Leesil turned back to the desert, with its air rippling in the heat.
“Get back under cover,” he said. “In that fur, it takes too much water to cool you down.”
This was an additional problem. Even when they’d chanced upon a well along the way, Ghassan had watched everywhere as the rest of them refilled the waterskins. Taking a tribe’s water was worse than stealing its gold or property. Leesil could understand that, for it was so hot out here that any sweat dried as fast as it could form.
How long would they just sit and wait? What could they do to survive if they had to go after Magiere?
—It has been ... only ... six ... days—
Annoyance bubbled up inside Leesil; he could count for himself.
Cocking his head, he looked toward the other tent for Ghassan and Brot’an. While setting up camp, neither had expressed the slightest hesitation at sharing with the other. At first Leesil found this odd, as not only were the two men strangers but both were secretive by nature.
Then he remembered that Ghassan had spent much of his life in a sage’s guild, with little day-to-day privacy. Brot’an had undergone long journeys with other members of his caste and would be similarly accustomed to shared sleeping arrangements.
Leesil had simply been glad that he and Chap had their own tent. The past six days would have been worse had they been forced to sleep beside Brot’an.
When—how—were they ever going to get rid of the scarred old assassin?
At more rustling in the quiet morning, Ghassan emerged from the second tent and approached. He didn’t appear affected by the heat, and his lips were less cracked or chapped than anyone else’s. The domin scowled at both Leesil and Chap standing out under the sun.
Leesil ignored this, as he knew the domin now knew better than to say anything about it.
“Any sign?” Ghassan asked, shielding his eyes and peering north by northeast.
“No, but maybe we should start looking for her.”
Ghassan didn’t answer.
Leesil had mentioned this option more than once. It always led to another argument, but this was the sixth day. He wasn’t giving in this time and was about to press his point when Ghassan stepped suddenly beyond him and squinted into the distance.
“What?” Leesil asked.
Ghassan dropped to one knee and began digging in his robe.
Chap inched in before Leesil could as the domin pulled out a roll of leather. Leesil had seen it before. The domin rolled it open to reveal two round glass lenses with studded brass frames. The few tools the man carried were all like this: parts broken down for easy storage that could be reassembled.
Ghassan rose up, placed the crude spyglass to his eye, and peered northeast. Leesil didn’t have a chance to ask as the domin turned on him.
“Go now!” Ghassan ordered. “I will get water, a wet cloth, and anything else.”
Chap lunged past, his back feet clawing up the hard-packed ground.
“Chap, no—you can’t help!” Leesil shouted.
The dog didn’t listen and raced away.
“Brot’an, she has returned!” Ghassan called.
Leesil bolted after Chap. If it hadn’t been for the dog outdistancing him, it might have taken longer to see where to run. He didn’t see anything until he began to grow dizzy with exertion in the heat. Then he saw ... a figure far out beyond Chap, rippling in the air, and as he closed, he thought it was dragging something behind itself.
Leesil made out the white muslin on the figure’s head as he saw Chap slow and circle around Magiere. He knew he probably couldn’t carry her all the way back on his own, let alone drag what she’d found. But only he and Chap dared get near her when she was like this. They would have to break through to her before Brot’an arrived.
Magiere didn’t appear to see him and kept planting one foot slowly after the other. Panic was the only thing that kept Leesil going in the heat as he came to a halt ten paces in front of her. Chap was panting as he paced, watching her.
Leesil saw her fully black eyes.
“Magiere?” he tried to say, but it came out hoarse and half voiced.
Her pale skin wasn’t burned, but it looked paper thin to him; the shadows of veins were visible in her face and neck. Still he waited and watched her trudge as he listened for Brot’an’s footfalls. She was thin, as if she hadn’t eaten enough. Only one waterskin hung over one shoulder and looked flat and empty.
—Look—
At that single word in his mind, Leesil’s gaze shifted.
What Magiere dragged was heavy and bulky inside the cloak cinched at the end of the rope. The bulk appeared large and round. She took a few more steps toward him, and he looked at her again.
A thôrhk—orb key—hung around her neck.
He wondered wildly whether it was her own ... or a different key. He hadn’t seen her take one with her, but they all looked so similar. The instant Leesil heard Brot’an’s fast footfalls coming from behind, he looked to Chap.
“Now!”
Chap lunged into Magiere’s path, and she halted. She wavered as her face barely twisted in a snarl at him. Then came a shudder, and she almost lost her footing.
Leesil lunged one step before stopping himself, and all he could do was watch.
Whatever Chap did—whatever memories he called up in Magiere to wake her other half—took hold. The black of Magiere’s eyes receded rapidly like ink sucked into her pupils. A hoarse cry escaped her mouth as her eyes closed and she started to crumple.
Leesil rushed in to catch her. He was so exhausted that her weight drove him to his knees. He got one of his arms around her back and the other beneath her legs as he prepared to lift her.
—She ... found ... it—
Leesil almost snapped at Chap for breaking his focus. When he looked up, Chap had clawed open the cloak ... and there it was.
Brot’an dropped down on one knee, reaching for Magiere.
“No!” Leesil told him. “Get the orb ... and bring it with Chap.”
A day and a night passed, and Magiere still did not awaken. Chap never left her side. He watched as Leesil tended her, wiping a damp cloth on her face and trying to squeeze drips into her mouth.
It did not work.
Ghassan came with healing salve but was dismissed. Neither manacles nor weapons had injured her, and she would have healed from such on her own. She suffered something else now, and no matter how Chap tried, how often he dipped into Magiere’s mind, he never found a single rising memory.
Once, he had understood the workings and limitations of her dhampir nature. In the past year and a half, the depths of it had become a mystery again. She pushed her body through trials it should not have withstood, and this time it had been too much.
This time it was his fault as much as hers.
She understood as he did what the others would not, including Leesil, who was too obsessed with taking all three of them home.
Back in the sanctuary, when Ghassan had announced where the orb might be hidden, in the long moment that followed, Chap and Magiere had privately agreed to this plan before she’d openly stated that she alone could survive the journey. This had been the only way to accomplish what had to be done.
The final orb had to be recovered, and no one else could survive.
Now Chap clung to the hope that Magiere would come back to herself and awaken, though something even more dire distracted him upon her return. Both Ghassan and Brot’an took too much interest in the orb of Air. It was within easy reach of a renegade master assassin and an enigmatic domin skilled in the dead art of sorcery. So Chap had Leesil drag the orb into the tent they shared, and he never let it out of his sight.