It was the first time Altasa trusted me to go to the marketplace alone, and I wished she had not. I ran through the list of things she needed in a beat that matched my footsteps. If I forgot something, she would be furious.
Well, feigned fury. It came and went too quickly to be real. The corners of her eyes turned up when she barked at me, as though she could not completely hide her fondness. And fond she had grown. Perhaps it was that I was of the desert, like her. Or perhaps it was my patience with her on the days she was too weak to do anything at all and would hole away in her room. Today was one of those days.
She told me before I left that a ship had just come in with tulsi grown on the deck. I must get to the shop before they clipped it from its stems to dry.
The marketplace was not far from the docks, so I knew to follow the streets to the sea and turn in the direction of the ships. The differences between Almulihi and my settlement surprised me less every day, but the marketplace still stole my breath in terror. Stalls of goods seemed unending, each differentiating itself from its neighbor with loud shopkeepers or flamboyant signs.
A boy rushed up to me with a bag full of something dried just as a horse clopped by with enormous sacks flung over his rump.
I startled when he shouted, “The finest ginger crystals!” In his fist were large pieces of soft yellow. I had never seen anything like it.
Altasa had warned me not to sample anything. “They target salt chasers. Latch like a barnacle, and you’ll never finish what you need to get done.”
The boy saw me glance to his hand and raised his fist closer to my face. “Six fid for the palmful, but you can try it first and see if it is to your liking.”
Altasa was not here today. What would it matter if I tried it? I reached for the smallest piece, pressed it between the tips of my fingers—firm but yielding—and popped it in my mouth. The boy nodded and smiled, waiting for my delight.
My face twisted as my teeth bit through the chewy fruit. It was spicy and strong and—I started to cough. I chewed more quickly, trying to hide my displeasure, and swallowed.
“Does it not satisfy you?” The boy grabbed my hand. “We sell other things at Papa’s shop, come with me. We will find much you like.”
I tried to pull away, but his grip was firm. “Oh no,” I said after coughing more, the flavor still singeing my tongue.
“Yes, this way!” He pulled.
We blew past a man with arms outstretched, scarves draped over them. “Silk from across the sea!” he bellowed at me, ignoring the shop-boy pulling me along.
Another woman, modeling bracelets of silver and bronze, tried to get between the boy and me, brandishing the glistening jewelry. “The best price in the souk!” But even she could not separate the boy from my arm.
We turned down another lane with more stalls. I was so very lost, I would never find my way out. A small crowd filled most of the street we had turned down, and the boy slowed to navigate through them. The crowd faced a woman who waved her arms about, wearing bright colors and adorned with even more jewelry than the bracelet-seller. That she could stand with all that weight, let alone walk, surprised me. When I saw her face, I realized she was the same woman I had seen standing on the rooftop. Yet the clothes she wore now told me why she had seemed so familiar.
I came to an abrupt stop to watch her, my arm slipping from the boy’s grip.
She was the same oracle who had told Raheemah her fortune back home. The one Saalim had conjured from magic so he and I could spend moments alone. My mouth hung open as I stared at her. Had he known her from his life here? Or was there magic at play now?
“This way,” the boy said, wrapping his fingers around my wrist. “Almost there.”
I shook my head, not breaking my gaze from the oracle. It was so obvious that she was from the desert, like me. Her skin like mine. Even the shape of her eyes, the arch of her brow. Being a foreigner in Madinat Almulihi made me so aware of people like me. It was a comfort, an easy breath, an understanding. I wanted to speak with her just so I could hear home in her words.
The boy did not care of my curiosity, determined as he was. Grunting, I yanked my arm from his grasp a second time.
“No!” I said, drawing the attention of a few spectators at the oracle’s. “Leave me.”
He did not relent. “But you have not yet sampled Papa’s other dried goods. He has many. You will find much that you like.” More pulling.
Shaking my head uselessly, I looked around for anything that might help me rid myself of him.
I needed to see this oracle.
“You!” A woman stomped toward us wearing a scowl that made me cower. She was a mother, of that I was sure. She reached out her hand and with a swift movement, slapped the back of the boy’s head. “Find someone else. You’re wasting valuable time on a useless customer.”
The boy frowned at the terrifying woman, let me go, and ran back from where we had come.
I raised my hand in gratitude.
She ignored me and turned back toward the oracle. Perhaps she had been helping the boy instead of me. “Thank you,” I whispered, nonetheless.
“—only a few nab. To know your future, a single dha. To know your fate, it will take more than that.” Even the oracle’s voice was the same, now that I could hear it clearly.
“Ah, but that will cost you,” she said in answer to a question.
Finally, a man stepped forward and slid coins across the smooth table scattered with crystals and vials and urns. She swept them up and stood, leading the man into the curtained stall behind her. She took one look at us, her eyes briefly meeting mine, before she slid the curtain closed.
I waited with a few others. After some time, the curtain opened. The oracle had a grave look on her face, and the man left paler than when he had entered.
“Will you stand here and gawk, or is there someone who would like to know his fate?” she asked us.
“Do you travel?” I asked quickly.
“Travel? To the desert?” She gave me a knowing look. My accent.
“To settlements there?”
She shook her head. “My husband did. I’ve no interest in leaving Almulihi. I might consider it for the right price. What is your offer?” She patted the table, inviting coin.
“Oh, no . . . I just thought . . .”
I retreated, and the oracle looked away from me to the others who stood waiting, taking the next customer behind the curtain.
After many stops asking for help, entertaining numerous questions about where I was from and why my accent sounded different, I found the seller of tulsi. The leaves had already been cut when I arrived, but they were bright green and soft and so fragrant I did not think they could be any fresher than if I had cut them with the shears Altasa had sent.
I thanked the shopkeeper, ignoring her questions of my origin, explaining that I must quickly return to the palace to deliver the ingredients. At the mention of the palace, her mouth clamped shut, and she nodded.
With Altasa, I was never questioned. Though clothes could not hide the angles of my face, the darkness of my skin, the way I watched everything as though I were an infant seeing it for the first time, they knew better than to discuss anything other than business with Altasa around. Alone, they had no such misgivings.
Finally I acquired all that Altasa had requested. I found myself at the edge of the marketplace where stone streets became wooden planks that stretched out to the sea. The docks stood on alarmingly slim stilts above the waves, and tied alongside were boats with sky-high masts and tangles of ropes and slack sails. I watched the people move atop the ships for only a breath before my legs nearly collapsed and I had to turn away. How could someone feel safe standing on wood when water below threatened to swallow them?
Tavi lived nearby, so I followed the canal to her home. In front, a man in a narrow boat hauled a large crate onto the ground, then another. A younger man dumped the crate’s contents, scattering silver fish all over. Small children fluttered out from the house to chase the birds away. Then I saw Tavi, crouched down and sorting through the fish. Some she tossed in a basket, others into a bucket, and some, finally, to the crazed gulls that were soaring overhead. A more effective distraction than the children.
There was laughter, and I looked from the cacophonous birds back to Tavi. She and the young man watched each other, their shoulders shaking as they giggled. She seemed, unbelievably, happy. Nodding in my direction, the man drew Tavi’s attention to me. She looked at me then back to the man who shook his head and shooed her toward me.
“Emel,” she cried, beaming. “Look at you!” She hugged me, smelling of her work. Did I smell of mine? She drew back, and I drank in her face. It glowed, and her eyes were rested and eager. Her hands smoothed over my clothes and hair just as our mother’s used to. Her smile widened, and I saw that she had already gained back the youth she had lost on our journey. “You look like you belong in Almulihi,” she said finally.
Almulihi. She said it like she belonged here. Her hair was braided around her head like mine. The neckline of her long tunic was embroidered with flowers and vines—so detailed it was something our mothers would have worn. Here, it belonged to a simple work-woman. Even the sirwal that cuffed just above her ankles were stitched with at least a dozen different threads, and her sandals were new and stiff. I flexed my toes in my worn sandals. They were old, but they had been mine for so long. The slippers Altasa gave me were no good for walking these streets.
“—tried to visit, but they did not let me. Are you alone?” She looked behind me.
Visiting Tavi had been harder than I expected, as I was too nervous to leave the palace alone. This was only my third time seeing her, and we had been in Madinat Almulihi longer than a whole turn of the moon. The first two times were short visits, Altasa huffing with impatience as Tavi and I embraced.
“Let me show you where I stay. You can meet the children. Follow me.” Tavi was talking quickly, still smiling. She beckoned me into her home.
The front room housed the kitchen and seating area. Despite the windows at the entrance to the home, it was dark compared to the palace, and a fire provided most of the light. Saira sat at the table with two children slicing fish and removing bones. Though she had seemed austere on the night we arrived, she was now welcoming.
“Sit,” Saira said warmly and gestured to one of the two remaining chairs at the table. They were mismatched, one leaning to the side.
Shaking my head, I said, “I can’t stay long.” I held up my sack of goods by way of explanation.
Tavi introduced me to the children, one of the little girls babbling to Tavi immediately. Tavi listened with unwavering attention, all serious eyes and nods, before excusing us.
As we stepped down the narrow hallway to the back room, Tavi whispered, “She says I am her big sister.”
“Oh.”
The back room was larger than the front, with several folding screens placed to divide the mats on the floor from the others. Tavi pointed to one corner of the room, hidden by the largest screen, saying that was where Saira and her husband slept. The children’s beds were at the room’s center, and to the right, behind another, smaller screen was Tavi’s.
“It’s all my own!” She said excitedly as she took me there.
I thought of my room—stone walls on all sides, a bed raised off the floor, tiles beneath my feet—and said nothing.
Beside her bed was a shallow bowl filled with water. Next to the bowl was a small plate with a smooth red stone swirling with orange and a rough, dark blue stone.
“What is this?” I asked, kneeling down to peer at the dark, clumped material the stones sat upon. I picked it up between my fingers. It smelled strongly of frankincense. I dropped it back onto the plate. That scent would always remind me of Mama. How it clung to her clothes and hair.
Tavi knelt beside me. “It is for Mama and . . . Sabra.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you not seen these?” She cocked her head. “They are in everyone’s homes.”
How many homes had she visited? How many people had she met and befriended? People scowled at me. Who welcomed her?
“Does Altasa not have one?” She looked surprised.
I shrugged. Perhaps in her room, but I had not been in there. Again, I looked around their shared space.
“It is a way to remember those that have died, to ask Wahir to shelter them from Eiqab’s sun, to cradle them in water.” As she spoke, she stood and went to the fire that burned in a similar alcove as Altasa’s. It, too, had a chimney to suck away the smoke. She returned with a piece of wood alight and touched it to the dark clumps beneath the stones. Now I could really smell the frankincense.
“I chose that for Mama.”
I smiled.
Tavi lifted the blue stone and gently dipped it into the water, treating it like it was a baby bird. She held it above the water, letting the drops fall back into the bowl. Plunk, plunk, plunk. Then set the stone back onto the burning incense. There was a quiet sizzle. “It is topaz. Saira told me topaz is gentle. I thought Mama would like that.” She lifted the red stone and repeated the motion. “Fire agate,” she said quietly. “For strength. For Sabra.” When she set the stone onto the incense, it sizzled more loudly.
“You pray to Wahir now?” I asked sharply.
She sighed. “There is no rama here.”
No, Madinat Almulihi did not have sand hot enough for prayer.
“A poor excuse.” The words came out of me before I could stop them. I did not pray to Eiqab, either. Why was I fighting with her? I could not stop. “Have you forgotten home already?”
“Forgotten home? I do this,” she waved her hand over the small shrine, “every day so that I don’t forget them. So that I don’t forget our home and where we came from.”
“Well.” I stood. “I need to return. I’ve been gone too long.”
I gulped in the briny air—that which did not smell of frankincense—as soon as I was outside.
Tavi followed me out. “Please visit soon. I want to see you more. Maybe I can come to you?”
“Maybe,” I said as I fussed with my tunic.
“We can visit Firoz and Rashid. How are they? Or we can do something else. Yakub knows his way around the city well.” She nodded in the young man’s direction who had taken over sorting the fish.
He looked over after he tossed a fish to the crazed birds. “Say my name?”
“Everything isn’t about you,” Tavi called, her words curling with glee.
I listened to the two of them, stewing with guilt. I had not yet seen Firoz and Rashid. I thought of them often, but fear kept me from going to the baytahira. “They are well. I’ll return when I can,” I said with a quick hug.
As I walked away, I heard Yakub speak. “Everything well?” he asked Tavi.
“Yes,” she said quietly. I stopped briefly, pretending to adjust my sack. “She is very sad, I think. There is much she misses.”
She knew so much despite knowing very little.
Tavi, smelling of sea and salt, already had found more joy in her life flinging fish than I did living within the palace walls only a breath away from Saalim.
Altasa was still in her room when I returned. Tossing my sack on the table, I retrieved the kettle.
Midday was fast approaching, and my diversion in the market made me late to prepare medicines. I hurried across the now-cleared path and went to the fountain gardens. Leaning over the edge, I held the kettle beneath the fountain—a vase that perpetually spilled water into the pond. Men’s voices echoed inside, but they soon stopped.
I heard a chuckle as footsteps clapped on the tiles outside, and I turned to see Saalim approaching. Today, he was dressed like a king. Resplendent robes, thick and sparkling with golden thread, hung from his shoulders, and a glistening crown with blue stones buried in its side was seated on his brow. I could not tear my eyes from him. Cold water splashed onto my arm, and I hastily righted the kettle.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Collecting water for the medicine,” I said, wishing the kettle would fill more slowly.
“From the garden fountain?” Pulling the kettle away from the spout, I turned. He looked as if he was trying not to smile. “I’ve always preferred my water from the aqueduct. Cleaner, I think. But Altasa knows best. Should she decide she wants something . . . different, you are welcome to use the fountain inside.”
Many people filled at the fountain in the atrium. I assumed that was the palace source. This fountain had slick green growing on its sides, and the water in the cistern was so dark I could hardly see through it.
My cheeks warmed. Altasa had never told me where to fetch the water. “Well, who are we to question what she asks for?” I said, setting the kettle on the lip of the fountain. “You look like a king today.” The words slipped past my tongue before I could stop them.
“I must look the part when I see the people.”
“An address?” I asked.
“Court.”
“Which you should be on your way to,” a familiar voice called from inside. Beyond Saalim was Nassar. A chill crept down my back, remembering the moment Nassar handed my father the whip.
Saalim nodded. “Tell Altasa I’d like more of the salve.”
“I will.”
When their footsteps were inaudible, I dumped the water back into the fountain and went to fill the kettle in the atrium.
Altasa was at the counter examining the shears she had sent with me when I walked into her home.
With the sharp ends, she pointed to the tulsi leaves. “These were not cut by you.”
“No,” I admitted, suspending the kettle above the flames.
“Why not?”
“I was late.” I would never hear the end of it if she knew I had fallen prey to a shop-boy. “The leaves are fresh. What does it matter how they were cut?”
She spun the point of the shears into the wood countertop. “Every single thing on these shelves was prepared exactly as I needed them to be. They won’t work otherwise.”
“Work how?”
The shears fell onto the table. “I don’t want to know why you were late, but I do expect that you won’t be in the future. There are others who would happily do what you are doing for less.”
“But then who would you talk of home with, eh?”
“Myself, like I’ve always done.”
Lonely old woman. “When do you go back to see your family again?”
“My family?”
“Was that not who you had visited before I arrived?”
“My family is what brought me here, and now they’re gone.” She picked up the tulsi, examined the leaves, then let out a great sigh before dropping them back onto the counter. “You weren’t flirting with merchant men were you?”
“I saw an oracle,” I said.
“That imposter?” Altasa spun surprisingly quickly and faced me.
Her rest this morning had done her well—her face brighter, eyes less tired. She tutted.
“Why speak to such a fool? She makes enough coin as is, yet feels the need to go sputtering on about fortunes and fates, lying to people about what will befall them. People flock to her like she is the source of all magic.”
The vehemence surprised me. “And you think she can’t use magic?”
“Of course she can’t. Did you see her use it?”
“She did everything behind a curtain.”
“And how did she appear after?”
I stammered. “Appear?”
“Did she seem tired? Weak? Changed?”
Shrugging, I said, “I don’t think so, but there were so many people.” Saalim was never weak after using magic.
Altasa raised her eyebrows and nodded, as if this proved everything. “Know this about magic, so you’re never conned into giving coin for a show: True magic requires sacrifice, and takes from the user when it is wielded. That woman is no magician, harnessing what Masira has gifted—” she gestured to her wall of ingredients “—to manipulate that which is around us.” She moved toward me slowly, despite her improving limp.
Stepping around her to fetch the kettle from the fire, I said, “You believe it real, then?”
“Of course it’s real. It’s how Masira speaks.”
I grunted my disapproval.
“What do you know of magic?” She laughed, and I wanted to tell her just how much I knew. More than she would ever know.
“Enough to know that I want nothing to do with it. No one should have anything to do with it.” No longer wanting to speak of magic, I said, “The king requests more salve.”
She chuffed. “Why don’t you convince him to take the tonic? It’s easier to make and works better.”
“I’ll ask when I deliver the salve.” Pouring a bit of water into a bowl, I reached for the tulsi leaves. “Are these fine to use or not?”
She grabbed them from my hand. “No. You will do what I asked when their ship returns in twelve days.”
She went to the fire and threw in the leaves.
A few days later, I looked through Altasa’s recipe book, seeing if I knew enough to prepare more medicines without guidance. Though my reading was still weak, it had improved since I began reading Altasa’s Litab Almuq, using my memory of the stories my mother had told me.
The healer appeared to be feeling better, and the better she felt, the more often she was gone. It did not bother me, though, to see her less. She asked me so many questions of my home and my life prior to Almulihi, I was beginning to worry that she would catch me in my lies.
I pushed the anise around on the mesh sieve, letting the steam coat it and hoping to get more drops of oil than I had so far. Carefully, I flipped through the thick pages. Turning to an unmarked page, I read the recipe for treatment of some bumps of the skin—cumin seed was used and another ingredient I could not understand. There was a recipe for festering wounds. And then one to . . . change an unborn child? I must have read that wrong. The next was a list of ingredients to chew for an aching tooth. I turned the page again and paused. Dhitah. I sounded out the word, nearly certain it meant death. Why would a healer need something for death?
But then I thought to those days on our journey when water was nowhere to be found. When death would be the kindest end. Perhaps Altasa helped those who felt the same. I remembered my dream of the broken-winged bird that I had killed in my fist. Sabra who died without pain. Could death sometimes be a mercy?
The trees’ shadows stretched across the gardens and ponds. I closed my eyes against the bright orange light that slipped between the leaves. Altasa’s front door was open when I returned from the souk, her cane sitting against the table, cloak hanging over the chair. Murmurs hummed down the hall from her room. She must have been talking to herself again.
As the door closed loudly behind me, I heard a man’s whispered voice. The door to Altasa’s room opened and shut again, and she shuffled into the room.
“You’re back,” she said.
“Who is here?” I asked, noting that she stood nearly straight. I smiled. “A man?”
She cackled. “I am too old to bother with! Men would do better at the baytahira, eh?” Altasa was so amused by my question, laughing and shaking her head, that I could not help but smile, too.
“Where is the baytahira?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Not paying you enough?”
“Altasa!”
She laughed again and sat down, stretching her legs out in front of her.
“Your back is feeling better?”
“My medicines work!” She leaned forward and rubbed her knee. “Now, why do you need to know the whereabouts of the baytahira?”
“I have friends who went there when we arrived. To find work and a place to stay. I would like to visit them.”
“Do these friends have names, or are you keeping that a secret, too?” Her eyebrows waggled.
I told their names, and she told me how to get to there. She said I could go that night despite the thyme needing to be cut right at sundown.
“You’re well enough to do it on your own.” I slipped on my sandals.
“But what am I paying you for if not so I can sit around?”
“You don’t pay me at all.” The palace paid my coin.
“Bah! You really are the best worker I’ve had. I don’t pay a damn thing, and I work less.”
The baytahira was further away than I anticipated. By the time I arrived, the sunlight was gone, and I had to pull my cloak a little more tightly around my shoulders. When I turned the corner, I realized we had passed this street when we entered the city. It was nothing like the baytahira at home, mewling people with loose limbs and tired eyes scattered in front of tents.
Loud and rowdy people filled the streets, hugging each other and drinking from chalices and goatskins. Others slumped against the walls, smoking or dozing. Buildings with enormous, open windows lined the street, and I could see that inside, too, they were filled. Most seemed like gathering places—friends laughing and eating and drinking, cards and coin between them. Smoke billowed out of windows, fogging parts of the street.
What I did not see were the men and women who bedded for coin. I looked for them—people dressed like their clothes were to be removed, those who looked as though perhaps they were keeping most of themselves hidden away—but I saw none.
At the end of the baytahira, it was quieter, with fewer people. Shops became homes. Turning around, I walked down the busy street again. And again. Back and forth the lively stretch. I had no idea where I would find Firoz and Rashid.
“I imagine you’re lost,” a woman said to me.
Following the direction of the voice, I saw her sitting in front of a brightly lit home. Beside her home was a quiet business with dim lighting. She sat with a man much younger than her, cards stacked on the tabletop.
She must have seen my gaze as I peered through the windows of the shop at silhouettes seated atop cushions. Inside was smoke so dense, it reminded me of the Haf Shata and the Haf Alsaf, my father’s winter and summer festivals. I smelled it—charred honey. My fists clenched, battling my body’s desire to breathe in more.
“My Bura-den,” she said, tilting her head toward it.
“Bura?”
“Buraq rose. One of the only flowers that grows in the—”
“I know.” Named after the flying steed, smoking it could make a person feel light enough to fly. Many nights I had inhaled the sweet smoke before seeing a muhami.
“You have passed here several times now. What are you doing?” She stood from the chair, and in a moment, was beside me.
I recognized her.
“You are the oracle.”
She smiled and bobbed her head, the thick chains around her neck jingling with the movement. “Kahina,” she said. “I’ve seen you. You’re from the sand, too.”
I shifted and looked down the street at a cluster of people arguing. “I am looking for my friends. Firoz and Rashid.”
“I figured as much. You are Emel?” I nodded, and she cocked her head to the side, peering at me. “Every outsider comes to me when they arrive.” She pointed down the road. Fabric billowed out beneath her arm, undulating with golds and reds and silvers and greens. “At least those who aren’t told to keep away.”
Pulling my gaze away from her glittering clothes, I asked what she meant.
“I remember what it was like to be like you. Foreign. How I was treated. When I met my husband and we opened the den, I wanted to make sure we were a place that welcomed all. Now, I own half of these businesses. Those that aren’t mine belong to people I’ve helped. People call me the keeper of outcasts. That is flattering, but it gives me more credit than I deserve. I simply don’t want people to feel unwelcome.”
“Oh,” I said dumbly. “Why would people be told to stay away?”
“We’re a bunch of wild salt chasers. Watch your purse! We might take it.” Her eyes were wide and bright, and she winked. “Things have gotten worse since we were attacked—especially with the deaths of civilians and the royal family.” She pressed her fingers to her wrists. “People trust foreigners even less now. The baytahira is a stain on the city, I’m told. I disagree. I am simply giving a home to the people who would find one wherever they could. The palace streets would not be so beautiful if Bura-dens lined them, would they? At least, here, these people can be who they are.”
“Such as an oracle?” I asked.
She laughed. “It’s good fun, but it also allows me to find the lost people who haven’t found me yet.” Suddenly she clapped her hands together. “That was enough about me! Apologies. I like to give my speech to the newcomers.” Kahina pointed across the way, her finger glinting with golden bands. “You can find your boys in the jalsa tadhat.”
The spirit home.
Between two loud gambling houses was the jalsa tadhat, dark with a single small torch beside the entrance. There was no garish sign that told the passerby what was inside, and its windows were covered with dark fabric. Like many of the buildings on this street, there was a second level, and although those windows, too, were darkened, I could see firelight shifting inside.
When I stepped in, a young woman rushed toward me so quickly I nearly screamed.
“Shh!” she whispered. “They are summoning now.”
Behind her, a half dozen people sat in a circle with a small fire between them. They were speaking quietly in a language I did not understand. I stared, wide-eyed, before the woman grabbed my hand and led me up the stairs. There were a number of doors that led off the narrow hallway, and she walked me through one of them. It was a bedroom. I panicked, and backed away from her, shaking my head.
“No, no,” I said. “I am not interested in . . .” I pointed to the bed. “I am looking for a friend. Firoz is his name. Kahina said—”
She looked exhausted by me and took my flapping hands in hers. “This is my bedroom. I live here. Not work. You almost ruined the arwah. Odham would have been furious.”
Wary, I asked, “What are they trying to summon?”
“Eh, only a hatif. There are newcomers.”
I opened my mouth to ask more when something thundered from down the stairs. There was a crash, a slide, then groaning.
The woman sighed and ran out to the hallway. “Get up!” she hissed. “There is someone here to see you.”
Moving swiftly, I stepped out of the room and peered over the railing. Firoz lay in a clumsy pile in the middle of the steps. “Firo!” I said happily.
He looked up at me in a daze, and I hesitated.
“Blemel!” He cried, slurring my name. He stood, wobbling, before he fell and proceeded to crawl up the stairs.
When he was standing in front of me I could tell by the sweetness of his breath and the glaze of his eyes that he was as drunk and drugged as my father often was.
“Come with me,” he slurred, taking my hand and attempting to pull me down the hallway.
I recoiled and pulled away. “Perhaps now is not a good time.”
“Blemel no, now’s perfect!” He was shouting.
Ahead, I saw a door open, and Rashid walked out in a rush. When he saw me, he looked surprised, but smiled nonetheless.
“Emel!”
The anger I felt toward Firoz shifted to Rashid. I gestured at Firoz, who was babbling about the arwah, which apparently had finished. Rashid asked me to wait, took Firoz into what I presumed was their room, and after a long moment, came out by himself.
“Join me?” When I hesitated he said, “Firoz should lie down.”
Instead of going back downstairs, Rashid held open a curtain that led outside. There was a sturdy wooden ladder leaning against the wall that Rashid climbed up. From the small balcony, the backs of other homes were so close I could nearly reach out and touch them. Testing the ladder, I carefully followed Rashid.
My knees grew weak when I reached the roof of the jalsa tadhat. We were high up off the ground, only now there were no walls to contain me should I fall.
“It is safe,” Rashid said, giving me his hand. I scrambled onto the flat roof.
Rashid seated himself at the edge, his legs dangling over the side. I chose a spot at the center—well away from the edges. From here, I could see the palace emerging from the city like a ship at sea—glowing a pale orange against the deep blue night.
“I am glad you have come. Firoz misses you,” Rashid said.
“Does he?” Somehow I doubted that.
“We can’t come to the palace, you know. He tried early on to visit.” Tavi had said the same.
A stirring of shame. “So this is the life you’ve found? Summoning spirits?” My lip curled.
“It is all in fun. We could not all be handed palace work by the king.”
“Fun? Hatifs might be harmless, but what will you attempt to summon next, an ifrit?”
“They try.”
I gasped.
“Really, Emel?” He looked at me with unveiled exasperation. “Only children believe in those things. Children and the fools who pay us to summon them. Odham rattles bells and waves palm fronds to stir the air and everyone feels it was worth their coin.”
He did not remember that he once believed a jinni would free the desert.
“You’re fools to meddle in it,” I said. What would happen if they summoned something real? I shuddered to think of the repercussions.
He shrugged. “The baytahira attracts people who talk, you know. It is why I wanted to speak with you.” He scooted close to me and lowered his voice. “Some are whispering about a gathering of people with plans to upend Madinat Almulihi. Maybe the ones who killed the royal family . . .”
He waited, knowing that would snag my interest, but I was not going to let him take me down the path of conspiracy. Rashid was the one who had told Firoz about the Dalmur, who got us both tangled in that web. It was not something I wanted to deal with here. After all, it was meddling with rebellion that had almost killed Firoz.
“Does Firoz drink like this often?” I asked.
There was a sharp intake of breath. “He does. Since we arrived.”
Rashid told me that Firoz took quickly to their life in the baytahira, to his freedom and his pocket of coin. “I’m sure when the newness wears, he’ll slow his indulgence.”
Kahina had directed them to the jalsa tadhat the same night I was introduced to Altasa. Firoz helped with the arwahs. Rashid worked in one of Kahina’s Bura-dens, but lived with Firoz in the jalsa tadhat. I would not admit it to Rashid—Sons, I could barely admit it to myself—but I envied them. Rashid and Firoz living together, enough wealth and time to spend it frivolously. I considered that Tavi and I could have lived together, too, serving drink or food or whatever else people did here that was not bedding for coin.
I brushed hair from my face. “Well, I came to see Firo, but it is clear he is occupied.” For good or ill, everyone’s life seemed to tumble ahead while I dug my nails into the ground, trying to hold on to that which I had so desperately left behind.
“Don’t be so quick to cast your judgement.” Rashid watched me, and I knew he saw my anger. “He has not been the same since everything happened in the settlement.”
“I know.” The scar left behind when he was to be executed, when I wished for him to be saved. He was saved, and though magic muddied his memory, he still felt the traces of an almost-death. “Turning to drink or Buraq doesn’t help. You’re only making it worse for him by allowing it.”
Rashid was staring at the jagged lines of rooftops when I got up to leave.
Back on the ground level, I looked into the room where the arwah had taken place. The woman who had ushered me upstairs was now sweeping sand from between the cushions. Two people lingered, leaning against the wall. One was cloaked and turned so that I could not see him. The other was a small man with scars on his face, deeply shadowed by the firelight. The hair on his head was shorn to the scalp. The way he spoke to his companion—almost with a sneer, his tongue sliding over his lips and glinting teeth—unsettled me.
Arguing voices from outside the door drew my attention away from the men. The woman dropped the broom with a loud clatter, groaning about “this again,” and ran out front. I followed.
“Not here!” she shouted at two men who appeared to be arguing. “Not now! There are patrons inside!”
They were both very tall, and one was much older than the other.
“It is not any business of yours,” the older man said.
“You don’t know what you’re playing with—trying to summon spirits,” the younger man spat. He was different than many of the men I had seen in Almulihi. Although he dressed and had mannerisms of a seaborn, there was something about him that was unusual.
“Odham,” the woman said, pressing her hands against the older man’s forearms. “Come inside. Ignore this fool.”
“No!” Odham said and shoved his face a mere fist’s distance away from the younger man. “I will not have people like this come and tarnish my work because they think they know better than me.”
The young man scowled at Odham. Heavy silver bracelets clanked as he shook his fists at him. “Masira will not sit idle while you try to pull the strings of her power. She will have her say, and you will regret what you’re doing here.”
Unthinking, I nodded along to the young man’s words. It was a surprising relief to hear what I was thinking spoken aloud by someone else. I edged closer to him, facing Odham and the woman.
“He is right,” I said. They all stopped and looked at me, and when I saw the young man’s face straight on, I hesitated. He was almost familiar, but I knew I had never seen him before. He had an arcing scar that stretched from his brow to his temple. I would not forget something like that. Looking back to Odham and the woman, I said, “There are consequences when you ask Masira to grant you things. She does not give without taking. And she does not give kindly. You dare summon an ifrit or si’la, you may bring this city to the ground.”
Odham scowled and leaned toward me. “Fools,” he hissed and looked between me and the strange man. “Are you children? That is stuff of legends! Of fire stories!” His voice grew louder.
“Odham . . .” the woman warned quietly. “Some are still inside.”
As the woman pulled Odham away, the young man hissed, “If that is so, I’d rather be a child. Adults see things and think they see everything, but children know to look in the spaces between, and even when they have seen all, they still search for more.” He turned to me. “Come. We have warned them. Let them learn what happens when they call on the goddess.”
He beckoned me and I followed. It felt as though we were the only two sane people on the street.