The Witch's Betrayal

  When I finally decided to get it over with, sunlight was just beginning to creep up over the water. I fell away from the room, through shadows, through Kajjil, until I was a shade in the flickering firelight of the Order's assignment room. Zahir was waiting for me with a glass of dark red wine. Seeing him filled me with a dull, familiar dread that I did my best to ignore.

  "This is taking longer than we expected, Naji."

  I felt like I was a child again, being scolded for doing poorly in training.

  "I encountered complications." My voice reverberated against my ears. My body was still in the inn, stretched out on the bed, surrounded by dawn's light and the scent of the sea, but my voice and thoughts, all the rest of me, were at the Order.

  "Complications?"

  I chose my words carefully. "Yes. Someone has helped him. He evaded my tracking spells."

  Zahir said nothing.

  "I'm confident I'll be able to track him."

  "This was not meant to be an involved operation."

  "And it won't be. It should be completed by tomorrow evening."

  Zahir snorted into his glass. "Do you have any idea how many times 'tomorrow evening' becomes 'two months from now'?"

  "I've already begun my investigation. I don't foresee it taking two months."

  "Let's hope not." Zahir set his glass down and looked at me -- looked at my shade. He seemed bored, sleepy, irritated. Which was fair: he was an old man. I imagine he didn't appreciate staying up all night waiting for me to bring word. "I'll give you until tomorrow's sunrise. If it takes any longer than that, expect punishment."

  I shivered.

  "Yes, of course. Thank you, Zahir."

  He snorted again and waved me away. Five heartbeats later I was back in the inn room, weak gray sunlight filtering through the window.

  Tomorrow's sunrise.

  One full day.

  I could find the most dangerous man in Lisirra in one full day.

  #

  I only allowed myself to sleep for four hours. When I woke up, the sunlight was a bright, sparkling mass choking out the air of my bedroom. It hurt my eyes. But I couldn't allow myself the luxury of sleep right now.

  Before I left, I cast a tracking spell to double check. According to my magic, Sarr was still nestled safely in that house in the desert. I muttered a few profanities, directing them at Leila.

  Then I set a ward on my room and went downstairs. The inn's main room was empty save for the innkeeper, who wouldn't look at me. Outside, the pleasure district was just beginning to stir. It was nearly noon. I bought a meat pie from a street vendor and ate it as I walked down the street, keeping my eyes out for street girls. Since the innkeeper had mentioned they sometimes spoke of Sarr, I thought they were the best place to begin my investigation.

  Without magic, I would have to track Sarr through the trails all people leave, through his connections and relationships. And right now, the only relationship I had uncovered was with the girls who prowled the pleasure district's streets after dark, providing it with its name.

  However, uncovering street girls during the middle of the day proved more difficult than I thought. I wound up at a dancehall after half an hour of wandering. It had only just opened, strings of magic-cast lanterns blinking red and blue and gold, washed out in the sunlight. I went in. Most of the tables were empty and the air was thick with pipe smoke. Magic jangled in the background, emanating from an unenthusiastic band in the corner. A few women danced onstage, looking as bored as the band.

  A woman came to ask if I wanted anything to drink. She wore a spangled dress that caught the light and threw dots of color across the floor. Her eyes were made-up with same dark shades that Leila favored.

  Like Leila, and unlike most people in the city, she didn't act frightened of me.

  "I don't need anything to drink," I told her, making sure to smile, to put her at ease. "But I do need your help."

  She looked at me warily.

  "I'm looking for someone," I said. "Lisim Sarr."

  Her eyes went wide when I said his name. She glanced over her shoulder, toward the door, then back to me. The music played on.

  "Are you going to kill him?" she asked.

  "What?"

  "You're an assassin, aren't you? Is that why you're looking for him?" She slid into the chair next to me and put her hand on my arm, her touch feather-soft. I smiled at her again, and her eyes sparkled a little -- with excitement, I thought. Interest.

  "I'm not allowed to tell you that," I said.

  "Then why are you looking for him? Do you want to help him?"

  I hesitated. I really didn't like tracking people this way. It was too nuanced, too dependent on understanding the network of human connection. But I was astute enough to notice a flicker of fear when she asked if I wanted to help him.

  My being Jadorr'a, that didn't scare her. But the thought that I might be helping Sarr --

  "No," I said. "I just need to talk to him."

  "You won't be able to. He's mad." She pulled her hand away from me and slouched in her chair. Her hair fell across her face. The band finished their song and desultory applause scattered across the room. The woman picked her head up a little. "That's what everyone says, anyway. And he’s wicked as well. Although isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Kill wicked men?"

  Her words surprised me. I regarded her for a moment. There aren't many people in the Empire who understand the history of the Order, who understand that we were formed long ago to keep the people of the desertlands safe from kings would rather rage war with each other than rule. Most only know us as the killers for hire that we’ve become, and not for what we are supposed to be.

  Of course, we had never exactly been vigilantes hunting down all the wickedness in the desert, but the notion was close enough.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Then you should kill Sarr. He's the wickedest man in Lisirra." She pushed her hair away from her face and looked up at the stage. A new song had begun, slow and slippery and sad, and the dancer writhed in the smoky blue light. "I'm not just a waitress. Or a dancer. I own this place." She glanced at me. "I don't normally take drink orders, but my daytime waitress is dead. He killed her."

  "How do you know it was him?"

  "The whispers." She paused, then explained. "The girls, the ones who work at night, they bring us information. Who's dangerous, who isn't, that sort of thing. We call it the whispers." Silence. "He uses his victims to work magic. He does different things to them. With my waitress he took out all her insides and filled her with stones from the desert. For a spell. They wouldn't tell me what it did."

  I didn't say anything, but I felt a tightness in my chest, that Leila had helped someone like this.

  "The thing about Sarr," she went on, "is that he's powerful, powerful enough to change his appearance. So you can't go by that. It's always the powerful ones who are the cruelest." She sighed. "You're not going to kill him. Someone has to hire you, isn't that how it works? And who would hire the assassins to come kill someone terrorizing the pleasure district girls?"

  She said this all matter-of-factly, a resigned fierceness in her features.

  "I can't talk about it," I said. "I'm sorry."

  She watched me across the table. Then she touched my arm again, her fingers grazing across my skin.

  "I've no idea where to find him," she said, "but the whispers say he used to work with Naim Ajeeri. Do you know who that is?"

  I shook my head.

  "He runs the night market here. Another wizard." She shrugged. "He's mad, too, but in a different way. He might be able to help you. He lives in an apartment down by the sea. It's easy to find. The walls are white but the door is painted bright red."

  "Thank you." I pulled out a handful of pressed silver and laid it on the table. The woman stared at the silver for a few moments; then she covered it with her hand. When she slid her hand away from the table, it was gone.

  She looked up at me. "You're not how I pictured an
assassin."

  "Is that so?"

  "You're younger. And more handsome." She stood up. She moved like liquid in the ashy light.

  "If you kill him," she said, "come back and tell me."

  #

  The woman at the dancehall was correct; it was easy to find Ajeeri's apartment building. It stretched down half the street, the white paint flaking off and lying like ashes in the surrounding gardens, which were dry and desiccated from the sun. No one to care for them, I supposed.

  What wasn't so easy was finding Ajeeri's particular apartment. I made my way inside the building easily enough, traveling through the shadows until I emerged in the narrow, dusty hallway. Voices seeped through the walls. Each door was dark and narrow and marked with painted-on numbers. But I had no way of knowing which belonged to him.

  I slipped back outside and found a quiet alley in which to retreat into Kajjil and cast the tracking spell. It was difficult with only a name, but he was close by, in his apartment. I uncovered him easily, hiding away on the apartment building's top floor.

  I left Kajjil but did not return fully to the world. For a moment I hovered amidst the cool damp shadows, trying to decide if I should go to his front door or if I should slip directly into his apartment. He wasn't a target, technically, but I also didn't want to drag my investigation out any further than was necessary.

  When I stepped out of darkness, I stepped into the middle of his living room.

  It was empty, dark, cool. Thick brocaded curtains hung unmoving in front of the windows. The room, the entire apartment, had that still quality I associate with nighttime, with a house full of sleep and dreams.

  Of course. He ran the night market. Why would he be awake during the day?

  I slipped through the labyrinthine hallway, opening every door I came across. The apartment was full of the curiosities of a night market -- clumps of rare flowers drying from the rafters, shelves of glass candles and spirit paintings, stacks of spellbooks. It didn't take me long to find Ajeeri, though. He was asleep, as I'd expected, sprawled out on his stomach on top of the sheets of his bed, snoring a little. For a moment I hovered in the doorway of the room, watching him in the dark. Appraising him. He was wiry and thin, his hair going patchy at the back of his head.

  I stepped one foot into the room.

  Ajeeri sat straight up, his eyes wide open. I pulled my sword by reflex. His gaze zeroed in on me and for a moment he just sat in the bed, sheets crumpled around his waist, watching me.

  Then he bounded off the bed, running in long quick strides toward the window.

  "Stop!" I roared, drawing my sword across my palm and pulling magic from deep inside me, casting a web of it over the apartment. Ajeeri slammed into the magic shield and fell flat on his back. I moved with the shadows until I was crouched over him, sword at his throat.

  "This isn't right!" he babbled. "Do I look like a threat to the Empire? I just run a night market, that's all. I provide a service to the city of Lisirra --"

  "I'm not here to kill you." I hauled him up and tossed him on the bed, although I kept my sword out, more as an intimidation tactic than anything else. My magic still crackled in the air and my blood was smeared across my palm, the wound stinging. Ajeeri looked around the room, his eyes bright. Trying to find a weakness in the magic, no doubt. I strengthened it.

  "What do you want?" he asked, his eyes finally settling on me. "You say you're not here to kill me, yet you trap me in my own bed." He lifted his hands halfway to his head, as if they were shackled in invisible chains. "Blood magic." He spat the words out, the way most people do.

  "I'm looking for Lisim Sarr."

  Ajeeri went still. The frantic expression left his face.

  I stepped toward him.

  "I'm afraid I don't know a Lisim. Or a Sarr."

  He'd gone too long without answering, and he was too glib, and I could smell the lie souring in the wave of magic.

  "Don't lie to me." I lifted my sword. He turned his head and flinched a little but otherwise didn't move. "I heard you used to be partners."

  "I've never had a partner. Do you know anything about me, assassin? Ask anyone in the pleasure district and they'll tell you what I always say: a partner's not worth the trouble. He'll take half and leave you when you need --"

  I leapt onto him, digging one knee into his chest bone, pressing him back into the bed. He squawked and struggled to free himself until I held the sword at his throat.

  "I heard," I said, "that you used to be partners."

  Ajeeri stared at me. He didn't look frightened, exactly, only cautious, careful. I pressed the flat side of my sword against his neck. The heat from his skin clouded the metal.

  "Who told you that?" Ajeeri asked.

  I didn't answer him.

  "Partners isn't the right word."

  I waited for him to say more, but he only stared at me over the curve of the sword.

  "So you do know him," I said.

  "Everyone knows him. Everyone down here, in this charming piece of the city." He wriggled beneath me. "Do you think you could get up? Your knee's causing me a bit of pain -- "

  "No. Why isn't partners the right word?"

  "Because we weren't bloody partners. Why are you asking after him?"

  I didn't say anything.

  "You want to recruit him, is that it? He'd be good for your sort, I imagine, the sort of things he's done. I hear the assassins are always looking for the cruelest killers."

  I hit Ajeeri in the nose, a short sharp jab. I did it without thinking. Blood flowed over his mouth and I added its strength, its life's light, to the magic already shimmering in his apartment.

  "Curse you," he muttered.

  "I don't kill dancing girls," I said.

  Ajeeri glared at me over his smeared blood. "Not just dancing girls he's killed. Anyone he can find down here. Sailors, children…"

  I thought of Leila. I almost have enough money to move out of the city. She knew who she’d helped. She’d called him a dangerous man. I felt vaguely sick. My magic rippled with spots of weakness.

  Focus.

  "If you weren't partners, what were you?"

  Ajeeri sighed. "I mentored him, for a while. Taught him a bit of city magic. I'd the intention of letting him take over the night market when I couldn't stand it anymore. But he had a streak of darkness in him. Some people do. I should have recognized it earlier, but he was charming enough that it was difficult to see." Ajeeri paused and stared up at the ceiling. "It's not a good combination with city magic, that darkness. The worst parts of the city'll get under your skin and bring out the worst parts of you. That's what happened to him."

  I eased my knee off his chest, but kept the sword at his throat.

  "Why does he kill people?"

  I hadn't meant to ask it. I didn't need to know his reasons. I only needed to know where to find him.

  Ajeeri looked at me. "I don't know," he said. "You're the killer here. You tell me."

  My magic trembled. Ajeeri grinned, white teeth against red blood. The sight of it was enough for me to regain my focus.

  "Where is he?" I said, pressing the sword more firmly against his neck.

  "I don't know!"

  I tilted the sword, enough that he'd feel the pressure of the blade but not enough to cut him too deeply. A few drops of blood appeared. My magic swelled.

  "I don't know! I don't keep in contact with a man like that. You want to find him, follow the damned bodies. We've gone a few weeks without one. It's won't be long, I'm sure."

  I pulled away from him, leaving him sprawled on the bed. He lifted his head a little. My magic coruscated around us.

  He was telling the truth.

  #

  Outside of Ajeeri's apartment, the sun was blinding, bouncing off the white walls of the houses and the far-off sparkle of the sea. For a moment it seemed like all the shadows had been wiped away, and I felt alone and vulnerable.

  I walked to Leila's house. I didn't intend to; I intended t
o make my way to the city's center, where I could access the hall of records to investigate the murders. To follow the damned bodies, as Ajeeri had said. But I didn't have time, and after speaking to the woman in the dancehall, I didn't want to read about his murders anyway. I could imagine the sort of things darkness might draw out of a man like that. What abominations he'd create out of the magic of sacrifice.