Alizeh took a deep breath and reached for her coin purse, carefully shaking out the amount owed.Sixcoppers. Miss Huda had paid her only eight for the gown.
Deen was still talking.
“Some Fesht boy, too—quite merciful to spare him, considering how much trouble we get from the southerners—shock of red hair so bright you could see it from the moon. Who knows why the child did it, but he tried to kill himself in the middle of the street, and our prince saved his life.”
Alizeh startled so badly she dropped half her pay on the floor. Her pulse raced as she scrambled to collect the coins, the thudding of her heart seeming to pound in her head.When she finally placed her payment on the counter, she could scarcely breathe.
“The Fesht boy tried to kill himself?”
Deen nodded, counting out her coin.
“But why? What did the prince do to him?”
Deen looked up sharply. “Doto him?”
“That is, I mean— What did he do to help the boy?”
“Yes, quite right,” Deen said, his expression relaxing. “Well, he picked the boy up in his own arms, didn’t he? And called for help. The good people came running. If it weren’t for the prince, the boy would surely be dead.”
Alizeh felt suddenly ill.
She stared at a glass jar in the corner of the shop, at the large chrysanthemum trapped within. Her hearing seemed to fade in and out.
“—not entirely clear, but some people are saying he’d attacked a servant girl,” Deen was saying. “Put a knife to her neck and cut her throat, not unlike y—”
“Where is he now?” she asked.
“Now?” Deen startled. “I wouldn’t know, miss. I imagine he’s at the palace.”
She frowned. “They took the Fesht boy to the palace?”
“Oh, no, the boy is at the Diviners’ in the Royal Square. No doubt he’ll be there a while.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said quickly. “I’m very grateful for your help.” She drew herself up, forced her mind firmly back into her body, and attempted to be calm. “I’m afraid I must now be on my way.”
Deen said nothing. His eyes went to her throat, to thebandage he’d only just wrapped around her neck.
“Miss,” he said finally, “why is it you do not remove your snoda so late at night?”
Alizeh pretended to misunderstand. She forced out another goodbye and rushed for the exit so quickly she almost forgot her packages, and then ran out the door with such haste she hardly had time to register the change in weather.
She gasped.
She’d run straight into a winter storm, rain lashing the streets, her face, her uncovered head. It was but a moment before Alizeh was soaked through. She was trying, while balancing an armful of parcels, to pull the sopping wet snoda away from her eyes, when she suddenly collided with a stranger. She cried out, her heart racing wildly in her chest, and through miracle alone caught her packages before they hit the ground. Alizeh gave up on her snoda then, darting deeper into the night, moving almost as fast as her feet could carry her.
She was thinking of the devil.
There once was a man
who bore a snake on each shoulder.
If the snakes were well fed
their master ceased growing older.
What they ate no one knew,
even as the children were found
