The resemblance was obvious when I saw Kas beside his brother. So were the differences, especially as Kassim’s anger boiled over. How could I have thought I could share a life with him? His exterior was just a carefully crafted mask to cover that which was broken on the inside.
Movement atop Kahina’s roof drew my attention. I slipped away from the chaos on the street and moved toward her home.
In the front room, so much had already been destroyed by the fire and flood. Water soaked her beautiful cushions and smeared the ink of the maps that hung low on the wall. The stairs creaked as I ran up them, water dripping in my trail. The door to the back balcony was left open, the ladder ready against the wall that led to the roof. Curling my fingers around the rungs, I climbed.
At the top, I stilled. It was not Kahina. It was the same woman I had seen in the cave. The same face—just younger and more vibrant—of the woman who had comforted me when I cried after the camel race. The one who had made Madinat Almulihi feel like home.
“Zahar? What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Emel,” she said, spinning away from the edge. Zahar’s hair was nearly as black as mine—no longer white and coarse. Her face was now as smooth as my mother’s had been. She had aged in reverse.
Stepping onto the roof, I said, “It seems cowardly to wait up here while Kassim does your bidding.”
“Cowardly?” She laughed. “I have no need to be brave. I am not interested in losing my life.”
I gestured around us to the baytahira. “Why have you come here?”
“I thought I’d serve revenge to several people at once, but alas, the one I thought to sweep away quickly is not here.”
“Kahina?” I frowned. “What does she have to do with this?”
“That beast sent my sister away. The only family I had!”
Crossing my arms, I said, “Kahina would never—”
“You don’t know her at all,” Zahar spat. “She said being here did my sister no good. I was left alone!”
For just a moment, I thought I understood what Zahar felt. I remembered saying goodbye to Raheemah, living apart from Tavi, mourning Sabra, my sisters back home. My family. “Zahar, you could have gone after your sister, instead of turning your anger to the people in this city—”
“No, it had to begin with them, because this was all their fault.” Zahar snapped, and thoughts of my own sisters disappeared. She went on, as if an afterthought, “I will find Kahina later.”
“And when will you search for her? After Saalim dies? Edala?” Everything in the way she hid herself in shadows, in secret, revealed that she wanted nothing to do with the conflict on the street below. “After Kassim is dead, too? What are you waiting for?” I nudged closer, and she stepped back. For Kahina, the woven rug and low table on the roof would have served an intimate setting, a pleasant one at dusk—the breeze from the sea blowing in as the clouds rolled across the purple sky—but now, for me, they were merely an obstacle that separated us.
Zahar peered at the street again, satisfied with whatever she saw, then scowled at me. “Saalim never should have been able to break free. A privileged, rotten boy would never love his chains. I took you for a salt chaser, a daughter of Eiqab, not a soft child of Wahir. You have caused more trouble than Kahina.”
Saalim could only be freed when he desired his freedom the least. When we fell in love, his remaining a jinni had been the only assurance that we could remain together.
With a loud sigh, she said, “It was bad enough that I had to see Saalim take the throne, but now I am burdened with his idiot brother, useful though he may be at times.”
“Kassim,” I said, trying to piece it together. There was so much missing. “Why have you created this monster of him?” I moved toward the edge of the roof where she watched the street below.
“Me?” She was appalled. “I oiled a fire that had already been burning. He was an angry boy, so jealous of Saalim. Desperate to take the throne. So desperate, he was willing to kill his father and brother. What I didn’t expect was having to use magic on Saalim.”
I grimaced. “You encouraged Kassim to destroy his family.”
As if she did not hear me, she went on. “See, Kassim I had planned to stuff in a vessel after Malek and Saalim were dead. I didn’t actually want Kassim to be king.” She flicked her hand toward me. “Can you imagine someone so erratic on the throne?
“But desperate people turn to desperate things, and when you think you’re about to lose everything, you choose the impossible. When the army failed to kill him, Saalim showed up on my doorstep, begging me to save his home with the same magic he had denied existed. I was a weak old woman and wouldn’t kill him myself. My sister’s soul would find a way to destroy me if I did. So I put him away. At least then I would never have to see her face again.”
Her face? Zahar was undeniably crazed. I took a step away from her.
She said, “I used the magic I intended for Kassim. Of course, with the final swallow of the tonic, Madinat Almulihi fell to ruins and Saalim was bound to Masira.”
“So you gave Saalim the potion simply to do away with him?”
Zahar nodded as though I had asked her whether crushing leaves was preferable to chopping them. “Saalim locked away and Almulihi in ruins would have been enough for me. It was Kassim who wanted him dead.” Zahar exhaled and waved her hand.
“But why, Zahar? Why destroy Saalim’s life, his family, his home?”
“Malek destroyed mine.” She spat the words.
Saalim’s father?
There was something about all this that nagged at me, a cord tugging my spine and feet and hands away from her. Why was she divulging all of this to me now? What did she have planned that made her feel safe to tell me? I needed to warn Saalim. Edala.
But Zahar went on, and I was unable to tear myself from her flurry of words. “Those people Kassim recruited to destroy Almulihi? Barbarians. They did not discriminate and would have killed me. The magic that destroyed the city didn’t stop them. I had hoped so desperately I would finally be left alone.
“But Kassim found me as I fled the palace. Impossibly. I think it was Masira’s little fun. He was furious, of course. I’d ruined his city, and Saalim wasn’t dead. The palace he was set to rule was destroyed.”
“So you locked him away, too? To be mastered by a child?” I almost felt sorry for Kassim, his strings getting pulled by this woman.
Understanding flashed in Zahar’s eyes. Then, she said, “He annoyed me, so I had to lock him away, too.” She muttered something about being barely able to find enough ingredients to make a second tonic as she peered down at the street. Looking back to me, she said, “I pretended it was a part of my plan to imbue him with power. He, too, would become a jinni. Told him once Saalim was freed, I’d free him, too, so he could finally take the throne. It was so easy convincing him. He even found a little trinket from his childhood amidst the ruins to serve as his vessel. Soon he, too, was bound by Masira’s chains.” She batted her eyes apologetically. Finding a comfortable seat on a cushion, she rested her elbows against the table.
Pressing my hands together, I said, “But why do all this?”
“Because of him.” She pointed to the palace. “Because of a man who cared too much of his legacy to make a salt chaser his wife.”
I gasped. Was Zahar Saalim’s mother?
Looking up, she smiled, her shoulders falling back and away. So relaxed amidst so much chaos. “Those brothers are sand in my shoes. Let them destroy each other. My job is done. Malek has suffered for his choice. Now I want all that reminds me of him gone. And because you stand in my way, I want you gone, too.”
In a rush, Zahar pushed past the table and leapt at me. So surprised by the speed in which she moved, I failed to react. She grabbed one of my wrists and I turned, trying to pull away from her. With a violent wrench, she dragged me back toward her and caught my other wrist, and pinned my arms behind me.
She was unbelievably strong, her grip like an iron cuff, and I wass helpless to fight. There was no trace of the old woman Altasa. With ease, she pushed me toward the edge of the roof.
“I am sorry I have to do it this way. I like you, Emel.” Zahar seemed to be less apologetic as the reality that I would be thrown, that I would fall, became more certain. “But Edala’s flood has made it so easy for me, and your damn curiosity will be the death of you.” She laughed. “Go to Masira. Salt chasers don’t swim.”
Stone dug into my side, my legs tangled on the edge, and then there was nothing at all beneath me. I was floating. I was falling. Water came closer and closer and then swallowed me whole. Slick hands slipped down my throat and took hold.
I flailed my arms, my legs, coughing and spasming. I would taste air for brief moments then fall back into the flood.
I was going to drown in an impossibly flooded street.
My need to breathe fought with my insistence to keep my mouth closed. My desperation for air won, and I took a breath, the water choking me anew. Violent coughs snapped through me, and as the light dimmed, my attempts to swim faltered.
Something grabbed me. A hand. It pulled me up and up. Then, there was air and warmth and arms around me as I was jostled. A hard, dry street met my back.
“Emel!” Saalim cried from above me. “Emel!”
My eyes fluttered open. I saw him for only a moment before I rolled onto my stomach and coughed up water.
When I had settled, Saalim carried me across the canal bridge until we were surrounded by people who watched the flood with both terror and glee. The sound of water rushing and falling pulled my attention away from the crowd.
Water was rushing away from the baytahira. Straight toward us.
Panicked, I held my head and knees together, waiting for the water to take me again. But it never came, and when it quieted to a trickle, I saw that it had all poured back into the canal.
The crowd whispered about what had happened, lamenting the ruin of the baytahira, and praising Wahir that their homes hadn’t been flooded.
Kassim and Edala stood in front of each other, bodies rigid as if each locked in some invisible effort, neither wanting to make the first move.
It would be Kassim’s undoing, I knew.
I said, “Zahar’s on the roof—she threw me.”
“I saw her. It was how I found you.”
There was an agonized scream, and Kassim fell to his knees. But almost as suddenly, he was standing again, flames rushing toward Edala from behind. She must have sensed it, and they were gone as quickly as they appeared.
“Look,” Saalim said, pointing at the side of the street.
Zahar was leaving Kahina’s home. She slipped between two homes and was gone.
“Emel.” Saalim gripped my shoulders. “Go somewhere far away from this place, somewhere safe. Find Tavi and stay with her. Anything, please. I am going to find Zahar.” With a wave of his hand, four guards came from within the crowd.
But I would not flee. I belonged to this fight as much as he did.
Once Saalim and the men were gone, I crossed the canal again, nearing Kassim and Edala.
This all was pointless. It would serve better to retrieve the vessel and put Kassim away, find Zahar, and be done with them both. And if Bilara was Kassim’s master still? I shook my head. The child could not die. I had to find Bilara and take the vessel myself.
Zahar fleeing into the baytahira flashed in my mind again, and I clasped my hands together as I realized my mistake. Zahar knew that I had seen the child. I lived in the palace, where else would I have seen the girl? Zahar would never have known she was in the palace; she hated going inside. How often had she praised Eiqab that she had me, so that she did not have to step foot in that place?
Now Zahar had gone to find her. To take the vessel so we couldn’t have it.
“Kassim, stop it!” I cried. “You would kill your sister?” I shouted, trying to distract him from my attempt to capture Edala’s attention.
“As she would kill me,” he snapped.
Edala stepped back, watching Kassim closely. “You are my brother no longer. I would not wish death upon him.” She said the last part softly.
“You’d help me to become king, then?” He was petulant as a child.
“Stop this,” she said. “It was father’s choice to make.”
I stepped closer. “A father whose death is on your hands.”
Kassim looked unapologetic.
I shook my head. “You are only a tool for the revenge Zahar so desperately wanted to take against your father. She said herself she doesn’t care who sits on the throne; she only wants to destroy your family. And you’ve done that for her, you fool.” I turned to Edala. “It is where Zahar goes now—to take it.” I hoped that would be enough. That Edala would understand without sending Kassim on our trail.
“It is locked,” she whispered.
“Perhaps not for her,” I said.
Kassim peered around, fury pouring from his hands as the stone of the street cracked and exploded into smaller pieces. A building to his left shook and fell. Another beside it did the same. The baytahira crumbled beneath his wrath.
I moved to run forward, to grab his hands and stop him from destroying his home, but I found I couldn’t move.
“Don’t, Emel,” Edala said, coming toward me.
When her hands touched my shoulders, we were not standing in the middle of the baytahira any longer.
The silence of Edala’s tower was so thick, it deafened. I fell to my knees when my feet hit the plush carpets of the sitting room.
“Where is Kassim?” I asked, looking up at her from the ground.
“I do not know if my control of time works on him.”
“Could he follow you?”
She pressed her hand to her brow. “I don’t know.” She took deep breaths, lost in thought. “I can’t kill him.” Edala’s confession snapped through the silence.
I frowned. “You don’t have to, Edala. We can find another way.”
“No,” she said shaking her head. “I cannot kill him. It is impossible. He defends everything I do.” She turned to me with heart-sick eyes.
Like dust clearing, I understood. “But of course. He couldn’t die—even at your hands—unless his master wills it. Or unless the master is dead. First, he needs a new master.”
She sat on a chair and dropped her face into her hands. “Sons, you’re right.”
“Zahar said the vessel is from Kassim’s childhood. Something he chose?”
Clarity washed away her shame and she stared at me, amazed. “His puzzle box. I don’t know how I didn’t realize it before.”
“You know it?”
“He kept the smallest things in there, something to keep secret from everyone. None could open it unless you had the key and knew how to move the pieces. Of course, none had the key but him.” Her gaze grew distant as she remembered. “There is a small metal rod that . . .” She paused, gasping. “It is soldered to the chain.” Edala spun, then ran up the stairs saying, “I know how to open it.”
I followed her to the top of the tower that opened up into a large circular room. Bilara sat upon one of the two large beds, frozen as she clutched the metal box. Mariam’s mouth was open wide, as if speaking loudly to her, surely to distract her from the incessant horn’s blare.
Without any gentleness, Edala tore the box from the girl’s hands.
I couldn’t help but ask, “Why did you not take the vessel sooner?”
“I did.” Her voice was low. “But I could not open it. I did not realize what it was, and a jinni’s vessel can only be opened how it is intended, see? I could not magic nor force it open.” She shook her head, holding the box carefully in front of her. “Now that you’ve said it, I see it. This is Kassim’s puzzle box, indeed.” Peering at the remnants of the chain that had been broken, she nodded, and took a small vestige of metal into her fingers. Working it slowly, the chain fell off and left only a thin silver rod.
“What do you plan to do?” I asked.
“You were not wrong about magic, Emel. It always has a price.” She held the box reverentially, mournfully. “I will become his master. Then I will put him to death.”
“You?” I asked. “But in order for the jinni to die, the master must want it. Or the master, too, must . . .”
“I know. He needs to die.” She did not seem convinced as she cradled the box in her arms, her eyes wet.
“Edala,” I said softly. “You don’t have to do it. I can be his master.” I wanted him dead.
“No.” She shook her head. “I will do it. It is like you said. Magic is better stripped from the desert. Look at all the trouble it has caused . . .”
Chills swept down my spine. What was she implying? “We should talk to the others.”
“So they can tell us what, Emel? Waiting will do nothing but make it harder.” She stood.
“You will do it now?” It was happening so quickly.
“Now.” Sliding the key into the lock, the smallest click sounded. With her thumbs, Edala slid the pieces apart one by one, until finally, the top opened up.
“Return to your vessel,” she whispered needlessly. He would return whether she asked it or not.
Almost instantly, the box snapped closed, the pieces sliding and pulling rapidly back together. By the way Edala held it close, I knew that Kassim was inside.
“And now?” I asked.
Swallowing hard, she turned and walked down the steps. Bilara and Mariam remained, locked in stillness behind us.
Edala led us to Saalim’s tower. We passed Tamam, face stoic and watchful as ever. Edala’s gaze lingered on him for a moment before she hurried up the stairs. We did not stop in Saalim’s rooms, though. We climbed higher.
“It seems only fitting he . . .” Her throat made a constricted sound and she did not finish.
We arrived in what I could only presume was Kassim’s room. Untouched, preserved like a shrine. For having insisted so vehemently on hatred, I was shocked that Saalim had left it intact.
The room was decorated with dark curtains and bedding. A simple tapestry hung on the wall depicting the royal family—not unlike the one that was gifted to Saalim. There was a large, empty desk I suspected had seldom been used. Had Kassim sat at the table imagining he was corresponding with kings?
Edala coaxed flames to life in the fireplace across from his vast bed. I remembered thinking of sharing Kassim’s bed. How far would he have let me fall for him simply to sway me from Saalim, the more easily to kill his brother? I chewed my cheek, the bitter taste of betrayal on my tongue.
Edala began fussing with the lock again. It took her one too many tries to insert the rod into the box, her shaking hands making it difficult.
Backing away as she slid the pieces of the box apart, I held my breath. I did not know what it would be like to release an angry jinni.
Horns blared, and I nearly fell to the ground in fright. But I felt the brush of wind against my face, and the curtains began shifting again. Time moved forward, I realized. Edala paused her disassembly of the box and looked out the window. The horns stopped, but the wind still blew. Satisfied, she slowly opened Kassim’s vessel.
Just as I remembered Saalim appearing, Kassim did the same. It was a silver smoke, nearly liquid in its iridescence that spilled from the box, first up and up, then back down onto itself as Kassim’s kneeling form appeared.
“Yes, master?” he said. Just as Saalim had done. I felt as if I’d been dropped in cold water all over again.
When the smoke had cleared, and only Kassim remained, I saw he was wholly a jinni: skin glinting almost silver, eyes brighter still. The silver cuffs I mistook for bracelets appeared to melt into his skin as Saalim’s once had.
Kassim took in his surroundings. His shoulders fell, just a little. His confidence flagging in the home of his childhood.
“Why have you brought me here?” he said, rising. Under the constraints of Edala’s desires, appeared a reined horse. Limited, finally.
I exhaled, relieved Zahar could no longer control the jinni. Even if she could not get far with my protection, there were still many ways to wreak havoc that did not involve me or Saalim. I was relieved, too, that the girl no longer possessed his vessel, even if in her room she was inconsolable at the sudden loss of her silver box. There was too much power at risk.
Edala sighed, and brushed a hand through her black hair as she gathered it over her shoulder. “So you might remember us. This life.” She seemed like a child then. A hopeful, naïve child.
Oh, Edala. Even I could see this life was not one Kassim wanted to remember.
“You don’t have to destroy me,” Kassim said, so vulnerably that I felt an intruder in their lives. He did not look at me, though. Only his sister.
Edala nodded. “I could free you.”
No. If he could not be trusted before, he surely could not be trusted now. Not when he had so much fuel for his anger.
“Edala,” I said. “Don’t.”
Kassim finally looked at me. In spite of the silver, his eyes and skin now seemed almost corpse-like in their pallor. I knew he could feel, just slightly, the desire with which I wanted him gone. Did it hurt to know that someone distrusted him, despised him, so greatly?
I tried again. “Think of what he did to your father, your mother, Nadia, Saalim.”
Kassim’s gaze flashed back to Edala, having felt whatever changed in her.
“Edala,” he began. “You and I, we could go somewhere, find something else. We could fly across this ocean, explore those places we heard about in court.” He was still kneeling.
A begging slave, tongue as silver as his eyes.
Edala nodded once, and I nearly pulled the box from her hands myself. Then she said, “The path you are on now is of your own doing.”
Without looking at him, she began to open the vessel.
“Wait,” he said, his voice telling us the fight was lost. In his hands a large sack appeared; it reminded me of the salt-filled bags Saalim gave me. “For Bilara.” He tossed the sack at my feet. “She was a kind master. Tell her Kas will miss her.”
When I looked into the sack I saw sugar-dusted dates.
“Kas,” Edala hesitated. “I . . .” She stopped herself. She opened the vessel, and he was gone.
This scene was too familiar, remembering how my wish for freedom had torn Saalim from me. Rigid, I stood beside Edala expecting something to go horribly wrong. Expecting for everything to happen as it did for me. But there had been no wish, so nothing could go awry.
Saalim’s sister knelt by the fire. The bones of her knuckles shone as she tightly clutched Kassim’s vessel. Then, she threw the silver box into the flames. The fire roared around the box as if to consume it, and we both watched with delicate stillness. Waiting, breathing.
The silver box did not bend at the flame’s hands, it did not change. Nothing happened at all.
Edala gasped and sobbed, her face falling into her hands. The sound of anguish, of relief. But of course, no matter how much she believed she did, Edala did not want to lose him. No matter how evil, how wicked. He was her brother. How strange family was that we made so many allowances, accepted the unacceptable, only so they would stay ours.
I searched for something to pull the vessel from the flames.
“What has happened?” Tamam strode into the room, worry creased his face. “I heard your cries,” he said, voice lifting in question. “And then I felt something . . .” He searched for the word.
The stilling of time. Something perhaps everyone felt when it happened, attributed to an ache of the head or a cramp in the gut. But Tamam was intimate with magic now, and he could discern the feel of it.
Wordlessly, lip trembling, eyes red and wet, Edala took Kassim’s vessel from the flames. The fire did not burn her. She held it out for Tamam so carefully in her palms. It showed me the depth of their love, of their trust, more clearly than anything I had seen yet. She was offering him everything.
Tamam stepped closer to her, reaching his hand not for the vessel but for her. “Kassim,” he said.
She nodded as he knelt beside her. This side of Tamam was so different from the man I knew, I could not look away.
“I am sorry,” Tamam said, then pulled her to him. She cried in his lap, curling the vessel to her chest.
Through sobs, Edala said, “He can’t die.” Tamam’s face darkened.
“Why?” He looked at me.
I began. “I am not—”
“I don’t want him to,” Edala whispered.
So there it was.
“Let me,” I said through her cries of guilt, relief, fear.
Edala shook her head. Would she refuse to kill Kassim? Would she be his master and promise to keep him at bay? Until, of course, she decided that he was right and went after Saalim herself.
Edala said, “What if there is some small part of you who wants a jinni? I thought I would be untouched by greed, but here we are.”
“It is not greed,” Tamam said. “He is your brother.”
Edala took a deep breath. “Emel is right.”
I stared at her, remembering what she had told me: You were not wrong about magic . . . It always has a price. It is like you said. Magic is better stripped from the desert. Understanding washed over me.
No.
“We do not belong here,” she said, sounding so defeated. She tapped the pads of her fingers on the box. Beyond her, the fire quieted down, disappointed by its lost feast. “Magic, I mean.”
Tamam bent toward her, stroking her hair away from her temple. “You belong here, Edala. You belong . . .” He glanced out at the day. What did he want to say that he withheld because I was there with them?
She shook her head. “We shouldn’t have meddled. Zahar, me. Look what it’s done. Pulling strings that should have been left to fate. It was wrong, and I see it now.” She looked at me, eyes shining in the dying firelight. “We have allowed Masira to step into this world. It is not hers but her Sons’. We must destroy the path.”
I said, “There must be another way.”
She shook her head. “We must die.”
My skin pricked with chills.
Tamam went rigid and shook his head, grabbing at her arm. “Don’t be absurd.” I looked away, his sadness so apparent, I had to swallow my tears. “Can’t you undo what you’ve done? Become human? Like Saalim.” He waved his hand at me. So he knew, too. Had Edala told him? I was sure Saalim had not.
What was it like for Tamam? A loyal soldier, a devoted friend. To find the woman he loved, the king he served, had a history thick with magic, with legend and myth.
She bowed her head, her eyes dropping to the vessel. “I can free Kassim, but Zahar and I cannot undo what we’ve done.”
“Edala,” I begged. “There must be another way. Can’t you stop using magic?” I continued in a whisper. “You cannot die . . . you cannot leave Saalim, Tamam. Me.”
She laughed. “You care little for me; I respect that. I know how you feel about what I’ve done and what I do. That is why—” she turned to me, pleading with the vessel between her palms. “I know you will do it. When I am gone, feed Kassim to the flames.”
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
“You must.”
Tamam rose. “I won’t allow this.”
She stood and placed her hand on his cheek. “My love, our story will not be tiled into a mosaic.” She pressed her hand to his chest. “But it will be here. The first time you mourned me should have been the last.”
Tamam spun away from her. “You are upset. Let’s take time to consider all options. First we talk to Saalim, we find Zahar.” Then he went back to her, taking her hands and pressing them together. “Please.” The desperation he tried to keep hidden spilled over.
Something about what Edala said hummed through me like a plucked sitar string. It nagged at a memory, at my feelings when I left my village, when I declared that magic—though it had done wonderful things—was no boon. It sowed fear and questions and hardship. Edala was right. I was right. Magic needed to be gone from here.
Is that why Masira chose me, why I carried her mark? Did she know that I would rid her of this obligation to humans?
“All right.” Rubbing at my wet cheeks, I asked, “How?”
Tamam cried her name in warning.
“Tamam,” Edala said, “you will either come willingly and kiss me goodbye as I hope, or I will bind you with magic and leave you here.”
Tamam stormed away. I heard his steps clatter down the stairs. Edala stared in the direction he went until we could hear his steps no longer. Her lip trembled, and she looked at me.
“I want the waves to take me. Go to Wahir.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“And Saalim?”
From the folds of her robes, Edala pulled a neatly folded piece of parchment, sealed closed with wax. No mark. Just a smooth slick of red. “His response will be worse than Tamam’s, I suspect. Give him this.”
He would be devastated. He had been relieved to have found his family, to not be alone.
My legs were weak and shaky when I rose from the ground. My heart pounded, breath shallow.
I reached for the vessel, but Edala did not give it to me. “I want to be with him.”
Nodding, I followed her out. Tamam waited for us at the base of the stairs, eyes trained only on Edala.
I could not look at him long, understanding how he drank her in, noting every detail as I had once done to Saalim. I heard his steps behind us, slow and heavy with remorse.
When we were out of the palace, Tamam passed me and took Edala’s hand in his.
Together, we walked to the sea.