Followed by Fros(36)

“Smeesa, it’s freezing in here!” Imad exclaimed, rubbing his hands together and looking over the walls. His words puffed in clouds of white. “But they did a decent job. Is it satisfactory?”

“Yes, yes, of course!” I said, tugging my gloves tighter over my hands. “And I’m sorry, I don’t know how to light a fire with these kind of coals—”

Before I could even finish the sentence, Lo crouched at my fireplace and began rearranging the coals into a cone, not caring that they left black smudges on his riding gloves. He found a cask of oil that I had not seen and drizzled it in the coals’ center, then struck a match to light it.

“Thank you,” I said. He nodded.

“A little dark for my tastes,” Imad said, examining the ceiling. “You’re sure you like it? I can send more lamps.”

“I love it. Really, truly. I could not have asked for better. Did your negotiations go well?”

Imad blinked for a moment. “Oh, with Paeil? Well enough; thank you for asking.”

“You know Dideh Bab?”

Lo gestured to the open book of plays on my bed, its pages wrinkled, faded, and torn on the edges, the dye in its cloth cover patchy from having been left in the snow too many times.

“Dideh Bab?” I repeated.

He tilted his head. “These are his plays. The Fool’s Last Song.”

I straightened at the title. He knew these? I’d always thought the book was some obscure volume collected by an eccentric merchant. To know someone else knew the stories that had kept me sane through my years of isolation kindled a strange sort of hope in me. “The Basket Bearer is my favorite,” I said. “This is the book that helped me learn Hraric.”

His stern, dark eyes considered me for a moment.

“If you need more books,” Imad said, “I am happy to send them.”

I perked further. “I-I would love that. This . . . I can’t count how many times I’ve read this.”

Imad laughed. “It shows!”

Lo smiled.

“Forgive me, but I must go,” Imad said, running his fingers over one of his thin braids. “I will try to come again for longer, but—”

“You have responsibilities. I am grateful to you for making the trip so soon.” Looking to Lo, I added, “Please see him to the palace safely.”

“Of course.”

It saddened me to see them go; I stood in my doorway and watched until the snowfall hid their retreating camels, not caring if snow dampened the rugs at my feet. I had no more visitors that day, and Havid’s visit the next day was as quick as Rhono’s had been, though he was gracious enough to leave me a package of flatbread. To my relief, Aamina came on the third day as promised and stayed several hours.

“And she, of course, will have nothing of it,” she chattered as water boiled over my fireplace. She told me an animated story about a woman I did not know and would likely never meet. “She’s smitten with that bricklayer, even if marrying him will mean living in a tent the rest of her life!” She clicked her tongue and brought the bubbling water over to the stone table. “You know how young girls are.”

She seemed not to notice that I, too, was a young woman, having just turned twenty-one, but it did not surprise me that the dark circles around my eyes and white hair made me appear older to her. I thanked her for the water, dipped a rag into it, and began washing my hands.

“Goodness!” Aamina said, placing a hand on her heart. “Doesn’t it burn you?”

I shook my head. “The hotter the better.”

Aamina clicked her tongue again and started fussing with my bed linens, which did not need tidying. “You need to eat more. This food shouldn’t be lasting so long.”

“I will try.”

“I’m going to need boots if this snow gets much deeper,” she said, staring up at the canvas overhead. “I’m surprised that doesn’t cave in.”

I considered asking Aamina about Rhono’s and Havid’s apparent distaste for me but ultimately decided against it, not wanting to burden her with my problems. Instead I listened to her stories of how her husband had lost his little finger on his left hand and how the farmers were planting on the slopes again. Aamina enjoyed talking, and I enjoyed listening to her.

When she left, I brought my blankets over to the fire, undressed, and curled around the hearth, massaging my tense forearms and willing some small whisper of the heat to penetrate my muscles. The motion helped a little, but my teeth still chattered as they always did, and my frosty blood scraped its way through my veins.

“Perhaps I should announce myself, not that I mind the view.”

I grabbed the corner of a blanket to cover myself before rolling over to glower at Sadriel, whose grin spanned more of his face than usual.

“Perhaps you should.”

“Quite the company you’re keeping,” Death said, making himself comfortable in my red chair. “But they’ll learn soon enough. Didn’t I tell you about Marya?”

I waited.

“Marya from Kittat,” he clarified. “A dyer, and a good one, with two little boys. I had to collect her a few days after your visit there. Pneumonia is a nasty thing, often brought on by the cold.”

I sat up, the blanket sticking to me with frost. “Truth? You’re telling me the truth?”