She stared into the night until her eyes began to burn.

“Deen, I—” Her tongue felt heavy. I’m not like Yasmine. It wasn’t that she didn’t want marriage. She just wanted more. Didn’t he just say he wanted that, too? “I’m not ready to marry yet.”

Doubt flashed in his beautiful eyes, and Zafira’s stomach twisted.

He asked, “And when you are ready?”

“I will marry you,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. Her heart told her brain she was lying, but she ignored it. It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t. She couldn’t think about marriage when the sister of her heart had left her and maybe-assassins had been sent for who knew what. When the Arz had conjured a woman in silver who claimed she was cursed. When an invitation to daama Sharr burned on silver parchment.

Deen exhaled and nodded, but the tension only tightened with the stubborn set of his jaw. “I’m not an idiot, Zafira, asking you to marry me just because my sister’s married herself off. But I thought…” He paused, and her heart began to pound. “I thought I would be better than a death sentence. I thought marriage would give you another option. Another sense of purpose. Isn’t that what you search for in the Arz?”

“What are you talking about?” she whispered. She didn’t search for anything in the Arz. She hunted. She didn’t know what she wanted any more than she knew what she was waiting for.

But today, the invitation—it had made something rear its head.

“Were you going to tell me?” he asked instead. He sounded tired. Resigned. “About the letter, Zafira. The invitation you have in your pocket right now.”

She bit her tongue. Lana. Deen was the one who had come when Zafira was in her room.

“I know you,” he said. “I saw you at the wedding with that look in your eyes, and I thought it was because of Yasmine. But it wasn’t, was it? It’s the same look you have when you stare at the Arz, and I should have realized.”

She drew her eyebrows together. “What look?”

“Elation. Adoration, even,” he whispered, and clenched his jaw.

Zafira’s pulse fluttered. Hadn’t she used the same word to describe the way the silver-cloaked woman stared at the Arz?

“I don’t know where it came from, but I know it’s an invitation to chaos.”

“Deen, it’s magic. We could have magic again. How can you not want that?” she asked. Sharing the invitation with him opened a spigot inside her, and she wanted to throw back her head and shout. Every story her father had spun could be real. Oh, what she would give to feel the rush that the old ones had known. To have magic thrum at her fingertips. “You’re less excited than I thought you would be.”

“Did you miss the part about Sharr? And before that, you’ll need to travel across the Arz.”

“I go there every day.”

“You don’t cross it, Zafira. No one has. Magic might lie at the end of this journey, but that doesn’t mean you will attain it. There is no reason to get anyone’s hopes up. Least of all yours.” He rubbed a hand across his face, and Zafira knew he was upset.

“But think about it,” she insisted. “Magic means no more cursed snow. It means the Arz won’t swallow us whole, because it won’t exist anymore. You can do everything you’ve always wanted to do.”

“At what cost?”

Zafira met his eyes as the cold clouded between them. “At whatever cost it takes. I owe the world this much, don’t I? I owe it to the world to try.”

“You owe the world nothing. Do you even know where the letter came from? Do you really think magic can be restored with a book?”

Something flickered in his eyes when she didn’t respond.

Silence stretched between them until he sighed. “Yaa, Zafira. Will you go, then? Alone?”

“I think so,” she said, but felt the need to say more. “How far can we run before the Arz reaches us? Running is not a life.”

More silence, in which Deen looked sad, terribly so. She reached for his hand and curled her pinkie around his, but his eyes strayed to her lips and she had to remind herself that he was no longer the boy who cared for her like a sister. That she was no longer a little girl. That he had just asked for her hand in marriage.

Such closeness didn’t bode well.

As if hearing her thoughts, he tucked the same wayward strands of hair behind her ear again, admiration in his gleaming eyes, and he leaned closer, barely. Zafira found herself running her tongue over her cold lips. The golden curls at his forehead begged to be touched, but her eyes dropped to the fullness of his mouth.

“Zafira,” he whispered.

Marry me. Her daama brain started working again. She took a step back, the words from the letter suffocating her breath.

“Don’t,” she said quietly, a quake in her voice. The moon was bright enough that she could see desire darkening his eyes.

And the House of Selah, imposing behind him.

Something ached in her heart, but she steeled the shards in her chest and turned away.

CHAPTER 10

With every step of Sukkar’s hooves, Zafira found it harder to think. If she was going, she had to decide now. If she was going, every passing moment took her closer to the quest. To Sharr. To leaving her village.