“Shut it, you,” she growls at me, eyes flashing. She turns back to Shan, but he has stepped away, and a strange, shifting figure stands in his place. Rowan Goldgale.

“You,” I say. “How did you find me?”

“Find you?” The efrit laughs, and it’s the deep hum of a dune shifting. “It was I who brought you here, Banu al-Mauth. Did you not feel the wind?”

And here I thought my instinct led me back. “Why would you help?”

“Because you need the efrits, Banu al-Mauth,” he says. Behind Rowan, outside the wagon, other figures take shape. One of water who I vaguely recognize as Siladh, lord of the sea efrits. Another that undulates like wind in a bottle. “And we need you,” Rowan says. “The time for our alliance has come, whether you wish it or not.”

XLI: The Blood Shrike

I do not muster up the courage to seek out Harper until evening, and by then, he has disappeared. An hour into my search, one of the Black Guards tells me he is in the baths, in the lower levels of the palace.

I make my way through a dozen hallways and down three staircases to arrive at a plain wood door that looks, at first glance, like an entrance to a broom closet. The bricks here are ancient, likely dating back to the Scholar Empire. It is one of the few places unspoiled by the Karkauns—probably because they didn’t much like bathing.

The hallway outside the bath is abandoned, the blue-fire torches burning low. Through a window at the end of the corridor, evening deepens to night.

It’s just a door, Shrike. Go through it. He’s probably not even there. You’ll clean up and leave.

But I can’t bring myself to go in. Instead I pace back and forth, wishing Laia wasn’t off with the bleeding Tribes, because she’d have useful advice. I wish Faris was here. He’d have been so thrilled for me that he’d have built me up like I was going into battle.

I wish I’d had more lovers. My first was a Mercator boy I met at a masquerade in Navium while on leave. He was handsome and seductive and far more experienced than I. I’d worn an ornate mask over my own—and I never took it off. My next was Demetrius—an ill-fated and dissatisfying tryst when we were in our second-to-last year at Blackcliff. It left us both uneasy. He wanted peace. I wanted Elias. Instead, we ended up with each other, week after week, until I finally ended it.

But I didn’t care about either of them. Not the way I care about Harper.

Admit it, you coward, I say to myself. The way you love Harper.

How I have feared that word. Feared it more than Karkauns or Keris or jinn. But to think it now is strangely freeing. A knot inside me releases, as if some part of me is finally unfettered.

Go on, Shrike.

I open the door to the bath and find Harper with a towel about his waist, another one raised to his dark hair. The brown skin of his body gleams, and I follow a droplet of water as it drips onto his wide shoulders, down his chest, to the rigid muscles of his stomach.

I realize I’m staring and jerk my gaze up, stepping past him into the room, scanning for anyone else, a hand on my scim.

“Shrike?” He peers past me into the hall, assuming there must be a threat. “Are you—is the Emperor—”

“No. Nothing like that.” My voice is hoarse. The baths are empty but for Harper. The pool is massive, tiled in green and blue, with water piped in from the bottom. Steam disappears into two large vents to keep the room cool. I eye them warily.

“Already clear, Shrike,” Harper says. “I’m alone.”

My armor creaks as I shift from foot to foot, still staring, which is when I realize that I have not thought this through at all. Because no one in her right mind would wear armor to seduce the person she’s been pining after for months.

Silence descends, and I meet his pale green eyes with a plea in my own, begging him to understand, to not make me any more embarrassed than I already am.

“Shrike—” he begins, and at the same time, I speak.

“I—ah—” Bleeding hells. “Did you—get the orders about the half legion that’s to head south?” I say. “Because they shouldn’t be delayed, but I wasn’t certain if the armory was up to outfitting them—”

“Why are you here, Blood Shrike?” he says.

“I—I’m—”

Bleeding Musa and his bleeding advice. I can’t just come out and say why I’m here. I’ve been horrible to Harper. Avoiding him, ignoring him, barking orders at him, never offering him a word of kindness or gratitude. What if he doesn’t feel anything for me anymore? What if he has moved on? There are plenty of—

“Shrike—why are you here?”

“How’s the water?” I squeak, and begin removing my armor. Almost immediately, one of the buckles on my chest plate gets stuck. Usually I’d have Livia or one of the guards help me with it, but here, in front of Harper, I tug at it stupidly, my face growing redder with every second that passes. How I wish for my mask.

His hand closes over mine.

“Let me,” he murmurs, and a moment later, the buckle is loose. He loosens the others with quick fingers. Then he kneels to pull off the leather greaves from my shins. Moments later, I am in nothing but my shift, and he stands, closer than he was before.

“Could you—” I cannot meet his gaze, and he turns around, dropping the towel. Oh hells. I close my eyes immediately though I do not want to, and wait until I’m certain he’s in the water.

When his back is turned toward me, I kick off my boots, throw my shift and drawers into a corner. For a long moment, my hand hovers above my hair. I have worn it in this braid since I was a girl, since I got to Blackcliff. The Centurions tried to cut it, but Cain told them that if they touched my hair, he would take off their arms.

I rarely wear my hair loose. The last time I remember doing so was the night of graduation, and only at my mother’s insistence.

But I pull it free now. It cascades down my back, and I submerge myself in the water, letting the heat of the pool sink into my muscles. When I come up for air, Harper has turned toward me.

I cross my arms in front of me awkwardly, well aware that I am all muscle, that I have none of Laia’s lush curves or Livia’s softness.

Harper moves toward me, takes me in slowly. His mouth quirks in the closest thing to a smile I’ve ever seen from him. Skies, how long have I been staring at his face without realizing it, memorizing his most minute expressions.

For some reason, I keep my attention on the water. I am afraid of rejection. Or mockery. Or realizing that his feelings are shallower than the well of desire within my own heart.

“Look at me,” he whispers. But I cannot. “Helene,” he says, and the sound of my name on his lips is marvelous. My eyes are hot, and his hand comes up beneath my chin. “Look at me.”