A few days before the Falsa Mawk, Tavi and I met early at the temple.
“I have never seen it so quiet,” I said with a yawn, peering down deserted streets. The sun had barely risen.
“The city sleeps late,” Tavi said. “Josef usually leaves when it is still dark, so I have gotten used to the city asleep. I like it best.” Tavi pointed to the temple. “Shall we go in?”
There were so many windows that I could nearly see through it. When we entered, it did not feel as though we were inside. The water was loud, and the wind that whipped through was cold. The entire room was cast in pale purple from the dawn’s light.
“The water is Wahir’s gift,” Tavi whispered, minding the few others kneeling in the shallow pool. “So here we honor him and show gratitude for the gift.”
“Because of Eiqab, we have this.” I trailed my fingers beneath the falling water.
Tavi smiled. “You know this?”
“I am reading the Litab.”
My sister whispered of her jealousy. I promised I would try to teach her some time. Then, she dropped her voice, pointing to the people across the temple that stared at us, evidently irritated by our chatter.
Ceasing our conversation, we continued walking around.
“You are not welcome here,” a man said from across the pool. He had been kneeling there, ripples spreading fast across the water’s surface when he stood. His anger was a lash, and its whip echoed through the room.
Tavi faltered, and I stood still, neither of us knowing what to say.
“Go burn your skin on the sand,” he spat when we did not move.
“We will leave,” Tavi said, pressing her hands at the air in front of her.
I did not want to leave. I wanted to refuse. This man was not the ruler of Madinat Almulihi; he could not tell me where I could stand.
But he was right. I did not belong there. Standing my ground was not so easy when the ground was not mine to stand upon.
As I turned to follow Tavi, footsteps—assertive and incongruous with the gentle surroundings—clattered into the temple. I spun to the source.
“Kas?” I gasped.
“You can’t speak to them like that in Wahir’s home,” he said, striding in.
The man was untroubled by Kas. “Salt chasers don’t belong in the temple.”
“Anyone—salt chasers or spice-slingers,” Kas looked the man up and down, “can pray here.”
“I don’t know what this city has become.” Without another glance to Tavi and me, he left. The few others in the temple watched us only for a moment before they returned to their prayers, surely only counting their breaths until they deemed it appropriate to leave.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Kas, approaching him quickly. Seeing him there, chest heaving with anger on my behalf, made me feel like a young ahira again. Back when I cared what muhamis thought of me. My fingers flew to my hair, smoothing it down behind my ear, brushing out the folds in my tunic. I had not seen him since he’d fled from me. I thought I would not see him again. Nearly every day Altasa asked why I wasn’t out with that boy. It was getting harder and harder to lie. “Where have you been?”
“I am sorry that happened,” he said softly, reaching a hand out to me. I took it in mine cautiously, wondering if he apologized for the man in the temple or for his disappearance.
Kas led us back outside.
I gestured to my sister. “This is Tavi.”
Tavi’s wide eyes danced from me to Kas to our intertwined hands. Quickly, I let go.
“Where have you been?” I pressed. “What are you doing here? How did you find us?”
“I come here most mornings.” He said it like a confession.
Tavi tilted her head. “You do? So do I. How have I not seen you before?”
Kas looked down, then said, “I have seen you many times.”
Tavi turned away with her brow furrowed, drawing her finger to her mouth. Then: “I must have forgotten. Kas.” She pressed her hands together, looking at the yellowing sky. “It is nice to meet you. I should be on my way. Emel, we’ll see each other soon, eh? I want to have some of those sugared breads you told me about.” She raised her eyebrows in a way that told me she really wanted to hear about Kas. I could tell by the way her mouth curved she liked the look of him.
“Mazha’s?” Kas asked, suddenly excited.
“Ah, yes,” Tavi answered, then politely listened to Kas explain how to get there and how much the bread cost and which flavor was the best—the lemon, apparently. Soon, Tavi was gone.
“I’ve missed you,” I told him as he led me down the street, and I really had. The city was waking up now, horse-drawn wagons and carriages beginning to fill the streets as people left their homes to head to the markets.
“I am sorry,” he said quietly. Kas waved down a man pushing his cart toward the marketplace. “All that talk about sweet breads,” he said as he pulled me along, scurrying to keep up with him.
After passing coin, the man handed Kas a sack of something that he then gave to me. “The best in the city.”
Inside were dates dusted with coarse sugar.
A wide smile stretched across my face, and I quickly popped one in my mouth.
“I love these,” I said. But with those words came an unwelcome ache. The last time I had eaten sugared dates, I’d been sitting in a magicked tent with Saalim, listening to the sounds of the bazaar around us.
My steps slowed.
“What is it?” Kas asked, wrapping his fingers in mine. His hand was so warm, so careful.
“Where did you go that day? You left.” I quickly swallowed the date. A horse the color of a salt brick trotted alongside us.
He sighed and covered his face. “I had . . . matters . . . I needed to deal with that I’d forgotten. It is no excuse. I should not have left you like that.”
“And then I heard nothing. Not even a message.”
“If I am honest—”
“Please.”
“I thought to reach out, but then I . . . You know how I feel about you, Emel. I don’t know how you feel about me.” He spoke quietly.
“You are very important to me,” I began. I bit my lip, wondering what exactly I did feel.
“But you don’t feel for me like you felt for him.”
Him. Perhaps my acting had not been so faultless.
“That is not true.” I rubbed my thumb over his knuckles. “I care deeply for you.”
Kas said, “The Falsa Mawk is in three days, as I am sure you know.”
Letting go of his hand, I plucked another date from the sack and slowly chewed the fruit from the seed, waiting.
“There is a good place to view the parade in the baytahira. Goes right by the drink house on the corner there. You remember?”
The one where we had first shared a drink. Before I knew him at all.
“They have a rooftop,” he said. The one from which Kahina had watched the caravan’s arrival. “It’s the best place to see the day parade—well, besides the palace steps—and it will be a perfect place to see the firepaint at night.”
“Firepaint?” I turned to him, my confusion apparent.
An enormous grin spread across his face and he rubbed his hands together. “That is right! You wouldn’t know. Well, I won’t ruin the surprise.”
“Don’t do that! Saalim wouldn’t tell me either,” I said before I could stop myself.
“Saalim? The king?” Kas’s eyes darkened like storm clouds.
“He had mentioned it in passing,” I said quickly. “When I was delivering his medicine.”
“To call him by his name is very informal. You speak often, then?” How much he had gleaned from one slip of the tongue.
“No, almost never.” I’d eaten nearly the entire bag of dates. I offered it to Kas. He shook his head. He hadn’t had a single one.
We were silent for some time. I watched the streets grow busier, the people leaving their homes with calls of goodbye.
“Will you join me then? I would like it.”
I had planned to join Saalim but could not say that now. But then, why meet Saalim and his royal friends? The camel race still made me shiver, and Saalim’s invitation had been out of apology. But could I refuse him? Every day telling myself to leave the king behind got a little easier. Even if there were threads of that life that snagged, continuing to pull me back.
I should cut them free once and for all.
“Where should I meet you?” I asked, leaning into him, my face upturned. He grinned and kissed me, smacking his lips when he tasted the sugar on mine.
After finding peace with Tavi, I wanted the same with Firoz and Rashid. I still had some time to myself before Altasa awoke, so I went to invite them to join Kas and me at the festival. Smiling, I envisioned us all sharing food and drink, me tucked under Kas’ arm, Firoz and Rashid hand in hand.
The baytahira was nearly deserted, but in front of the jalsa tadhat, a man lay curled on the street, eyes closed as if asleep.
“Firoz?!” I ran to him. Pushing him from his side to his back, I said his name again.
“Mmmemmeh.” His face was puffy, eyes swollen. His lips were dry and his hair was stuck to his brow as if he had been there all night.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked him. A man sweeping the street in front of his Bura-den cast us a quick glance before looking back to the ground. As though a half-dead man in the street was of little concern. “Wake up,” I hissed, slapping his cheek. His eyes parted slightly, cloudy in focus, before closing again.
I went to the jalsa tadhat, but the door was locked. Had they barred him from his home? Where was Rashid?
“Sir!” I called to the sweeping man. “Have you any water or tea?”
He looked at me, pausing his task only briefly, before looking back to the ground. “I won’t waste what I have on him.”
“I will pay.” Fishing out my purse, I flashed a fid at him.
The man set down the broom and went inside. He returned quickly with tepid tea inside a chipped ceramic cup. I handed him the silver coin.
I dipped my finger in to feel its temperature before I dumped the tea on Firoz’s face.
His eyes opened and he sputtered, wiping his face with his sleeve. Finally, he saw me.
“What—why are you here?” he asked as I helped him sit up. Slowly, he looked around us, considering the sky and the location of the sun. “What am I doing here?”
“I thought maybe you would know the answer to that question.”
He dropped his head into his hands, staring between his knees.
“Do you remember anything?”
He blinked. “I am not sure.”
Sighing, I waited.
“There was an arwah last night . . .”
I resisted the urge to stomp away.
He said, “We summoned . . . a spirit . . . I think.” He took heaving breaths, as though he had just run a footrace. “Yes, we did.” His voice was sharper now. “One of the Darkafa, I think? He said something about the jinni . . . he said he wanted to know where the goddess was, wanted proof that she was here and that the jinni was real. That he would help take down the first-born Son.” Firoz wiped the hair from his brow. “The man was not convinced of her powers. He doubted aloud . . .” The heels of his hands dug at his eyes. “It is so cloudy. I can’t remember if anything happened after that.”
“Where is Rashid?” I asked, looking back to the locked door. Was he in there, sleeping comfortably while Firoz lay in the street?
“I can’t remember. It was so sudden. Like some hand, some force . . . I don’t know. It . . . it pushed us all, or took us. It was so angry. I . . . don’t understand. A man came? And now . . .” He held his hands out, looking around with apparent confusion.
“You’re here,” I said, anger rising.
Slowly, he nodded.
“Sons, Firoz! What happened to you? You don’t even know! Do you value your life so little?” I stood, clenching my fists and pacing around him. “I told you to stop tampering with magic. You could have died! Rashid could be dead!” I shouted the words. Each like a lashing.
“He wasn’t there,” he cried. He sounded defeated. Pathetic and sad. “Well, I don’t think he was there. He was upstairs, I am sure of it.”
“What of Odham and the others?”
Firoz simply shook his head. “Your friend was there. I think.”
“My friend?” At first, I did not know who he meant. But then, “Kas?”
He nodded.
“No, he wasn’t. He despises the arwahs even more than me.”
He nodded. “He was there arguing with Odham. I remember hearing him in the hall.”
“Well,” I spat. “He is fine. I saw him this morning.”
Why hadn’t he mentioned what had happened? That my friend lay on the street? But then. Maybe he had not been aware of the magic. The rift created by Masira could have made him oblivious to the change.
Firoz stared at his hands opening and closing. Then, something pulled his attention to what was in front of him. His eyes brightened with relief. I followed his gaze and saw Rashid walking toward us, treading hesitantly, as though his legs had been under camel’s feet.
Firoz scrambled to get up. Reluctantly, I helped him. “Let’s go see what he has to say about last night, eh?”
“Are you all right?” Firoz breathed when he met Rashid.
“I am. Are you? What happened?”
I spoke before Firoz could give his clumsy recount again, my patience dispersing like smoke. “No, you answer first. Where did you come from now?”
Rashid looked as dazed as Firoz, running his hands through his hair, squinting at nothing in an attempt to remember.
I could not bear it any longer. “This,” I said pointing at the both of them, “is what happens when you meddle with things you don’t understand. This is what happens when you meddle with magic. It’s for fools. I hope that you have learned something.”
They both blinked at me.
“But I can see that you have not.”
Without looking back, I stomped away, vowing I would never see them again. Never would I associate with someone who dallied with their life. The risk of Masira’s ill-will was not one that I wanted to take. Her magic, her providence—whatever it was to be called—was better off stripped completely from the desert.
When I returned to the palace, smoke rose from Altasa’s chimney. So she was awake. I could hear her rummaging about in the back. Following the sounds, I was surprised to find they came from my room.
My door was open, Altasa’s back to me when I walked in. “He said he . . . can’t believe,” she mumbled.
“Awake finally, eh?” I asked.
She jumped and there was a loud clatter. The familiar rattle of glass and metal.
“Oh!” Altasa slammed the drawer at my bedside table closed.
I turned hard as stone. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for another pissing pot. Thought I’d left a spare in here.”
“Those are my things.”
“Fancy things you have there. Careful,” Altasa said with a new hardness to her words. “The king might think you stole them.” Her eyes dropped from my face to my chest as though she were searching for other stolen treasures.
She walked past me and back in the hall, grumbling about never having a damn pissing pot when she needed one. “Oh, and Emel?” She called from the kitchen, “I think it’s time for you to start a new lesson.”