"That don't answer my question."
"Because the answer doesn't concern you."
"Really?" I said. "'Well, in that case, this curse of yours don't concern me neither. So if you don't mind, I'll be on my way." And I slipped off my charm and headed toward the front door.
"Ananna!" Naji jumped up from the cot and grabbed me again. I wasn't really going to go. I ain't so heartless I'm gonna let someone be struck down with pain on account of me. Even if that someone is a murderer and a liar. Hell, murderers and liars used to sing me to sleep.
I yanked my arm away from him. "Look, you want me to go with you to the Isles of the Sky – and I can kinda see how maybe it's not the stupidest idea in the world, all things considered, even if it's definitely up there – but if you really want me to go, you have to be straight with me. You gotta tell me things."
"Tell you things," he said.
"Yeah. You know how you didn't tell me who Leila was, or what we'd find here in the canyon? Or what that black smoke was when the Hariri clan attacked?" I glared at him and after a few seconds he nodded. "Well, no more of that."
"I know what 'tell you things' means."
"Sounded like you were asking. Keep in mind that if you want to barter passage on a pirate ship, you will need me. You don't got the cash to buy your way onto one, and ain't no pirate in the Confederation's gonna let a blood-magician on board without some kind of leverage." I jutted my thumb into my chest. "Which is me. So if you want to go on with your secrets, that's fine, but you can expect to wait out the rest of your days in Port Iskassaya."
Naji got that flash of a smile around his eyes. I was too worked up to care.
"I think that sounds like a deal," Naji said.
"Now why the hell should I be worried about the Mists attacking us?" Kaol, even saying Mists sent the creeping shivers up my spine.
"Someone in the Otherworld wants me dead," Naji said. "They'll have no fight with you, but they want me. It's a long–"
Leila appeared in the doorway, that white dress swirling around her ankles. She had her cruel smile on, teeth shining in the lamplight. Naji stared at her the way he did, his face all full of longing. Then he turned back to me.
"Let me tell you on the river," he said.
"Fine." So he didn't want to talk in front of Leila. "But if I don't know the whole story by Port Iskassaya, I'm gone."
Naji's eyes crinkled up again. Then he stuck out his hand. I shook it.
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.