CHAPTER 23

IT TAKES A while to get to the Mages’ quarters. I think they did that on purpose to discourage wandering. Maybe they really see themselves as apart from the rest of us. I’ve been put in charge of the dirty, lowly aki, and they can wash their hands of us. But we can’t keep going like this.

I have to ask them if they can build a better bathing area and increase the water supply so that the morning wash line isn’t so long. I’ll tell them that if more aki can wash at the same time, it’ll pass more quickly and we can spend more time training. I won’t tell them that even aki have dignity to maintain, as much as it may surprise a Mage to hear it. I don’t think that argument will play very well with that crowd.

When large tents and a few wooden outposts come into view, I know I’ve arrived. Mages mill about in their cloaks, many of them with their hoods pulled back. They haven’t seen me yet, so I imagine this is what they look like when no one is watching. I even see a few Mages smile. Some of them dare to chuckle. I guess Mages were regular people once. Seems impossible to think about someone like Izu, or like Ishaq, as someone’s son. Which is why it’s strange to watch a Mage tell a joke. It’s like watching a yam sprout legs and start dancing.

I wonder if Zainab lives here too. She’s obviously special to the Mages; I haven’t seen her much recently, so maybe they keep her in hiding. There are too many questions here. For now, all I need, really, is better bathing conditions for my charges.

When I get closer, a few Mages brush past me like they don’t even see me. One woman with silver braids nearly knocks me over, and I turn, daga in hand. I’m about to let her know what I think of her and her kind when I spot Aliya, hurrying toward me with her parchment clutched to her chest.

“Hey!” I shout.

Aliya stops and looks around like she can’t see me, then when she does, she heads straight for me, grinning. “Isn’t it amazing here? I can’t take notes fast enough. I’ve already witnessed three sin-eating rituals. At this rate, my research will be complete in no time, and I—”

“Aliya,” I cut her off. “My kids stink. Like no other. Like week-old moi-moi left out in the sun. Like a wild boar ate another wild boar’s leavings, then left them for another wild boar to eat.” I can’t stand her gushing right now, not when we don’t even have proper bathing conditions. “The way the bathing area is set up now, there’s no privacy for the little ones. Or the older ones, for that matter. Tell your ogas they need to build us stalls, or I quit training the aki.”

She looks like I just hit her in the chest. “Taj . . .”

“I’m serious. It is not you who has to stand next to them all day.”

The call to prayer sounds. Even this far out, we can hear it.

The caller’s voice is faint, and I hadn’t even heard it while I was arguing. But now that I can focus, the voice makes me feel like suddenly I’m back home watching everyone in their dahia gather around their shrines and sit in silent meditation.

Aliya spares me a glance before heading off to where a group of Mages have gathered. They have their prayer rugs laid out beneath them, and already a line of them, facing toward Kos, have begun the ritual. Kneeling, bowing, then back up—moving in that way that reminds me of Mama and how, whenever she prayed, it seemed as though she were having a conversation with a very dear, very quiet, very kind friend.

Suddenly, I don’t have the heart to talk to anyone anymore.

The young aki dance by the light of the campfire. The ones that aren’t finishing their meal form a loose circle and stomp a rhythm onto the forest floor with their feet, singing a song I remember having heard in the Merchants’ Quarter when Baba used to walk me through the market. I recognize only phrases, but the youth who’ve come from around there or who’d been rounded up from that area sing loudly, bouncing on their feet, clapping in unison. A song about a trader and a noblewoman and a lost pearl making its way through the Forum.

The dance is contagious, and I find myself tapping along. During the chorus of the song, one sin-eater, sometimes two, breaks away from the periphery of the circle and leaps into the middle, stepping along to the beat faster and faster, arms and legs swinging joyfully through the air. Then they jump out again, rejoin the fringe, and someone else takes a turn to shine.

A couple of the younger aki play-fight by a set of trees, rolling and leaping in and out of the shadows, practicing the moves I’ve been teaching them.

I bring my soup bowl to my lips, drain it dry, then wipe my mouth with my sleeve.

Ras breaks away from the group of aki who’ve been sitting by the dancers. He has a soup bowl in one hand and tips it back, slurping it up as he walks. It’s empty by the time he reaches me. He slides down the side of the tree with a thump and rests at its base next to me.

He reminds me of Bo, the way others are drawn to him. Automatically, they look to him as a kind of big brother. He’s kind that way. Kinder than me. Even if he were the only child in his family, he looks like someone’s older brother. He’s certainly skinnier than Bo, but they both have the same look of silent strength on them.

“You don’t dance?” he asks.

I shake my head. When Ras doesn’t look away, I meet his gaze. “You?”

Ras snorts. “They’re not ready-oh. If they let me in the center of that circle, forget it. It would be the end of everything, and they would have to go to sleep.” He shakes his head. “No, I’ll let them have their fun, because I’m a generous man.” He looks inside of his bowl, turns the thing over so that different angles catch the firelight.

“Ugh,” Ras says. “Not like the pepper soup my mother makes. Ewoooo. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that Arbaa pepper soup isn’t the best pepper soup the Unnamed ever made us capable of putting together.” He shakes his head. “This one aki, you see him over there? He’s trying to keep the rhythm, but he’s always off. He tried to tell me that the best pepper soup comes from Ithnaan, and praise be to the Unnamed who stopped my hand from just slapping this boy.”

He turns to me. “Which do you think is better? And if you say Ithnaan pepper soup . . .”

A smile breaks across my face. It’s not that I can’t tell the difference. It’s that I want to play with him for a little bit. Get him riled up. Mama never really cooked her soup with peppers. Instead, her special dish included spreading sweetened herbs over yogurt and stirring that together with a special tomato sauce. Ithnaan pepper soup has its own merits, that’s what I want to tell him, but I just shrug. “My family comes from Khamsa, so I’m agnostic.”

Ras raises an eyebrow. A challenge.

“We choose no sides.”

Ras nods to himself. “Eh-heh. This is smart. You are smart. Stay above the fray.”

I look off into the dark forest and see Zainab standing alone, her arms folded across her chest. She looks on at the dancing by the fire. Without a word, I push myself up and walk to her. When I get close enough, I can smell something strong and pungent. She doesn’t notice me. Or she pretends not to notice me, as she slips a small flagon from its hook by her thigh and tips it onto the back of her free hand. A small line of black and gray dust falls out. She sways back and forth when she puts the flagon back, but not to the rhythm of the music. It’s like she’s dancing to a song only she can hear. Her free hand remains absolutely still until she puts it to her nose and inhales sharply.

“Zainab,” I call out.

She looks up and smiles, but her eyes are sad.

The smell thickens, and I flinch. “What is that?” I ask her. My hand comes up to cover my nose.

“Do you want some?” she slurs. She holds the thing out to me. A stone sways on the bracelet around her outstretched wrist. It glows softly in the night.

I look at it for a moment, then take it and look it over again. Slowly, I unscrew the cap and sniff lightly. It burns my entire face. I hold the flagon out to her, begging her to take it. Meanwhile, I’m trying to spit out the mucus in my throat from inhaling the fumes. Laughter explodes from Zainab. She clutches her stomach, bends over, slaps her thighs. She can’t stop laughing. I’m still trying to figure out how to breathe again. It’s poison. It has to be.

She takes it, ready to pour again.

“Why do you do that?” I cough before every word. I try to wipe the rest of the burn from under my nose, but the heat lingers. I wince. This must be how Arzu felt with the pepper sauce.

“It helps,” Zainab tells me, still smiling.

“But it hurts.” I cough again. “It’s like sniffing fire.”

She examines the flagon in her hand. “It is bad to do. But I do it.”

“Why?”

With her free hand, she taps her temple. “It quiets me here.” She points to her chest. “And here.” And that’s when I see it. Tears. Leaking down her face, running along the spider legs that trace her cheeks. “Too many sins.” She turns the flagon over in her hands and turns the other way.

Stone-sniffers aren’t supposed to look like her. They’re supposed to be emaciated, worn-down old men or women unable to find work and make families of their own. Stone-sniffers in Kos, they’re supposed to be the ones the city gave up on. They’re not supposed to look like Zainab. My first instinct is to feel disdain and disgust for her. How can she do this to herself? But I look at how covered she is, and I understand.

Zainab starts to limp away.

“Wait!” I shout and chase after her. We stand at the very edge of the forest. In front of us is pure darkness. “You don’t have to do that.” I want to tell her what I learned about keeping the sins out of my head. I want to tell her that all she needs to do is not think about people, not care for them. To just focus on herself and staying alive. She doesn’t have to sniff that coal. “What are they making you do?”

“I’m their Catcher.”

That word again. “Catcher?”

“When Mages call forth sins for the aki to face and the young ones cannot defeat them, I am sent to catch them.”

“You Eat escaped sins?”

“That is what they have me here for.”

So, this is how they’re using her and how she believes they will use me. As just a bucket for sins. How long has she been here? How many training seasons has she been doing this for?

The sins drawn on this side of the Wall . . . the Scribes didn’t paint those. She did. They’re her sins.

How much longer does she have? There’s almost no bare skin on her left. She shifts from foot to foot, as though trying to get feeling back in one leg. I’ve seen her do that before. When we first met in the forest and she called me the Catcher.

She puts both hands to her chest. “You are like me. Your sin-spots do not fade. That is why they chose you: This is your future. This . . .” She gestures all around her. “It’s not what you think. They’ll never want to celebrate us. They will use us to destroy Kos.” Then she steps back, and the forest swallows her. I take a step after her, but a hand grips my shoulder. I turn, and it’s Ras. He merely shakes his head. Destroy Kos? How?

We head back to the fire. I watch the others dance. I can see their skin. When I finish teaching them to fight, they will go with Mages who will call forth sins for them to fight. If they win, they come back with new tattoos. If they don’t, they don’t come back at all. Some of them have only begun to gain their sin-spots. For most of them, so much of their flesh remains untouched, unblemished.

And they are still so happy.

This is your future, Zainab told me. I think about the young aki I’ve been training. I think about the festival, and that conversation I overheard between Aliya and Izu makes less sense than it did before. He wants to bring the aki out of hiding, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why.