasp. “What manner of magic is this!”
The ghoul shoved a key into the door and stepped into the prison with unbalanced, frantic footsteps. It snarled and reached out a bony hand. Mazen gathered his courage and kicked it as it kneeled before him. The creature stumbled back, but not before swiping the blade across his arm, drawing blood.
Mazen tried to steal the ghoul’s blade. He grabbed for the hilt. The ghoul drove an elbow into his chest and knocked the air from his lungs. Mazen retaliated by shoving his full weight into the ghoul’s side. Or at least, he tried to. But he lost his footing and fell on the creature instead. They collapsed to the ground in a heap.
There was a moment of panic as Mazen rushed to untangle his limbs from the ghoul’s. He choked back tears as the pungent smell of its rotting body invaded his senses, and just barely managed to gather himself before the ghoul struck at him again. The blade nicked his arm. But this time, he managed to grasp the hilt.
He and the ghoul wrestled the blade back and forth.
Finally, Mazen pried the weapon from its cold hands.
Panic gave him the courage to swing the blade and the strength to drive it into the creature’s chest over and over and over again until it was a sinewy mess of gore and muscle. Mazen nudged the remains with a foot. When the corpse didn’t move, he smiled, laughed, and then promptly vomited his guts out in a corner of the room.
He was trembling as he swiped a hand across his mouth. His every instinct screamed at him to escape, but he shoved the urge aside. Loulie and Aisha had saved his life—he refused to leave without them.
It didn’t matter that he was a coward. Cowards knew how to flee and hide, and that was good enough. Mazen threw his shadow over his head and snuck out of his prison.
41
LOULIE
Loulie balanced on the edge of a hell divided into two prisons: sorrow and hatred. But the moment she woke and beheld her captor, rage triumphed over both. Murderer. She recognized his robes. She would never forget the sight of them drenched in the blood of her tribespeople.
She forced herself to sit up and, in doing so, noticed her wrists and ankles were shackled to a stone floor splattered with silver. Jinn blood, she realized. When she looked closely, she could make out what appeared to be torn roots peeking through cracks in the stone. The rest of the cell was completely bare, a prison with four walls and a single iron door.
She focused on Imad, who sat in front of her on a stool, arms draped over his knees. She took in the sight of his abyss-like eyes and graying brows. The faded freckles that ran across his nose like blood. She thought about how she wanted to gouge out his eyes and feed them to a fire.
Fire. The word triggered a memory, a person. She shoved her grief away before it settled.
“I realized something while you were sleeping,” Imad said. “Your robes—you were from the Najima tribe, weren’t you?”
She managed a stilted breath. “You would know, wouldn’t you? Murderer.”
Imad’s only response was an exasperated sigh. He shifted on his stool. Loulie’s heart leapt and sank when she saw the bag of infinite space behind him. All her provisions and relics were in that bag. Everything except for the Queen of Dunes’ collar.
And Qadir’s shamshir.
Again, the sorrow speared through her chest. Again, she pushed it away and forced her attention back to Imad. “How did you find us?”
She’d spent all these years thinking her past was behind her—and then this man had appeared before her.
Imad regarded her thoughtfully. “No doubt you’ve faced ghouls before. So you must know of their ability to track magic.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if my ghouls sensed your jinn or your bag of relics, but it doesn’t matter. Neither can help you anymore.”
That wasn’t the whole story. It couldn’t be. She and Qadir had traveled the desert many times without being attacked by ghouls. However Imad controlled his ghouls, he’d been using them to find something. Her mind strayed to the memory of Prince Mazen kneeling in the sand. She was still too shocked to feel cheated.
“You were looking for Prince Omar,” she said.
“Yes, I was looking for the high prince.” He considered her with his unreadable expression. “Imagine my surprise when I found you and Prince Mazen instead.”
Loulie said nothing. Prince Mazen, Imad, Aisha—there were too many unknown variables for her to come up with a plan. And even if she could, she was trapped.
“Where are we?” She glanced around the empty cell.
“Someplace no one will ever find you.” Cryptic words. But it didn’t matter whether they were a lie or the truth. Somehow, she would escape. “How about a trade, Midnight Merchant?” He leaned forward. “You give me the information I seek, and I answer your questions. You have nothing to lose.”
She clenched her hands into fists. “And why would I want to talk to you?”
Imad’s lips curled into a sly, terrible smile. “Don’t you want to know who hired my companions and me all those years ago?”
The words plunged through her like a sword, effortlessly piercing the armor she had built up over so many years. He could be lying, she thought. But even if he was, the bastard was right. She had nothing to lose.
“What do you want to know?” Her voice cracked. She was too desperate to be ashamed.
“Smart woman.” Imad reached into a pocket and withdrew the golden bangle the ghouls had stolen off the prince’s wrist, the one he’d been wearing this entire journey. “Let us speak of magic,” he said. “Tell me, do you know where this relic came from?”
She scowled. “How am I supposed to know where the prince gets his trinkets?”
She wanted to slap herself for using that word. Not trinkets, souls. And of course the prince had been using one—the sultan probably had a relic for every occasion.
“I thought that if anyone knew, it would be you, famed collector of magics.” Imad stared at the bangle for a long moment before clasping it onto his arm. Between one blink and the next, he disappeared. In his place stood the high prince, with Imad’s smirk fixed to his face. Loulie shut her mouth when she realized she was gawking.
“Tell me, merchant. Was it your jinn who guided you to the relics you possess?” The voice that came from his lips was, disconcertingly, Prince Omar’s.
Loulie bristled. “That’s none of your business.”
“You are stupidly secretive for someone whose life is in my hands.” He clasped his hands and inclined his head. Loulie wondered if he was actually in Omar’s body or if it was an illusion. “This jinn of yours, is he the one that burned my companions years ago?”
“The very same. How the hell did you survive?”
“The gods saw fit to make me their messenger,” Imad said quietly. “I was on the outskirts of the camp when your jinn’s inferno raged. I was the only one to make it out alive. The Najima tribe died, my comrades died, and yet… my job was unaccomplished.”
Loulie shuddered at the emptiness in his eyes. “Your job?”
“I am a thief first, a killer second. I only destroy those who stand in the way of my goal.”
Thief. The desert was home to many thieves, but—a band of them skilled enough to slaughter a tribe? And if Imad knew Omar and Aisha…