"Collect your things," he said. "I'll wait for you in the alley outside the inn." And he started to dissolve, turning into shadows like the ones I'd seen the first time he attacked me. Just like in the stories. He was halfway disappeared when he turned solid again.
"What do you want?" I snapped.
"A word of warning. Don't think you can slip out the back of the inn. I will know."
"What! I wasn't gonna slip out."
"I can track you," he said. "And I can bind you to me if necessary."
"Oh yeah?" I was a little pissed, cause I ain't done nothing to make him think I had any intention of sneaking off. Not while the Hariris were still after me, at any rate. "Why didn't you just do that straightaway? Bind me to you?"
"Because it's cruel," he said.
That stunned me, ain't gonna lie. I dug the heel of my left foot into the ground, kicking up a spray of sand, and he gave me a look halfway between a glare and an eye-roll and took to dissolving again. I walked through the desert gate alone, although every now and then I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye, as though he was gliding along beside me.
My room was just how I left it, my spare dresses draped over the back of the divan, my money still shoved beneath the loose floorboard under the bed. It was like I'd only been out at the night market, not battling some creature from the Mists and picking up an assassin-protector for my trouble.
Naji was waiting for me in the alley like he said, not as a shadow but as a man, although he'd covered his face again. He looked sinister. At least his eyes weren't glowing.
"You're too conspicuous," I told him. I handed him one of my dresses, folded up to look like a package. "Here, take this."
He didn't. "I've been doing this much longer than you have–"
"I doubt it. Besides, I bet you always worked alone, didn't you? You could slink around in the shadows, no problem. But now that you got me you have to act like a normal person." I pressed the package against his stomach, and this time he touched his hands gingerly against its sides.
"What are you giving me?"
"It's one of my dresses. I don't want to carry it all the way to the pleasure district. Now take off your mask and act like you have a right to be here."
He stared at me. The glow from the street illuminated the little burst of scarring that peeked up from the top of his mask. Then he handed the dress back and turned into shadow.
I cursed under my breath. He had disappeared completely from the alley; all the surrounding shadows lay flat and still and unremarkable. I spent a few minutes juggling my dresses, finally tucking two under one arm and one under the other, before stepping out onto the street. Hardly anybody was out, just a few shopkeepers getting everything ready for the start of the day. I nodded at them like it was totally normal for me to be traipsing through the streets in the dark hours before dawn, heading in the direction of the ocean, alone.
I got to the pleasure district as the sky was turning gray with the day's new light. I ducked into an alley and waited.
Naji materialized a few moments later.
"Now what?" I said. "By the way, I should tell you, my parents might be down here. Wouldn't be up at this hour, but you know."
"Your parents?" He pulled the mask away from his face.
"Yeah, my parents. Kaol, don't you know?"
"I obviously don't."
"I mean, don't you know why you were hired – why the Hariris–"
"I'm not told the particulars," he said, interrupting me. "Only what's needed for my tracking spells. We need to find a place to stay before the sun comes up. You really should rest."
"Is that part of your protection deal? Making sure I get enough sleep?"
He didn't answer, just stepped out onto the street. I hoped he'd pay for the room and I could save my coins for later. That's what Papa would've told me.
Naji stuck his head back into the alley, looking all angry and put-upon, like I was some little kid he got saddled with. I shuffled out to join him. The pleasure district was mostly full of drunks stumbling home for the night. Nobody paid us any mind.
We'd been walking for about ten minutes when Naji spoke.
"Why would your parents be here?"
I glanced over at him. He had his eyes fixed straight ahead. It was like he didn't want anyone to know we were having a proper conversation.
"They're pirates," I said. "I told you."
"You said you were."
We were close enough to the waterfront that I could smell the salt in the sea, and my stomach twisted up with homesickness, not just for Papa's boat but for the ocean itself.
"I grew up on a pirate ship," I said. "Looting and pillaging's all I know."
"How charming. Would your parents take you back if they found you?"
He didn't sound hopeful when he asked it.
"What if they did?" I asked. "What would happen to you? Are you seriously telling me you'd have to tag along, just cause of some stupid oath–"
The expression on his face stopped me cold.
"You talk too much about things you don't understand," he told me, his voice low and dark. "Come along, the Snake Shade Inn's this way."
I knew the Snake Shade Inn, but I didn't say nothing. No place in the pleasure district's exactly high class, but the Snake Shade was lower than most of the places there, and my parents generally avoided it when I was in tow. I'd heard stories from the crew, though, mostly about whores they'd met up with there.
So I probably wasn't going to run into my parents, but if Captain Hariri had dispatched any of his men – maybe. A little shiver of fear eked up my spine, and I snuck a glance at Naji, with his mask and his armor and his black clothes, and wondered if I was gonna need his protection again.
All around us, the food vendors were opening up their carts for breakfast. Cause it was the pleasure district, there were still drunks dragging themselves around, trying to find a place to sleep off the drinkingsickness. Most of 'em shied away from us, crossing the street and turning their faces away, but I could still hear 'em whispering as me and Naji walked by. It was an uneasy feeling, the way their fear followed us down the street.