To travel the streets of Ard Al-Ghul in safety, the girls slip some of the bone-eaters’ unwashed clothing over their own, rolling up the long sleeves and using belts to keep the pants from falling. Shay gags on the rancid smell, but she supposes that's the point.
“Will this really be enough to keep the monsters away from us?” she asks Khawla.
“It will prevent them from beingdrawn tous,” Khawla clarifies. “But don't worry. It's just an added precaution; I know what route to take and which to avoid to steer clear of trouble.”
Khawla leads her into a place that turns out to be like a shadow version of her medina, deeper than she's ever been—or wanted to be. They weave past buildings constructed of cobbled bones, whose lawns boast gardens filled with spike-rimmed flowers, eyeballs blinking from their engorged centers. Plants with hinged lobes snap open and shut, revealing barbed teeth and forked tongues. Bare thujas twist like dancers, thick webs billowing from their branches like tattered grave sheets. Behind each glowing window and from every darkened alley, hosts of hungry eyes peer out. Giant rats the size of dogs scurry in and out of gutters. Shay hears what sounds for all the world like the cries of a baby from deep within the throat of a long drainage pipe. Khawla hurries her along, whispering assuredly that it isn't what she thinks.
On a street lined with businesses, strange, discordant music seeps through heavily-curtained window fronts. After making their way around an ornate marble fountain in the center square, flowing red with what Shay can only presume is blood, they make quick turns down a few alleys painted a color that glows muddy green in the pale of night.
The door Khawla finally stops in front of is the only blue one in a row of black. A yaz is carved into the wood, the same symbol from Khawla's marked trees. A circular hatch in the door snaps open, just big enough to accommodate the human eye that appears.
The knob jiggles. The door is flung open by an older woman with supple skin and crafty eyes. She tucks a lock of dark hair beneath her loose scarf and grins at them. “Labas, bnaati?”
Khawla has the kind of family Shay has always wished she had.
Every corner of their home exudes warmth. It's filled with plush cushions, silky drapes, and cozy wool rugs, all wrought in an earthy palette ranging from terra-cotta rust to golden saffron. Every aspect of their manner is affectionate and kind. The meal, a large clay tagine heaped with savory fish and vegetables, is placed in the middle of the table for everyone to share. Shay tastes their love for one another in every delicious bite.
After they pray together, Khawla shows Shay her quarters while her mother makes up an extra sleeping pallet. The contents of the room attest to a creative spark Shay has only briefly glimpsed in Khawla before now. Wall-mounted shelves and every inch of her dresser tops are filled with paints in every color and stacked papers of varying textures and lengths. Vases hold bouquets of pencils and brushes, all arranged so that their storage seems to be a work of art itself.
Khawla's sketches, no longer hidden in notebooks, are proudly displayed on the walls in testimony to her talent. But the paintings—the paintingsare truly stunning. Hilly landscapes rendered in warm coppers and olive fields bursting with green.
Khawla exhibits unexpected shyness as she points out the newest addition. “I made this one last night.”
Shay smiles, admiring the portrait of the cave ceiling from the forest shortcut, glittering with kindle worms. Their incandescence is captured so vividly, the paint seems to glow. It feels like her friend is sharing small pieces of her heart, tiny glimpses of her inner world. And when Khawla smiles back and stands a little taller, Shay feels that warm flutter grow stronger, like grasping tendrils spreading and taking root.
“Are you sure it's acceptable for me to spend the night?” Shay asks Khawla later, as they settle onto their respective pallets.
“Of course.” Khawla drowsily finishes braiding her hair before letting her head drop to the pillow. “Thank you so much for indulging them. I know my mother can be a bit much.”
“What do you mean?” Shay asks. “Your mother seems perfect.” She hates how jealous she sounds. How jealous shefeels.
“Yeah, that's the thing.” Khawla smiles wistfully. “Things don't have to be perfect all the time, you know? But she tries really hard to make them that way. I sometimes wish she'd relax a little. I suppose she's overcompensating.”
Shay was taught not to be nosy, but something in Khawla's voice makes her think shewantsShay to ask for elaboration. “Overcompensating for what?”
“I never told you this,” Khawla says, and her voice sounds … not exactly softer, though smaller isn't the right word either. More vulnerable, Shay thinks. “But my mother was addicted to Snow for a short time. I was too young to remember much about it. I just know it was a difficult period, and my father almost left her. Then they joined the Sisterhood, and the sense of purpose that gave them was just the push she needed to get purged.”
Shay likes that Khawla is opening up to her. That seems to be the sort of thing friends do. But at the same time, she's at a loss over how to respond. Is she supposed to say anything? Or does Khawla only want her to listen?
“The threat of relapse never completely goes away,” Khawla continues. “But I'm grateful for my mother every day.”
“I'm glad she got better,” Shay finally says, her thoughts turning again to Hind. She hates how easily her grief over losing Ghita has been supplanted by worry for Hind, but after everything, she can't bear the thought of her ending up on a blood-wagon.
“Yours will too,” Khawla says, her eyes shining, soft with sleepiness.
“And if women's magic is one day restored, what will happen to the bloodsuckers?” Shay asks, seeking reassurance that the blood-wagons will cease to exist—that things could actually be different, be better.
Khawla blinks, alert again. “The bloodsuckers are already on the verge of revolt. They're increasingly discontent with a food source they considersubpar. Many of them supply the rebellion with information in the hopes we'll eventually overthrow Al-Mukhtar, saving them the effort.”
Shay gulps. She sits up, pushing down the blankets that suddenly feel too hot and suffocating. “But what about the truce? Would its dissolution give the bloodsuckers free rein to cross into our realm and prey on humans?”
“These are questions with no easy answers, Shay.” Khawla rubs at a worried pinch on her forehead that refuses to be smoothed. “But at least if we have magic, we will not be defenseless. I prefer to seek an equitable solution between our kinds—to fight for it, if it comes to that—over the type of corruption that deems the blood of women a tolerable price for peace.”
Shay agrees, in theory, but it sounds like a process that will take more time to work out than what Hind has left. In her mind she sees the touched ones Tarik fed upon, bound and shackled. Only, in this rendition, it's her mother's face superimposed over theirs, gaunt and fearful. Her haunted eyes reflecting her own death.
“Tell me more about them,” she says, desperate to replace the image with something—anything—more pleasant. “The Lallat.”
“Certainly,” Khawla says, a smile curling through her drowsy voice. “On the cycle a girl turned three and ten, she would visit them, and they would perform a ceremony to reveal the girl's Shawafa. Those who chose to do so were then trained to develop their skills, since natural magic is not as potent as that induced by Snow.”
