“I think she took a liking to you,” Khawla says after a while. “The Morchidat.”
Shay frowns, unsure. She looks down at her new gauntlets, their leather shining in the soft gleam of the forest, almost as beautiful as the gloves gifted to her first by Ghita and then again by Tarik. The ones she doesn't think she'll ever bring herself to wear again.
“Khawla, didn't you say that bloodsuckers aren't allowed to prey on humans inside the boundaries of the human world?”
Khawla nods, curiosity flickering over her face.
Shay's fingers flex, anger flowing hot like lava to her extremities as her thoughts turn to the barkeep. The feeling is almost too much to be held inside one body. “And what would be the consequence if a bloodsucker broke that agreement?”
“It would be up to the Vampiiruh Presidium to decide.” Khawla shrugs, then gives Shay a shrewd look. “Why?”
Shay sighs and tells Khawla about her encounter with Tarik, her suspicions regarding how he obtained the gloves.
Khawla's eyes grow wider and wider with every word. “That miserable leech! And you have the gloves? With the barkeep's blood on them?”
“Yes.” Shay flinches, realizing she may have erred in judgement by giving Tarik the opportunity to erase the evidence. “Well, no … he cleaned them once he realized his mistake.”
“Of course.” Khawla's mouth tugs into a grim version of a grin. “It would have been hard to prove without a body, anyway. Lacking that, the best we could hope for is that they'd temporarily withhold Tarik's rations.”
Rations.Shay cringes at the wording. Shay wishes she could live in a world where she didn't need to shrink in fear of untold dangers or to expand to bear the anger of every woman. Where she could grow as wildflowers do, in her own time and taking as much space as she needs. But that is not reality, and it will never be reality unless enough people are willing to fight to make it so.
Shay's heart is once again pulled in different directions. Is she wasting time on this mission when she could be joining the larger battle, as the Morchidat suggested? She bites down on her bottom lip. After everything, the longing for her mother's love still runs through her like a river, a craving as powerful as any addiction. Once more, she chooses Hind.
Shoppers bustle along Sultan's Alley, haggling over choice cuts of meat and fine fabrics. It's a strange wonder to Shay, that the streets around her look andsound the same, that the world continues on like nothing's changed, when everything inside her has been uprooted and rearranged.
But somethingsmellsdifferent.
Over heady wafts of cumin and whiffs of fresh orange juice, the smelly tang of sardines, hangs the scent of smoke. Shay sniffs, the heavy fumes in the air too thick to be attributed to a vendor's grill.
“Lalla.” A young man with a basket of live chickens slung across his back appears next to Shay. “If I may interest you in purchasing a hen today, I am offering half off my regular price. No one wants to buy them due to the poor air quality, but I swear by God's greatness, their lungs are strong.”
“Sorry, khoya, I don't need a hen today,” Shay says politely, keeping her opinion about the hens’ ruffled appearance to herself.
As the boy hurries off with his clucking cargo, Khawla comes to a sudden halt. Shay follows her stare to an empty lot where the ground bears wide scorch marks. It takes Shay a few beakers to discern the flash of sequins glittering among the scattered piles of ash and recognize the spot where Dounia's tent once stood.
“Excuse me, Sidi,” Khawla calls out to a nearby garrab, a water porter with bells and hanging brass cups strapped over his colorful garments. “Do you know what happened here?”
“Many fires were set the night of the festival.” The man frowns, adjusting the goat-leather waterskin at his hip. “Jou Boulka used to be about games for small children and neighbors coming together and sharing food, but the youth these days have gotten out of control. My sister and her children are staying with me now because their shelter in the Bib was destroyed. Thanks to God, they weren't home, but her husband was not so lucky.”
“The Bib?” Shay's heart races until she reminds herself Hind is at the kasbah, and her imprisonment has likely spared her from the fire. Her next thought is of Badar, of Bushra, and of Muezza, and suddenly it's hard to breathe. “There was a fire in the Bib?”
The man nods, the bright tassels of his wide hat swaying. “The worst one of them all.”
Thanking the man, Shay takes off in the direction of the Bib, while Khawla jogs beside her. She tugs Shay's arm gently and asks, “Where are we going?”
“I need to see it,” Shay explains, unable to find the words to articulate the depth of this need. If she is not willing to stand and fight for her medina, the least she can do is bear witness to its suffering. Wordless understanding passes over Khawla's eyes, and she nods back.
They wind up steep slopes and down narrow stairwells, under covered breezeways and past decorative arched doors. Shay sprints the final stretch, greeted then by the stench of smoke, more caustic than before.
She stares, barely comprehending the destruction. This was a place where people lived whatever simple life they could grab hold of. There were animals here, livestock and pets. Newlyweds and families and babies. Elderly and infirm citizens.
Now the entire shantytown lies in cinders. No one and nothing is left, but the reek of charred wood in Shay's nose and the ghostly echo of screams gone quiet. Black shapes that may or may not be parts of bodies smolder from the wreckage. Whatever they are, they aren't moving.
But wait—someone with more substance than a ghostisout there. Shay hears them first, then sees them: men digging desperately through the rubble, some with tools and others with no more than their bare hands, searching for the missing, if only to bury them.
She turns to Khawla, her hands curling into impotent fists at her sides. “This wasn't out-of-control youth, was it?”
“This much damage could be inflicted only by a touched one with the Shawafa of Jinnamin.” Khawla shakes her head, holding up the end of her light shawl to cover her nose and mouth. “No, make that multiple touched ones.”
