“I don’t know!” Leila wailed.

The guard swore again and hauled Malik to his feet. “Can you hear me, boy? Answer me.”

Malik opened his eyes. In a flash, the spirit blade sank back into his skin.

And reappeared this time between his teeth, where, with a twist of his neck, he sank it into the guard’s chest.

The dagger cut through the man’s armor into his skin, and he let Malik go with a yell as he fell to the ground. With some fumbling, Malik swiped the ring of keys from the guard’s belt. He sprinted out of his cell and over to Leila’s, passing the keys to her. Soon they had her out and the chains around his wrists removed. Malik’s magic roared to life within him, and he nearly wept with relief.

“The guards approached, but they saw no one in the hallway,” said Malik, and the invisibility wove itself over him and Leila just as the rest of the guards burst into the dungeon. They ran from the chaos, dodging soldiers in every direction until they found an exit that opened up to the street above. The Closing Ceremony was well underway, and they easily ducked into the festivities, just another pair of people lost among the crowd.

As soon as they were a safe distance from the prison, Malik turned his eyes toward the bonfire at the center of Jehiza Square. Bahia’s Comet glowed near the horizon, its arc through the sky almost complete. There was still time until Solstasia ended, though not much. The idea in his mind was fuzzy and uncertain, but it was there.

“Can a spirit be bound to a person?” he asked Leila.

A line furrowed between her brows. “I don’t see why not, but I don’t think—Malik, wait!”

But Malik was already gone, racing through the streets toward Jehiza Square, where the sounds of Solstasia’s final celebration had already begun to echo through the starry night air.

There was one place in the world Malik knew for certain he understood better than anybody else. If there was nothing else he could bind Idir to, his own body would have to do.

32

Karina

Everything smelled like Tunde’s blood.

Even though none of it had landed on Karina, its metallic scent clogged every breath she took. The world stopped moving as his lifeless body thudded to the ground, and Karina watched the terror unfold from somewhere beyond her body, powerless to stop it.

Now Farid was handing the knife to a pair of Sentinels, who expertly extracted Tunde’s glistening, still-beating heart from his chest.

Now Farid was ordering someone to prepare her for the Closing Ceremony, and the Sentinels were carrying Karina to her bedroom as if she weighed little more than a doll.

Now a team of servants were forcing her into the bath, their grips like vises around her arms as they scrubbed her down.

The Kestrel was gone. Commander Hamidou was gone. Farid and the boy she’d known as Adil had never been on her side to begin with.

The servants took her to her new bedroom—Tunde had been there just last night; he had held her here and promised her everything would be all right, and now he was just a smear of blood on stone—and there was Aminata, waiting to dress her as if this were an ordinary night.

“Don’t speak,” said the maid, and Karina had never heard such ice in her friend’s voice. Still, her presence roused a spark of clarity in Karina’s mind. Farid wasn’t going to hurt Aminata too; Karina wouldn’t let him.

“You have to get out of here,” Karina whispered as Aminata dressed her in a gown of the deepest blue with gold embroidery. “Farid killed the Kestrel, and he killed Tunde. He’s a monster.”

Aminata paused. She selected a tiara off the vanity and placed it in Karina’s hair. “Farid saw the corruption in this city and did something about it when no one else would.”

Karina’s chest constricted as if someone had taken a hammer to it. Aminata was on Farid’s side too.

For the first time in her life, Karina was truly alone.

When Aminata finished, she called for more servants to take Karina away, and her friend didn’t even look her in the eyes as she went. The servants led Karina to the parade grounds in front of Ksar Alahari, where those participating in the final procession awaited the order to proceed. Everyone bowed upon seeing her, no one questioning her unusually large number of guards.

The guards bound her hands and feet with leather cords, softer than metal but no less restraining. Then they seated her in a litter open on all sides. When they were done, the soldiers fell into position around the vehicle, still as statues.

Seconds later, Farid appeared beside her on horseback. His robes were of the same midnight blue as her own, with a golden sash slung across his chest. A gold sword, curved not in the Zirani style but more like a sickle inlaid with Kennouan glyphs, hung from his hip. Something jet-black scurried onto the back of his hand: it was a tattoo that moved over his skin as if it were alive, and the image was one Karina had seen in only one place before.

The symbol all the Ulraji Tel-Ra had borne in the mural.

Bile rose in Karina’s throat. Farid was a descendant of the Ulraji Tel-Ra, the sorcerers who had helped enslaved her ancestors and terrorized their people. Her family had taken him in when no one else would, raised him as their own—and in doing so, handed their greatest enemy the keys to their destruction.

“How dare you,” Karina spat. Farid did not reply.

The drumbeats rattled from beyond the wall, signaling the start of the parade. Farid nodded, and the guards lifted Karina’s litter onto their shoulders. She struggled to remain upright as they marched forward in time to the echoing beat.

Solstasia’s closing parade was even more magnificent than the opening one. A team of veiled dancers led the line, singing a reprise of “The Ballad of Bahia Alahari” that brought tears to people’s eyes, and servants threw coins and jewels and all manner of wonderful things to the crowd—treasures from her family’s personal coffers. The chipekwe lumbered ahead of Karina’s litter, the creature’s body wreathed with cords of braided tassels, and on its back sat the council. Karina’s heart seethed with hatred at the sight of them. Beside the litter, the largest of the lion puppets danced for the crowd, and every now and then, it let out a deceptively realistic roar.

No one seemed to find it strange that Karina was not participating.

“Help!” she screamed, her voice barely audible over the clamor. Those who did hear her howled back in delight, and the awful realization hit her: the people thought she was bound as part of the parade.

With no other options, she focused her energy on Farid.

“Why are you doing this?” Karina pleaded. “Was it something I did?”

The bonfire in Jehiza Square loomed ahead. The flames burned a hellish red against the evening sky, an image of searing flames and acrid smoke ripped from the depths of her worst nightmares. Karina’s breaths came out in short, uncontrolled bursts, and she fought to form coherent thoughts through the relentless throbbing in her head.

“Please, Farid,” she begged. “Whatever I did to you, I swear I will make it right.”

“This is the only way,” Farid said, so quietly she thought she’d misheard him.

“The only way for what?”

The blaze ahead reflected in his dark eyes. “The only way to have her with me again.”

“Have her with you . . .” There was only one “her” who had ever mattered to Farid, no matter how many years passed by. Karina drew a sharp breath. “Hanane?”

“Don’t you dare say her name!” he snapped. Karina’s anger grew—even after all he’d put her through, everything always, always came back to Hanane.

They were halfway through the square now, the pyre growing closer by the second. The smoke in Karina’s lungs threatened to choke her from the inside.

“Who are you to tell me not to say my own sister’s name?” she said, coughing. She searched the crowd for familiar faces and found only a sea of strangers.

“You really don’t remember.” Karina could not tell if that was disgust or awe in Farid’s voice. “You really don’t remember killing her.”

Pain cut through her head, and Karina doubled over, tears flowing freely down her face. “Hanane died in a fire.”

“A fire you started,” said Farid coolly, “when you summoned a lightning storm that struck the palace and started the blaze. That’s all you’ve ever done: break things apart and leave others to deal with the damage.”

He was lying. The storm had been a freak anomaly in the middle of the still season. There was no way she could have, or ever would have, summoned something so destructive. Karina tried to recall that awful night, but the memory remained tangled inside the knot she had failed to unravel for years.