Chapter 3
Troubled by the conversations with my family and Dalila, I slept poorly, unable to get the image of the children, penned up and miserable, out of my mind.
When I woke in the latter part of the night, dawn still hours away, I took it as a sign and rose from my bed.
Performing my ablutions as silently as possible and whispering my intentions, I laid out my cloak for tahajjud.
The night prayer has always held a special place in my heart; that quiet, blessed time alone with the Most High is a special comfort for those who are heavy with sin and in desperate need of forgiveness, as it is for those who are lost and begging for guidance.
And especially for those who are both, such as myself.
And so I fell into the rhythms easily, lulled into the drowsy daze that sleepiness and opening one’s heart to God invites.
At first, there was no noise other than the distant crashing of waves on the beach below. Indeed, I was so lost in worship that it took some time for the low, sad song of a bird to catch my ear, to pull my attention. An owl, perhaps, or some other nocturnal fellow, calling softly.
Calling insistently. I paused to listen and almost doubled over at a tightening in my chest. There was that hook, that tug in my heart from the world beyond mortal sight.
One of its creatures was in my home.
I swiftly finished my prayer, not wanting to leave the Almighty in a lurch should I abruptly need Him.
The low coo came again as I crept from the courtyard, my bare feet silent upon the cool stone.
The sound set every hair on the back of my neck on end.
I drew the meteor blade from my waist, listening carefully to discern where the creature was.
It sang another note, a tune more akin to a funeral ululation than the happy chirping of birds, but long enough for me to realize that the sound was coming from the roof.
The rest of the house was silent save for Mustafa’s loud snoring.
I crept toward the roof, making sure the doors to the rooms where my family members lay sleeping were all closed.
Then, clutching the dagger, I climbed the steps.
The night sky was glorious, not a single cloud marring the rich expanse of glittering stars. Indeed, only one form did; perched upon my roof, the feathers of his impressive wings were a brilliant lime in the silver moonlight.
“Khayzur.” I exhaled in relief, immediately tucking my dagger away.
“Amina al-Sirafi.” The peri’s voice was a cool warble. “The Maker’s blessings upon you.”
There was none of his usual warmth in the greeting, and my heart skipped.
“Salaam to you, as well.” It was too dark to observe Khayzur properly, but I got the sense the peri was staring at me, waiting.
Though for what, I couldn’t imagine. I had handed over the Mortar of Mithridates on a quiet stretch of beach outside the now extremely lost city of Muziris, where the peri and I shared a brief if pleasant chat over tea.
Khayzur had been happily surprised by the speed with which my crew had located and retrieved the deadly artifact, and there had been no indication anything was amiss. “Is everything all right?”
Khayzur puffed out, the motion setting dust and fallen leaves swirling in a wild dance across the rooftop. “No, nakhudha.” He said nothing else, as though giving me an opportunity to confess. Or perhaps that was just the guilty nature of a former pirate speaking.
“What are you doing in my home?” I asked instead, heat rising in my voice.
I had thought the peri needed a bloodstained feather to track me down, and discovering he could apparently swoop in upon me and my family at any time was an unpleasant revelation—one that seemed intentional, as though Khayzur had concealed such abilities in hopes of catching me when my guard was down.
He fluttered his wings in agitation. “Please do not make this any more difficult than need be. Such a creature is not worth your protection.”
A creature? But then I cursed.
Dalila. It had to be. Apparently her scrapings of the mortar hadn’t gone unnoticed. Though I would be damned if I was going to let the peris claim her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I insisted, moving away from the steps. “Why don’t we take a walk in the jungle and—”
Khayzur leapt from the edge of the roof proper, and it took everything I had not to stagger back. Power roiled off the peri like invisible waves battering my body. “Amina, cease your pretending. I can tell that he has been here!”
He? Not Dalila, then. I stared in genuine bewilderment. “Who in creation are you speaking about?”
“Your partner! The chaos spirit who calls himself Raksh!” Khayzur’s avian face puckered like he’d eaten a sour berry. “The stench of his magic fouls the very air. Its energy and purpose are so at odds with my own people’s that being in its wake is as though flying through a plume of smoke.”
Raksh? This was about Raksh? Raksh here?
Panic raced through my blood, replaced almost instantly by doubt.
There was no way Raksh had been here. My estranged spouse was the exact opposite of discreet and self-contained in every way: if Raksh had found me, he would have waltzed in, triumphant and aggrieved, and with as much subtlety as a peacock in heat.
It was almost certainly not Raksh’s magic that Khayzur was sensing. But that left only one other option, and it gutted me.
I swayed on my feet, fighting for balance. Not my Marjana. She is human, she is not him . . . But she did share Raksh’s blood, his heritage, and if Khayzur could detect the presence of a chaos spirit, not even my heart’s denial could pretend otherwise.
So I wouldn’t pretend. But I also wouldn’t let Khayzur learn of her. If the peri council had deemed me a Transgression, no doubt Marjana—the impossible child of a human and a whatever Raksh truly was—would fall under their equally pitiless judgment.
My distracted shock seemed to have stirred Khayzur’s suspicions further. He bobbed his head toward the stairs. “Is he hiding down there?”
Stepping in front of him, I crossed my arms, glaring in defiance.
A lifetime of cons had not prepared me to feign affection for Raksh, so I went another direction, leaning into my anger.
“He is not. Nor is that creature my partner. He’s a self-centered bastard and I threw him off my ship as soon as we left Socotra. ”
Khayzur stared at me, and I was suddenly struck by just how alien and unnerving his colorless eyes were. I could recognize no reaction in those eyes, the gaze of a being so very old and so very foreign who had the lives of those I loved most in his hands.
“I can smell him,” he persevered, but there was new uncertainty in his voice.
“Then perhaps it is from a previous visit,” I lied.
Raksh had never set foot in my home and never would if I had anything to say about it.
“Or perhaps you sense my bond with him. But I give you my word that he is not here. I would swear it upon the Creator, our Maker. However, if you have it in your head that I will stand aside while you search my home and terrorize my family, you are going to have to kill me where I stand.” I gave him an even look.
“And if I recall correctly . . . that would violate your people’s law. ”
Khayzur gazed at me for a long moment and then defeat seemed to slump in his shoulders, his wings lowering.
“My people twist those laws so easily, Amina,” he warned, but he sounded gentler.
Wearier. “Forgive me. The council was prepared to fly as a flock to punish you, and it took all the groveling oaths I could swear to convince them that you played no part and to allow me to summon you alone. Then to arrive and catch the stench of that fiend . . .” He sighed.
“You say you threw him off your ship? So you stranded him at sea?”
There was a great deal in Khayzur’s response that I wished to question. But sensing the truth was wiser now, I simply nodded. “Yes.”
“Ah.” Khayzur finally moved away from the stairs, settling again onto his perch. “That would make a degree of sense.”
“Good. Then would you please explain what is going on?” Deciding this was best a discussion not handled in the metaphorical as well as actual dark, I crossed the roof to stoke the smoldering embers of our cookfire. “What has Raksh done?”
“What his kind achieve best: spread discord.” Khayzur shifted slightly, giving the dancing flames a wary look. “Do your people have any stories of a sorceress called Lab?”
I racked my brain but could recall nothing. “No.”
“Then ready yourself for a bit of a tale,” Khayzur began.
“For that is the latest entity with whom he has entangled himself. Though in truth, Lab is a bit of a mystery, even for us peris. She must be immortal, though we know little of her elemental composition—perhaps she is a demon or a long-forgotten daeva. But her lair is hidden from our eyes; the marid claim they battled her many centuries ago and trapped her on an island in a fold of the Unseen Realm.”
“They imprisoned her?”
“In a way. The fold contains her magic—contains her—but it is otherwise not a firm boundary; mortals are witnessed occasionally washing upon her shores.”
A fold of the Unseen Realm? Would there ever come a day when a conversation with a magical creature did not leave me baffled?
“And what happens to the humans who wash up on an enchanted prison island?” I asked.
Between my ill-fated adventure on the peris’ isle and this Lab’s lair, I was beginning to wonder how many missing sailors had lost their lives not to sinking ships but to the nefarious beings of accursed islands.