He looked sideways at Arwa, who nodded. She still had her bag. Saoud looked at his father, who regarded him gravely.
“I made a promise to your father.” This was the demon speaking. “I promised him that I would never make him do anything he didn’t want to do. I can’t, in truth. The Storyteller Queen made me good, and so I cannot force him to do this against his will. Do you believe me?”
“I have no choice,” Saoud said. He looked at where his father sat, the demon flickering in his eyes.
“Yes you do, Saoud,” I said. “You have trusted me, and you have trusted Zahrah, and you have trusted hope. We have made terrible plans, and you have done all you could to see them through. One more time, for me and for us. One more choice.”
Saoud blinked, and I saw that there were tears in his eyes. He couldn’t reach out to his father, in case someone happened by. We had already risked too much, talking this long. I felt my own eyes water, and missed my mother with a sudden flare of feeling. I wiped my eyes with my hand, and looked back at Saoud. This was his moment, and his grief. I would be ready for him when he needed me.
“I believe you,” Saoud said. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” said his father. “Tell your children about me and teach them what I taught you.”
“I will,” said Saoud.
“We all will,” said Arwa.
“When the fight begins, you will know it,” said the demon. “Be ready. And be strong.”
We couldn’t tell him that we heard him. We couldn’t thank him. We couldn’t say good-bye. Because as soon as he had said the words, another guard brought him his dinner and sent him to his tent, and we never saw him again.
DESPITE OUR BEST ATTEMPTS, none of us slept very much that night. They brought us a poor supper of—what else—boiled vetch. Tariq took one look at it and began to laugh so hard I thought he might have trouble drawing breath. Indeed, soon enough he stopped making any sound at all, except for wheezing helplessly as he tried to calm down. Zahrah took his face in both her hands, forcing him to look at her, and then guided his breathing to match hers, even and deep, until he could be safely left to breathe on his own. It was difficult to choke down any food at all after that, but we knew we would need all the help we could get the next day, so we did our best.
Then, without talking, so that the guard outside would be unaware of what we were doing, Saoud did his best to make a map of Kharuf from what he remembered of the map that had been taken with his pack. It was a poor representation, which matched our poor plan, but escape was the priority. Saoud sketched out a straight line to where he thought the castle was. The ground we would cross was open and hilly, like most of Kharuf. If we were pursued by horsemen, we would be caught. We had to hope that they would be so put off by the death of the Maker King’s son that it would take them time to reorganize. If their camp was any indication, we did not think too optimistically of them.
It was the demon that was the greatest threat, of course. We had no iron left, and it was unlikely that we would be able to get any on our way out of the camp, unless we stumbled upon it. Saoud’s father had trained us with iron knives and still carried an iron sword, so we supposed that the demon’s weakness to the metal was something we could not depend on. Without the creatures, we would be helpless.
“I think we’d be better to run for it,” said Saoud, “and not waste time trying to find tools that might not help us very much.”
“They helped us with the bear,” Arwa pointed out.
“The bear was a physical animal, though,” I reminded her. “You’ve seen the demon. Do you think we could cut it?”
She nodded and shuddered, and I realized she had not told us what the demon had said or done to her. Zahrah put an arm around her shoulders and shook her head at me. It wasn’t something I could fix, I realized, and so we would deal with it later, in that time none of us were sure we were going to have.
It got darker and darker, and Saoud put his makeshift map away. We knew that we should sleep, but I felt like there was too much to think about. I thought I might fly apart. This was worse than when we had crossed Kharuf and were unable to spin. Instead of sleeping, I watched my friends get quieter and quieter, retreating into thoughts I couldn’t share and couldn’t heal. It was not a feeling I enjoyed. Zahrah slid her hand into mine, and it hurt, but I didn’t let go.