Page 23 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

“What thebleeding hellswas—”

“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 Darinwill 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 notyowl—”

“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.”

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