I miss her.

“Girl.” The jinn woman’s voice brings me back to my predicament. “You’ve walked these lands before. How long do these storms last? Speak.”

“A few hours at most.” My voice is a croak. “We’ll need to clean the horses’ eyes before setting off again. Or they’ll go sand-blind.”

The jinn nods, but does not silence me again. Perhaps she is too tired from so many days of using her power on us. Or perhaps, as Novius suggested, she is at her weakest.

To my relief, she stops staring at me and rises to walk among the soldiers. So slowly I am hardly moving, I reach for the scroll. Then I bend my head into my knees, as if shielding my eyes.

I dare not give myself more light, so it takes me a minute to read the cramped writing. And once I’ve read it, I am baffled. I’d expected instructions on how to get the Mask’s lock picks. The outlines of a plan to break free.

But of course, he couldn’t give me that. The jinn ordered him not to help me. Still—this makes no sense.

No blade forged by human or efrit, wight or ghul or wraith, nor any object of this world may kill us. No matter how badly you want us to die, we cannot.

What do the words mean? Why would he—

The memory comes rushing back so quickly that I am dizzy from it. She spoke these words to me before—and ordered me to forget them. But the Mask was listening too, and she gave him no such order.

The jinn is still among the soldiers, so I read the scroll one more time to commit the words to memory, and then let the wind carry it away. The second part of what she said is a lie. Jinn can be killed. I saw it with my own eyes.

The Nightbringer killed Shaeva with a blade. And she was at least as old as the jinn locked in the grove. Perhaps older.

I close my eyes and try to remember what the blade was. A black sickle that glittered like diamond, wickedly curved and attached to a short hilt. It was a strange metal—one I hadn’t seen before.

But I have seen it since, I realize, staring down at the glittering chains binding me.

No blade forged by human or efrit, wight or ghul or wraith, nor any object of this world may kill us.

Jinn-forged then. Created out of a metal only they can access.

Or perhaps the sickle has no special properties. Perhaps the Nightbringer used a weapon to stab Shaeva, but magic to kill her.

But no—at the very least, these chains suppress my magic, and I am a mere human. What would they do to jinn, who are born of magic?

I am so consumed with thoughts of the sickle that I do not notice the storm has passed until the jinn kicks me and orders me to my feet.

It is early evening when I spot the strange dark splotch on the horizon. It looks to be a large lake of some kind, its currents flashing silver in the fading light. Then the wind carries the sound of horses, the smell of leather and steel. And I understand that it is not a lake but an army, that the flashes are not waves but weapons.

The city of Aish is under attack.

The jinn gives Novius orders to lead us toward the city before putting boot to flank and ranging ahead. A moment later, a whisper tickles my ear.

“Laia.” Rehmat does not appear, but it sounds as if it is right next to me. “Let us get you free of those damnable chains.”

“I thought you could not help,” I whisper back.

“Khuri goes to speak with her kin. We have a few moments. First, you need your weapon—”

“How do you know her name?”

“I know many things you do not, child. Novius has your blade. Once you are invisible you can take it from him. Now—these chains. I think you can—”

“The Nightbringer”—I cut Rehmat off—“used a sickle to kill Shaeva. Do you know anything of it?”

“I know what lives in your memories.”

I flush, thinking about the other things it’s probably seen in my memory, but then push my embarrassment aside. Rehmat’s answer was . . . careful. Too careful.

“Did Shaeva die because of the blade?” I ask. “Or the Nightbringer’s magic?”

“The blade.”

The Mask glances over and I realize I probably look mad, gabbling to myself. I lower my voice. “If all you know of the blade is what’s in my memory, how do you know it can kill jinn? And why the skies did you not tell me about it?”

“The weapon will be impossible to take from the Nightbringer, Laia,” Rehmat says. “And it is not guaranteed to destroy him.”

“But the sickle can kill other jinn.” I want to shout, but settle for a furious whisper. “The ones rampaging across the Tribal desert, leaving death and terror in their wake. The ones out there.” I nod toward Aish and the army inching ever closer to it.

“Laia.” Rehmat flickers in agitation and I wonder if the creature is not an “it” but a “he,” for there is something irritatingly male about its obduracy. “We need to understand the Nightbringer’s weaknesses if we wish to stop him. We need his story. Your plan to find the Tribal Kehannis was a wise one. But to carry it out, you must escape. That is a war you ride toward.”

“It is indeed,” I say, and the idea that comes to me is one Afya would approve of, as it is utterly mad.

“Come, child. Do not be a fool—”

“Why are you afraid?” Until now, Rehmat has seemed wise if a bit high-handed. I have never sensed its alarm, like I do now. “Because you think the Nightbringer will discover you? Destroy you?”

“Yes,” Rehmat says after a long hesitation. “That is what I fear.”

No, it is not. I know this immediately. The creature lies. Conceals. This is the first time I’ve felt it for certain, and an odd pang goes through me. Rehmat is like no one I have ever met or even heard of, but I have grown to trust it. I thought it was my ally.

“Let me help you, Laia.” Rehmat modulates its tone at the last instant so it sounds calm and level-headed, instead of like an overlord. “You must not fall into the Nightbringer’s hands in the midst of a war—”

“Falling into his hands in the midst of a war,” I tell the creature, “is exactly what I have to do.”

XXIV: The Soul Catcher

A horn trumpets from the southern buildings of Aish, echoing from guard tower to guard tower, a frantic blare. The wind picks up, carrying the stench of singed earth and blood.

The Tribal encampment is in chaos. Men and women throw children into wagons and sweep up belongings. Cookfires spark. Camels and horses groan as their masters work frantically to buckle saddles and harnesses.

But when the Tribespeople see me, many of them stop what they are doing, hope dawning in their eyes.

“Banu al-Mauth! Are you here to aid us?”

“Will you destroy the jinn?”

I ignore them as Tribe Nasur’s guards converge on Aubarit’s wagon. “Fakira,” one of them says. “We must take shelter in the city before the gates are closed.”

The Tribe’s silver-haired Kehanni follows them, frowning. “Better to flee into the desert,” she says. “The Martials will be occupied with Aish. They will not hunt us.”

“Tribe Saif will flee,” Mamie Rila speaks. “Even if they pursue us, we can evade them.”

She turns to me. “Help us, Banu al-Mauth,” she says. “There are too many jinn. Too many Martials. And a city filled with innocent people who did nothing to invite this invasion. You could use your magic to defeat the enemy—”

“That is not how the magic works, Kehanni.”

“But if you helped, fewer would die.” Aubarit grabs my arm, holding on to me even when I attempt to shake her off. “There would be fewer ghosts to pass—”

But I do not seek fewer ghosts. I seek to understand what is happening to them.

What if it is the Nightbringer’s doing? Laia’s words echo in my head. The few Fakirs who could have answered my questions were murdered by the Nightbringer. In the battles he has fought, where hundreds of ghosts should flow into the Waiting Place, none arrive.

Perhaps this is an opportunity to see why.

“Make for water.” I raise my voice, and the Tribespeople nearby fall silent. “The jinn hate it.”

“The only water is in Aish’s wells,” Mamie Rila says.

“The Malikh escarpment has water.” The information costs me nothing. “Stream is running high.”

The horns of Aish call out again, a low thrum that elicits cries from across the encampment. The approaching fire is distant no longer. The jinn are here.

Aubarit and Mamie’s questions fall upon the unfeeling wind as I stream away, past the Tribespeople scrambling to get into the city, past the refugees from Sadh looking for shelter where there will be none. Keris Veturia’s army will pour through Aish’s many gates. The wide streets that are perfect for Tribal caravans, open markets, and traveling players will become killing fields.

Such is the world of the living.