This Woven Kingdom(This Woven Kingdom #1)(2)

MERAS

May Equality Reign Always Supreme

Equality, as it turned out, had meant Jinn were to lower themselves to the weakness of humans, denying at all times the inherent powers of their race, the speed and strength and elective evanescence born unto their bodies. They were to cease at once what the king had declared “such supernatural operations” or face certain death, and Clay, who had exposed themselves as an insecure sort of creature, were only too willing to cry cheat no matter the context. Alizeh could still hear the screams, the riots in the streets—

She stared now at the mediocre gown.

Always she struggled not to design an article too exquisite, for extraordinary work came under harsher scrutiny, and was only too quickly denounced as the result of a preternatural trick.

Only once, having grown increasingly desperate to earn a decent living, had Alizeh thought to impress a customer not with style, but with craftsmanship. Not only was the quality of her work many orders of magnitude higher than that of the local modiste, but Alizeh could fashion an elegant morning gown in a quarter of the time, and had been willing to charge half as much.

The oversight had sent her to the gallows.

It had not been the happy customer, but the rival dressmaker who’d reported Alizeh to the magistrates. Miracle of miracles, she’d managed to evade their attempt to drag her away in the night, and fled the familiar countryside of her childhood for the anonymity of the city, hoping to be lost among the masses.

Would that she might slough off the burdens she carried with her always, but Alizeh knew an abundance of reasons to keep to the shadows, chief among them the reminder that her parents had forfeited their lives in the interest of her quiet survival, and to comport herself carelessly now would be to dishonor their efforts.

No, Alizeh had learned the hard way to relinquish her commissions long before she grew to love them.

She stood and a cloud of soot stood with her, billowing around her skirts. She’d need to clean the kitchen hearth before Mrs. Amina came down in the morning or she’d likely be out on the street again. Despite her best efforts, Alizeh had been turned out onto the street more times than she could count. She’d always supposed it took little encouragement to dispose of that which was already seen as disposable, but these thoughts had done little to calm her.

Alizeh collected a broom, flinching a little as the fire died. It was late; very late. The steady tick tick of the clock wound something in her heart, made her anxious. Alizeh had a natural aversion to the dark, a rooted fear she could not fully articulate. She’d have rather worked a needle and thread by the light of the sun, but she spent her days doing the work that really mattered: scrubbing the rooms and latrines of Baz House, the grand estate of Her Grace, the Duchess Jamilah of Fetrous.

Alizeh had never met the duchess, only seen the glittering older woman from afar. Alizeh’s meetings were with Mrs. Amina, the housekeeper, who’d hired Alizeh on a trial basis only, as she’d arrived with no references. As a result, Alizeh was not yet permitted to interact with the other servants, nor was she allotted a proper room in the servants’ wing. Instead, she’d been given a rotting closet in the attic, wherein she’d discovered a cot, its moth-eaten mattress, and half a candle.

Alizeh had lain awake in her narrow bed that first night, so overcome she could hardly breathe. She minded neither the rotting attic nor its moth-eaten mattress, for Alizeh knew herself to be in possession of great fortune. That any grand house was willing to employ a Jinn was shocking enough, but that she’d been given a room—a respite from the winter streets—

True, Alizeh had found stretches of work since her parents’ deaths, and often she’d been granted leave to sleep indoors, or in the hayloft; but never had she been given a space of her own. This was the first time in years she had privacy, a door she might close; and Alizeh had felt so thoroughly saturated with happiness she feared she might sink through the floor. Her body shook as she stared up at the wooden beams that night, at the thicket of cobwebs that crowded her head. A large spider had unspooled a length of thread, lowering itself to look her in the eye, and Alizeh had only smiled, clutching a skin of water to her chest.

The water had been her single request.

“A skin of water?” Mrs. Amina had frowned at her, frowned as if she’d asked to eat the woman’s child. “You can fetch your own water, girl.”

“Forgive me, I would,” Alizeh had said, eyes on her shoes, on the torn leather around the toe she’d not yet mended. “But I’m still new to the city, and I’ve found it difficult to access fresh water so far from home. There’s no reliable cistern nearby, and I cannot yet afford the glass water in the market—”

Mrs. Amina roared with laughter.

Alizeh went silent, heat rising up her neck. She did not know why the woman laughed at her.

“Can you read, child?”

Alizeh looked up without meaning to, registering the familiar, fearful gasp before she’d even locked eyes with the woman. Mrs. Amina stepped back, lost her smile.

“Yes,” said Alizeh. “I can read.”

“Then you must try to forget.”

Alizeh started. “I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t be daft.” Mrs. Amina’s eyes narrowed. “No one wants a servant who can read. You ruin your own prospects with that tongue. Where did you say you were from?”