“Dusk. A few hours ago.”

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know!” I cried out. The gun smashed across my head. Blood erupted across my vision. I saw a burst of red and light before it cleared and I could see the lanterns swinging above my head again.

“Where is he?” the commander asked.

“I don’t know,” I repeated, because the truth was all I had now, as weak as it was.

“I will shoot him again, and this time it might not be in the leg.”

“I’m not lying! He didn’t tell me. Why would he tell me?” I was shouting now.

“Which way did he go?”

“I don’t know!”

“Lying is a sin, you know.” The gun pressed against my cheek, hot metal in my face.

And then the world exploded into noise and light.

•   •   •

RINGING.

Everything was ringing.

My first thought was that someone had been shot.

Tamid?

I was facedown on the ground. I pushed myself to my elbows.

In the dark all I could see was fire where I knew a cliff of black brick was supposed to be.

The entire weapons factory was ablaze.

Sound rushed back in. Screaming came first. The folks of Dustwalk had flung themselves to the ground in prayer, or just covered their heads; some staggered to their feet, others just stared. Commander Naguib was already shouting instructions, Tamid and I forgotten. Soldiers were leaping onto their horses, riding full tilt toward the blaze.

Tamid.

He was crumpled on the sand, not moving, but as I called his name he looked up at me. At the same moment I heard his name again. His mother was cowering and weeping in the sand, trying to crawl toward him.

Then I heard the unmistakable scream of a Buraqi. The desert horse was barreling down the street toward us. On its back was Jin, riding straight toward me. Guns swiveled uncertainly in Jin’s direction. He fired a shot and a soldier went down.

I turned back to where Tamid was crumpled.

The Buraqi was almost on top of me.

I had seconds to decide. My legs were trapped, my gut tugging me recklessly toward Tamid. To near certain death. My heart tugging me to Jin and escape and the unknown.

Jin leaned over the horse, reaching down. A gunshot went off at my feet.

It wasn’t a decision. More than a want.

It was an instinct. A need. Staying alive.

Jin’s hand came into reach. I clasped it tight and swung my body as Jin pulled me up behind him. I saw Aunt Farrah’s ashen face. I saw Tamid crumpled in the sand. I saw Commander Naguib, reloading his weapon. Defenseless. Young.

It would be a clean shot. And Jin was armed. One shot and the commander would be dead. Jin knew it, too; I felt it in the tension of his shoulders. Instead he pulled the horse around, lowering his gun, and my hands twisted into Jin’s shirt a second before the Buraqi burst into the speed of a beast of wind and sand.

seven

“Tell me you drink.”

I woke to rough cloth against my face and the smell of gunpowder in my nose. I’d dozed off with my head against Jin’s back as we rode. His words vibrated through his shoulder blades and into my skull, jangling loosely until I put them together.

“You’ve seen where I grew up.” My voice sounded scratchy. When I opened my eyes all I could see was the weave of his shirt, but I could already tell we weren’t anywhere near Dustwalk. The air tasted different, of cooler mornings and grit instead of heat and dust and gunpowder. “Of course I drink.” My body ached and my chest felt like something was clattering around it. God knew I could use a drink or five right about now.

Sometime while we rode I’d wound my arms around Jin’s waist to hang on. I let him go and wiped the sweat of my palms onto my own shirt as Jin slid from the saddle. I tried to line up my thoughts along with my spine as I forced myself straight.

Wherever we were, it looked like most desert towns. Slapped together wooden houses and dusty ground. Only it was rockier than Dustwalk, and the horizon loomed close and high around us in the predawn haze. We must’ve gone up into the mountains.

I squinted up at a swinging signpost with a picture of a crudely drawn blue man with closed eyes. The lettering announced it as the Drunk Djinni. I knew that story, but I couldn’t remember it just now.

The town was dead quiet.

“Where are we?” I asked, only to realize Jin was gone. I twisted atop the Buraqi and spotted him two houses down, hopping over a flaking white fence. A line of laundry was strung between the house and a crooked post, and Jin snatched a piece of crimson cloth straight off it. My eyes traveled past him, up the mountain, beyond the houses. I answered my own question.

Sazi was a full day’s ride from Dustwalk. Or a few hours as the Buraqi ran. I’d heard so much about the mining town, but I’d never seen it. They said it was bad here after the mines collapsed a few weeks ago. But I still couldn’t have imagined this.

An explosion. An accident. Gunpowder gone wrong was the word in Dustwalk, and I’d figured I knew what they meant. I’d blown up bottles and tin cans along with all the other kids in the desert. I’d seen them shatter as we ran hollering for cover. Sometimes a kid would get a burned finger that needed to be sawed off, or a scarred chin, but most of the time we just wound up with a mess of metal and glass and sand all melted up together.

The collapsed mines looked a lot worse than a melted hunk of old tin. It reminded me of my father’s body when they dragged him out of our house, his skin still smoldering. The mountain itself was disfigured, like the earth had rebelled from within its very soul and closed the mountain’s ancient mouth, swallowing the mines whole.