She looked at me warily.
"I'm looking for someone," I said. "Lisim Sarr."
Her eyes went wide when I said his name. She glanced over her shoulder, toward the door, then back to me. The music played on.
"Are you going to kill him?" she asked.
"What?"
"You're an assassin, aren't you? Is that why you're looking for him?" She slid into the chair next to me and put her hand on my arm, her touch feather-soft. I smiled at her again, and her eyes sparkled a little -- with excitement, I thought. Interest.
"I'm not allowed to tell you that," I said.
"Then why are you looking for him? Do you want to help him?"
I hesitated. I really didn't like tracking people this way. It was too nuanced, too dependent on understanding the network of human connection. But I was astute enough to notice a flicker of fear when she asked if I wanted to help him.
My being Jadorr'a, that didn't scare her. But the thought that I might be helping Sarr --
"No," I said. "I just need to talk to him."
"You won't be able to. He's mad." She pulled her hand away from me and slouched in her chair. Her hair fell across her face. The band finished their song and desultory applause scattered across the room. The woman picked her head up a little. "That's what everyone says, anyway. And he’s wicked as well. Although isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Kill wicked men?"
Her words surprised me. I regarded her for a moment. There aren't many people in the Empire who understand the history of the Order, who understand that we were formed long ago to keep the people of the desertlands safe from kings would rather rage war with each other than rule. Most only know us as the killers for hire that we’ve become, and not for what we are supposed to be.
Of course, we had never exactly been vigilantes hunting down all the wickedness in the desert, but the notion was close enough.
"Yes," I said.
"Then you should kill Sarr. He's the wickedest man in Lisirra." She pushed her hair away from her face and looked up at the stage. A new song had begun, slow and slippery and sad, and the dancer writhed in the smoky blue light. "I'm not just a waitress. Or a dancer. I own this place." She glanced at me. "I don't normally take drink orders, but my daytime waitress is dead. He killed her."
"How do you know it was him?"
"The whispers." She paused, then explained. "The girls, the ones who work at night, they bring us information. Who's dangerous, who isn't, that sort of thing. We call it the whispers." Silence. "He uses his victims to work magic. He does different things to them. With my waitress he took out all her insides and filled her with stones from the desert. For a spell. They wouldn't tell me what it did."
I didn't say anything, but I felt a tightness in my chest, that Leila had helped someone like this.
"The thing about Sarr," she went on, "is that he's powerful, powerful enough to change his appearance. So you can't go by that. It's always the powerful ones who are the cruelest." She sighed. "You're not going to kill him. Someone has to hire you, isn't that how it works? And who would hire the assassins to come kill someone terrorizing the pleasure district girls?"
She said this all matter-of-factly, a resigned fierceness in her features.
"I can't talk about it," I said. "I'm sorry."
She watched me across the table. Then she touched my arm again, her fingers grazing across my skin.
"I've no idea where to find him," she said, "but the whispers say he used to work with Naim Ajeeri. Do you know who that is?"
I shook my head.
"He runs the night market here. Another wizard." She shrugged. "He's mad, too, but in a different way. He might be able to help you. He lives in an apartment down by the sea. It's easy to find. The walls are white but the door is painted bright red."
"Thank you." I pulled out a handful of pressed silver and laid it on the table. The woman stared at the silver for a few moments; then she covered it with her hand. When she slid her hand away from the table, it was gone.
She looked up at me. "You're not how I pictured an assassin."
"Is that so?"
"You're younger. And more handsome." She stood up. She moved like liquid in the ashy light.
"If you kill him," she said, "come back and tell me."
#
The woman at the dancehall was correct; it was easy to find Ajeeri's apartment building. It stretched down half the street, the white paint flaking off and lying like ashes in the surrounding gardens, which were dry and desiccated from the sun. No one to care for them, I supposed.
What wasn't so easy was finding Ajeeri's particular apartment. I made my way inside the building easily enough, traveling through the shadows until I emerged in the narrow, dusty hallway. Voices seeped through the walls. Each door was dark and narrow and marked with painted-on numbers. But I had no way of knowing which belonged to him.
I slipped back outside and found a quiet alley in which to retreat into Kajjil and cast the tracking spell. It was difficult with only a name, but he was close by, in his apartment. I uncovered him easily, hiding away on the apartment building's top floor.
I left Kajjil but did not return fully to the world. For a moment I hovered amidst the cool damp shadows, trying to decide if I should go to his front door or if I should slip directly into his apartment. He wasn't a target, technically, but I also didn't want to drag my investigation out any further than was necessary.
When I stepped out of darkness, I stepped into the middle of his living room.
It was empty, dark, cool. Thick brocaded curtains hung unmoving in front of the windows. The room, the entire apartment, had that still quality I associate with nighttime, with a house full of sleep and dreams.
Of course. He ran the night market. Why would he be awake during the day?
I slipped through the labyrinthine hallway, opening every door I came across. The apartment was full of the curiosities of a night market -- clumps of rare flowers drying from the rafters, shelves of glass candles and spirit paintings, stacks of spellbooks. It didn't take me long to find Ajeeri, though. He was asleep, as I'd expected, sprawled out on his stomach on top of the sheets of his bed, snoring a little. For a moment I hovered in the doorway of the room, watching him in the dark. Appraising him. He was wiry and thin, his hair going patchy at the back of his head.
I stepped one foot into the room.
Ajeeri sat straight up, his eyes wide open. I pulled my sword by reflex. His gaze zeroed in on me and for a moment he just sat in the bed, sheets crumpled around his waist, watching me.
Then he bounded off the bed, running in long quick strides toward the window.
"Stop!" I roared, drawing my sword across my palm and pulling magic from deep inside me, casting a web of it over the apartment. Ajeeri slammed into the magic shield and fell flat on his back. I moved with the shadows until I was crouched over him, sword at his throat.