This Woven Kingdom(This Woven Kingdom #1)(6)

Alizeh’s body nearly sagged with disappointment. She squeezed her eyes shut, took a steadying breath.

No.

She would not return to bed. It was true she did not yet own a proper winter coat. Or hat. Or even gloves. It was also true that if she raced back up the stairs this very instant she might manage to sleep a full hour before she was needed.

But no.

She forced her spine straight, clutched the precious bundle to her chest. Today, she would be getting paid.

Alizeh stepped into the snow.

The moon was so large this morning it blotted out most of the sky, its reflected light suffusing all in a dreamy glow. The sun was but a pinprick in the distance, its outline shining through a soufflé of clouds. Trees stood tall and white, branches heavy with powder. It was early yet—snow still untouched along the paths—and the world shimmered, so white it looked almost blue. Blue snow, blue sky, blue moon. The air seemed even to smell blue, it was so cold.

Alizeh huddled deeper into her thin jacket, listening as the wind tore through the streets. Plowmen appeared as suddenly as if they’d been conjured by her thoughts, and she watched their choreographed movements, red trapper hats bobbing to and fro as shovels scraped to reveal stripes of gold cobblestone. Alizeh hurried herself onto a quickly clearing path and shook the snow from her clothes, stamped her feet against the glimmering stone. She was wet up to her thighs and did not want to think on it.

Instead, she looked up.

The day was not yet born, its sounds not yet formed. Street vendors had yet to set up their kiosks, shops had yet to unlatch their shuttered windows. Today, a trio of bright-green ducks waddled down the powdered median as wary shopkeepers peered out of doorways, poking broomsticks into the snow. A colossal white bear lounged on an icy corner, a street child sleeping soundly against its fur. Alizeh gave the bear a wide berth as she rounded the corner, her eyes following a spiral of smoke into the sky. Outdoor food carts were lighting their fires, preparing their wares. Alizeh inhaled the unfamiliar scents, testing them against her mind. She’d studied cookery—could identify eatables by sight—but she’d not had enough experience with food to be able to name things by smell.

Jinn enjoyed food, but they did not need it, not the way most creatures did; as a result, Alizeh had forgone the decadence for several years. She used her income to pay instead for sewing supplies and regular baths at the local hamams. Her need for cleanliness grew parallel to her need for water. Fire was her soul, but water was her life; it was all she needed to survive. She drank it, bathed in it, required often to be near it. Cleanliness had, as a result, become a foundational principle of her life, one that had been hammered into her from childhood. Every few months she trekked deep into the forest to find a miswak tree—a toothbrush tree—from which she harvested the brush she used to keep her mouth fresh and her teeth white. Her line of work often left her filthy, and any truly idle time she had, she spent polishing herself to a shine. It was in fact her preoccupation with cleanliness that had led her to consider the benefits of such a profession.

Alizeh stopped.

She’d happened upon a shaft of sunlight and stood in it now, warming in the rays as a memory bloomed in her mind.

A soapy bucket.

The coarse bristles of a floor brush.

Her parents, laughing.

The memory felt not unlike a handprint of heat against her sternum. Alizeh’s mother and father had thought it critical to teach their child not only to care and clean for her own home, but to have basic knowledge of most all technical and mechanical labor; they’d wanted her to know the weight of a day’s work. But then, they’d only meant to teach her a valuable lesson—they’d never meant for her to earn her living this way.

While Alizeh had spent her younger years being honed by masters and tutors, so, too, had her parents humbled her in preparation for her imagined future, insisting always upon the greater good, the essential quality of compassion.

Feel, her parents had once said to her.

The shackles worn by your people are often unseen by the eye. Feel, they’d said, for even blind, you will know how to break them.

Would her mother and father laugh if they saw her now? Would they cry?

Alizeh didn’t mind working in service—she’d never minded hard work—but she knew she was likely a disappointment to her parents, even if only to their memories.

Her smile faltered.

The boy was fast—and Alizeh had been distracted—so it took her a second longer than usual to notice him. Which meant she hadn’t noticed him at all until the knife was at her throat.

“Le man et parcel,” he said, his breath hot and sour against her face. He spoke Feshtoon, which meant he was far from home, and probably hungry. He towered over her from behind, his free hand roughly gripping her waist. By all appearances she was being assaulted by a barbarian—and yet, somehow, she knew he was just a boy, one overgrown for his age.

Gently, she said: “Unhand me. Do it now and I give you my word I will leave you unharmed.”

He laughed. “Nez beshoff.” Stupid woman.

Alizeh tucked the parcel under her left arm and snapped his wrist with her right hand, feeling the blade graze her throat as he screamed, stumbling back. She caught him before he fell, caught his arm and twisted it, dislocating his shoulder before pushing him into the snow. She stood over him as he sobbed, half-buried in the drift. Passersby were averting their eyes, uninvested as she knew they would be in the lower rungs of the world. A servant and a street urchin could be counted upon to do away with each other, save the magistrates the extra work.