“Shrike!”

A long shabka—a boat with a single mast and two sets of oars—looms out of the darkness. Darin stands at its prow, and relief floods me. He, however, looks like he wants to throttle the Shrike.

“Where’s Laia? Where’s my sister?”

The Shrike parries an arrow that nearly pegs her in the heart. “Don’t get your knickers in a bunch,” she shouts. “She’s right—”

In that moment, I cast the darkness wide enough to cover both her and Avitas. One second, the two of them are fighting. The next, Keris’s men lower their weapons, staring at an empty boat.

I grab for where I think the Shrike’s shoulder is, hoping to the skies that neither she nor Avitas think to swing a scim into my neck.

“They can’t see you!” I whisper. “Get into Musa’s boat. Quick!”

Air rushes past me as the Shrike slides by and pulls herself up to the deck of the shabka. Harper follows, and I reach deep within, until I have cast my invisibility over a wide-eyed Darin and Musa.

“Stop rowing,” I hiss to the Beekeeper. “No one move!”

The shabka drifts, even as the Martials search the darkness, all their might and numbers nothing against my magic.

The soldiers close in on our vessel, but after scanning it for passengers, they navigate around us, making for the dinghy where we were last seen, peering into the water. We remain silent as long minutes go by. When the soldiers are out of sight, Musa and the Shrike take up the oars and row as quickly and quietly as they can, until the lights of the market are a distant glow behind us. Finally, I drop our invisibility. Everyone speaks at once.

“Thank the skies you’re all—”

“What the bleeding hells was—”

“Laia!” One voice pipes over the rest, and a skinny figure emerges from beneath Musa’s seat.

He is a half foot taller than he was when I last saw him, but the brilliant smile and sparkling eyes I first encountered in Kauf Prison, while trying to free Darin and Elias, are the same.

“Tas?” I do not believe it is him until he comes flying at me, and I am enfolding his slight figure in my arms. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be safe in Ayo!”

“Tas was my ‘delivery,’” Darin says. “I was worried he wouldn’t get to me on time or I would have told you.”

“You’ll have to catch up later,” Musa says. “Right now, I think it’s time for Laia to tell us about her invisible friend.”

Rehmat. He means Rehmat. “One day”—I stare daggers at him—“your eavesdropping is going to get you into trouble that even your wights can’t get you out of.”

“Not today, aapan,” he says. “Talk.”

By the time I am finished telling the tale, dawn is a pale suggestion on the horizon and the snow clouds have given way to a tangerine sky. The bay is calm, the wind is with us, and we move steadily northwest, toward a river that will take us into the Empire. Musa’s stowed the oars and raised the sails, and we sit in a circle near the stern of the shabka.

“So that’s it,” Darin says. “You’ve just decided it’s you against the Nightbringer?”

“It feels right.” I do not add that I have no earthly idea how I will destroy the jinn—or even where to begin.

“That’s not a good reason to go hunting for the most dangerous creature who has ever lived. Why should it be you?”

My brother’s disapproval is maddening. He knows what I am capable of. And still, I must explain myself.

I feel a fierce pang of longing for Elias. He saw my strength long before I did. You’ll find a way, he’d said to me in Serra, as we fled the Commandant and her men.

“I do not trust anyone else to do it, Darin. Other people have too much to lose.”

“And you don’t have anything to lose?” For an instant, I see how Darin will look as an old man. My brother bears the weight of our dead family stoically, speaking rarely of our parents or sister or grandparents. But I know he is thinking of them now.

I do not answer his question, and Harper clears his throat. “Setting the Nightbringer aside for a moment . . .” The Mask’s hand rests lightly on the tiller. “This . . . thing. This Rehmat. It was living inside you?”

“Like a parasite?” Musa says. “Or a demon?”

“Don’t be so horrified,” I say. “Whatever it is, it’s inside you too. All of you. Or so the Jaduna said.”

Musa looks down, clearly wondering if some fey beastie will burst unexpectedly from his chest. “So if one of us had lost our temper and yowled at the Nightbringer—”

“I did not yowl—”

“Then we’d be stuck fighting him? No offense, aapan, but why not one of them?” Musa nods at Harper and the Shrike. “They might get close enough to stick a knife in that fiery monster’s gut.”

“I’ve a nephew to protect,” the Shrike says. “And the Empire to reclaim. Even if I wanted to hunt the Nightbringer, I couldn’t.”

“I’m with her,” Harper says, smiling slightly at the sudden flush in the Shrike’s cheeks, before he turns stone-faced again.

“It would be better,” I say. “But it is not them. It is me. And Rehmat’s presence does explain my disappearing. Your particular skills, Musa. And perhaps even the fact that you and I”—I look to Darin—“were never as bothered by the ghosts as Afya was.”

“But if it’s in all of us,” Harper says, “shouldn’t Tas, Darin, and I have magic too?”

“It will require an army to take the Nightbringer down, Laia,” Darin says. “This might be a ploy to get you alone and vulnerable.”

“Could be that Rehmat is some devilry from the Karkaun warlocks,” the Shrike offers. “We’ve seen what Grímarr can do.”

I wait for Musa’s opinion, but his head is tilted as it is when he’s listening to his wights.

“Maybe Rehmat is good.” Tas speaks up. I almost forgot he was here, he’s been so quiet. “The world’s not only full of bad things, you know. And what about Elias? We should see what he thinks.”

Silence threatens, but Darin fills it quickly. “Perhaps Musa can send him a message,” my brother says. “In the meantime, Tas, I’ll show you how to trim the sails. We’d best take advantage of this wind while we have it.”

They move to the stern of the shabka, and the Beekeeper touches my shoulder. “Laia,” he says. “The Martials are amassing forces off the southern coast of the Tribal lands. They’re planning an invasion. The wights just brought word.”

“Do the Tribes know?” I say. “They must. There have been skirmishes before.”

Musa shakes his head. “This isn’t a skirmish. And the Tribes don’t know. Some fey magic cloaks the Martials. The wights heard a few of the generals speaking. They plan to attack at the waxing moon.”

Three weeks from now. “You can warn them,” I say. “That’s time enough to send a message—”

“I will,” Musa says. “But skies know if they’ll trust it. Keris and the Nightbringer are too strong, Laia. The Tribes will fall. And she’ll move north—”

To Delphinium. To finish what she began in Antium. Musa moves off to speak to the Shrike. Near the deep purple sail, Darin’s smile flashes as he shows Tas the rigging. The world’s not only full of bad things, you know.

I wish I believed that.

* * *

???

The days pass quickly, filled with fishing, training with the Shrike, and catching up with Darin, Musa, and Tas. When the sun sets, we marvel at the brilliant sheets of violet and pink and green that light up the northern skies.

By sunrise on the fifth day, we spot the far side of Fari Bay. The rocky coast is steep, and the towering treetops of an ancient forest appear, blue beneath a clear sky and rolling westward as far as the eye can see.

The Waiting Place.

Harper speaks with the Shrike while Musa and I listen to one of Tas’s stories. But we all fall silent at the sight of the wood. Whispers sound on the wind and a shiver ripples through me.

“You know”—Musa drops his voice so only I can hear—“if you could just get Elias to talk to you, he might let us across—”

“No.”

“It would save us nearly three weeks.”

“We’re not going through the Waiting Place, Musa,” I say. “You of all people understand what it means to have the love of your life turned into someone else. I don’t want to see him again. Ever.”

“Beekeeper.” The Shrike’s attention is fixed on the empty sea behind us. “Can we make this thing go any faster?”

I squint—but even in the moonlight, I see only whitecaps. Then an arrow cuts through the air, embedding itself in the wood of the tiller, inches from Musa’s hand. He curses and the Shrike pushes past him, draws her bow, and releases a volley of shots.

“Commandant’s men!” she says as a cluster of longboats comes into view behind us. “Take cover—aah!”

I hear the sick thump of steel embedding into flesh, and the Shrike staggers. I am up now, nocking and releasing arrows as fast as I can.

“Watch your left!” Musa snaps as more longboats appear to the south. And the north.

“Ideas?” I ask the Beekeeper as the boats close in. “Because I am running out of arrows.”

“One.” Musa glances at me, and then toward the trees of the Waiting Place. “But you won’t thank me for it.”