40°44'03.1"N 48°44'55.9"E– Somewhere in the skies of ?amax?

  20.05.2024 – 23.30 UTC +04.00

  The airplane had ceased shaking the past five minutes, as we finally exited whatever Cursed storm Starling had brewed on the edges of her domain in Q?b?l?.

  R??id had fallen asleep in the seat next to me, exhausted by the burden of our combined hex and the punishment he had endured.

  The lady next to me, who had said Nuray was her name, had passed me some tobacco. She had bought a premium pack to bring to her family in the west, ready to board a small domestic plane.

  She had bought it before I had raised my ward to protect everyone in the airport shop, just before mayhem had hit the airport. Somehow, among all the things she must have lost during our escape, this box of premium tobacco was left untouched in her pocket. She noticed how my eyes were fixated on it.

  “Take all of it,” she suggested, “it is the only thing I have to offer.”

  I accepted the gift. I did not care about its quality; any tobacco would have sufficed, but this was even the expensive, albeit processed, type of tobacco sold at airports for travelers. I munched it raw, like gum. I could picture the molecules of nicotine entering my tense bloodstream, calming my nerves. Its soothing effect was instant.

  I wondered how Nuray would be stranded in Bak? when we landed. It seemed silly, considering the hell this lonely woman had gone through, but I could not help but hate the fact that this woman’s life was upended by random trauma, and now she was heading in the opposite direction from her family.

  Her hair stuck sweaty and oily to her head, still somehow respectfully tucked into a knot. The wrinkles on her cheeks deepened as she looked outside the airplane window.

  She noticed me looking through the reflection.

  “It’s all right, sister,” she said. She turned around to look at me with sorrowful eyes. There was a sweetness in their honesty, a sweetness that made me uncomfortable. She tucked her dark bangs of hair behind her ears. “I will find a way back home. We all will. As long as we are safe.”

  I nodded. That did not reassure me. If anything, it made me feel even worse in comparison.

  I had no home, no family, and decisively no coven to get back to. I would be captured the moment I reached Bak?, or maybe sent into exile, back into neutral territory. Iran or Russia. That good scenario would play out only if authorities in Bak? did not recognize me as someone from Starling’s coven.

  The death penalty had been in place for witches like me.

  I put more tobacco in my mouth, not bothering to spit out the old bunch. I needed any drop of nicotine left.

  Ramin had promised to help out, claiming the Shadow Domain was his. I did not know what that meant, and I was too afraid to ask. I knew we would learn very soon. We had exited the areas contested by Starling and Adil, now waltzing into a territory of quiet before crossing into Ab?eron.

  R??id shook and twitched next to me.

  His condition felt familiar to the condition he had left me in after our first fight in O?uz. I had lost at least two days in K?rimli before I woke up and broke us out of Ramin’s enchanted cage.

  Part of me hoped he would recover fast, even if I was glad I had put him through this misery. If we were to step into Bak? soon, R??id would be the only one with the same goal as me: to run away.

  Before I could conclude my latest thought, I lost the feeling of touch in my arms. They fell limp on my sides, and the world turned white and numb. I stood up clumsily and ran to the back of the plane, where the toilets were. I had to pay the price of digging so deep into my occult Curses.

  ? ? ?

  The minutes of emptying my stomach felt like a century, but eventually I left the toilets. My mouth was dry, and I needed more water to wash the taste of bile from my mouth. It would only get worse before it would get better.

  I was holding onto a passenger seat, slowly walking through the aisle, when a hand grabbed my left shoulder. When I turned, I saw the man and his son from our earlier Hex. His younger son was resting asleep on his legs.

  The man’s eyes were red and tired.

  I did not know what he wanted. Was he angry or thankful? He would have a right to be both of those things. I saw him trying to find words for a few seconds. His grip loosened.

  “Did you know?” He asked, finally. I saw his phone in his other hand, its screensaver showing his family, including his wife and two sons.

  I sighed and sat on the seat across the aisle. My vision was still a bit blurry, but I could see the man needed answers.

  “Sometimes, looking away is what keeps you alive. But that does not mean you are saved. She got to hug your son and give him comfort before violence consumed them,” I said, recalling the scene and the woman’s wish. I felt dizzy and closed my eyes, but that brought me back to that scene, so I forced them open again. The man was waiting for more answers. “She does not have to go through what you are going through. Did I know that someone would stumble and fall outside the path? Someone always does.”

  The man’s eyes were welling up with tears again. I had nothing to say to console him. Had I had more time or Curses, I would have figured out a better escape route.

  “If I had stepped out first, she would be here instead, right?”

  I did not know how to answer that. I could not see the future or other pasts. I could only see what was in front of me: a man knowing he survived because someone else died.

  “Right?”

  I inhaled deeply, but I gave him no answer. There was none to give.

  ? ? ?

  A lady’s voice echoed across the cabin. She spoke in Arabic.

  Not the aircraft cabin, I was in a room.

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  Not any room. I was in a cluttered kitchen. It smelled of rosemary. As everything materialized around me, I realized this was my Farsight.

  My eyes were no longer in the aircraft.

  I looked around to understand where I was. Was it Western Sahara? This Aridaria place that R??id had spoken about?

  I needed answers. This was the third Farsight episode I had the same day. I did not know how long the vision would last, so I needed to observe carefully.

  In the room I was standing in, there were two people: an old woman searching around her kitchen. She carried herself slowly while she spoke in Arabic.

  The other was a girl, at least ten years younger than me. She had long curly hair, and she was dressed in layers, like a traveler. She spoke in Arabic again, asking something. Her face mesmerized me, charismatic as it was. There was something about the way her eyes moved and her stance; she had a purpose, being there. I tried to memorize her face. Her skin was light brown, and her eyes had the shape of almonds. Long and dark. She looked northern African, maybe Egyptian, but I could not tell for sure.

  The two women could not give me more clues, and I could certainly not interact with them. Arabic was spoken in a large region of the world, and it was not really narrowing it down. I needed to examine my surroundings.

  I walked around the kitchen as the two spoke. There was no special ingredient, a textbook, or a magazine that could give me a clue. I approached the window. All I could see was an empty street and brown buildings. I managed to notice the sand on the buildings’ roofs, however. Desert again. And if I were to bet, this was the Sahara once more.

  The two women were still speaking when the older one mentioned a country: Chad. I turned and approached them. I could not understand what they were saying, but I was sure I had heard the country’s name. I noticed that the old one was holding scrolled papers in her hand. Before I could examine them, the girl grabbed them and stuffed them in her belt.

  “Tam al-ittifaq,” said the younger one, and shook the old woman’s hand. It seemed like some kind of deal was made. I hated that I could not understand what they said. I knew my Farsight meant to show me this for a reason, and I was failing to see it.

  The young woman exited the room. My eyes traced her walk outside the kitchen as she ran.

  The old lady turned, and I could see the expression on her face; it was a mix of sadness and thoughtfulness. Her lips were tighter, almost unnoticeable among the wrinkles in her face. She muttered something to herself before walking to the window.

  I stepped to the side, making sure she would not pass from where I was standing. I could never be sure a more powerful Cursed could not sense my presence if I were to step too close.

  A crow landed on the window, and she opened it as she spoke to it. And then I noticed it: she was holding something in her hands. A strand of hair. Curly as it was, it could not have been hers; it must have been from the young girl.

  The woman’s wrinkles deepened as she declared slowly, not in Arabic anymore:

  Nace la catástrofe

  She repeated those words again and again, as she tied the strand of hair to the crow’s left leg. I repeated them, trying to memorize them – I could try to translate them once this vision was over. The crow cried back, imitating her. The woman repeated the phrase, and the crow talked back, every time better at enunciating it. Once it was successful enough in repeating her words, the old woman turned to one of her drawers. She grabbed a mirror covered in dust. She raised it, letting the moonlight shine on its surface. She moved her fingers, and as she did the reflection in the mirror shifted and twisted. It looked like a kaleidoscope: its patterns showed a mix of colors, the kitchen, and the woman’s face.

  And, to her surprise, my face as well.

  I stepped back as the woman turned quickly behind her. She could not see me standing in her kitchen, but I was sure she had seen part of my reflection in her mirror.

  “'Iirhal,” she said as she raised her hand.

  My incorporeal body crumbled under its weight, my essence turning into grains of sand.

  She raised her hand and snapped her fingers.

  ? ? ?

  The old witch’s cabin was replaced by a pub. It was not the same place: people looked different, dressed differently, and spoke another language. Some spoke an African dialect– but I had no clue. Others spoke French, if I were to judge by the inflection.

  Nace la catástrofe, I thought to myself. Nace la catástrofe. I had to repeat the words, lest I forget how I heard them.

  There were many people in the pub. I had no idea what this Farsight was to omen, who I was destined to spy on.

  Was it the three men who mourned over drinks? The woman and the young man in the bar, scheming? The lonely man at the corner, with rows of empty glasses on his table?

  Nace la catástrofe, I thought again, wondering why that phrase was the one that had stuck with me, despite all the other things I had heard. Was it a clue to this next Farsight?

  I looked at the barman, huffing from a burned cigarette, while shining glasses. He thoroughly cleaned them and stashed them behind the glass cupboard on the wall.

  The cupboard. I saw it, I could not be more mistaken. Not my reflection this time, but the reflection of something sinister. Almost impossible to see, unless you looked for it. Nobody else acknowledged them; maybe they could hide from the rest, but not from me.

  A pair of eyes, projected onto the glass cupboard, stared unblinking inside the pub. Spying, like I did, but with intention, not lost like me.

  They were locked onto the woman, sitting on a stool, speaking with a low voice to the young man.

  I walked nearby to listen in, but from the side, unsure what would happen if I crossed the eyes’ line of sight.

  “Sinon, il n'y a plus d'espoir ni pour moi ni pour vous. Et si j'ai raison, pour personne sur la C?te,” said the woman. I could sense the boy’s fear.

  And then I noticed something peculiar, another aura, coming straight from the woman’s backpack. The young man said something, but my attention was fixed on the woman’s possessions.

  I stepped closer.

  “Nace la catástrofe,” I said, somehow feeling the saying was connected with what that woman carried with her.

  A sense of dread overcame me, and I looked up. The eyes from the cupboard were now staring right into me. They widened unnaturally, veins turning red and blue.

  They would trap me. I had to escape befo-

  ? ? ?

  “Nisy. Please. They are waiting for us,” I heard Ramin’s voice.

  I blinked twice. I was back on the airplane.

  Ramin was kneeling in front of me, the weapon still strapped on his back. It did not shake anymore – we must have landed.

  “How long was I out?” I asked.

  “A while.”

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  He swung back and forth. “Baku authorities. They agreed to provide temporary refuge. They don’t know who we are yet. Just that we escaped.”

  “Ramin, there is no time. I need to go to Sahara,” I said. It felt pointless to insist, but I knew I had to plead. R??id stepped next to Ramin. He looked better than the last time I had seen him, his hair tied in a tight, long braid. He had changed clothes.

  “Nace la catástrofe,” I repeated the words the lady had said, remembering how R??id spoke Spanish. He had at least made me deliver a message in Spanish before.

  “What?” Ramin asked. “This is not the time to speak in tongues.”

  R??id snapped his fingers, as he asked: “Who said that to you?”

  “What does this mean?” I asked back.

  “Where did you hear that?” he insisted.

  “Will someone explain to me what is going on?” Ramin asked.

  I did not speak, because I did not know what was going on. But R??id did, I could see it in his eyes. He knew how the dots were connected.