A chill rippled down his spine. “Did you look for her at the house?
“Do you think me so stupid I would not look there first?” Hasan huffed. “She did not return there. If she did, it was not to retrieve her belongings.”
That same chill turned to ice in his veins. Leaving without money, without their small bag of supplies?
She had not set out alone. Not willingly. Perhaps she hadn’t left the city on purpose at all—someone might have taken her, forced her against her will, stolen her away—
With a shameful amount of effort, Nicholas dragged his legs out of the bedding, ignoring the way his wound pulled. “We must ask the men and women here…see if anyone saw her leave.”
It wasn’t a good bet, but it was their only chance.
Hasan nodded, firing a question at the silent, white-haired doctor. He murmured something back in calm tones that somehow made Nicholas’s own temper flare. Did this man not see that time was imperative? Why was he walking out of the room, not running?
“Easy, my friend,” Hasan said, pressing Nicholas back down onto the bed as he tried to rise. “He will return shortly.”
The doctor did—after ten agonizing minutes. A young man, the very same one Nicholas had watched tearing the bandages, trailed behind him with head bowed and hands clasped in front of him.
The young man spoke without any prompting, chirping back answers to all of Hasan’s questions. When Hasan finally held up a hand just over his head as if to ask, How tall? the last frayed thread of Nicholas’s patience snapped.
“What does he say?” he demanded.
Hasan’s rich complexion was ashen. “He says he saw her leave this iwan—that is, this hall—but she was met by another woman. A Westerner, he says, like herself. And she was pulled away, outside, with the assistance of two other men.”
Nicholas fixed the boy with a baleful look. “And he didn’t think to say one damn word to someone about it?”
“He thought the woman was her family,” Hasan explained, though Nicholas could see his own frustrated anger reflected in his face. As if the color of one’s skin was the telltale sign of family.
“What did she look like?” Nicholas asked.
“Young—young as you or I. Brown hair, he says—darker than hers. Eyes like—dark eyes as well. He says he saw her look at an impossibly small gold clock, the like of which he had not ever seen before.” He emphasized those last words with a meaningful look.
Fury cramped his aching stomach as he pressed his feet flat against the cool floor. Nicholas took a steadying breath. You cannot have me yet.… He would fill this weakness in his body, feed it with anger, until either he found her or his body gave out completely.
“Do you know who this is, baha’ar?”
Instead of answering, Nicholas asked a question of his own. “Do you know how to do a proper knot?”
“Yes,” Hasan said, his forehead wrinkling. “But why?”
“Because,” Nicholas said, watching the morning light spread over the tile floor, “I’m going to need you to tie me to my horse.”
IT WASN’T THE ROLLING FLOW of the horse’s gallop, or even the rope burns around her wrists, that finally brought Etta around. It was the cool mist of the morning air, and the scent of orange blossom on the breeze.
She cracked an eye open, already sick from the riot of movement and the damp, hot press of the man riding behind her. Every breath against the back of her neck made her stomach churn harder, twisting in time with the pain at her right temple. There was no way to know until she had her hands free, but Etta had a feeling that the bump there was going to rival the mountain behind them.
They left Damascus through a series of groves, weaving through the orderly rows of trees. The golden line of the horizon was ahead, and Etta suddenly understood why Hasan had called the desert a ruthless beauty. From a distance, with the sun rising over it, the dust was cast in glorious shades of gold. But the single tone of color hinted at something far more sinister—its barrenness.
“Oh—you’re awake.”
Her fingers curled around the lip of the saddle as she turned slowly. Etta let her expression fall into a scowl. “Sorry.”
When she’d left Nicholas’s bedside to find a doctor, or Hasan, or anyone who could confirm that she wasn’t going crazy and that his fever really was breaking, Etta had nearly missed her standing there, leaning against the wall. Sophia had called her name, but even then she’d been so deliriously tired she was half-convinced she was hallucinating.
But no. Sophia had been wearing the entari and shalvar of the women of Damascus in shades of ivory and gold, her head inclined to the side in its usual arrogant way.
“What are you doing here?” Etta had managed.
“You’re not an idiot,” Sophia had said. “You don’t need me to answer that. I’m here to help you finish this task.”
Even then, confused, overwhelmed, Etta had known to be suspicious. Sophia could only have found them if she’d followed them—not just through Damascus, but through all of the passages. Or…if she’d managed to get her hands on the reports the guardians were no doubt sending back to Ironwood about their sightings.
“I’m not leaving,” Etta said. “Not yet.”
The other girl’s face had hardened behind her veil. “I was afraid you might say something like that.”
A sharp pain, and then…nothing.
And now, this.
“I apologize for the rough treatment,” Sophia said as she brought her horse up alongside Etta’s with ease. The pounding of the hooves kicked up enough dust in the air between them that she was momentarily shrouded.
“We simply didn’t have time,” she continued without a trace of remorse. “I could see in your face you weren’t going to leave, and in the time it took to convince you, we could have been halfway to Palmyra.”
Etta straightened, trying to throw an elbow back against the man behind her. “How do you know about Palmyra?”
“I had these guardians tail you in the market yesterday, and make inquiries. The Arab you were with mentioned your destination to the man who sold you the goatskins. Careless.” Sophia shrugged.
I had these guardians tail you in the market…
Etta twisted around in the saddle, horror tightening her stomach like a fist. The man was a mess of swelling bruises, a cut lip, glowering down at her.
These were the men who had tried to grab her—one of them had stabbed Nicholas. A wash of white-hot fury flooded beneath her skin, and she began to struggle that much harder.
“Stop it!” Sophia snapped. “I had to pay him twice as much to ride with you—he spouted something preposterous about his faith not allowing him to touch a female who wasn’t a relation. Don’t test their patience.”
Etta gritted her teeth. “You shouldn’t have put him in the position of having to do it. That wasn’t very kind of you.”
The look the man sent her was filled with so much disgust, Etta was sure she was on the verge of being struck again.
“Did you…” The words caught in her throat. “Did you hire them to kill Nicholas?”
“What are you going on about?” Sophia’s nostrils flared. “If someone attacked the bastard, it wasn’t anyone here.”
It felt like a freezing hand had wiped all feeling from Etta’s face. She stared at the girl, shocked. “Were you there?”
“In the market? Of course not,” she said. “I was trying to go through the room—the one the passage opened up into—while the three of you were out. Why? What are you going on about?”
The man riding behind Etta tightened his grip around her center until it felt like one of her ribs would crack. Something sharp dug into her side, and Etta took the silent warning for what it was.
Why didn’t the man she was riding with, or the one riding just up ahead of Sophia, want her to say anything? Because they feared this Ironwood’s wrath for acting outside the scope of her orders, and it getting back to the Grand Master?
“Someone…tried to rob me,” Etta said, when she realized Sophia was still watching her. “Nicholas jumped in and got hurt. That’s why we were in the hospital.”
“What a shame,” Sophia said without a hint of pity.
“He’s your family,” Etta snapped. “And you have more in common than you think—”
The other girl reached out, gripping the reins of Etta’s horse so brutally she brought them both up short. The horse whinnied in protest, stamping its feet against the loose dust. When Sophia spoke, her voice was heavy with venom. “I will only say this once, so listen to me: the bastard is not family. If you say it again, you will regret it.”
The word she’d used, the way she’d said it—bastard. It told Etta everything she needed to know about the way Sophia felt toward herself and her family.
Thank God Nicholas hadn’t been raised by these people. She needed to find a way to ensure he’d be out of their hands forever.
“What are you doing here?” Etta demanded finally. “You said that you were here to help, but this”—she tugged at her restraints—“implies otherwise. If you were following us through the passages, why didn’t you say something? Talk to us?”
Sophia dropped the reins and turned her horse back to the road, speaking to the hired men in what Etta assumed was Arabic. She’d mentioned before that the travelers learned languages as part of their training, but this still somehow caught Etta off guard. There was no way she’d be able to understand their plan until it was too late.
“If you didn’t want to be followed, you shouldn’t have left in the middle of the night, and you shouldn’t have stolen from me,” Sophia said finally. “What did you think? He was going to just let you go, and cross his fingers that the bastard held up his end of the bargain?” The other girl gave her a mocking look of pity. “What? Didn’t you know about the deal that Nicholas made behind your back? That he’d get everything—”
“I know about the deal,” Etta snapped. And she’d understood—she had—even as the hurt had sliced through her. It was a good enough reason to align himself with the old man, and it would give him everything he wanted. But to keep it from her…“He told me about it himself.”
“Did he, now?” Sophia asked. “If he somehow manages to live through that fever, he’ll be destroyed for it. When I tried to tell Grandfather he shouldn’t be trusted, Grandfather told me that any betrayal on Nicholas’s part would ensure he’d never be able to find work on a ship again, let alone set foot on a dock. He’d be wrecked.”
“He’s not—” Etta’s whole mind ached. Had the old man really promised to destroy his future if he backed out of their deal? Her heart was still squeezed in a fist of fear when she said, “He’s not going to die.”
“Keep telling yourself that, darling.”
Etta watched the girl a moment more, trying to work through her own strategy. “So, you must be eating this up. The old man actually trusted you enough to send you after us. Or were his choices that limited?”
“You gave me the opportunity I’ve been waiting for.…I can prove myself very easily, show him how capable I really am.” Sophia eased into her horse’s pace, adjusting her position in the saddle as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Etta felt like a bag of bones being tossed around, her legs already sore from having to squeeze the sides of the horse. Sophia had to call out to be heard over the horses, and keep her face turned down to avoid getting a mouthful of dirt.
“I’m sorry your pride’s hurt that I trailed you both so easily. You made my job very simple by being on the other side of the city as I came through the passage in that charming, secret little apartment. And anyway, you should be grateful it’s me, and not one of Grandfather’s men. We’ll make quick work of finding it, won’t we? Have it back by the thirtieth. I’m rather well-versed in meeting his impossible deadlines by now.”
Etta shook her head, her fingers toying with the smooth leather of the saddle, debating whether or not to continue. Ironwood had clearly kept the whole truth from her, but Etta couldn’t predict how the other girl would actually react if she found out what was at stake for her, too, in all of this. Sophia’s loyalty was braided into the family’s success and future—everything she wanted was tied to winning the old man’s approval. Did she care about anything outside of that attention and respect?
“Told you about the astrolabe, did he?” Etta said. “I doubt he told you the real reason he wants it.”
“Be quiet!” Sophia barked, her eyes darting to the man behind Etta in the saddle.
Etta had to try to appeal to her reason. “The astrolabe doesn’t read passages, it creates them—”
“Do shut up, Linden!”
Does she already know? And—what—she doesn’t care? Sophia had no personal attachment to the future, no one to love or who loved her, no home or place she fit in. Maybe that was what made it so easy.
Etta was jolted, and bit the inside of her mouth as the horse began to gallop again. The man behind her grunted something unintelligible, but she wasn’t fooled—not only did he understand English, but there was more here than what any of them were letting on. The men had attacked them in the souk without Sophia’s orders, or at the very least, without informing her of what had happened. Maybe they only felt true loyalty to the old man?
And maybe Sophia knew this, and that was the real reason she didn’t want Etta flapping her gums about the astrolabe for them to hear. She hadn’t forgotten what Nicholas had said in the souk—how gold, or the promise of treasure, attracted unwanted attention. If Sophia didn’t want these men to fully appreciate the magnitude of what they were after, did that mean she was afraid they might decide they wanted it for themselves? But what could guardians actually do with the astrolabe, aside from hold it for ransom?
It was a loose string on a sweater, and Etta was tempted—if she could unravel whatever thin bonds of loyalty they felt for the girl, maybe Etta could slip away in the chaos, get ahead of them, and—
Wander off into the desert?
Leave the other girl for dead?
Etta shook her head slowly. She was a lot of things, and was capable of handling a great deal more than she’d ever known, but that was cold-blooded. That was an absolute last resort if nothing else worked.
“I can almost picture it, you know,” Sophia began, laughing. “Grandfather’s face. His surprise when I complete the impossible task.”
“Surprise?” Etta felt the same feeling trickling through her. “You mean…”
Ironwood didn’t know she’d followed them. She’d come by herself, on her own volition.
“Now you’ve got the shape of things,” Sophia said. “I owe it to you, of course. Remember what you said about taking control of my life? If he won’t give me the honor of being the heir, then I’ll damn well prove to him I’m the right choice.”
And it was then that Etta knew she’d need to sort out a different plan, to prepare herself for the absolute worst. Because all the strategies in the world couldn’t guard you from the lengths a hungry young girl would go to, to get what she thought she deserved.
HOURS LATER, AFTER THE SUN HAD PASSED OVER THEIR HEADS and was setting at their backs, after the green oasis of Damascus had become a distant memory, Etta realized she had imagined this desert all wrong.
She’d expected piles of sand—dunes they’d sink down into. It was pure ignorance about this part of the world. The land that spread out before them was one of two things: flat, or mountainous. The mountains seemed always to be in the distance, shrouded by a gray haze. The wind whipped around enough to play with the pale, packed dirt underfoot, teasing whatever the horses had kicked up. Its shrieking had a kind of cadence to it. It whispered, coaxed, like it was trying to lead them astray.
The horses devoured the few spots of shriveled shrubbery into the earth when they stopped to rest. Their lungs were heaving, and Etta’s horse’s body radiated heat until her legs were damp with both its sweet, pungent sweat and her own. She wasn’t cut fr
ee until it came time to walk the animals.
One of the guardians located a rough well that had been dug into the hard ground. Sophia translated what he said: that it had likely been left by the Romans who’d used this road to travel to Palmyra, and was still in use by the few Bedouin tribes inhabiting the desert. The water was stale and sickly-looking, collected from weeks-old rain, but the horses drank until there was nothing left, and then it was time to continue on.
There was no shade, no water, absolutely nothing save the occasional ancient crumbling structure in the distance. When the dirt settled, Etta could see a hundred miles in every direction; the heat toyed with the air, making it dance like the entrance to a passage. After a while, the thought of looking for a passage became too depressing, and Etta was too sore and tired to try. Even with the protection of the robe and veil, the sun baked her inside out.
Just as Etta thought Sophia would force them to ride through the night, a cluster of pale, low buildings appeared in the distance.
“Kurietain,” Sophia said, clearly relieved, as she wiped the sweat from her face with her sleeve.
“How far do we have till Palmyra?” Etta asked, sliding down off the bedraggled horse. The poor thing could barely keep its head up, and shuddered as she and the guardian removed their weight for the duration of the short walk to the village.
“About another day’s journey north,” Sophia said. “I want to keep pushing after we get water, but our illustrious guardians seem to think we should try to trade the horses for camels.”
Switching to camels—animals capable of surviving days without water in the desert—sounded pretty reasonable to Etta.
“What are their names?”
“The camels? How the hell should I know?”
Seriously?
“The guardians!” Etta gestured to the two men, conversing quietly ahead of them.