“I expected you to say as much,” Musa says. “After the way Mazen and Keenan betrayed you.” He offers a grim smile as my fists curl, and I stare at him in shock. How does he know?
“Apologies,” he says. “Not Keenan. The Nightbringer. In any case, your mistrust is understandable. But you need to stop the jinn lord, no? Which means you need out of here.”
Darin and I gape at him. I get my voice back first. “How do you know about the—”
“I watch. I listen.” Musa taps his foot and glances down the hall. His shoulders stiffen. Voices rise and fall from beyond the door to the cellblock, sharp and hurried. “Decide,” he says. “We’re nearly out of time.”
“No.” Darin speaks for us both, and I frown. It’s unlike him. “You should leave. Unless you want to get thrown in here with us.”
“I’d heard you were stubborn.” Musa sighs. “Listen to logic, at least. Even if you do find your way out of here, how will you find the Beekeeper while the Mariners hunt you? Especially if he doesn’t want to be found?”
“How did—” I stop myself from asking. He’s already told me. He watches. He listens. “You know the Beekeeper.”
“I swear I’ll take you to him.” Musa cuts his hand, blood dripping on the floor, and I raise my eyebrows. A blood oath is no small thing. “After I get you out of here. If you agree to my terms. But we need to move. Now.”
“Darin.” I grab my brother’s arm and drag him to a corner of the cell. “If he can take us to the Beekeeper, we’ll save weeks of time.”
“I don’t trust him,” Darin says. “You know I want to get out of here as much as you do. More. But I won’t make a promise I can’t keep, and neither should you. Why does he want you to help him with the Resistance? What’s in it for him? Why not do it himself?”
“I don’t trust him either,” I say. “But he’s offering us a way out.” I consider my brother. I consider his lie earlier. And though I don’t want to hurt him, I know that if we ever want to get out of here, I have to.
“Pardon me,” Musa says. “But we really need to—”
“Shut it,” I snap at him before turning back to Darin. “You lied to me,” I say. “About the weapons. No”—I raise my hand at his protest—“I’m not angry. But I don’t think you understand what you’re doing. You’re choosing not to make the weapons. It’s a selfish choice. Our people need you, Darin. And that should matter more than your desires or your pain. You saw what’s happening out there to the Scholars,” I say. “It’s not going to stop. Even if I defeat the Nightbringer, we’ll always be lesser unless we can stand up for ourselves. We need Serric steel.”
“Laia, I want to make it, I do—”
“Then try,” I say. “That’s all I’m asking. Try. For Izzi. For Afya, who has lost a half dozen of her Tribe trying to help us. For”—my voice cracks—“for Elias. For the life he gave up for you.”
Darin’s blue eyes widen in surprise and hurt. His demons rise, demanding his attention. But somewhere beneath the fear, he is still the Lioness’s son, and this time, the quiet courage he has had all our lives wins out.
“Where you go, sis,” he says, “I go. I’ll try.”
In seconds, Musa—who has been shamelessly eavesdropping—gestures us into the hall. The moment Darin is out, he grabs Musa by the neck and shoves him against the wall. I hear a sound like an animal chittering, but it goes silent after Musa makes a strange slashing motion with his hand. A ghul?
“If you hurt my sister,” Darin says quietly, “if you betray her, or abuse her trust or cause her pain, I swear to the skies I will kill you.”
Musa chokes out an answer, and as Darin lets him down, keys clang in the door down the hall. Seconds later, it flies open and Eleiba enters, scim drawn.
“Musa!” she snarls. “I should have bleeding known. You are under arrest.”
“Well, now you’ve done it.” Musa rubs his neck where Darin grabbed him, mild irritation on his fine features. “We could have been away by now if not for your brotherly posturing.” With that, he whispers something, and Eleiba falls back, cursing, as if something we cannot see attacks her.
Musa looks between Darin and me with arched brows. “Any other threats? Discussions you wish to waste my time with? None? Good. Then let’s get the bleeding hells out of here.”
* * *
Dawn approaches by the time Musa, Darin, and I emerge from a tailor’s shop and out into Adisa. My head spins from the strange, interconnected series of tunnels, passageways, and alleys Musa took to get us here. But we are out. We are free.
“Not bad timing,” Musa says. “If we hurry, we can get to a safe house before—”
“Wait.” I grab him by the shoulder. “We’re not going anywhere with you.” Beside me, Darin nods vehemently. “Not until you tell us who you are. Why did Captain Eleiba know you? What in the skies attacked her? I heard a noise. It sounded like a ghul. Since Princess Nikla was crawling with them, you understand why I am concerned.”
Musa easily extricates himself from my grip, straightening his shirt, which I notice is quite finely made, for a Scholar.
“She wasn’t always like that,” he says. “Nik—the princess, I mean. But that doesn’t matter now. Dawn isn’t far away. We really don’t have time—”
“Stop making excuses,” I snarl. “And start explaining.”
Musa groans in irritation. “If I answer one question,” he says, “will you stop being so annoying and let me get you to a safe house?”
I consider, glancing at Darin, who gives me a noncommittal shrug. Now that Musa’s gotten us out, I only need one bit of information from him. Once I get it, I can become invisible and knock him out, and Darin and I can disappear.
“Fine,” I say. “Who’s the Beekeeper, and how can I find him?”
“Ah, Laia of Serra.” His white teeth shine like those of a smug horse. He offers me his arm, and under the brightening sky, I finally get a closer look at his tattoos—dozens of them, big and small, all clustered around a hive.
Bees.
“It’s me, of course,” Musa says. “Don’t tell me you hadn’t guessed.”
XV: Elias
For days, I cajole and threaten and lure the ghosts away from the border wall. Skies only know what will happen if they break out. They grow more frenzied by the hour, it seems, until I can barely hear myself think over their accursed caterwauling.
A fortnight after I’ve left Aubarit—and with no sense of how to move the ghosts any quicker or how to help the Fakira—I retire to Shaeva’s cottage for the night, desperately grateful for this, my only sanctuary. The ghosts paw at me as I enter, wild as an Isle South typhoon.
She shouldn’t have—
My husband, is he here, tell me—
Have you seen my lovey—
Usually, I feel guilty when I close the cottage door on the ghosts. Not today. I’m too exhausted, too angered by my failure, too disgusted by the relief I feel at the sudden, complete silence within Shaeva’s home.
Sleep in the cottage. They cannot hurt you there.
Somehow, Shaeva magicked the cottage to insulate it from the ghosts and jinn. That bit of sorcery didn’t die with her. She knew I would need a place where I could collect my thoughts, and I am grateful for it.
But my thankfulness doesn’t last long. After I’ve cleaned up and cooked a paltry meal that Shaeva would have scoffed at, I can’t bring myself to sleep. I pace in a circle, guilt gnawing at my gut. The Soul Catcher’s boots still sit by her bed. The arrows she was fletching lie untouched on her worktable. These small tokens from her life used to bring me comfort, especially in the days just after she died. Like the cottage itself, they reminded me that she believed I could be Soul Catcher.
But tonight, her memory plagues me. Why did you not listen to me, Elias? Why did you not learn? Skies, she would be so disappointed.