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through the city, hand in hand until dusk fell and he returned her back to her siblings and kissed her good night.
    But that night it came back to him as he tossed and turned, trying to sleep. His uncle was right. Farrah was deeply angry over her mother’s death. And she felt betrayed by Ashraf’s absence. Kadar needed to defuse that anger and find a way for her ­people to get to safety in the desert. It was time to tell his uncles about the plan he and Ashraf had concocted to move the Forsaken to the abandoned desert city. With Ashraf detained, he needed allies.
    Something covered his nose and mouth, and he choked and flailed, shoving something fuzzy off his face.
    â€œMrrrr,” sounded beside his head, part growl, part inquiry. Then he felt claws on his nightrobe and a weight as Amber curled up like a rock on his chest. The rumble of the little cat’s purr lulled him to sleep.

 
    Chapter 6
    SULIS PACED THE small temple. Djinn watched her with his head on Ava’s lap, draped over a padded stone bench, his twitching tail the only hint that he was feeling Sulis’s irritation. She’d been pacing most of the night already even though the white-­robed woman had told her she was supposed to be meditating.
    She stopped. “How can I pledge to something I don’t understand?” she asked the white-­robed woman again. “At least in Illian they took the time to explain things to us.”
    The woman spread her hands in a giving gesture. She was sitting cross-­legged on a soft meditation mat in front of a crystal globe atop a pedestal. It reflected the black walls, Sulis, and everything surrounding it. It was an altar to the One, and was the only decoration in the small room besides the bench and some meditation zafus and zabutons.
    â€œIf it is right for you to be here, all will be revealed to you. If you are not to be involved, it is best for you to know nothing,” the woman said placidly. “You will not be harmed. This is why we don’t give our names or our purpose to initiates.”
    â€œ Won’t be harmed ,” Sulis said bitterly. “I’ve certainly heard that before.” She curbed her rising panic, fighting it down with all her strength as she tried not to remember the night of her last initiation, when everything went wrong.
    Surprisingly, Ava seemed at ease in the small temple. She sat still on the bench, stroking Djinn’s head. Her eyes were unfocused. She’d settled into meditation after they’d eaten the stew the unnamed woman brought for them. The woman hadn’t even had to tell her to meditate; she just fell right into it. Sulis tried to settle down but was immediately sucked back into the past, into pain and terrible memories. So she was pacing instead, badgering the woman and waiting for sunrise and another terrible ceremony.
    â€œWhere do you ­people live?” Sulis asked. “There isn’t much here but stone. How do you grow anything?”
    â€œThere are dorms and stables in back of the temple,” the woman responded mildly. “There is a water source, provided by the One. The oasis is a day’s ride away, and we grow many things there. We also have a regular caravan tithing food and necessities we cannot grow.”
    Sulis turned as someone coughed politely at the doorway. A man also cloaked in white stood holding two bundles of cloth. He shook them out. More white cloaks.
    â€œNo,” Sulis shook her head, backing away. “I’ve done this before. It didn’t turn out well.”
    Ava shook herself, seeming to wake, and pushed Djinn’s head off her lap before standing.
    â€œIt’ll be okay,” she told Sulis. “ She told me it would. She made me feel better.”
    Sulis stared at her in surprise. Communing with the One had never made Sulis feel better about anything. Ava slipped her hand in Sulis’s. Sulis looked into her earnest blue eyes, then at the man