Ali reeled. “It is my home.”
“Then how fortunate you have another.” Sobek seized a new current, dragging it over them and stalking off.
Ali followed, unwilling to give up. “Then can I do it? Travel the currents myself?”
“No.” There was a new warning in the marid’s voice. “You will never have full use of your powers with that ring in your heart, and you should be grateful for it.” Sobek raised his hands, spreading them as though in prayer.
The watery ceiling collapsed, landing as light rain upon Ali’s face.
The wondrous river tunnel was gone, the glimmering light, the gold-flecked path. Ali and Sobek stood in the knee-deep shallows of a winding, beachside creek. It was still night, but the stars and moon gave enough light to reveal that the desert had been replaced by a jungle of unfamiliar trees. Though he couldn’t see the ocean, Ali heard the break of waves in the distance.
“Ta Ntry,” Sobek announced. “Walk south. The coast and the forests are marked with the human ruins your kind like to haunt.”
Ali was thrown by the abrupt change in scenery and found himself aching for a final glimpse of the Nile’s enchanted underbelly, the radiant temple of water. Its vanishing echoed through him with a sorrow he couldn’t explain.
He glanced down at Nahri. She hadn’t so much as stirred in her charmed sleep, a damp curl plastered against her cheek.
What is your price? Ali was suddenly very glad he hadn’t had to answer the question for himself. “You’re the marid that cursed her appearance, aren’t you?” he asked. “The one that made her look human and left her in Cairo.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
“Because her human kin paid my price, and it was the best way to protect her.”
“She was a child, alone and frightened. That was no protection.”
Sobek’s eyes flashed. “I have saved her life twice and made a journey that might have killed you pass in a night. I have honored my exchange.” He stepped back. “You should go.”
“Wait!” Ali moved between Sobek and the deeper water. “Is there truly no way I could learn to travel the currents? To access the kind of water magic I had before I took the seal?”
“No.” Sobek tried to step past him.
Ali blocked his path. “Then could another marid?” He thought fast. “Tiamat. The one who was birthed in the lake. Is this ocean not said to be her domain now? Could I—”
Sobek grabbed him, and any protest Ali might have made died on his lips.
“Tiamat would more likely rip your soul from your body and devour you, ring and all.” Sobek stared into Ali’s eyes with his black-and-yellow gaze, and Ali’s heart skipped in fear. “I am granting you mercy, mortal. You have a place in your world. Return to it. Were you wise, you would forget what you know of marid. My people have your name, and you will not be able to fight them, not with Anahid’s ring holding you back. Take your woman and flee to your deserts. It is safer.”
He let go of Ali so abruptly Ali lost his balance, nearly dropping Nahri. By the time he recovered, Sobek was striding deeper into the creek, green clouds swirling around his lower half.
“Why?” Ali burst out, suddenly fearing that he’d missed something, that Sobek was twisting him in a way that would become clear too late. “You say you don’t help us, you only work in exchanges. Why grant me your mercy or your advice?”
Sobek paused. His youthful humanoid form was almost gone. “Alizayd al Qahtani,” he said, speaking Ali’s name aloud for the first time. “I will remember you.” The last bit of his visage slipped away under a crocodilian mask.
And then without another word, he vanished beneath the water.
16
DARA
It was silent in Daevabad’s Grand Temple at this darkest hour of the night. For a people who honored the ascent and descent of the sun, marking the first and last glimpse of its burning orb with quiet gratitude to their Creator, this time farthest from its presence was meant for being safe and asleep with their loved ones, a fire altar burning to keep the demons out.
But Dara had no loved ones and was a demon himself, so here he was.
The first night he’d come, he’d been drawn to the earliest shrines: to the Nahids who’d united the tribes to build Daevabad and their Afshin protectors, figures from a world that seemed so much simpler, one in which heroes were just that, and their enemies as obviously wicked. His gaze traced their statues with envy and longing. How he wished that could have been his society.
And yet even Dara had a limit for useless brooding, and so though he found himself returning, slipping through the Temple gate and along the moonlit garden paths smelling so sweetly of jasmine, he did so with a purpose: sweeping the floor of ashes and dusting the shrines. He did so without magic, for it was not permitted in the Temple, and it felt better to perform this service with his hands, the smallest penance he could.
Dara was doing so, running a broom of dried rushes along the marble foundation of Anahid’s enormous central altar, when the sound of soft steps caught his ear. He recognized the weary intake of air and the shuffling gait with the expanded senses his form now gave him, senses that had a predatory instinct he hated.
“I wondered when you would catch me,” he greeted Kartir quietly, tidying the accumulated pile of dust without turning around.
“I thought to let the acolytes responsible for cleaning enjoy another morning of extra sleep,” Kartir replied. “But it struck me that a man sneaking in to serve the shrines in the middle of the night might be in need of counsel.”
“Is it that obvious?”
The priest’s voice was gentle. “It has been apparent for a very long time, Darayavahoush.”
Dara’s grip
