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CHAPTER ELEVEN
Leila lent us the largest of the boats that had been tied up out front. It had a newly patched sail and a ropenet for fishing. I didn't want to trust that boat, but as much as it pained me to admit it, I knew Naji was right when he said Leila didn't want us – or him, anyway – dead.
She gave us a basket filled with salted fish and some of the river reeds we'd been eating. I never wanted to look at another river reed again, but I accepted the basket anyway. She also produced a bundle of black cloth for Naji, which he unfurled into an assassin's robe. Leila had cut up his old robe when we first got here, for patching sails and blankets, and he'd been wearing the same cast-off men's clothes I had the past week.
"Where did you get this?" he asked.
"Surely you remember, dearest." Leila winked at him, and Naji looked down at his feet.
"I'm afraid I don't have anything for you," she said, hardly turning her head to look at me. I resisted the urge to make some rude gesture at her. "Oh, and Naji dearest, I put your armor down below."
"Thank you," Naji said, lifting his head. They regarded one another for a few seconds longer, and I turned away and set to fiddling with the ropes so I wouldn't have to look at them.
And then we took off. Port Iskassaya was a three-day trip down river, according to Naji. (Leila'd told him, of course, though he don't know nothing about sailing.) When we arrived we were to release the boat the way you would a camel – I thought of our own camel and wondered if he was still trotting through the desert weighed down with our clothes and money and food – and it'd make its way back up the river to Leila's house. Magic again.
Naji moped that first day, leaning against the railing and looking out over the river. He hadn't bothered to change into his robes yet, and his hair fluttered around his face so that he looked like a prince in a story. I tried to busy myself with the work of sailing, but the ship took care of herself, and after a while I was so bored I leaned up beside him.
He glanced over at me but didn't say nothing.
"You miss her, don't you?"
He kept staring out over the water and didn't answer. The sun was sinking into the canyon, throwing off rays of orange and red, turning the water silver. I don't know why I asked him that. It was like I wanted him to say something to hurt me.
"You don't miss someone like Leila," Naji said, after enough time had passed that I figured he'd no intention of answering. "You merely feel her absence."
"That don't make sense."
"It's hard to explain. She's always played games, but it got worse after–" He stopped. "It doesn't matter. I only came here because I was desperate. I hardly see her anymore."
He leaned away from the railing. "Thank you," he said. "For coming with me to do this."
I was a little sore from hearing him talk about Leila, so I just dipped my head and said, "I told you. I don't want you hanging around me none, either."
"I'll find a way to repay you," he said. "When it's done. You'll be compensated."
I didn't like the way he said that, like I was some hired hand.
"I promise," he said.
I didn't respond, just left him there, muttering something about needing to check on the rigging. And he didn't say anything when I walked away.
I wished there was more for me to do on the ship, so I could throw myself into working and not spend all my time brooding. Mama would have called it the doldrums, but those always came when you'd been at sea for months and months and you were missing civilization so bad you're almost willing to fling yourself overboard and try to swim to land. And it wasn't the river that was causing my trouble anyway.
The second afternoon, Naji came out on deck and called my name. I was up in the rigging – not working or nothing, just sitting up there watching the walls of the canyon slide by. I hung onto the rope and leaned over and watched him clomp around, swinging his head this way and that.
"Look up!" I called out.
He stopped and then tilted his head toward the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun. "How'd you get up there?"
I shrugged and then swung down on the rope, crisscrossing through the rigging, until I landed on deck, a few feet away from him.
"I owe you an explanation," he said.
"I thought you forgot. I was looking forward to ditching you once we made port."
He shook his head. His expression was soft, almost kind, and I wondered what he would look like if he smiled properly. Even with the scar, I bet it was nice.
"Alright," I said. "Let's hear it."
"You remember the woman from the desert? The one who gave you the spell to banish me to the Otherworld?"
"I thought she was dead."
"No. I sent her back where she came from."
"But she bled all over–"
"They don't die," Naji said. "It's not something I can explain – just know that they aren't human."
I crossed my arms over my chest. This was a lot to work through in my head. I'd seen sirens before, and the merfolk too, but you can kill 'em easy as you can kill a man. No wonder I got cold thinking about the Mists.
"So what'd you do to her?" I asked. "That got her so pissed?"
"I didn't do anything to her," he said. "She serves someone in the Otherworld, one of the thousands of lords constantly clamoring for power. I severed some of her master's ties to our world."
"What?"
"I killed some of the children he planted here. They weren't children when I killed them," he added, since I must have looked appalled. There are lines that shouldn't be crossed. "They were attempting to rub bare the walls between worlds, in a move to gain power in the Mists. It's complicated, but…" His voice trailed off. "He was willing to sacrifice our world to gain power in his."
The air was real still. The only movement came from the boat as it sliced through the river water.