Chapter 28
It happened so fast I didn’t even have time to scream. One moment I was arguing to a bunch of stuck-up winged people that
my species had the right not to be murdered, the next moment the floor beneath me opened and I was plummeting to my death.
I tumbled wildly through the air. The ground was so far away I could see the entire island: the misty stone mountains and
verdant jungle surrounded by white sand and teal ocean. I was higher than a flock of birds, higher than a human had any right
being. And it would have been extraordinary and beautiful had I, you might recall, not been falling to my very imminent and
no doubt painful death. I did scream now, quite loudly.
There was a green blur in the corner of my eye and something large slammed into me.
No, not slammed into me— caught me. For a moment, we were both falling, feathered arms holding me tight. Then I was briefly tossed in the air before being
seized again, this time by a pair of powerful taloned feet.
“Hold on!” the creature—another peri—cried.
The peri flew me back to an enormous tree, dropping me on a terrace of woven branches and vines heavy with—of all things—eggplant.
I immediately went for my knife, spinning on the creature when he landed beside me.
“Oh!” The peri hopped back, ruffling his wings. “Forgive me! I assumed you did not wish to be falling to your death.”
“Of course I did not wish to be falling to my death!” I shouted, my entire body shaking.
The peri gave me a quizzical look. He was as strange as the rest, a mix of bird and insect. His wings were a dazzling lime
green, more striking when compared with the gray hue of his pale skin and oddly colorless eyes. Silver scales traced over
a ridged, hairless scalp, feathers growing around his long, tapered ears like a crest.
“Then why are you waving a weapon at me?” He frowned. “Are you... are you offering it to me? I require no recompense, though
I would not want to offend human custom.”
“I’m waving it at you because a bunch of your feathered cousins just tried to murder me! Oh, sorry— remove me.” Perhaps lumping the peri who had just saved my life in with the ones who had tried to end it wasn’t fair, but I was
too worked up to be polite.
“Remove you?” he repeated, sounding horrified. “It was the court that did this? Why?”
I shivered, barely hearing the question as the recognition of just how close I’d come to death— again —washed over me. By God, I wanted to go home. I wanted this to be nothing more than an awful nightmare. My teeth were chattering
so violently it hurt, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to breathe.
“Child, why don’t you sit?” The peri laid a cool hand on my wrist, and I jumped at his touch. “You have had a great shock.”
I opened my eyes, realizing as I did so that the peri had stopped me from pacing off the terrace. “Yes,” I mumbled. “Sitting
sounds good.”
The peri guided me to a moss-covered perch and I collapsed, knocking down half the vines with a clumsy kick of my foot.
“Do you take tea?” he asked politely, ignoring the falling leaves.
“Do I take what ?”
“Tea?”
I blinked. “What is tea?”
The peri wrinkled a beak-like nose. “Ah, I forget how far I am from home sometimes. Tea is a drink, a wondrous one. It will
undoubtedly make its way to this part of the world in another century or two, but I shall give you an early taste.”
He snapped his fingers, and a slender copper ewer and two glass cups appeared from thin air. The peri poured a steaming liquid
rich with the aroma of peppercorns, mace, and some sort of grassy substance into the cups, turning the glass globes a pale
golden green. He gently untangled one of my hands from where it had been wrapped around my knees as I rocked back and forth
in distress, placing the warm cup in my palm.
Whatever tea was smelled delicious, but I made no move to drink. “None of this can be real,” I whispered, half marveling,
half despairing.
“I feel that way myself sometimes,” the peri said conversationally, taking a sip from his cup. “Now. Would you tell me what
led to you getting tossed into the sky?”
I grew instantly more guarded. “Why?”
“Mayhap I can help you further.”
My previous experience with peris did not leave me optimistic, but I took a chance. “You could fly me away from here. There’s
this island... Socotra. Really lovely place.”
But his eyes dimmed. “I fear I cannot. If I directly counteracted their decision to remove you, we would both be dead before
we were out of sight.”
“They would kill you? Just for helping me leave?” Regardless of the peris’ bizarre rules, that seemed a ridiculous overreaction.
“But why ? Why are your people so worked up about the briefest human contact?”
He sighed. “My people... they mean well. But we have witnessed terrible violence when the realms get entangled with each other: great wars between the elemental races and destruction across all our worlds. Their response has been to restore balance, believing that if everyone and everything is kept in their place— firmly in their place and away from each other—it will bring peace and pleasure to the Maker.”
Wars between elemental races and destruction across multiple worlds? I had no idea what any of that meant; indeed, I felt
so hopelessly human and small that I scarcely knew what to question first.
The part that involves you, idiot . “And you... do not believe this?” I asked, inferring from his tone. “That these realms—the human and magical worlds—should
stay separate?”
“If believing that means the death of an innocent, absolutely not.” The peri’s expression grew fierce as a Friday preacher’s.
“I believe our Maker prioritizes justice and the preservation of lives before order. If that puts me at odds with my people,
so be it.”
I stared at him, wishing I could trust that earnest reply, then took a sip of the tea—it was indeed delicious. “Who are you?”
“I am called Khayzur. And you?”
God, please do not let this be a mistake . “Amina al-Sirafi.”
Khayzur bobbed his head in a birdlike bow. “The Maker’s justice upon you, Amina al-Sirafi. Now... would you tell me what
happened?”
I took a deep breath, but figuring I had little left to lose, I did just that, telling Khayzur what I knew of Falco and the
Moon of Saba. What had led to Raksh and me being shipwrecked on the island and our hopes the peri court would return us to
Socotra so we could prevent Falco’s taking possession of al-Dabaran before the lunar eclipse.
The peri tutted when I finished speaking. “The Transgressions are a sensitive subject, but in my opinion, your request was
reasonable.”
“What are they?” I asked. “These Transgressions?”
“Objects that bridge the realms, mostly between that of the human world and various magical ones. Your people are the cleverest when it comes to devising such talismans—and the riskiest. Other races were granted magic because they did not have human ingenuity, but their power is not meant to be wielded by human hands.”
I tried to take that all in. “And the Moon of Saba is one of these talismans, these Transgressions?”
“I had not heard of a Moon of Saba previously, but it sounds like it.”
“How could you not have heard of it?” I asked, disbelieving. “It sounds incredibly powerful!”
Khayzur let out a disillusioned warble. “Because there are now more Transgressions than any one person could remember: enslaved souls in rings and more bound for eternal torment on distant mountains; capes of invisibility
and goblets that transform any liquid into poison; portal keys and flying cauldrons. It’s all really quite impressive. And
intimidating when you think upon their possibility of chaos.”
My mind was spinning. “ How? How were humans able to create such things?”
“The barriers between our worlds were once more permeable,” Khayzur explained, sounding almost nostalgic. “There was more
interaction between our peoples, between all the elemental races. Though it is admittedly the rare human capable of creating
such a talisman—usually because they are either uncommonly saintly or uncommonly evil. As you can imagine, either way such
Transgressions are order-destroying abominations in the eyes of most peris.”
“Then why wouldn’t the peri court return me to Socotra? I could help your people get rid of a Transgression!”
“Because we are having this conversation.” When I frowned in confusion, Khayzur clarified, “Because you can see me, Amina al-Sirafi. Because you can hear me and have a chat with a being of air over a cup of tea. You have eaten and drunk
of this island, have you not?”
I hesitated, but Khayzur had spoken knowingly, and I saw little benefit in lying to the one peri who had shown me sympathy.
“I have.”
“Then you are changed. You likely began that transformation the moment you stepped on these shores. In ways that might not be clear until you leave. In ways that cannot be undone. You are now in your own way...”
“A Transgression,” I finished when Khayzur trailed off, clearly reluctant to say the word I just realized condemned me.
His expression was somber. “Yes.”
Oh . I set down my tea with trembling fingers and rose to my feet, needing to move, needing to make space for all that to settle.
Khayzur said nothing, but I could feel the weight of his gaze as I crossed to the edge of the terrace. The island’s impossible
sky and silver sun beat down upon me, a pair of long-necked geese with spiny protrusions soaring past. One of the eggplants
nearest my elbow wiggled, giving off a citrusy aroma, as I gazed down upon a realm I should not have been able to see.
Only a few months ago, I had stood in my fishing boat, fending off a bat-winged demon and haranguing the young men from Aden
about the dangers of the magical world. Now I was trapped on an island of air elementals, reunited with the supernatural spouse
I’d tried to kill, and having tea with a man who had wings for arms while my crew was being held prisoner by a sorcerer. That
was all terrible enough.