“And where’s home?” asks the first. “Madame Padyme’s pleasure house, perhaps?”
His fellows laugh appreciatively, their eyes glowing with interest. The girls group closer together. Their hands move subtly, fingers wrapping around concealed weapons. Behind them, Aladdin groans.
The guard cocks his head. “What’ve you got there, eh?”
“None of your concern.” The girls’ leader lifts her chin, stepping forward and staring down the guard.
He only laughs. “Tell you what, ladies. We’ll make a deal. We’ll give you the chance to persuade us not to arrest you for suspicious behavior. What do you say?”
Ensi sidles up to him and runs her finger down his chest. “Well . . . I’d say that’s quite generous of you.”
His tongue darts across his lips, and he snakes a hand around her waist—only to have her twist out of reach and fling a hand toward him, a burst of blue powder exploding on his face. He drops instantly. Ensi already has another handful of the stuff ready, drawn from a pouch on her belt. The other girls draw daggers, and Raz nocks an arrow onto her bow. They all pull veils across their faces, protecting themselves against the powder Ensi throws.
The guards, startled only for a moment, pull out their swords, but the girls are already attacking. They move with deadly precision. Ensi’s poisoned powder takes down another guard, while the leader and a third girl knock another two unconscious with the hilts of their daggers. At first I can’t tell how the fourth girl bests her opponent—but then I see it: a yellow-and-white snake coiling up her arm. Its victim foams at the mouth, his eyes rolling backward in his head as he falls, a hand clasped to the bite on his neck.
The last guard backs away, his face white.
“I—I’m new at this. I never meant—please!” He turns and flees.
The leader nods to the archer. “Don’t kill him. They are just doing their job, however reprehensibly.”
Raz nods and draws back her arrow. The man is twenty paces away when she lets fly. The bolt strikes his helmet, knocking him flat before deflecting harmlessly. He strikes his head on the stones and falls still.
The fight is over before it hardly began, without a single guard getting in a blow. The girls clean up quickly, dragging them all behind a stack of barrels between two buildings, where they’ll likely lie unnoticed till dawn. Ensi administers a few drops of clear liquid to the one with the snakebite.
“He’ll live,” she says. “But he won’t be visiting his pleasure houses any time soon.” She spits on him, then giggles.
Their leader sighs and nudges Aladdin with the toe of her boot. “Well, not exactly how I hoped things would go. We’ll have to hurry.”
? ? ?
Ensi, whose store of potions and powders seems impressively thorough, wakes Aladdin with a small bottle of white liquid that she holds under his nose. He comes to with a gasp and starts coughing. The girls stand in a close circle around him, their expressions grim.
After their brief fight with the guards, they carried Aladdin through the city, to an old storehouse near the south wall. Inside rests the partially constructed hull of a ship, but judging by the cobwebs collecting on it, no one has touched it in a while. It sits upside down, like the rib cage of a whale. The girls dumped Aladdin on his knees on the floor beneath it, his hands bound behind him. I sit nearby, in the form of a black cat with green eyes, watching. The lamp is still concealed, but for who knows how long.
I’m starting to feel a bit exhausted. First the prince in the desert, now these girl assassins or whatever they are—I will grant the thief this: My time with him has been anything but dull.
Aladdin blinks and groans, his head rolling. “Bleeding gods . . . What . . . ?”
He focuses on the faces around him and goes still, confusion crinkling the corners of his eyes. They watch him by the light of torches as he twists his bound hands, his fingers brushing against the hidden lamp. “What the . . . Who in the black skies are you?”
“We’ll be the ones asking questions, thief,” replies the girls’ leader.
His eyes roam the room searchingly, and I pad softly out of the shadows. When he sees me, he lifts a brow, and I blink slowly in response.
“Oh, look!” Ensi cries, following his gaze. “A cat! Here, little sweets!” She leans down and holds out a hand, and I run to her and rub against her ankle, purring when she picks me up and scratches my ears. Aladdin rolls his eyes just slightly. I hiss at him.
The leader removes her hood and pulls her braid over her shoulder. “You are Aladdin, son of Mustapha the tailor, are you not?”
“Finish that kiss you were about to give me, and I might tell you.” He tilts his head, studying her with fascination.