Mirage (Mirage #1)(59)

I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

“The Vath call it the Eastern Reach.” My hand tightened around his. “Ah. Now you understand.”

“I took Maram’s place in the council meeting,” I said. We’d shifted closer, so that I could feel the warmth of him through the folds of my qaftan. It had only occurred to me peripherally that Idris’s family was based there, and I hadn’t thought of how it might impact him. A pang of guilt went through me again as I remembered the part I’d played.

Idris drew a hand over his face. It seemed that now that he’d told me, the worry and fear had amplified. “I don’t understand why anyone there would risk a second purge. It wasn’t so long ago that they might not remember. I know no one has forgotten.”

Better death than slavery. Husnain had said it once in a fit of fury at Aziz—it had been a point of contention between all of us, but between Aziz and Husnain most of all. I’d thought then such a declaration was a product of youth and its bravado, that a few more years would temper Husnain’s fire. But—there were people who believed that. Who would rather die than suffer under our occupation. People who would rather risk their lives in the hopes that their children might live to see a better tomorrow.

I’d become one of them.

“It’s no problem of yours,” he said suddenly. “It will turn out as it turns out.”

“Of course it’s a problem of mine,” I said. I turned his face so that our eyes would meet again. “Friends care about one another.”

He grinned. “Friends?” he said quietly.

“More than friends,” I said as he kissed my palm. “Why not visit them? It would help, wouldn’t it?”

My hands closed over where he’d kissed. It felt as if ages had passed since I last saw him, and I hated how restricted we were. Whether I saw him or not relied on where Maram or Nadine sent me and whether or not he would be there. I wished I could see him more, but I’d known from the very beginning that it would be this way. I spoke softly, lest the guards outside the carriage hear us—another constraint.

“I … I hadn’t thought of that,” he said. “It would help with morale, at least. It’s my aunt’s one hundred and sixth birthday soon—Maram wouldn’t deny me leave for that.”

“Would she go?” I asked, careful to keep my voice even.

“I don’t know,” he replied with a frown. “I imagine you know how she feels about her Andalaan family.”

I nodded. “Still—it will be good for you and for them.” I squeezed his hand. “Your presence would reassure them. And you’ll be safe in Al Hoceima—they’re concentrating further on the coast.”

He brushed his fingers over my cheek then leaned forward and kissed my forehead. For a few moments the only sound in our carriage was the tide of noise from the city itself. There was some struggle on his face, as if he couldn’t marshal his emotions.

“What is it?”

“You—” he began. “You are a great comfort, Amani.”

I struggled not to laugh. “A comfort? Is that all?”

He opened his mouth and I shook my head.

“I was only joking. You don’t have to say more.”

“Come with me,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“To Al Hoceima,” he said. “Please.”

I opened my mouth to tell him why it was a terrible idea, then shut it. It wasn’t a terrible idea. We had so little time together and this—it would be wonderful. And perhaps I would be able to get away and hand off the information to one of Arinaas’s agents in the Eastern Reach.

“Alright,” I said at last. “I’ll try.”

*

The speech—my address to the people of Walili—was to take place in a declining part of the city. According to the map Tala had shown me, at one point it was the merchant sector, prosperous and booming. But business had moved elsewhere, into majority Vathek hands, and while many of the merchants could get by, it was a far cry from what it had once been. The library wouldn’t help.

El Maktabatil Fihri had stood for two hundred thousand years and served as an archive for the literature of the world. It had held the largest collection of Kushaila poetry before the Vath had bombed it out of the city. Its replacement was nowhere near its original site, and would hold census data and histories of the occupation.

Idris and I stood just off the elevated platform, the crowd below. Everyone in this quarter was required to attend, and they’d lined up in their somber clothes, silent and filled with resentment. I could feel the buzz in the air, recognized it from my own time in these mandatory assemblies. On either side of the thoroughfare where Andalaans were assembled were elevated seats, as if the Vathek who sat there were prepared for a spectacle.

Looming over the platform was an enormous statue of Massinia. I took an involuntary step forward. There were many ways of depicting her—in ecstasy, with an open book in her lap, her eyes heavenward, and so on. But I had never seen her depicted thus, her hands raised up toward heaven, a veil pulled forward over her head, and draped over her body down to her feet. It was the Book at her feet that made me sure it was meant to be Massinia.

The statue was beautiful, made of carved stone, and yet eerie to look at, too. I felt that at any moment she might lift the veil and walk among us. It was untraditional and unusual, and instead of eliciting the joy I normally felt when seeing her, it made me feel uneasy. Perhaps that was why the Vath had allowed it to remain standing.