Footsteps crunch behind us, and we jump away from each other.

“Banu al-Mauth!” Gibran and Aubarit approach, and the latter bows her head in respect and then smacks Gibran, who quickly does the same.

“Dinner’s ready, Laia,” Gibran says. “Afya sent us up to take over.”

When Elias and I reach the canyon floor, he disappears, his eyes far away in that manner that tells me he’s working through a problem. Most of the Tribespeople have bedded down for the night. Those few remaining sit around the fire quietly, any arguing drowned out by the lonely wind wailing down the canyon, trying its best to put out our flames.

“Bleeding cold.” Afya’s teeth chatter around her spoon. “And there’s little enough wood. We won’t be able to stay here much longer.”

“Did you change any minds?”

“My Tribe will stay, as will Mamie’s and Aubarit’s,” Afya says. “The rest plan to leave at first light. They hope to take back Aish.”

“Aish won’t matter,” Darin says from where he hunches by the fire, “if the Nightbringer sets that maelstrom free and kills everyone.”

I leave Afya and Darin and turn to Mamie, just a few yards away. Though it is cold enough that the stream has iced over, she sits on the earth of the canyon, staring up at the stars.

“Can’t sleep?” I ask her.

“Not when I know that the story is out there, waiting for me.” Mamie turns to me, her dark gaze piercing. “I feel it on you, Laia. Near you. Part of you, almost. Think again on all you know. There must be something you’ve forgotten. Some bit of the story locked away in your mind. When the Augur died—what did he tell Elias again?”

“He said to go back to the beginning—”

“What about the book?” Darin comes to sit beside us. “Don’t suppose there’s anything in there?”

I look at him askance. “What book?”

“The book I gave you.” He looks offended. “Back in the Empire. Just before you headed south.”

At my blank stare, he shoves my shoulder. “Well, hells, Laia, it’s nice to know my sister appreciates my thoughtfulness. When we parted ways, I gave you a gift, remember? I found it in Adisa.”

I run for my rucksack in Mamie’s wagon and bring back an oilcloth-wrapped package. The string is stiff from the floodwaters when I lost my pack, and I have to cut it open. Wrapped tight within is a worn book bound in soft leather.

Gather in the Dark, it says.

“Why does this look familiar?”

“You were reading it,” Darin says. “Before the raid. Before the Mask came—before Nan and Pop—” He stops and clears his throat. “Anyway. You were reading it.”

I think of the Augur’s prophecy, and despite the fire and my cloak, I am suddenly shivering. “Go back to the beginning.” I turn to Mamie. “Could this—”

She has already taken the book from me. “Yes,” she breathes. “This is what I needed. What I’ve been waiting for.”

I open my hand, hoping she’ll return it. She ignores me and stands, her frustration replaced by single-minded determination.

“Shouldn’t I read it—” I call after her. But she waves me off, the book tucked under her arm as she seeks a story in a place I cannot follow.

XLIX: The Soul Catcher

 

Love. I consider the world without sentiment after I leave Laia and retire to my tent, squeezed between two supply wagons on the far side of the Saif encampment. Without thought, I take out Laia’s armlet and begin to carve.

Love cannot live here. Shaeva told me that, when I became Soul Catcher. Yet it was love that began all this in the first place—the love the Nightbringer had for his people is what drove him to murder and madness and retribution.

And it is love that drives him still.

The way he fought for centuries to save the jinn. The way he howled when Khuri died. The way he raged when Laia shot Maro. Bleeding hells, his very name. Beloved. Love is at the heart of what the Nightbringer was. It is his greatest weapon.

But I can use it as a weapon too.

 

* * *

«««

The Zaldars do not take kindly to being woken up in the middle of the night. Especially when most were planning on leaving at dawn.

So I make them an enormous pot of hot, sweetened tea, as Mamie Rila used to do in the deep winter.

“More honey,” Laia whispers after tasting it, surreptitiously raiding Mamie’s rapidly shrinking stash.

When the tea has been passed around, and the Zaldars—along with Fakirs and Kehannis—are settled around a large fire, I make my case.

“We must fight the Nightbringer, for the survival of the world depends on us defeating him.” A low grumble starts up, and I speak over it. “But we cannot go to Adisa. It is a two-month journey, at least, over Martial-infested lands and treacherous seas. And we do not know if the Mariners will still be fighting by then, or if Keris and the jinn will have defeated them.”

“Get to the point.” The Zaldar of Tribe Shezaad speaks so insolently that his Fakira, a woman Mamie’s age and dressed in black, slaps him on the back of the head. He ducks, gaze as surly as an alley cat’s.

“We take a shorter journey, to the Sher Jinnaat, the City of the Jinn, deep within the Waiting Place.” I consider my words carefully, for I’ll have this one chance to convince them. “Everything the Nightbringer has ever done has been for his people. He will not allow them to be killed. We can draw him and his army away from Marinn and to a place where we have an advantage.”

“How do we have an advantage if it’s their city?” another Zaldar asks. “They will tear through our army with their fire.”

“Most of the jinn in the city are still weak.” Laia speaks up. “They have not recovered from their imprisonment.”

“An army of four thousand Tribespeople and a thousand efrits is no small thing,” Afya says. “The Nightbringer will know we are coming.”

“Not if Elias and I are hidden,” Laia cuts in. “Darin too. We can disguise our fighters and supplies. From a distance, the army will just look like a band of refugees.”

“We like this not, Soul Catcher.” Rowan Goldgale sweeps forward, his fellow efrit lords following. “We will not stand for a massacre. We have witnessed too many.”

“The goal is not to kill the jinn,” I say. “It’s to draw the Nightbringer away from the Free Lands so that he no longer reaps souls. So the Mariner armies can regroup. The Mariners are our allies. They offered sanctuary to the Scholars when the Tribes could not. It is wrong to abandon them when our foe is the same.”