The prince grinned. “Of course. What kind of decadent would I be if I didn’t?” He shifted his hand so that their palms were pressed together. Then he raised their joined hands in the air, and they danced. More than once, Loulie nearly tripped on his feet.
“Are you sure you know how to dance, al-Nazari?” The prince’s grin was a slash of mischief on his face. Loulie had not known he could smile like that, with a challenge in his eyes.
His words sparked something in her: a fire usually only Qadir could call forth. When they next spun, she purposely overstepped and stomped her foot down close to his instep. The prince stumbled back, mouth open in a comical O. She batted her lashes and said, “I think you should watch your own feet, Prince.”
He quickly recovered his composure. The next time they spun, it was he who jutted his foot out, trying to catch her off guard. It continued like that, their movements less a dance and more an intimate obstacle course in which they both tried to avoid each other’s feet. Loulie stopped swaying and started dodging, making the world tilt with every step.
By the last pluck of the oud string, she was too exhausted to anticipate the prince’s last movement: a sweep that, to everyone else, looked like a bow. Instead, he swept her off her feet.
Loulie fell against him. She felt the rise and fall of his chest as he laughed, the warmth of his hands at her hips as he steadied her and said, “I think this means I win?”
She stood there, fingers bunched in his shirt as she struggled to hold herself upright. As she became aware of the prince’s heartbeat and of the contours of his body against her own, she wondered, suddenly, what it would be like—to be able to lean on someone without feeling vulnerable. To trust someone implicitly, not just with her heart, but with her body.
For the second time that day, her fuzzy mind conjured an image of Ahmed. She imagined him sitting beneath the stars, smiling softly as he raised a glass in her honor. Tonight, let me serve you. She wondered what it would be like to rest her head on his lap, what his lips would feel like on her neck…
She shoved herself away from the prince, heat staining her cheeks.
He blinked. “Al-Nazari?” She turned and walked away before he could grab her.
She pushed into the crowd, which was devolving into a blur of vivid colors, crooked smiles, and too-loud laughter. She tried to focus, but her mind was still on the damn wali. Smiling, charming Ahmed bin Walid, whom she turned down every time because he was a murderer. Because he killed jinn like Qadir.
And because, deep down, she was terrified of commitment. Of trusting someone.
Abruptly, she hit a wall. She stepped back and looked up, only to realize it was not a wall at all, but Qadir. There was concern in the hard tug of his mouth. “Ready to leave?”
Loulie squeezed her eyes shut. “Not yet.” She eyed the effervescent bottles lining the bar shelves. “I need another drink.”
She needed to stop thinking. She needed to stop feeling.
Otherwise, she’d be in for a rough night.
57
MAZEN
They returned to the desert with horses and equipment the next day. Mazen felt like he’d woken from a dream. For some reason unbeknownst to him, the merchant refused to speak about last night. He’d thought she was beginning to enjoy his company the same way he relished hers, but now he wondered if he’d inadvertently done something to reopen the rift between them.
At least she’d made up with her bodyguard; his presence softened her anger into a calmer irritation. Mazen was envious of their relationship. What must it be like, he wondered, to be so close to someone you could demand all their secrets? He had Hakim, but Hakim was his brother. And the only honest member of the family, he thought grimly.
His father’s past was a mystery, and who knew how many secrets Omar was keeping?
Mazen pushed his unease away, resolved to focus on the journey. Though they had lost their map—he cringed every time he thought about his brother’s beautiful work buried in the Sandsea—they were not directionless. They had the merchant’s magic compass, after all.
The arrow guided them down crooked pathways between cliffs and through quiet valleys cut through with the occasional brook or stream. Though the weather was more hospitable here than in the open desert, the terrain was not. The pathways were bumpier, and it was not long before Mazen discovered new aches in his back and thighs. But those pains were a small grievance, trifling in comparison to the tenacious ghouls and deadly killer they’d faced.
In the daylight hours, Mazen trailed Aisha on hunts, helped Qadir build traps, and joined Loulie on trips to refill the waterskins. He was not especially good at the first two tasks—he scared off prey and possessed the uncanny ability to sabotage incomplete traps—but at least he could fail without worry of giving away his identity. And the water gathering was a respite, a time for him to take in his surroundings without worrying about the road ahead.
It was unfortunate that his good mood was fleeting, dissipating when, a few days later, they arrived at their first outpost after leaving the cliffs. When he went to gather supplies, he overheard gossip that sent his mind spinning. He heard talk of chaos in Madinne: of more frequent jinn attacks, more death in the souk. The news unnerved him. Hadn’t Omar stayed in the city to improve its security? If so, why were there more jinn coming to Madinne?
But the most perplexing rumors were the ones about himself—there were reports he’d been sneaking out of the palace in his royal garments, alone. He was nonplussed, unable to understand why Omar would betray his trust so explicitly.
I never should have left. Mazen trapped the regretful words between his teeth.
Soon this would all be over. He would bring the lamp back and… what? Some ifrit would “save” them all, and his father would lock him away in his room forever for disobeying orders? It seemed a terrifyingly plausible nightmare.
Later, when they set off into the desert once more, Mazen shared the news with the others. Aisha shrugged off his accusations, insisting she was not privy to Omar’s thoughts. Mazen knew that was not the truth; he had overheard her and Tawil speaking in their hideout, after all. He just didn’t know how to decipher their conversation.
When he had no success gleaning answers from her, he turned the conversation to the lamp they were seeking. He asked Qadir about the being trapped inside.
“You told me you didn’t know anything about the lamp,” Loulie said to Qadir, voice laced with accusation.
Qadir, who sat atop his horse with the usual nonchalant expression upon his face, only raised a brow in response. “Because I do not. I wasn’t in the human world when one of my companions was trapped in the lamp. But…”
Aisha shrugged. “It has to be Rijah.”
Qadir sighed. “Yes.”
Mazen stared between the two of them. “Rijah?”
“The Shapeshifter,” Aisha said. “Your stories speak of a jinn king with a bloated ego. If there is even an inkling of truth to them, then they are referring to Rijah.”
Mazen thought of the story that had been passed down through his family. He’d originally believed that human stories about the jinn were fables, but maybe they were just one version of the truth, complicated over time.
“Gods, they’re going to be livid,” Aisha said. “Stuck in the Sandsea for hundreds of years? What a nightmare.”
Mazen blinked. “They?”
Qadir shrugged. “Rijah is whatever Rijah wants to be. Man, woman, child, beast, they are all of those things and more.”