“Ahmad,” Winnie had said softly. “Remember what Madame Nasirah told me. We have two enemies out there—maybe more. We can’t make ourselves enemies too.”

Her eyes had drifted toward the kitchen, and, even now, it struck Ahmad as odd. After all, Winnie had seemed to like Madame Nasirah, enough to suggest in the first place that they double back to the shop.

But they were in this together, and he had agreed not to tell the Gamekeeper anything. Even the transferring of the puzzle pieces had been done while her back was turned.

“Ahmad?”

Ahmad whirled around, drawing his hand quickly away from the hidden treasure. Madame Nasirah herself stood in the doorway.

“Is everything all right? It’s rather late to be up.”

“I thought I heard something out there,” Ahmad half lied, feeling guilty for the shakiness of his breath. He could feel his palms itching, that familiar twitch of anxiety and restlessness in his fingers. He jumped back from the wall as it suddenly shook with a gust of wind and the telltale scritching of sand.

“At least that is a familiar remnant of the old Paheli, as I always knew it to be.” Madame Nasirah reached past him, and he quickly moved back as she checked the shutters. “The sandstorms at all hours.”

“It was like this every day?”

“Well, particularly at night. It tends to be a sign of the Architect’s temper. The weather is especially bad when things aren’t going his way.”

Ahmad’s brow furrowed. Winnie was right. Madame Nasirah had told them that to begin with. He felt unsettled but couldn’t explain why. They did have two puzzle pieces, after all, so the Architect should be seething or cooking up something particularly terrible for them to face next.

But all he had done was send a measly rabid zombie-monkey or two after them, and then sulkily refuse to sound the Minaret. Ahmad couldn’t quite unravel his reasoning.

Madame Nasirah stepped away from the window. Ahmad reached out to draw back the curtain.

“You won’t be able to see anything,” she warned. “The storms usually hit quite thick and hard at this hour.”

Ahmad looked out anyway. He couldn’t explain why. It felt like he had to witness what was out there.

The clouds of dust parted under his gaze.

Ahmad pressed himself against the glass, his eyes wide.

There was a small boy in the midst of the sand.

“Who is that?” he wondered aloud.

“What’s wrong, Ahmad?” Madame Nasirah’s hand landed on Ahmad’s shoulder, trying to draw him away. But he clung to the window frame.

“No! There’s someone out there!”

It was hard to make out the boy’s face, but his body was hunched and huddled down against the storm. He seemed scared. Lost. Alone.

Trapped.