Hind watches her with an uneasy expression.
Shay pauses. “What?”
“Did you know my Shawafa has two functions?”
Shay blinks as though the touched one has spoken in another language. Without answering, she goes back to the drawstring, which appears to have gotten worked into a knot.
“Primarily to heal, but also to diagnose,” Hind continues, unperturbed. “It's how I knew what happened to the cat. I see wellness like waves of harmony and disease like disruptions in those waves. These disruptions, they don't all look the same. Different ailments have their own signature. With experience, I've learned to read them. And that is how I know you've been taking something that's making you sick.”
“Moon pepper,” Shay admits, her fingers stilling. Her heart stills with them. “But I missed my last dose.”
The stench of the leaves seeps through the cloth, and her stomach sours in response.
What if she could use her magic for good, the way Hind did with the cat? What ifshecould pay Hind's debts for her? No Snow involved?
Shay stares at her hands and tries to feel something, to connect with whatever came over her back in the ally. A tingle, a shiver. A spreading warmth. Some spark of magic under her skin, a thrum within her veins.
To her disappointment, nothing happens.
“It doesn't work like that,” Hind explains, seeming to understand what Shay is attempting. “The powers of a hizoura don't manifest all at once. You have to learn how to use them, like learning to swim.”
Shay shakes her hands in frustration. “We don't have time for that.”
“There is a faster way,” Hind says, drawing the words out like they taste delicious. “But before I show you, I want you to give me whatever toxin you have that the midwife has been pumping into your body for God knows how long.”
Shay is surprised by how easy it is to hand over the sachet, how liberating it feels. She never realized—or more accurately, never admitted to herself—that she has alwayshatedtaking the herbs.
Smiling, Hind digs into the front of her robe. She pulls out a pouch hung on a cord and empties its contents onto her palm. Her fingers quickly close, and she makes a show of unfurling them one by one …
“A ring,” Shay says, confused. Admittedly, it is the most stunning piece of jewelry she's ever seen. The band of polished dark wood melds into a large chunk of silver crystal, a gem Shay can't identify.
“La.” Hind clicks her tongue, delight sparkling in her eyes. She twists the ring back and forth in her fingers, pinging thin prisms around the room. “This is a hjabat. A rare talisman that imbues any woman who wears it with access to her Shawafa.”
Shay's not sure which is more unbelievable: that such an object exists or that Hind would continue using Snow while possessing such a ready solution.Unless there's something the touched one isn't saying. Her shoulders tense. “Does it have side effects?”
“None. It doesn't make the wearer blitzed. It isn't addictive. And it won't accelerate the aging process.” Hind holds up a finger. “The only problem is it doesn't work for me.”
Shay frowns. “Why not?”
“Touched ones have conditioned their Shawafa to respond to Snow.” Hind slides the ring onto her bony finger. “See? Nothing. Butyou… your powers are unsoiled. Pure. And the hjabat will make the process of mastering them …” She snaps her fingers, her smile growing so wide, it almost looks too big for her face. “Instantaneous.”
Something feels wrong. Shay knows magic is unpredictable. Take, for instance, Sami's mother and her Shawafa. Hadiqmin, Ghita called it. The midwife described it as amazing, but it nearly killed Sami. And itdidkill the khala at the farmhouse.
In the times before natural magic disappeared, Sami's mother might have been a gardener and used her Shawafa to nudge her plants and vegetables to flourish. She might have grown herbs so powerful that meals enhanced with them would leave a person full for days. Foods with such high nutrients, they could save the realm's poorest from starving. And flowers with scents so lush and lasting, their perfumes could raise the lowest spirits. But with Snow, that same Shawafa manifested as killer thorns, snaking vines, and ghost bees.
Which would be the case with the hjabat?
“You're overthinking this.” Hind scrutinizes Shay's face like someone combing the ground for a dropped coin. She holds out the ring. “This is the only way for me to avoid using more Snow. We can easily earn enough to pay my debts and to cover the price of two caravan tickets to Kiddah. Or you can leave me here, but I'd certainly hate to up and die after finally being reunited with my daughter.”
A million protests wither in Shay's throat. Despite a rocky start, she wants to believe she and Hind can be a family of two. Sure, the touched one has lied to her, effectively stolen from her, but there's still hope for her to change. Shejust needs to bealiveto do so. And maybe this way, Ghita will never even know about the missing ticket.
No sooner does she slip the hjabat on, feel its snug squeeze around her finger, the drag of its heft on her delicate hand, than the crystal emits a silver glow. Shay stares, mesmerized by the sparkling light, unable to look away. Even as she breaks into shivers. Even as she cracks into sweat. A dark speck appears at the crystal's center. It pulses, a shadow sun chasing light to the edges until the gem smooths into a flat well of black.
Shay tries to ask Hind what it means, her query lost amid the sickness rolling through her stomach. Everything tilts sideways, the way the world must look to a newborn. Then she's falling, the darkness pulling her down.
And down.
And down.
