Recap: THE STARDUST THIEF by Chelsea Abdullah
Do you need a refresher on the events of The Stardust Thief (US | UK) by Chelsea Abdullah? Look no further! Read the recap in “The Tale of the Merchant and the Prince” below.
Then read an excerpt from The Ashfire King (US | UK), on sale April 15!
The Tale of the Merchant and the Prince
Neither here nor there, but not so long ago…
There lived a merchant named Loulie al-Nazari who was as legendary as she was elusive. Garbed in midnight-blue robes, she was known as the Midnight Merchant, a magic-peddler who sold enchanted jinn relics in hidden souks. For years, she remained an enigma, evading the notice of the sultan, who would have hanged her for her illegal sales. But even the most slippery thieves are sure to be found should they overtempt fate, and so it was with Loulie as well.
One day, as she was wandering the souk, she came upon a man possessed by a shadow jinn and saved his life. Unbeknownst to her, this man was none other than Prince Mazen bin Malik, the youngest of the sultan’s sons. The disguised prince thanked her profusely: “A thousand blessings upon you!” he cried. “Had you not come to investigate, I would have lost my soul to the Sandsea.”
But though a fortuitous encounter for the prince, this rescue marked the beginning of a series of unfortunate events for Loulie, who upon saving Mazen’s life was repaid by his father with blackmail. For years, the sultan had been searching for a lamp that contained a jinn so powerful it was said to have the ability to grant any wish. None had ever located this lamp, but Loulie was renowned for her ability to track magic.
The formidable man had Loulie captured and brought to him in his palace, where he offered her an impossible choice: “Will you find the relic and become a hero? Or will you flee like a criminal and perish in the desert, with no one there to mourn you?”
It was no true choice at all, but Loulie was forced to accept. She would go on the sultan’s quest with his son Omar, high prince and King of the Forty Thieves, as her escort. But little did she know that Prince Mazen had also been blackmailed. Not by his father, but by Omar, who threatened to tell the sultan of Mazen’s forbidden excursions if he did not take his place.
“I have kept your secrets, akhi,” the high prince warned. “You owe me this.”
Terrified he would be trapped in the palace if his secrets came to light, Mazen agreed to his brother’s scheme, using a jinn-enchanted bangle to switch appearances with him.
And so it was that Loulie al-Nazari embarked on her journey with the wrong prince; one of Omar’s infamous forty thieves, Aisha; and Loulie’s bodyguard, Qadir, a jinn hiding in plain sight. The group traveled far, through hidden ruins where they unearthed a collar belonging to a powerful jinn queen, and across sunlit dunes haunted by ghouls. They passed through thriving cities made vibrant by jinn blood and rested in oases lit by starlight.
It was not an easy journey. On the way, they weathered nightmares both real and immaterial, surviving a sandstorm, a horde of ghouls, and the nefarious queen trapped in the collar. They fought the wali of Dhyme, whom she had possessed, and in doing so, they learned the true nature of relics as objects that housed a jinn’s departed soul.
The revelation was an omen of things to come, for when they returned to the desert, they rode headfirst into another peril: a trap set by a reclusive villain known as the Hunter in Black. This man was one of the sultan’s original forty thieves, Imad. Years ago, on Omar’s orders, he had massacred a Bedouin tribe to steal a jinn king’s relic, but the thieves had met their demise at the hands of the jinn they were seeking. The only survivors had been Imad, the jinn king… and the young tribesgirl the king had saved, none other than Loulie al-Nazari.
At first, it appeared Imad had succeeded in capturing the group. His iron trap had killed Qadir, and he locked the three humans in a prison at the heart of the Eastern Sandsea. But Imad had not stolen all their magics. The prince had his shadow, enchanted by the jinn who had possessed him in Madinne, and when he saw it on the wall, he said to himself, If no one is coming to help me, I have no choice but to save myself.
And, so saying, he peeled the shadow from the wall and used it to escape his prison. With it, he freed Aisha, and together the two of them tracked Loulie to the hunter’s treasure chamber, where she lay debilitated by a severe injury. With the help of their relics, the three of them broke free, using the chaos caused by Imad’s rampaging ghouls to cover their escape.
Mazen rushed through the corridors with Loulie in his arms, but their flight was short lived. Turns later, Imad cornered them and killed Aisha, leaving the merchant and the prince to face him alone, helpless and terrified.
But then: a miracle! The ruins around them began to shake and crumble, and Loulie and Mazen realized they were sinking into the Sandsea. The two fell through a chasm until they reached the bottom, where whom did they meet but Qadir, miraculously revived. Injured and unable to hold his physical form, the jinn guided them through the sinking ruins as a smoky apparition. When Imad appeared again to thwart them, Loulie finally took her revenge, plunging her dagger through his heart until nothing remained of him but ash.
Loulie and Mazen barely had time to mourn before another twisted miracle appeared before them: Aisha, alive but transformed by the death magic of the jinn queen in the collar. Beyond all doubts, the group had survived, but they were irrevocably changed. A shroud of distrust hung above them as it became apparent they were all keeping secrets.
It was Qadir who broke the silence first. “Fine,” he said. “Let us speak of lies and truths, and of the story hidden between them.” And he sat before the fire and began to tell them a story.
He revealed that he was not just a jinn, but one of the seven mighty kings who had sunk the jinn cities beneath the Sandsea. Ifrit, they were called in his country. Years ago, he had lost a compass in the desert, and while tracking it, he had unintentionally led Omar’s thieves to Loulie’s tribe. This truth was an unexpected and awful epiphany, and it cleaved a divide between the merchant and her bodyguard. They traveled to the final city, Ghiban, in somber silence.
But the greatest healer of wounds is time, and the group’s stay in Ghiban mended the rift between them. Mazen told stories in the souk to gather coin for their travels, Loulie searched the cliffs with Qadir for a relic to sell, and Aisha opened the door to a lucrative opportunity: the den of one of the forty thieves, which contained enough relics to sell for a small fortune.
Before they left the city, the group enjoyed a night of merrymaking on a ship, where they danced beneath smoke and glowing lanterns. The next, they returned to the desert with hope in their hearts. It was not long, however, before fate tested their bonds again. At the final oasis, Mazen stumbled into his greatest horror yet—a wanted poster of his face, proclaiming him the sultan’s murderer. This had been Omar’s plan all along: to wear Mazen’s face and to blame his father’s murder on Mazen in his absence.
Aisha, who had known his scheme, had already fled, leaving Mazen to escape the pursuing mercenaries with Loulie and Qadir. Later, as the broken group sat upon a plateau in the cold desert, the merchant turned to the prince and made him a promise: “We’ll make your brother regret this,” she said. “I swear it.”
With vengeance burning in their hearts, Loulie and Mazen followed the compass and Qadir’s magic beneath the sand, where they found the lamp and the King of the Forty Thieves. Omar stole the lamp from Mazen and, using the invocation of his ancestor, commanded the ifrit in the lamp: “Jinn king! You are bound to me and you will serve me.”
The mighty jinn might have destroyed them then had one last secret not been revealed. Aisha, who had followed her king beneath the Sandsea, had discovered some of her fellow thieves were jinn. Enraged that she had been forced to work with the creatures she despised, she turned on her king, and Loulie and Mazen used the distraction to steal the lamp and free the jinn king, Rijah, from Omar’s command. After Rijah had regained their freedom, there was an epic battle between Omar’s force and their small group.
But though the merchant and her companions fought valiantly, they were unprepared for the King of the Forty Thieves’ illusions. Besides that, they were fighting against a cause they did not understand, for none of them knew what Omar hoped to accomplish in working with jinn and collecting ifrit relics. Still, they managed to steal the relic that gave him his greatest advantage: the crescent earring that had once belonged to his mother, a jinn king named Aliyah.
The prince and the merchant escaped the Sandsea on the back of Rijah, who had transformed into a legendary rukh. Qadir remained on the surface to buy them time, and Aisha—the thief who had betrayed, then saved them—stayed behind to carry out her revenge against the king who had lied to her.
Loulie, Mazen, and Rijah plummeted down a hole so deep it seemed to lead to the center of the world. And then, eventually, they arrived at an end.
Or, perhaps, a beginning.
For now they found themselves in the sunken jinn realm, a legendary place no human had ever set foot in. It was a place of stories and mysteries and danger. An escape. A sanctuary.
Or so they hope.
Inspired by stories from One Thousand and One Nights, this book weaves together the gripping tale of a legendary smuggler, a cowardly prince, and a dangerous quest across the desert to find a legendary, magical lamp.
Neither here nor there, but long ago . . .
Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp that has the power to revive the barren land—at the cost of sacrificing all jinn.
With no choice but to obey or be executed, Loulie journeys with the sultan’s oldest son to find the artifact. Aided by her bodyguard, who has secrets of his own, they must survive ghoul attacks, outwit a vengeful jinn queen, and confront a malicious killer from Loulie’s past. And, in a world where story is reality and illusion is truth, Loulie will discover that everything—her enemy, her magic, even her own past—is not what it seems, and she must decide who she will become in this new reality.
★ “Once again Abdullah deftly conjures magic.” ―Library Journal (starred review)
Neither here nor there, but long ago…
After fleeing a patricidal prince, legendary merchant Loulie al-Nazari and banished prince Mazen bin Malik find themselves in the realm of jinn. But instead of sanctuary, they find a world on the cusp of collapse.
The jinn cities, long sheltered beneath the Sandsea by the magic of its kings, are sinking. Amid the turmoil, political alliances are forming, and rebellion is on the rise. When Loulie assists a dissenter—one of her bodyguard’s old comrades—she puts herself in the center of a centuries-old war.
Trapped in a world that isn’t her own and wielding magic that belongs to a fallen king, Loulie must decide: Will she carry on someone else’s legacy or carve out her own?
The Sandsea Trilogy
The Stardust Thief
The Ashfire King
