She looked away.
"Did you?" I said. "Did you know?"
She lifted her head and stared at a point in the distance. Sunlight poured around her, casting her skin in a soft golden glow. "Of course I knew," she said softly. "I didn't think they'd send you." She paused. "You shouldn't go after him anyway. Take the punishment from the Order and tell them to send someone else."
"This isn't about me being in danger!" I stood up, anger pumping through me. "You know how few times I get to do something -- something worthwhile? That my work can keep people safe?"
She didn't answer.
"I'm not completing the commission merely so I can avoid punishment. I don't know why you'd even think that." I could hardly look at her. The past three years I'd spent my life running errands for the rich, because that was what the Order had become. Now Leila had stripped me of an opportunity to save the lives of people in the pleasure district, dancing girls and children. All so she could have a little taste of wealth herself.
"You disgust me," I told her.
She looked at me, then, and I was startled to see she was crying. I'd never seen Leila cry. I didn't think she was capable of it.
"What was I supposed to do?" she asked. "If I hadn't taken his offer it would be another four years before I could move. I'm dying here, Naji. Literally. I need the river."
I stalked away from her, heat rising up in my veins. "You have the money," I snapped. "Just tell me where he is."
"I don't know."
I stopped, staring at her door.
"I cast the spell, but he drew up his own magic at the last minute and it wiped my memory clean. I have no idea where I sent him. That's why I didn't tell you earlier."
The room wrapped around us.
"I'm never going to find him, am I?" I said.
"Not asking after him. It won't work. He's got my magic and his, and I can't undo my own spell. I don't even remember what I cast. He took it all away."
I continued staring at her door, my thoughts heavy. I had the afternoon; I had the nighttime. And then the Order would punish me, and I would have let a murderer go free.
The thought twisted me up.
"I'm sorry," Leila said behind me, "But there's nothing --"
I turned to face her. "Can I borrow one of your rooms?"
"What?"
"One of your rooms. Can I use it safely? I need to slip away."
She stared at me like she didn't understand. "I told you, it's impossible --"
"Darkest night, Leila, just answer my question."
She sighed and fell back on the divan. "Of course you can use one of my rooms," she said, and she wiped the tears away from her eyes.
I didn't say anything, only followed the familiar path of her hallway. There was a room tucked away in the back of her house that I thought would serve my purposes well. A closet, really, with no windows and no chances of distraction. I put up a locking charm when I went in—a precaution, although I didn't expect Leila to interrupt.
I traced my knife along the edges of the Order tattoos, dropping the blood on Leila's floor in a lopsided circle. I didn't have all the supplies to do this properly, but I hoped my blood and my urgency would be enough for me to find the answers I needed. I tossed my knife aside, out of the circle, and sat down and began to chant in the language of the Jadorr'a, the words low and rough in the back of my throat. Magic steamed in the air.
I fell away.
My body stayed in Leila's house but I opened my eyes in the center of Kajjil. When I joined the Order as a little boy, I memorized spell after spell, but this one, this opening of a gateway, was the first.
This was the part of Kajjil that held answers.
Kajjil's center looks different to every individual. For me it was a desert of glass. The wind sounded like chimes. I wandered over the landscape, murmuring my question in the language of the Jadorr'a:
How do I find Lisim Sarr? How do I find Lisim Sarr?
I wasn't sure I would get an answer. The wind slipped through the glass dunes. My feet ached. My eyes watered.
How do I find Lisim Sarr? I asked, raising my voice.
And then Kajjil's center answered. The place was created by the Order years and years ago, and they built it out of the knowledge of every Jadorr'a who had ever been. Those Jadorr'a answered me now, whispering on the wind:
Fire.
Fire.
Fire.
"Fire?" I didn't understand. I've no capacity for fire magic.
Fire, the voice said, rising in a clamor. Fire fire firefirefirefire.
And then flames erupted out of the glass ahead of me, golden flames shot through with human bodies, and I understood.
The Fire of Amkarja.
The flames extinguished in a curl of smoke, but the voices continued to chant fire as I stood in Kajjil, afraid to return to my body. I knew, in theory, how to ignite the Fire. It was one of the spells I had memorized as a little boy. A spell my tutor had warned me away from.
"To find what is lost," he'd said, leaning over me as I worked. "It never goes out. It will always keep looking. But there are easier ways to track a target."
And he was right, assuming the commission was simple. Routine.
I pulled away from Kajjil and reconnected with my body. For a moment I lay in the circle and stared up at the ceiling. The room was darker than when I had left, no bright sunlight peeking through the crack in the door. I was losing time.
I stood up, gathered my knife, and crept out to Leila's hallway. Her house was empty, still, and dark. I found her sleeping on the divan, the skin around her eyes red from crying. I knelt down beside her and shook her awake. She gasped a little and her eyes opened and gave me a long sad look.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"You aren't a very good person," I said.
"I know. I'm all right with it." She reached over and cupped my face in her hand and smiled. Her touch was gentle and soft and it reminded me of every other time she had ever touched me. Stupid as it was, I couldn't stay angry with her. "You're not, though," she said. "Not finding him won't change that."
"I know how to find him." I took her hand in mine and squeezed. She watched me, her expression unreadable. I stood up. "I saw the way in Kajjil."
She pushed herself up onto one arm. "Are you going to do something stupid?"
"I'm going to stop him."
"So yes."
I turned away from her and walked to the door. Behind me, she said my name. She told me to wait.
But I ignored her.
#
I went into the desert, far away from the lights of the city. It was darker than I could have imagined, so dark I could barely see my own hands. I cast a handful of small lanterns, and they floated around my head like wayward stars, illuminating everything with pale blue light. They didn't help much.