The Witch’s Betrayal

A Short Story

By Cassandra Rose Clarke

When I stepped out of the shadows, the scent of night-blooming flowers overwhelmed me. I wasn't expecting a garden, not this far into the desert, and the sight of it put me on edge. Everything about this commission suggested it was simple, routine -- but these flowers spoke of magic.

I did not want to deal with magic tonight. I wasn't supposed to deal with magic tonight.

I threaded through the garden, coasting on the backs of shadows, the metallic taste of the tracking spell lingering in my throat. The house loomed up ahead, wrapped in heavy ropes of jasmine. It was a simple house, white clay glowing in the moonlight, and it had been simple to track the target here. Simple, as I said. Routine.

The windows were dark, no candles or magic-cast lanterns illuminating the night. Good: the thick shadows made my magic easier. I dissolved into darkness, sliding away from the garden and the scent of flowers and the cold night air. The darkness was a different sort of cold -- death-cold, a friend at the Order always said, and I knew what he meant, because of the way the shadows curl into your nose and mouth and lungs, as if to drown you. But I didn't mind. That drowning cold meant I was hidden. Protected. It meant I could watch unseen from the places people did not look.

I passed through the walls of the house.

I pulled myself out of the darkness.

Something was wrong.

I stopped, half-in, half-out. The air was charged, crackling with residual magic. Through the haze I saw that the garden was not confined to the outside of the house. Shrubs emerged out of the slats in the floorboards, vines grew along the walls, palm fronds hung from the ceiling beams. Every plant was heavy with blossoms, and I could make out the scent of them, heady and unnatural.

Too much magic in too short a time. No one ever intended these plants to grow here, but the magic transformed the house so completely that they did anyway. They were a side-effect, a dangerous one.

Fallout, we called it in the Order.

By instinct, I sank back into the shadows and emerged a safe distance from the house, in the dry desert sands. The house and its garden rippled in the night wind. I took a deep breath, steadying myself. The fallout hadn't begun to affect me, not in that short a time, but no human could stay in that house for long without transforming with the magic. Fallout’s nature was such that it could never be controlled. Not even by someone like me.

I retreated into Kajjil, the Order's secret space between worlds, and cast the tracking spell again. I found my target immediately: he was in the house, still alive and still human.

This wasn't right. If he was in the house, the magic would have subsumed him. If the magic had subsumed him, I would not have been able to track him with my spell.

I cast it again and received the same results. Frustrated, I stepped out of Kajjil and stood in the wind and tried to decide what to do next. My first thought was that this was someone from the Order, a rival, hoping to ruin my commission – that sort of thing happens frequently enough that it was worth the consideration. But the magic in the house was not ack'mora. More likely, the target had received word that was I coming and had escaped -- although I didn't know how he could have heard, or what magic might have confused my tracking spell.

The wind picked up, blowing from the direction of the house and bringing with it the scent of the garden, the scent of living magic. I couldn't leave, not with my commission incomplete. When I am given a target, they must be eradicated. I have no say in the matter. Ever since I was a little boy taken away from his mother, my actions have belonged to the Order, and I’ve learned, over the years, to accept it.

But if I wanted any hope of finding this target, I would need something, some clue, as to how he had evaded me.

I traveled through the shadows. When I was back inside the house, I did not emerge completely, though it was difficult to see. Going inside was dangerous, but I could not go back to the Order empty-handed. Flowers crowded the rooms. The fallout tugged at the edges of the shadows, trying to draw me out. I didn't let it. I worked quickly, moving from room to room. The fallout made things confusing, difficult to latch on to.

And then I found something.

The highest concentration of magic was located in the bedroom. It was so dense and unstable that I didn't dare move beyond the doorway, not even half-wrapped in shadow. But I didn't need to go further to recognize the eerie, glowing white flowers twining around the bed. They were a particular flower, bred by a particular woman. I had seen similar flowers as seedlings. I had walked through a garden of such flowers, side by side with the woman who had grown them.

"Leila," I said, and the shadows took me away.

#

I rapped on Leila's door. She didn't answer. I shouted her name and rapped harder, the door banging in its frame. Still no answer. A discouraging sign.

I stepped away from the door, turned and looked at the empty street. A magic-cast lantern flickered overhead, casting eerie golden-limned shadows along the rows of houses. Despite being in the city, the air here was clean and bright in comparison to the magic-soaked air surrounding the target's house, and I breathed it in, trying to clear my head after the journey through Kajjil.

The stillness settled around me. I turned back to Leila's house and pulled out my sword, banging on the door with its hilt. The sound echoed up and down the street. "Leila!" I shouted. "Let me in!"

A light flickered on in one of the nearby houses. I cursed and sheathed my sword, melting into the shadows. I didn't want to enter Leila's house without permission. That's something I only do with targets. But I couldn’t wait.

When no one came onto the street, I stuck out my foot and kicked her door one last time for good measure. And only then did it slide open, pale light spilling across her porch, illuminating the flowers she grew in ceramic pots, the same ones I'd seen at the target's house.

Her face appeared, beautiful in the moonlight. Her hair curled around her bare shoulders and her eyes were lined with that dark, smoky make-up she wore when she wanted something. It was clear she had not been asleep.

"Oh, well, isn't this a shame?" she called out, peering into the street. "I was certain it was my dear friend Naji at the door, but I don't see anyone here." She pouted. "I guess I'll have to go back inside."

She began to pull her door closed. I stuck my foot out again and it jarred to a stop.

"You know I'm here," I said softly.

Leila turned in the direction of my voice and gazed at a space over my left shoulder. She smiled wickedly, her eyes glinting.

"I can't see you," she said.

Leila always made me nervous, despite my fondness for her. She was not a woman to be charmed by a simple smile, and so hiding myself was one of my ways of keeping the upper hand.

"But you know I'm here." I moved closer to her, staying on the edges of the light. The shadows drifted across her face, and she closed her eyes, and smiled again.

"But I can't see you," she said. "How do I know I'm not simply going mad? This could all be a dream."

"You don't expect me to believe you were asleep."

Something flickered in her expression. I caught it because I was looking for it.

"And what do you think I was doing?"

I emerged then, stepping into the light spilling out of her house. She leaned up against her doorframe and watched me.

"There you are," she said, trailing one hand along my cheek, just as my shadows had done to her. "Always a joy to see your face, Naji."

"May I come in?"

"Of course." She held the door open. I could smell the steely scent of river water coming from inside her house, the scent that followed her everywhere. She was saving her money, I knew, in order to move to a new house in the canyon, close to the river where her power would be strongest.

I went inside, and she shut the door behind us.

"So you’re feeling lonely tonight?" she asked, sliding up close to me, slipping her arm in mine. I let her, of course. "Couldn't stand the thought of spending the evening with only those dusty old books?"

"I had a commission."

Her arm stiffened.

"Did you? I take it that it went well, if you're here for a celebratory tumble." She laughed.

I forced myself to ignore her, to not think about the unraveling magic of her touch. "You know it didn't."

"Didn't what?"

"Didn't go well!" I pulled away from her. She blinked up at me, her face guileless. "The target was gone before I got there."

"Are you sure you should be telling me that? I don't think the Order would be glad to know that you let someone beat you to the job--"

"I didn't say he was dead. I said he wasn't there."

She didn't say anything. Her hair fell across her left eye in a way that made me want to push it aside. I didn't.

"The house was drowning in fallout."

"Sounds like he got away, then."

"Someone helped him."

"Oh, Naji, I know it may be hard for you Jadorr'a to understand, but there are people in the Empire with more power than--"

"I saw your damned river flowers all over the place."

She stopped, lifting her chin a little, draping herself against the wall. Her expression changed. It was no longer guileless at all.

"I was hoping they wouldn't send you," she said.

"Where is he?"

She watched me for a few moments without answering. I returned her gaze.

"Did you really think it'd be that easy? That you'd ask and I'd tell you?"

"Darkest night, Leila! I can't go back to the Order unless the commission is completed! This was supposed to be routine."

"So stay here with me." She slid forward and reached out for me. I jerked away from her.

"Where is he?" I asked again, although I knew it was futile trying to intimidate Leila.

She slumped back and sighed. For a moment she looked older than she really was. Ancient. The sight chilled me.

"What made you think this would be simple?" she asked.

"What?"

"This commission. You said it was supposed to be routine. Why would you think that?"

"I didn't think you were going to be involved, for one thing."

Leila narrowed her eyes. "You should never assume that, Naji. And you should never assume a commission is going to be routine."

"Don't tell me how to do my job."

She put her hand on my shoulder. "I really didn't think they'd give him to you." Her voice was soft and stripped bare. I knew she meant it.

"Why not?"

"Because you're young." She looked up at me, her eyes big and luminous. In other circumstances I would have kissed her and finished our conversation in the morning. But not tonight. "Because he's a dangerous man."

"Most people would say I'm a dangerous man."

Leila's face broke open in a smile. Everything about her transformed. "Ah, true enough. But you don't like to hurt people, and he does."

"So why'd you hide him?"

"He paid me." She shrugged. "I've almost got enough to move out of the city." And then she stepped away and I could feel the negative space of her absence. She didn't look at me.

"Fine," I said. "You hid him. You did what he paid you for. I'm assuming he only paid you to hide him once? If the Jadorr'a come after him a second time--"

She looked at me over her shoulder. "Don't," she said, her voice dark. "I told you, he's dangerous. You're in over your head. Go back to the Order and tell them to send someone else."

"I can't do that."

She rolled her eyes and swirled away from me. "You won't be able to find him. I know too much about your tracking spells."

"There are other ways to track someone."

She stopped. Her hand traced along her thigh and her hip, a distracted gesture.

"Leila," I said. "If you're waiting for the rest of his payment, you know I can get that for you."

She didn't answer.

"I'll find him eventually."

Her shoulders hitched, and she looked at me again, her spine curving beneath the thin fabric of her dress. I couldn't look away from her.

She smiled sadly and said, "I'll be praying to the spirits of the river that you don't."

#

After I left Leila's house I slipped through the shadows until I came to a bar on the edge of the city, one that was open despite the late hour. It was also completely empty, and the waiter watched me with alarm as I moved across the room and took a table in the corner, no doubt recognizing the dark robes and carved armor that branded me a member of the Order. That has always been the hardest part of being Jadorr'a. The way people look at you like you're a monster.

I stared at the waiter until he came over and took my order, and then I slouched back in my chair and drummed my fingers against the table. I was putting off communicating with the Order, to be sure, but I also wanted to consider the best way to track the target -- Lisim Sarr. Without my magic, I would have to use his name.

I hated thinking on the names of my targets.

The waiter brought my drink, a slim glass of sugar wine imported from the south. I drank it fast enough that my head spun. I could feel the waiter cowering next to his stack of coffee cups even though I took pains not to look at him.

I supposed I should start by finding out who my target was.

I finished my sugar wine and gestured the waiter over. He picked up the empty glass with trembling hands. "Anything else, sir?"

I pulled out three sheets of pressed copper, twice what the wine cost. "Do you know anyone named Lisim Sarr?"

The waiter stared at me like he thought I was playing a trick.

"Well?" I asked. "Do you?"

"No, sir."

I studied his face carefully, but I saw no hint that he was lying. No matter. I hadn't expected things to go that easily.

"Ah, well," I told him. "Thank you anyway."

I pushed away from my table and walked out of the bar, leaving the waiter shivering in my wake. I needed an inn. It was ridiculous, that I should have to stay in an inn in my own city, but under no circumstances could I return to the Order's manor house unless my commission was complete. And so I traveled through the shadows to the pleasure district, where I would have to endure filthier rooms but fewer questions. I selected an inn close to the docks and requested a room that looked over the sea. The sea and the river aren't the same, of course, but the lapping of the waves reminded me of Leila.

After I paid for my room, I asked the innkeeper the same question I had asked the waiter at the bar.

"Sarr?" he said, caught unawares.

I nodded.

"No, I don't --" His eyes flicked away from me. "I'm afraid I haven't heard of him, no."

I leaned close and drew out the shadows enough that they crawled over the counter. The innkeeper stumbled backward.

"You shouldn't lie to me," I said.

"I ain't lying, honest -- I've heard the name, but I don't -- don't know him. Don't want to know him." He tossed the key at me. I caught it, and the shadows retreated into the light.

"Where have you heard the name?"

"Here and there, you know. The girls don't like him." He jerked his head in the direction of the street. "I always give 'em a free meal if they bring their business here, and I've heard 'em whispering."

"That's it? You've only heard his name from the street girls?"

"Nah, you hear it from others sometimes too. But I don't know nothing about him, I swear. It's just a name."

"Thank you for your cooperation," I said. This had turned out more useful than I might have expected, and it made sense that an innkeeper in the pleasure district would know of a dangerous man. If Sarr was indeed as dangerous as Leila was claiming.

Doubtful.

In my room, I locked the door, took off my armor and turned down the sheets on my shabby, creaking bed. I stood in the window and looked out over the ocean glimmering beneath the stars. I was wasting time in every way I could think of. But I knew I couldn't put off contacting the Order forever.

When I finally decided to get it over with, sunlight was just beginning to creep up over the water. I fell away from the room, through shadows, through Kajjil, until I was a shade in the flickering firelight of the Order's assignment room. Zahir was waiting for me with a glass of dark red wine. Seeing him filled me with a dull, familiar dread that I did my best to ignore.

"This is taking longer than we expected, Naji."

I felt like I was a child again, being scolded for doing poorly in training.

"I encountered complications." My voice reverberated against my ears. My body was still in the inn, stretched out on the bed, surrounded by dawn's light and the scent of the sea, but my voice and thoughts, all the rest of me, were at the Order.

"Complications?"

I chose my words carefully. "Yes. Someone has helped him. He evaded my tracking spells."

Zahir said nothing.

"I'm confident I'll be able to track him."

"This was not meant to be an involved operation."

"And it won't be. It should be completed by tomorrow evening."

Zahir snorted into his glass. "Do you have any idea how many times 'tomorrow evening' becomes 'two months from now'?"

"I've already begun my investigation. I don't foresee it taking two months."

"Let's hope not." Zahir set his glass down and looked at me -- looked at my shade. He seemed bored, sleepy, irritated. Which was fair: he was an old man. I imagine he didn't appreciate staying up all night waiting for me to bring word. "I'll give you until tomorrow's sunrise. If it takes any longer than that, expect punishment."

I shivered.

"Yes, of course. Thank you, Zahir."

He snorted again and waved me away. Five heartbeats later I was back in the inn room, weak gray sunlight filtering through the window.

Tomorrow's sunrise.

One full day.

I could find the most dangerous man in Lisirra in one full day.

#

I only allowed myself to sleep for four hours. When I woke up, the sunlight was a bright, sparkling mass choking out the air of my bedroom. It hurt my eyes. But I couldn't allow myself the luxury of sleep right now.

Before I left, I cast a tracking spell to double check. According to my magic, Sarr was still nestled safely in that house in the desert. I muttered a few profanities, directing them at Leila.

Then I set a ward on my room and went downstairs. The inn's main room was empty save for the innkeeper, who wouldn't look at me. Outside, the pleasure district was just beginning to stir. It was nearly noon. I bought a meat pie from a street vendor and ate it as I walked down the street, keeping my eyes out for street girls. Since the innkeeper had mentioned they sometimes spoke of Sarr, I thought they were the best place to begin my investigation.

Without magic, I would have to track Sarr through the trails all people leave, through his connections and relationships. And right now, the only relationship I had uncovered was with the girls who prowled the pleasure district's streets after dark, providing it with its name.

However, uncovering street girls during the middle of the day proved more difficult than I thought. I wound up at a dancehall after half an hour of wandering. It had only just opened, strings of magic-cast lanterns blinking red and blue and gold, washed out in the sunlight. I went in. Most of the tables were empty and the air was thick with pipe smoke. Magic jangled in the background, emanating from an unenthusiastic band in the corner. A few women danced onstage, looking as bored as the band.

A woman came to ask if I wanted anything to drink. She wore a spangled dress that caught the light and threw dots of color across the floor. Her eyes were made-up with same dark shades that Leila favored.

Like Leila, and unlike most people in the city, she didn't act frightened of me.

"I don't need anything to drink," I told her, making sure to smile, to put her at ease. "But I do need your help."

She looked at me warily.

"I'm looking for someone," I said. "Lisim Sarr."

Her eyes went wide when I said his name. She glanced over her shoulder, toward the door, then back to me. The music played on.

"Are you going to kill him?" she asked.

"What?"

"You're an assassin, aren't you? Is that why you're looking for him?" She slid into the chair next to me and put her hand on my arm, her touch feather-soft. I smiled at her again, and her eyes sparkled a little -- with excitement, I thought. Interest.

"I'm not allowed to tell you that," I said.

"Then why are you looking for him? Do you want to help him?"

I hesitated. I really didn't like tracking people this way. It was too nuanced, too dependent on understanding the network of human connection. But I was astute enough to notice a flicker of fear when she asked if I wanted to help him.

My being Jadorr'a, that didn't scare her. But the thought that I might be helping Sarr --

"No," I said. "I just need to talk to him."

"You won't be able to. He's mad." She pulled her hand away from me and slouched in her chair. Her hair fell across her face. The band finished their song and desultory applause scattered across the room. The woman picked her head up a little. "That's what everyone says, anyway. And he’s wicked as well. Although isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Kill wicked men?"

Her words surprised me. I regarded her for a moment. There aren't many people in the Empire who understand the history of the Order, who understand that we were formed long ago to keep the people of the desertlands safe from kings would rather rage war with each other than rule. Most only know us as the killers for hire that we’ve become, and not for what we are supposed to be.

Of course, we had never exactly been vigilantes hunting down all the wickedness in the desert, but the notion was close enough.

"Yes," I said.

"Then you should kill Sarr. He's the wickedest man in Lisirra." She pushed her hair away from her face and looked up at the stage. A new song had begun, slow and slippery and sad, and the dancer writhed in the smoky blue light. "I'm not just a waitress. Or a dancer. I own this place." She glanced at me. "I don't normally take drink orders, but my daytime waitress is dead. He killed her."

"How do you know it was him?"

"The whispers." She paused, then explained. "The girls, the ones who work at night, they bring us information. Who's dangerous, who isn't, that sort of thing. We call it the whispers." Silence. "He uses his victims to work magic. He does different things to them. With my waitress he took out all her insides and filled her with stones from the desert. For a spell. They wouldn't tell me what it did."

I didn't say anything, but I felt a tightness in my chest, that Leila had helped someone like this.

"The thing about Sarr," she went on, "is that he's powerful, powerful enough to change his appearance. So you can't go by that. It's always the powerful ones who are the cruelest." She sighed. "You're not going to kill him. Someone has to hire you, isn't that how it works? And who would hire the assassins to come kill someone terrorizing the pleasure district girls?"

She said this all matter-of-factly, a resigned fierceness in her features.

"I can't talk about it," I said. "I'm sorry."

She watched me across the table. Then she touched my arm again, her fingers grazing across my skin.

"I've no idea where to find him," she said, "but the whispers say he used to work with Naim Ajeeri. Do you know who that is?"

I shook my head.

"He runs the night market here. Another wizard." She shrugged. "He's mad, too, but in a different way. He might be able to help you. He lives in an apartment down by the sea. It's easy to find. The walls are white but the door is painted bright red."

"Thank you." I pulled out a handful of pressed silver and laid it on the table. The woman stared at the silver for a few moments; then she covered it with her hand. When she slid her hand away from the table, it was gone.

She looked up at me. "You're not how I pictured an assassin."

"Is that so?"

"You're younger. And more handsome." She stood up. She moved like liquid in the ashy light.

"If you kill him," she said, "come back and tell me."

#

The woman at the dancehall was correct; it was easy to find Ajeeri's apartment building. It stretched down half the street, the white paint flaking off and lying like ashes in the surrounding gardens, which were dry and desiccated from the sun. No one to care for them, I supposed.

What wasn't so easy was finding Ajeeri's particular apartment. I made my way inside the building easily enough, traveling through the shadows until I emerged in the narrow, dusty hallway. Voices seeped through the walls. Each door was dark and narrow and marked with painted-on numbers. But I had no way of knowing which belonged to him.

I slipped back outside and found a quiet alley in which to retreat into Kajjil and cast the tracking spell. It was difficult with only a name, but he was close by, in his apartment. I uncovered him easily, hiding away on the apartment building's top floor.

I left Kajjil but did not return fully to the world. For a moment I hovered amidst the cool damp shadows, trying to decide if I should go to his front door or if I should slip directly into his apartment. He wasn't a target, technically, but I also didn't want to drag my investigation out any further than was necessary.

When I stepped out of darkness, I stepped into the middle of his living room.

It was empty, dark, cool. Thick brocaded curtains hung unmoving in front of the windows. The room, the entire apartment, had that still quality I associate with nighttime, with a house full of sleep and dreams.

Of course. He ran the night market. Why would he be awake during the day?

I slipped through the labyrinthine hallway, opening every door I came across. The apartment was full of the curiosities of a night market -- clumps of rare flowers drying from the rafters, shelves of glass candles and spirit paintings, stacks of spellbooks. It didn't take me long to find Ajeeri, though. He was asleep, as I'd expected, sprawled out on his stomach on top of the sheets of his bed, snoring a little. For a moment I hovered in the doorway of the room, watching him in the dark. Appraising him. He was wiry and thin, his hair going patchy at the back of his head.

I stepped one foot into the room.

Ajeeri sat straight up, his eyes wide open. I pulled my sword by reflex. His gaze zeroed in on me and for a moment he just sat in the bed, sheets crumpled around his waist, watching me.

Then he bounded off the bed, running in long quick strides toward the window.

"Stop!" I roared, drawing my sword across my palm and pulling magic from deep inside me, casting a web of it over the apartment. Ajeeri slammed into the magic shield and fell flat on his back. I moved with the shadows until I was crouched over him, sword at his throat.

"This isn't right!" he babbled. "Do I look like a threat to the Empire? I just run a night market, that's all. I provide a service to the city of Lisirra --"

"I'm not here to kill you." I hauled him up and tossed him on the bed, although I kept my sword out, more as an intimidation tactic than anything else. My magic still crackled in the air and my blood was smeared across my palm, the wound stinging. Ajeeri looked around the room, his eyes bright. Trying to find a weakness in the magic, no doubt. I strengthened it.

"What do you want?" he asked, his eyes finally settling on me. "You say you're not here to kill me, yet you trap me in my own bed." He lifted his hands halfway to his head, as if they were shackled in invisible chains. "Blood magic." He spat the words out, the way most people do.

"I'm looking for Lisim Sarr."

Ajeeri went still. The frantic expression left his face.

I stepped toward him.

"I'm afraid I don't know a Lisim. Or a Sarr."

He'd gone too long without answering, and he was too glib, and I could smell the lie souring in the wave of magic.

"Don't lie to me." I lifted my sword. He turned his head and flinched a little but otherwise didn't move. "I heard you used to be partners."

"I've never had a partner. Do you know anything about me, assassin? Ask anyone in the pleasure district and they'll tell you what I always say: a partner's not worth the trouble. He'll take half and leave you when you need --"

I leapt onto him, digging one knee into his chest bone, pressing him back into the bed. He squawked and struggled to free himself until I held the sword at his throat.

"I heard," I said, "that you used to be partners."

Ajeeri stared at me. He didn't look frightened, exactly, only cautious, careful. I pressed the flat side of my sword against his neck. The heat from his skin clouded the metal.

"Who told you that?" Ajeeri asked.

I didn't answer him.

"Partners isn't the right word."

I waited for him to say more, but he only stared at me over the curve of the sword.

"So you do know him," I said.

"Everyone knows him. Everyone down here, in this charming piece of the city." He wriggled beneath me. "Do you think you could get up? Your knee's causing me a bit of pain -- "

"No. Why isn't partners the right word?"

"Because we weren't bloody partners. Why are you asking after him?"

I didn't say anything.

"You want to recruit him, is that it? He'd be good for your sort, I imagine, the sort of things he's done. I hear the assassins are always looking for the cruelest killers."

I hit Ajeeri in the nose, a short sharp jab. I did it without thinking. Blood flowed over his mouth and I added its strength, its life's light, to the magic already shimmering in his apartment.

"Curse you," he muttered.

"I don't kill dancing girls," I said.

Ajeeri glared at me over his smeared blood. "Not just dancing girls he's killed. Anyone he can find down here. Sailors, children…"

I thought of Leila. I almost have enough money to move out of the city. She knew who she’d helped. She’d called him a dangerous man. I felt vaguely sick. My magic rippled with spots of weakness.

Focus.

"If you weren't partners, what were you?"

Ajeeri sighed. "I mentored him, for a while. Taught him a bit of city magic. I'd the intention of letting him take over the night market when I couldn't stand it anymore. But he had a streak of darkness in him. Some people do. I should have recognized it earlier, but he was charming enough that it was difficult to see." Ajeeri paused and stared up at the ceiling. "It's not a good combination with city magic, that darkness. The worst parts of the city'll get under your skin and bring out the worst parts of you. That's what happened to him."

I eased my knee off his chest, but kept the sword at his throat.

"Why does he kill people?"

I hadn't meant to ask it. I didn't need to know his reasons. I only needed to know where to find him.

Ajeeri looked at me. "I don't know," he said. "You're the killer here. You tell me."

My magic trembled. Ajeeri grinned, white teeth against red blood. The sight of it was enough for me to regain my focus.

"Where is he?" I said, pressing the sword more firmly against his neck.

"I don't know!"

I tilted the sword, enough that he'd feel the pressure of the blade but not enough to cut him too deeply. A few drops of blood appeared. My magic swelled.

"I don't know! I don't keep in contact with a man like that. You want to find him, follow the damned bodies. We've gone a few weeks without one. It's won't be long, I'm sure."

I pulled away from him, leaving him sprawled on the bed. He lifted his head a little. My magic coruscated around us.

He was telling the truth.

#

Outside of Ajeeri's apartment, the sun was blinding, bouncing off the white walls of the houses and the far-off sparkle of the sea. For a moment it seemed like all the shadows had been wiped away, and I felt alone and vulnerable.

I walked to Leila's house. I didn't intend to; I intended to make my way to the city's center, where I could access the hall of records to investigate the murders. To follow the damned bodies, as Ajeeri had said. But I didn't have time, and after speaking to the woman in the dancehall, I didn't want to read about his murders anyway. I could imagine the sort of things darkness might draw out of a man like that. What abominations he'd create out of the magic of sacrifice.

Leila's house was closed up tight against the afternoon sun. I hadn't bothered to shift into the shadows on my way there, and I was soaked in sweat, my hair sticking to the side of my face. Penance, I suppose, for being what I am, for being something so close to Sarr. Blood magic is a sort of darkness. Maybe not the same, but close enough.

I banged on Leila's door until she answered. When she saw me standing on her porch, she didn't say anything, only held the door open for me. I went inside and stripped off my armor and collapsed on the divan she kept in her main room. She brought me water in a simple wooden cup. I drank it down. She sat down on the divan beside me and tangled her fingers up in my hair.

"Why did you walk here?" she asked.

"Why did you help Sarr?"

Her hand froze against the crown of my head. Silence swallowed us both.

"I told you not to track him," she whispered.

I sat up, pulling away from her. She didn't reach for me.

"Why did you help him?"

"I explained that to you."

"You knew what he did. You had to, if you were warning me away from him --"

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.

I'd been able to procure a stack of firewood from a desert tree growing outside the city wall. With my magic I cut the tree into pieces and shoved them into a burlap sack I stole from Leila's house, along with a bit of flint from the pile beside her stove, and here I was, with everything I needed to cast the Fire of Amkarja. A stack of wood, a piece of flint, and my own blood.

I began to work, slowly and methodically. I arranged the firewood in a circle, making a neat, even pile. Putting off the inevitable. When I was finished I stepped back, my arms crossed over my chest. It was cold without the sun, and I shivered beneath my armor and my robes, although I wasn't sure I was shivering from the cold.

I knew how the fire was supposed to work: I would cast it, using my theoretical knowledge, and the magic would draw me in close, making me a part of the fire. The flames would show me the faces of those who were lost. I would ask the fire to show me Lisim Sarr. Because I am Jadorr'a, and because I gave a part of myself up, it would comply, although I knew I would have to be careful, I would have to be polite. Armed with this new information, I could travel through the shadows to kill Sarr in his bed, completing my commission and saving the lives of the people in the pleasure district.

Once it was done, I would need to ask the Order to send help to extinguish the flames. I wouldn't be able to do it on my own, and if I left it, the fire would burn and burn until the end of the universe.

Enough dawdling. I had until sunrise to complete my commission.

I pulled out the flint and held it, measuring its weight in my hand. Then I struck it, tossed the tiny flame onto the wood, and watched as it all caught fire. I grabbed my knife and poised it over my forearm. My tattoos glowed, sensing the magic I was about perform. I closed my eyes. I thought of the words, an ancient spell in the language of the Order, one I knew perfectly. I knew everything perfectly. I had just never done it before.

I began to chant.

At first the words were only words, but as they spilled out of my mouth they transformed into magic, and I no longer belonged to myself. My voice was no longer my own. It was the voices of the lost, calling forth the Fire of Amkarja. The knife pierced my skin. I wasn't expecting it. My eyes flew open at the jolt of pain. The knife dug deeper. Blood gushed over my arm. No. No. This wasn't right. It was supposed to be a nick, enough to draw a few drops --

Enough of me remained that I was able to yank the knife away and fling blood into the already-golden flames, completing the spell and igniting the fire. Something whispered at the back of my head. A bit of wisdom. A warning. Don't look.

I looked.

It wasn't right. I was supposed to see the lost, figures twining and dancing in the gold of the fire. But instead I saw myself, my face twisted and monstrous. The true me, I thought. The face of an assassin.

Fear flooded through my body. My arm burned from where I had lost control of my knife.

"I'm not lost," I said to the fire.

It roared in response, letting off great waves of heat. Forced by the magic, I drifted close to the fire, wanting to be a part of it, to feel the flames wrap around me like a blanket. I vaguely remembered my task. My commission. "Lisim Sarr," I managed to choke out. "Please, I need to find Lisim Sarr."

My face-in-the-fire snarled at me. Lisim Sarr didn't seem so important anymore. Only the fire; the golden sputtering light. I was close enough to touch it. I knelt down in the sand and leaned forward. The smoke tickled my eyes. The flames licked at my face.

The pain was dazzling.

I screamed. The left side of my face felt as if it had been ripped away. I screamed and fell backward and screamed and screamed and when I hit the ground I didn't hit sand, I hit floorboards, rough-hewn, cold, damp. I couldn't see out of my left eye, everything was blurred and indistinct, but out of my right I saw that overhead was a gapped ceiling of the sort they had in the ice-islands.

"Who the hell are you?"

A man's voice. It cut momentarily through the shriek of my pain. I rolled onto my right side. My left side was still burning, the pain moving inside of me now, sliding into my bloodstream. I lifted my head. The man was wrapped in shaggy furs, but he wasn't an ice-islander. He was Empire. He was a Lisirran.

He was Lisim Sarr, my magic whispered.

For a blinding moment I didn't know what to do. Sarr leaned over me, squinting, and then his eyes went wide, and he recognized me, bleeding and burning though I was, and through my good eye I saw him drawing up his magic.

The Order trained me well, all those years ago, when I was nothing but a scared little boy. They left me with no choice but to be an assassin in all moments. The pain was paralyzing, but still I conjured up my speed, what little remained of it. In one blurred motion I pulled out my sword and I drew it across Sarr's belly. His blood splattered across the floor, and he died. I didn't feel anything. Everything hurt too much.

I reached out one shaking hand and slapped it into his blood. I didn't trust my own blood; it had betrayed me to the fire. But I used the blood of this wicked man and I fell backward through the shadows, through Kajjil, back over the sea and the ice, back to the Empire.

#

I was in a bed, soft and luxurious and familiar. I sank into the blankets. I couldn't feel my body; it was like being in Kajjil, but I wasn't in Kajjil. I wasn't at the Order either. This wasn't an Order bed. It smelled of river water and perfume.

"Leila." My voice rasped and came out barely above a whisper.

"Shhh, don't talk." A shadow fell over me. I was aware of a hand stroking my hair but I couldn't feel it.

"I can't feel --"

"Oh, Naji, you never listen. I asked you not to talk." The bed moved beneath me. I turned my head a little. Leila was sitting beside me, her hand stroking my hair. I saw this but didn't feel it.

"You were very stupid," she said.

I didn't answer.

"I told you not to go after him."

Him. Sarr. I'd killed him. Only then did I notice the yellow sunlight in the windows. I'd completed my commission. But I still felt like I was being punished.

I tried to sit up and Leila nudged me back down, gently. "You aren't well. I worked a spell for the pain but I'm afraid it's too strong for you to go wandering around."

"I don't feel myself."

"Well, that's what I had to do to take the pain away." She shrugged. There was something in her expression I couldn't place. Distance or sadness or revulsion. Or maybe all three mixed together. I didn't know what to make of it. I didn't know what to make of any of this. I wondered if the fire was still burning in the desert. It needed to be extinguished.

"Why aren't I at the Order?" I said. "I tried -- after everything -- I meant to go there."

"I don't know. I woke up last night to your screaming and found you bleeding all over the floor." Her hand dropped away and disappeared from my sight. "You stank of blood magic. And you were --" She stopped.

"What? I was what?"

I kept seeing the fire flickering in my head, golden and sparking, my twisted face in the flames. Not exactly my face, no -- my face as it was seen by the people of the Empire. My face as if it belonged to a monster.

I looked at Leila, and she was trying to keep her expression blank and failing.

"What!" I said. "What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing." She sounded insincere.

"Leila!" I struggled on the bed, trying to push myself up. I felt as if I were tied down. "After all this, you're still going to keep secrets from me? Really?"

She narrowed her eyes. "I told you not to go," she said. "I don't call that keeping a secret."

"Leila, what the hell is wrong with me?"

She went still. I thrashed on the bed and then exhaustion overpowered me and I went still too. I stared up at the patterns of sunlight on the ceiling. In the empty space where my body should have been I felt creeping, dreadful coldness.

The bed lightened. I dropped my head to the side. Leila was rummaging in the drawer of her vanity. She wore a backless dress and her skin glimmered in the yellow light. It was beautiful.

She walked back over to me and sat down and laid the mirror in her lap.

"What is it?" I whispered.

She hesitated.

"Show me!"

Leila sighed and held up the mirror. It was small, filigreed with little carved flowers. It looked expensive. I noticed all this before I noticed the face. Not my face. The face in the flames. My face, only monstrous.

I didn't understand what I was seeing at first. Then Leila spoke.

"It'll heal, of course, but there will be a scar.”

She handed me the mirror and stepped away. My face-that-wasn't-my-face stared back at me. The right side was fine, but the left was melted, the skin reddened and charred. At first I couldn't connect that face to my body. And then I could.

"It’s a shame it had to happen by magic,” Leila said. “Otherwise there might’ve been something we could do about it.”

I hurled the mirror aside and it shattered on the floor. Leila looked at it with a calm, implacable expression.

“Although you might find something at the night market. To help, even if it wouldn't get rid of it completely.”

"You don’t care,” I said.

"What?"

"About helping me."

She fell silent.

"I'm scarred. What would you want with a scarred man? I know you, Leila. You care too much about beautiful things."

She didn't answer, and I knew I was right. I forced myself up to sitting, ignoring her protests. I still couldn't feel my body but I could feel my anger, my humiliation, my sorrow.

"Naji, wait," she said.

"I need to go back." I pushed out of the bed and slammed up against the wall. A narrow strip of shadow stretched out from beside the vanity. I stumbled toward it.

"Don't," Leila said, but I noticed that she didn't bother to stand up, that she didn't otherwise try to stop me.

I didn't look at her as the shadows crawled around me. It was exhausting, stepping into the darkness. But I couldn't look at Leila anymore. I couldn't look at myself.

In those seconds before I arrived back at the Order, my thoughts went to the woman at the dance hall. The smoky blue light. Her spangled dress. I thought of how she had smiled at me. How she hadn't been frightened.

And I knew she would be frightened if she saw me now.

The End.

‘The Witch’s Betrayal’ is a short story set in the world of Cassandra Rose Clarke’s YA fantasy adventures The Assassin’s Curse (out now from Strange Chemistry) and The Pirate’s Wish (coming in June 2013 from Strange Chemistry).

Ananna of the Tanarau abandons ship when her parents try to marry her off to an allying pirate clan. But that only prompts the scorned clan to send an assassin after her. And when Ananna faces him down one night, armed with magic she doesn’t really know how to use, she accidentally activates a curse binding them together.

To break the curse, Ananna and the assassin must complete three impossible tasks — all while grappling with evil wizards, floating islands, haughty manticores, runaway nobility, strange magic, and the growing romantic tension between them.

After setting out to break the curse that binds them together, the pirate Ananna and the assassin Naji find themselves stranded on an enchanted island in the north with nothing but a sword, their wits, and the secret to breaking the curse: complete three impossible tasks. With the help of their friend Marjani and a rather unusual ally, Ananna and Naji make their way south again, seeking what seems to be beyond their reach.

Unfortunately, Naji has enemies from the shadowy world known as the Mists, and Ananna must still face the repercussions of going up against the Pirate Confederation. Together, Naji and Ananna must break the curse, escape their enemies — and come to terms with their growing romantic attraction.

Cassandra Rose Clarke is also the author of The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, a science fiction novel for adult readers (published February 2013 by Angry Robot).

“Cat, this is Finn. He’s going to be your tutor.”

He looks and acts human, though he has no desire to be. He was programmed to assist his owners, and performs his duties to perfection. A billion-dollar construct, his primary task now is to tutor Cat. As she grows into a beautiful young woman, Finn is her guardian, her constant companion… and more.

But when the government grants rights to the ever-increasing robot population, however, Finn struggles to find his place in the world.

Following her acclaimed Young Adult debut for our sister imprint Strange Chemistry, The Assassin's Curse, the very talented Cassandra Rose Clarke moves on to more adult themes, in a heartbreaking story of love, loss …

and robots.

For more from Cassandra Rose Clarke, visit her website at www.cassandraroseclarke.com