“If it were so simple, I wouldn’t stand amid this rot.” Disdain dripped from the Silver Witch’s frown.

“If a witch who can wield magic can’t retrieve it, what good is a girl with a bow?” Zafira asked, and she could hear Deen trying to keep silent.

The witch clucked her tongue. “The more you think about it,” she said, leaning close, “the madder you’ll become. Wise words, those.”

“Baba’s,” Zafira whispered.

Deen moved then. He wound his pinkie around hers, grounding her.

The Silver Witch smirked. “The one who would not have died if you hadn’t been bedridden. I watched him breathe his last. Quite brutal, your mother.”

Red pulsed in Zafira’s vision. How long had the woman spied upon her and her family? And why?

“Thank you for watching,” she bit out.

“Not even I can control the Arz.” The witch’s expression turned wistful. Adoring. “There is a certain beauty in chaos, magnificence in the uncontrollable.”

“You lie,” Deen seethed.

Zafira was frozen with the image of Baba’s lifeless body. Deen rubbed his hands up and down her arms, but Zafira wanted to fold into herself.

“Ah, he speaks,” the witch said with a smile, and Deen’s swallow was audible. “Alas, I cannot lie.”

The moment the witch set her sights on Deen, Zafira felt a chill down her spine. She shoved thoughts of Baba away and stood straighter. “If you can’t control the Arz, then how would I stand a chance in Sharr?”

The witch’s dark eyes flashed, and Zafira felt she had pushed too far. If the woman could freeze the very heart of a horse, Zafira did not doubt her own could be shattered in the blink of an eye. And Deen’s.

Deen, who was here because of her.

“I am not forcing your hand, Huntress. Come if you wish, or step aside and I’ll find another. Pity, I thought you would want to claim such a victory for a woman.”

Zafira hesitated.

The witch curled another smile. “Think of it. A life without the shadow of the Arz, with the Baransea at your borders and magic at your beck and call. I will even go so far as to provide passage across the sea. When your caliph comes to see you off, as he will, you’ll be in a prime position to strike a bargain or three. You have so much to gain.”

She might not be forcing Zafira’s hand, but she was certainly guiding it.

“Why the caliph? If this is for all of Arawiya, the sultan should be involved.”

“A caliph is as much a king of his caliphate as the sultan is of his kingdom. And the sultan, as we both know, has had dark notions as of late,” the witch replied.

Zafira recalled the men who had ambushed her and, before that, the crown prince who had murdered Sarasin’s caliph upon the sultan’s orders. Dark notions, indeed.

“As biased as your caliph is, he is a good man. I thought it best to inform him before sending the legendary Hunter of his caliphate on a dangerous mission to Sharr.”

“What have you to gain?” Deen asked.

The witch’s careful expression wavered. Sadness tipped her lips and creased the folds of her dark eyes.

An act. It has to be.

“Is it wrong to seek redemption as any mortal might?”

As any mortal might? Zafira shivered at what that meant the Silver Witch could be. She slid a glance at Deen, but he barely breathed.

“It depends on what you seek redemption from,” Zafira said carefully.

“I wronged someone I once loved.”

Zafira lifted her eyebrows, and the witch’s sorrow vanished as quickly as it had come.

“If you don’t believe in redemption, Huntress, then believe this: by the year’s end, the Arz will consume every piece of Arawiya. A small risk, embarking on this journey, laa?”

She was right. Sharr might be a sentence of death, but the people of Arawiya had already been sentenced to death. It was only a matter of time—so little time, too. Less than Zafira had anticipated.

It seemed so simple. Journey to the island, find the Jawarat, end the cursed Arz, and restore magic. But Sharr.

“How can a book restore magic?” Zafira asked.

“In the same way a book can reenact the history of civilization, instruct upon a delicious dish, or tell a tale of pleasure,” she said, as if Zafira had asked the most obtuse question known to man. “Do you question how a girl like yourself returns from the Arz?”

The witch was adept at answering questions with more questions.

“And you expect her to go alone?” Deen asked. “Why not have the caliph send men with her?”

“If I wanted a party, boy, I would make one,” the witch said. She turned, cloak fanning around her. “Death will be her companion. He’s kept her safe all this time. Why stop now?”

Zafira shivered at her choice of words. Deen’s pinkie tightened around hers, pinching until she tugged away. She heard the woman’s voice once more, a hushed whisper in her ear despite the distance between them.

Farewell, Huntress.

An icy fist tightened around Zafira’s throat. She struggled to breathe, and when she could, the witch was gone.

CHAPTER 11

Nasir woke to a manservant beside his bed. He scowled and dragged a hand across his face, stubble scraping his palm.