Something wasn’t right. I knew I ought to be happy. I ought to feel some hope. That we were close. That we’d found our people. But this wasn’t exactly Eremot, the prison of legends. It was just a big town in the desert. And I might not trust Leyla, but I knew she hadn’t lied to me. Instead of hope, a new fear was being born in my chest. That this was a wild-goose chase. That we were going the wrong way. That Ahmed and the others weren’t going to be here.

But there was only one way to know for sure.

We walked in silence, following Jin’s compass to the city. Izz became a small bird, flying excitedly ahead of us, then back again, while Maz sat on my shoulder, a little blue-headed lizard basking in the afternoon sun.

It was slow-going with Tamid’s bad leg, and I caught him glancing over his shoulder more than once as we walked. Back in the direction of Dustwalk. I’d promised to get him as close to home as possible. This was pretty damn close.

By tomorrow morning he would be home. And I could tell myself all I liked that it wasn’t my home any more, but the only thing that had made it bearable during the last year I’d lived there, after my mother was hanged, was Tamid. And even if he hated me, I didn’t know that I had it in me to hate him. I only hated that he was going back.

That I was losing one more person. Not to death maybe, but to somewhere I’d never see him again just the same.

It was nearer to dusk than noon when we passed through the city gates. Jin and Sam wore their sheemas tight to hide their foreignness as best they could as we joined the crowds in the streets.

The war had not reached this far south yet in earnest, but there were still signs of it. Supplies from anywhere other than the desert or the nearby mountains seemed fewer in the market stalls. And there were more men carrying weapons on the street than I remembered.

We followed Jin’s compass past colourful stalls in the souk, through streets that were clean and wide compared to Izman’s old maze. This was a new city. Its name was in Mirajin instead of the old language. We ducked under canopies and around brightly painted buildings, past women dragging whining children away from stalls of sweets.

And then finally we rounded the corner of a bright blue house, and I saw a small boy crouched in a doorway, something glittering in his hands.

We all hung back uncertainly, watching the little boy. He couldn’t have been more than six, and he was talking to himself under his breath as he turned the compass over and over, in that way children do when they are playing make-believe, spinning a story in their minds. Weaving a world where they’re more than just a grubby boy on the street playing with a toy compass, or a skinny girl out the back of a house with a gun and tin cans, pretending they’re a great explorer on an adventure, or a Blue-Eyed Bandit.

One of us needed to talk to him.

Jin moved first, and the rest of us watched from the mouth of an alley as he crouched down, resting his arms on his knees.

The little boy looked up, staring at Jin with big, dark eyes, wary but not afraid. ‘Hello,’ Jin greeted him, pulling down his sheema to show his full face. ‘What’s your name?’

‘I’m Oman.’ Of course he was. Half the little boys in this country were named Oman, after the Sultan.

‘Oh, really,’ Jin said, leaning forwards on his knees. ‘Oman is my father’s name.’ I’d never heard Jin call the Sultan his father in all the months I’d known him. ‘Do you think you could tell me where you got that compass, Oman?’

‘I found it,’ Oman said, gripping the compass a little tighter to his chest. ‘I didn’t steal it.’

‘I believe you,’ Jin said patiently. I could see that he was worried, the way his thumb ran circles along the opposite hand as he clasped them together in front of him. Because if Ahmed didn’t have the compass, we didn’t have a way to find Ahmed. ‘Where did you find it?’

‘Train station,’ the boy said finally.

‘I didn’t think there were any trains running these days,’ Jin said, looking my way. I shrugged unhelpfully. The trains from Izman had stopped months ago, best I knew, after we claimed the western desert.

‘They’re not leaving,’ the boy said, with an eye roll like we might be stupid. ‘But sometimes they come in. They bring people with them.’

‘People like soldiers and prisoners?’ Jin asked. The little boy shrugged. ‘And where do the people go?’

The boy shrugged again. ‘Out of the city. Towards the mountains.’

The Sultan was shipping prisoners. Juniper City was the furthest south you could get with a train. And then they were being taken on to Eremot … wherever that was. If it was even as real as Leyla said.

We were close, and we could find them, but every moment we wasted looking was another moment they were stuck there.

‘Oman,’ Jin said seriously, looking at the little boy, ‘see, that compass belongs to my brother.’ He reached into his pocket, pulling out the identical, albeit more battered, one.

‘It belongs to me now,’ Oman said stubbornly.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ Jin said. ‘I’ll buy it off you.’ The ten louzi that Jin produced from his pocket was a small fortune to a little boy. Oman grabbed it eagerly, dropping the compass in the dust.

Jin returned to us, holding both compasses. His knuckles were white from clutching them so tightly. I reached out a hand, resting it over his. I couldn’t tell him everything was going to be all right, because I couldn’t lie.