He held her as the song’s final notes trilled out into silence. Then slowly he lowered Elena to the ground, her dupatta trailing down his face. Her hands grazed his neck, and for a moment, Yassen was frozen to the spot, her fingers on his skin, his arms around her waist. And then the guru clapped, and Elena broke away.
Or, at least she tried.
The end of her dupatta caught on the button of his sleeve, tugging him forward. Yassen held up his hand. Her eyes snagged on him, and his heart hammered as she slowly touched his wrist.
“Where did you learn to dance?” she asked in a low voice as she began to loosen the knot.
“Fighting is like dancing,” he said, never breaking from her gaze. “Isn’t it?”
She paused, her fingers trailing over his skin. With one last tug, Elena freed her dupatta and turned. Together, they bowed to the guru.
“When you lift her, you must look up,” she said to Yassen. “Not ather, but at the sky, at the Phoenix Herself.”
“Guru Madhu, he won’t be here for the next dance,” Elena said.
“Well.” The guru shrugged, slipping her cymbals in a suede bag. “What a pity.”
As Ferma hurried to help the woman, Elena quickly bent toward him, her lips a few inches shy of his ear.
“Have you told Ferma?” she asked.
“No,” he said, aware of how warm her breath felt against his skin.
They shared a secret now, and it thrilled him in part. To know Elena in a way that Ferma did not. And yet, as Elena turned away, rushing to touch the guru’s feet, another part of him worried.
He had seen Elena leaving a club notorious for entertaining gold caps. Arohassin agents avoided it; Akaros had warned him to never step foot in its vicinity.
So who did you meet there?he wanted to ask Elena. A chill ran down his spine.And did you tell them about me?
After he was relieved of duty for the evening, Yassen took a hovercar into the capital. He parked the unmarked car beneath a highway junction where two homeless women peered out from their sand hovel. A shobu rummaged in a pile of refuse, growling as Yassen approached. He tossed the women three coins and told them to watch the car. The palace guards knew he was in the city, but if the women stole the car, at least Yassen would have a new story to tell Samson.
Yassen pulled on his hood as it began to rain. He made his way from the overpass to the adjoining street. Distant music echoed down the alley, mingling with the cries of the gold cap who stood on the corner, preaching about the next coming of the Prophet. A crowd gathered around him, faces raised, eyes fervent. Yassen quickly skirted around them.
Vendors wheeled their carts to the end of the street where hungry patrons awaited eagerly. One cart had a line that stretched past the corner, a Ravani merchant who was roasting okra on a makeshift grill and serving it up with a skewer of kabobs. Yassen’s stomach grumbled, but he did not have time to wait in line. There was still more of the city to see.
As a drizzle dusted the streets, Yassen breathed in the smell of the desert, the musky scent of wet sand and rock. Sandscrapers rose above copper-and-gold chhatris and tiered squares. He recognized a few of the street names. There was still the covered market on Alabore Street with its mosaic ceiling and banyan tree in the center. Long ago, he had sat underneath the tree while his mother haggled for a bag of figs. When the merchant refused, she had turned on her heel, Yassen following. The next day, he had nicked the figs when the merchant wasn’t looking.
Yassen smiled at the memory as he looked at the banyan tree. It shimmered like liquid silver from underneath the skylights.
When he came to the corner of Suraat and Sumput, Yassen found the old bakery he and Samson had robbed together.
They had watched from across the street, behind the bushes that grew along the entrance of the man-made city park. Customers hurried in and out, carrying bundles of honeyed bread and chocolate khajas. When their hunger grew to pain, Samson had hatched a plan. Wait until the baker went to his office and his daughter returned to the kitchen to fry gujiyas.
Yassen had stolen across the street and entered the shop. He had expected the counter to be empty, but the baker had unexpectedly returned from his office, grabbing his hat. When he saw Yassen, he paused.
“Oh, I was just going on my break. But if you’re quick, boy, I can give you what you like.”
Yassen blinked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Samson disappear around the corner. He was on his way to distract the daughter from returning from the kitchen.Mother’s Gold, if Samson came out now…
“Um, ten cardamom and nutmeg infused loaves, please,” he had said quickly. The baker began to fill a bag with the bread. Yassen gazed at the glass bins of glazed khajas and freshly cut burfi, mouth watering. “And two bags of khajas and burfi, each,” he added.
“Are you having a celebration?” the baker asked as he took out two khajas from the heated rack.
“No, I—yes, I mean, yes,” Yassen had said. “Please, can you hurry?”
The baker regarded him, but before he could say anything, a yelp came from the back. The man spun around, calling his daughter’s name. As soon as he had disappeared, Yassen scrambled over the counter and began stuffing a bag with loaves, burfi, khajas, anything he could get his hands on. He heard the baker yell. There came a thump, and then the man’s bald head loomed over him.
“Hey!”
