“You know, you say my name a lot.”
“I say your name,” he said tersely, “a perfectly normal amount.”
“Do you really think so?” She peeked up at him, and he looked mad about it.
“Yes.”
“Well, I suppose that might be true,” she said. “It’s been so long since anyone has spoken to me in earnest that I fear I’ve lost perspective.”
He hesitated. “What do you mean?”
She shook her head, wincing as grief caught her, the wayit always did, at the most inopportune moments. It had been years and years since her parents died, and for so long since then she’d only ever been commanded, never acknowledged. Mrs. Amina had never evenaskedher name.
“Nothing,” she said brightly, even as she sniffed, suddenly, against a swell of feeling.
“What are you— Oh, for heaven’s sake, are you going to cry again? I’ll take you to see the blasted city, Alizeh, I’ll show you the bloody magic, you don’t have to cry about everything—”
“I’m not crying,” she said irritably. “I’mthinking. Sometimes I get emotional when I’m thinking—”
“When you’rethinking? You mean all the time, then?” He pushed his hands through his hair and swore under his breath. “The devil really is trying to kill me.”
She wiped at her eyes. “I thought you already knew that.”
“All right, that’s quite enough out of you,” he said, and then he took her hand without warning, and tugged her out the door.
Nineteen
ALIZEH STARED, WONDERINGLY, AT THEpiece of bread she was holding, turning it over in her hands. Cyrus had earlier ripped in half a larger round, and the share she held was, as a result, an unconventional shape, something like a crescent moon.
It was still warm, too.
They’d been walking past a bakery when Alizeh had smelled the familiar scent, and after she’d commented aloud that in her life she’d only ever walked past bakeries, never stepping inside of one, Cyrus had expressed surprise. He’d asked her why she’d never been inside of a bakery, for “surely Ardunia was not so pathetic an empire as to lack such establishments,” to which she’d responded that Ardunia was “quite thick with bakeries, thank you very much,” it was only that she’d never had the time to visit one, for she’d always worked, at minimum, twelve-hour shifts, though even if she’d had the time, she’d reasoned, she’d “invariably lacked the money to purchase anything from such a place,” and as a result hadn’t seen the point in torturing herself with even the possibility of such decadence—
Cyrus had abruptly taken her by the arm then, given her a strange look, and guided her toward the shop in question, into which they disappeared for a wondrous few moments,and emerged, shortly thereafter, with bread.
Bread that Cyrus had purchased for her.
She’d not thought they’d actually buy anything, not only because Alizeh had no money but because in all her life no one but her parents had ever bought her anything. The entire experience of being out with Cyrus, from the moment they’d said goodbye to a smug Sarra—who’d seen their clasped hands and given Alizeh a sly, encouraging nod—to the current moment they occupied now, had been so unfamiliar and strange that Alizeh hardly knew what to do with herself. If she tried to think about it all in full, she thought her head might fall off.
For now, she focused on the bread.
With a bit of guidance from her unlikely—and surprisingly patient—companion, Alizeh had chosen a small, humble disk of the baked good. It was fairly thin, visibly hand-kneaded, and had been sprinkled generously with sesame seeds. It was brown and crispy on the outside, but—she poked its insides now with one finger—light and springy within. This accomplishment struck her as functionally impossible.
“Did they make this with magic?” she asked Cyrus, still poking the soft interior. There were many little holes inside and she couldn’t imagine how someone might’ve scooped out bits of dough from the middle without disturbing the perfect, crunchy shell.
Cyrus, who was actually eating his piece of bread, was still chewing when he looked over at her, staring at her now like she might be touched in the head.
He swallowed. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Well, if you’re going to be rude about it,” she said. “I’ll just keep my questions to myself.”
“Alizeh.”
She pretended not to hear him.
Instead, she picked cautiously at the crust, attempting to break the shell away to fully expose the soft, spongey inside. She crunched on a piece of the crust first, her voracious senses savoring the mild taste and crisp texture, and then bit into the pillowy middle, which was—she raised her eyebrows—surprisingly chewy.
Alizeh decided she liked bread very much.
