NAHRI CRASHED TO THE GROUND. THOUGH LEAPING out of mansions was not a new experience, it had been years, and she bumbled the landing, crumpling painfully on one ankle in the slippery mud.
But with the marid roaring behind her, a howl that sounded nothing like her friend, she pushed on, jumping to her feet and fleeing into the forest. Branches and vines tore at her face, her slippers instantly shredded.
The sounds of pursuing feet came from behind her, barely audible against her ragged breathing. Ali made no other noise, and Nahri suddenly felt horribly hunted and outmatched, like a doomed gazelle fleeing a lion. Just ahead was the swollen creek, rushing red with mud and rain. She sprinted for it.
The marid caught her. They crashed to the flooded bank, Ali landing on top of her.
“Oh no, Nahid,” the marid said. “This we do together. For I too am rather eager to see Sobek.” He pulled free the knife. “So if you don’t mind …”
He dragged the blade down her palm, breaking the skin. Nahri held back a cry of pain, refusing to give the marid the satisfaction as he yanked her bleeding hand away from her chest, shoving it underwater.
“SOBEK!” He spat the blood flowing from Ali’s nose into the creek. “Your mortals call!”
There was no response. The rain lashed Nahri’s face, the marid holding her so hard it hurt. She tried to wrench away, and his hand went to her throat, pushing her head closer to the surging water. The creek tugged viciously at her hair.
“What do you think would make him come faster?” the marid purred. “If I drowned you or if I shoved a blade through the heart of his little hatchling?”
“Nahri!” Jamshid had caught up, rushing from the castle gardens to join her.
Everything went very cold.
Below her, the creek chilled, flattened, and then stilled so completely that it might have been an untouched lake deep below the earth. The monsoon marid loosened his grip enough that Nahri scrambled free, crawling backward across the scrubby bank as something stirred in the mists billowing above the creek. She saw the outline of a reptilian head, dark scales, and glowing eyes.
A kind of primal terror Nahri had never known—not when glimpsing her first hint of the supernatural in a Cairo cemetery, not when facing down a fiery ifrit—rushed through her as the largest crocodile she had ever seen rose up before them. More mist shrouded it, circulating as if in devotion, and then the crocodile shifted, taking on the appearance of a youth with green skin and eerie dappled yellow-and-black eyes.
The creature—Sobek, Nahri realized, remembering what Ali had told her about the Nile marid—appraised each of them in turn, his head and neck darting like a snake selecting a meal.
His gaze settled on Ali, and he charged.
Ali barely swayed when Sobek thrust his hands at his chest. Instead, the squall burst again from his back with a hiss and the smell of fresh rain, and then Ali collapsed at Sobek’s feet.
But the monsoon marid didn’t leave. Thunder shook the ground, lightning splitting the sky as the rain condensed, shifting and darting like a wave to loom over Sobek and Ali. It wasn’t the river monster the Gozan had turned into, but it was still intimidating.
It had nothing on Sobek, however. Nahri squinted, trying to get the image of the Nile marid to stay solid in her mind, but it was impossible. He carried himself with a speed and lethal grace that made Dara look slow, a low rumbling growl coming from his throat that caused every hair on the back of her neck to stand on end. The air smelled of blood, of mud on sunbaked scales.
Jamshid had made it to her side. “Suleiman’s eye,” he gasped, staring at the pair of dueling marid.
Ali rose to his knees. He retched murky water and then, with a wail, staggered to his feet and rushed the monsoon marid. His knife sliced uselessly through the rainy form.
Cruel laughter filled the air. No, not the air. Nahri’s head, like a voice inside her mind. And then words as well, in hissing syllables that pieced themselves together.
Your spawn has your temper, Sobek. A pity you did not teach him to protect himself.
Sobek grabbed Ali by the arm and shoved him back, knocking him into the brush. “He is not your concern. Return to the clouds.”
More thunder cracked the sky. Nahri jumped, Jamshid’s grip tightening on her arm.
He is our concern, you arrogant fool! You consumed his memories; you know what has happened. We are in debt to the Nahids’ champion because of your mistake!
“It was not I who chose to test the boundaries by killing one daeva with another,” Sobek hissed. “That was a reckless decision. Had they taken the time to consider his blood—”
You swore they were dead! You promised the Blessed One herself it was done!
“And it was done. Tiamat knows. She feasted on the memory!”
Ali climbed back to his feet, putting his hands out as if to steady himself. He was a bloody wreck, his soaked clothes hanging in rags, his nose swollen. “What’s going on, Sobek?”
Take him, the monsoon marid demanded. You should have taken him the moment you realized what he was. Give him to Tiamat, beg for mercy, and pray the gift of Anahid’s ring saves your soul.
“No,” Sobek insisted. “He has fulfilled his ancestor’s bargain. He has taken the ring from the Nahids and their city.”
He desires to give it right back!
Nahri wrenched free of Jamshid. She’d had enough of being spoken over by two sniping water demons.
“Your people aren’t supposed to interfere with mine,” she reminded them, stepping between Ali and the two marid. “Remember? This is definitely interfering, and at this point, I’m ready to take my chances calling that Nahid champion you’re all so frightened of. Leave.”
It was a lie, but both marid drew back—well, the
