“Your sister spoke of learning to hide her presence from Aria. Do you have the same skill?”
“I was there when she was taught. It is somewhat similar to what I do to hide myself from noises. Or I’m trying to learn it, anyway.”
Herrith looked around and made sure no one was there, then pulled Ben into an alcove.
“He can see, though not far. He can see within the palace, so if you escape and hide here, and he cannot see you, he will assume that you are out of the palace. You can hide for a few days, until it is safe to leave.”
“Now?”
“No, you need to practice this skill, and it needs to happen at another time, when I am not guarding you. It is more important than ever that he does not suspect me. Wait for the sign.”
Herrith took him to a prison cell. Ben felt fierce longing for Auntie’s house and the calm sweet music that filled it. He practiced using the room many times that night. Going in. Shutting the door. Cleaning and making the space bright. In the night, he dreamed. He dreamed he was in the room and Nenyi came to him there, as an old man. He looked a little like Ivram, but with more kindness, more wisdom.
You are not a disappointment, he said, and Ben felt a great weight lift, as though he had been under heavy blankets and something had suddenly pulled them off.
It happened the next day. A guard came in and shoved a bowl of some kind of disgusting mush at Ben, then left. When he left, he didn’t quite fasten the door, and when Ben looked, he saw that no one guarded the corridor. He didn’t hesitate, leaving as quickly as possible. He ran soundlessly down the corridor in his soft leather boots.
He climbed out of the prison cellar and ran in the opposite direction of the king’s chambers. Using his memory of the palace, he found the secret ways through the inner walls, making sure as he went that he was inside the room, with the door closed, the curtains drawn. It also had the effect of dampening the evil music he heard, so that he felt better. He knew where to go. Near the women’s chambers, where his mother had lived, there was a series of linen closets. In the very back, a small room held clothing only used for fancy banquets. The closet was generally ignored unless there was a high function. The king’s wives wore fancy clothing every day, but this closet contained robes sewn over with gold pieces and jewels, things that were rarely used. He had spent time hiding here as a small boy.
He found the rooms without too much difficulty and squeezed himself inside the closet, pulling a mattress from another closet to the very back. As he curled up on the mattress, he spotted a dress wrapped in thin paper. The paper had torn, and he recognized the color and jewels of the dress underneath. His mother’s banquet dress. He had seen her in it many times, attending banquets as a slave boy. He remembered his mother in the dress, greeting him and warning him with only her eyes, putting a soft hand on his head as he served her food, hugging him to her if the king’s attention was directed elsewhere.
He pulled the dress close. It still smelled of her rose perfume. For a moment he thought that the smell would make him cry, but instead he found himself remembering his mother’s fierce bravery. When Benayeem was in danger from the king, she had run from the palace, taking him and the girls across the desert to the Worker village. Which eventually had led him to Maween. Which had formed him into the young man he was today. Not the cowering child whose only identity was disappointment, deserving of hatred. His mother had loved him. She left for his sake. He slept and dreamed of her. You are not a disappointment, she told him. He held her hands and kissed them.
At night he left the closet to look for food, no longer able to ignore the pain in his stomach. Distressed music flowed from the guards. The king knew he was gone, then. He hid behind statues and under stairwells, taking care to stick to the shadows in the dimly lit corridors. At one point he heard Herrith striding along, barking at the guards who scurried along behind him.
“How could this happen? I want the whole palace searched!”
Ben grinned to himself behind a giant vase, feeling his heart lift. It was a good thing the corridors in the king’s palace were cluttered with unnecessary things. They made for good hiding spaces in the dark evenings. He had the sudden realization that he was in the nightmare that had followed him for his whole life, and yet he was alive, whole, and not terrified.
He made his way slowly to the kitchens, intending to find some scraps of food if they were empty, but when he got there he heard voices.
“Give her this. It will revive her and hopefully nourish her. She is wasting away.”
“Thank you, young one. It is good that you are working here. You know what she likes. We can’t tempt her with the palace food.”
“Any sight of her brother?”
Ben peeked around the doorway to see Gavi standing with a diminutive older woman. Gavi had his back turned to Ben, but the woman’s sharp eyes saw him and widened.
“I believe he has come now, for his supper,” she said to Gavi, and a smile transformed her serious face.
Chapter 29
Isika was helping the old woman make dinner when Keethior called out to her.
Your brother . . .
She dropped the carrot she was peeling as her hands suddenly stopped working.
What? Keethior? What happened?
He’s been taken. They took him. I’m so sorry.
What do you mean? Who took him? She was already walking toward the door, ready to throw it open and rush outside, but Hera stood up and walked in front of her, leaning against her legs so she couldn’t take another step.
You can’t go out there. They took him to find you, the mother cat said.
No, no, Isika told both of them. You can’t keep me here. You don’t understand. Benayeem will crumble under this. This is his worst nightmare, his living demon.
You have to trust him, Keethior told her. He has been changing and growing, training for this day. We need a plan. You cannot just act without thought, or the Desert King will have you and we will all be trapped in this city, unable to retrieve you or leave without you.
Isika sat down very suddenly, all her arguments leaving her in a rush. There was a painful ache in her chest. The room swam in front of her. A cat came and sat on either side of her, leaning against her body, purring, so that the vibrations brought her back. When she opened her eyes, Mara knelt before her, concern and love in her eyes.
“What has happened, daughter?”
Isika stared at the woman, speechless. She couldn’t imagine anything more horrible than her brother, so dear to her, trapped with the man who had made his life unlivable for so long. The Desert King had tried to pour the Great Waste and all its fear and poison into Benayeem. He had wanted to destroy him. First Aria, now Ben. Isika’s hands trembled.
The front door swung open and the room was full of noise and light. Abbas and Jabari strode inside, laughing and talking until they spotted Isika on the floor. Jabari rushed to her and sank to his knees in front of her.
“What is it, Isika? What happened?”
Are you okay? Did he hurt you?
She looked at him. Not me. Benayeem. The king has captured Benayeem. Then she said it aloud, for everyone else, and also because it was still secret that they could speak to each other with animal speech.
The mother cat flicked a lazy look at her.
This one speaks the language of the animals?
I do, Jabari told her. Do you want me to go look for him?
No, she said. Let’s stop and think first.
Jabari offered her a hand and she stood up. They moved over to the table and sat at the low seats around it.
“What happens now?” Isika asked.
Abbas looked thoughtful. He stood and began to pace in the small room.
“He knows that we are here. That means we need to be more careful. And we need to split up. My sister and I will work together. Gavi is in the palace.”
“And Herrith,” Jabari said. “Isika, this isn’t like last time. There are allies at the palace.
Hopefully they can help Ben.”
“Should we send Keethior?” Isika asked.
“No,” Abbas said, and Jabari shook his head at the same time. “We should not risk what we have. We need time, and we need a plan. Let’s watch and wait. The king wants to draw you in, Isika. He has found your weakest place—your siblings—and he is multiplying the effect by taking many of them at once.”
The old woman had made spice tea and brought it over, just as Ivy and Deto came through the door, Keethior flying in behind them.
The others told Ivy and Deto what had happened while Keethior landed on the table and spoke to Isika, his head taller than hers in the small space.
“Where is Brigid?” Ivy asked suddenly.
“I thought she was with you,” Jabari said, startled.
“We thought she was with Ben,” they said.
“She was with him early in the morning, before he was taken, but I didn’t see her afterward,” Keethior said. “I tried to locate her but couldn’t.”
They all stared at him.
“You didn’t think that was important information?” Jabari asked the bird. The bird turned his back on Jabari.
“I don’t answer to the son of Andar,” he told Isika. “And I have just informed you of what I know.” Jabari and Isika exchanged a glance.
“Deto and I will search for her,” Ivy said. “ And we will change to another inn, in case we have been followed.”
Isika glanced at Jabari. “We will look for her too. And then we need a plan for Ben and Aria.”
Jabari nodded and Isika could tell that he was thinking about Gavi.
“Not before you drink a cup of tea,” the old woman said. “You still look like you’re about to fall over.”
* * *
Abbas, Deto, and Ivy left to retrieve Abbas’s sister and change inns. The plan for now was that Jabari and Isika would continue to stay with the old woman. Now that Ben was gone, Jabari wouldn’t hear of Isika being alone anywhere.
“Sorry,” he said. “You’ll have to get used to me, because I’m not leaving your side.”
Isika felt a rush of surprising happiness, and she turned away as her face grew hot.
They drank tea, and then they ate, and when the old woman was satisfied, they covered their faces with their sers and left with the cats to look for Brigid.
Which one is lost again? The youngest cat asked.
Do you really not know?
We only pay attention to you.
Isika frowned at the cat. You shouldn’t do that. Perhaps if you paid more attention, we wouldn’t lose people.
You are the only interesting one, the cat said.
Beside Isika, Jabari sniffed. “They’re not so polite, are they?” he asked.
“No,” Isika muttered, glaring at the cat again.
She’s the pale skinned one, with long hair that reaches her knees. She walked with us for many miles.
Oh! The cat said. The one who likes to sing to herself.
Isika supposed Brigid did sing to herself. Yes.
We don’t notice all these markings that you do, skin color and hair. But we do notice singing.
* * *
They wandered down corridors and into dark alleys, looking for something that would tell them where Brigid was. The streets were crowded and Isika made sure her face was covered so that only her eyes showed. People still looked at them, and watching Jabari, Isika could see why. There was no hiding that he was some kind of royalty, striding through the city with his shoulders back and his head high.
“Can’t you slouch a bit?” she muttered. “Everyone is looking at us.”
He looked at her. She could only see his eyes and thought for a moment that she had never noticed how they swept into up-tilting points at the corners.
“Do you really think they’re looking at me?” he asked. “You’re radiating power.”
“I am not.”
“You’re walking around like a queen. You’re supposed to be hiding. Turn it down.”
“I didn’t turn it up! How am I supposed to turn it down?”
They were still arguing when they walked down a road and Isika felt awareness coursing over her like water. She stopped in her tracks and turned slowly, looking toward a narrow entrance that had an archway over it, with overgrown trees on each side.
An old man saw her looking at it.
“That’s the queen’s old garden,” he said in a thick Gariah accent. “It’s been long abandoned now. They’ve tried to build over it, but it turns the spades back.”
“Turns the spades back?” Jabari asked.
“Yes, it protects itself somehow. Can’t dig in the earth there.”
Isika was drawn into the garden by a familiar strong pull. She thought it was friendly, though it was wild and powerful. The cats didn’t seem to want to stop her. She thought she recognized this wild power, but surely . . . no, it couldn’t be. She pushed through the overgrown trees and stepped inside the garden.
She had only taken a few steps before the singing caused her to fall to her knees on the grass. The garden was a wild place inside a dirty city, with huge trees and desert plants and she wondered briefly how they got the water to keep this place alive. But that wasn’t what had her on her knees. The presence and the power in this place could only be Nenyi. But how? How was Nenyi here?
She lay face down on the grass and stretched both arms and legs out, her cheek pressed against the earth, and breathed it in. It was as though she had slowly adjusted to the thin air around her, the lack of power she felt in the city, the dust choking her. And now here it was: life. Buzzing through her, humming all around the garden. The cats stretched out and Jabari sat crosslegged nearby, watching her with a slight smile.
“It’s amazing,” she said.
“It is. But you are going to be pretty obvious to anyone who walks through that entryway. What do you say we go a little farther in?”
“Farther in?”
“Yes, I think the garden stretches a long way down the hill.”
He held out a hand and she took it and rose to her feet. They walked farther in, down the long stretch of hill, and the cats ran alongside them, their silver flanks rippling and shining in the sun. One tackled another and they rolled around in the grass, biting at each other in glee.
Isika heard something then, in a far-off corner of the garden. It sounded like a person crying. She exchanged a concerned glance with Jabari. When she went toward the sound, she found a cactus garden with rows of flowering cacti, arms reaching to the sky, stones on the ground between them. Underneath a large cactus, a dark-skinned woman sat holding a baby, weeping. Her clothes were barely clothes anymore, they were so old and dirty. Tear tracks ran down her cheeks. And waves of power emanated from her. Isika and Jabari fell on their faces.
Nenyi. Nenyi was neither male nor female. Nenyi was not a person. But he had come to Isika in many forms. The form of a large cat, the form of a whale, the form of a man. And now this woman, in her rags, cradling a baby.
Then she stood and she didn’t hold a baby but a white owl, wings outstretched on her arm, and she wasn’t wearing rags anymore. Her skin seemed made of stars.
What are you doing to me? Isika cried out. Why have you taken my brother?
Love forms through pain, beloved, the woman said, bending over so her hair brushed Isika’s face. The owl hooted and flew off, for suddenly it was night and Isika saw a vision of her grandmother crying in the garden, planting these cacti, walking with a man who looked like Herrith, reaching out to ragged children.
How else can love form you? If it only comforts, its worth is dead. If it only protects, it cuts off the world.
I don’t want to lose Aria, Isika moaned.
You will lose her before you regain her.
Two sisters . . .
Isika sat up and it was day. Nenyi looked like the woman with the baby again. Her eyes were very gentle. She glanced at Jabari and he sat up as well. There were tear tracks on his face.
But Isika didn’t have time to wonder at that because the Shaper spoke to them.
Be true to each other. Hold fast to hope. It will look very dark, dear ones, but you will know what to do.
And then she was gone and Isika sobbed. Jabari came close to her and held her and she turned her face into his neck and cried. Nenyi had come again, and then she had left, and they were in the Desert City and Ben was gone and Aria hated her and her mother was still dead and she was filled with grief.
Slowly she calmed, and as she did she became aware of where she was, of the steady beat of Jabari’s heart under her ear. She pulled back, her heart fluttering strangely, embarrassed. They sat like that in the grass, knees touching, Jabari’s arm around Isika’s shoulder, her head resting on his arm, until a plan came to her, fully formed. The cats sat up as one.
“Jabari,” she said, turning and meeting his eyes. “I know what to do. I know how we get the prisoners and Aria back. And I know where we can find the power to do it.”
He looked at her and smiled. Then he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, his soft lips briefly touching her skin and then pulling away.
No, she thought. Don’t go.
“Well, then,” he said, jumping to his feet and offering her a hand. “What are we waiting for? Get your lazy cats and let’s go!”
Chapter 30
Gavi wiped a floury hand over his forehead and wrinkled his nose as the fine white powder dusted his face. The amount of cooking he had to do here tested even his love of cooking. He would be happier, he thought, if he could harvest the ingredients himself, like he did at home.
He had a pang of longing for his kitchen garden, but shook it off and went on preparing the mix for the next day’s flatbread. The head cook was a good one. She had quickly seen Gavi’s talents in the kitchen. She switched him from station to station throughout the week, and this week was his week for bread. He mixed the batter until it was even and smooth, then put the cloth over it so it could ferment overnight. It was late. He had worked slowly, so that all the other kitchen workers had left for the night, finally leaving only the head cook, who was preparing sauces for tomorrow’s breakfast.
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