Chapter 15 #2
Khawla winces. She shakes her head insistently. “It's not like that. The bone-eaters care for you, which is, honestly, a strange phenomenon for bone-eaters, but once I met you, I understood. You have a presence of light and warmth about you that is quite impossible to dislike.”
Shay shrugs. She's too unused to such direct compliments to know how to accept one, and she's quite sure Khawla would be less generous if she knew everything there is to know about her. “I'm an outcast.”
“Or maybe you simply haven't found your kindred people yet,” Khawla says soothingly. “Shay, I think you connected with the spirits of the Lallat when you put on the hjabat, and the outrageous thing is you act like you don't even know how amazing that is.”
“The Lallat?” Shay's chest stirs despite her staunch commitment to apathy.
“They were our rulers, back when all women had magic.”
“Right.” Shay shrinks at the mention of magic. She tugs her sleeves down, as if to cover her hands. As if they might start glowing the way the touched ones’ do. “Before magic died out, which God allowed to happen because those with Shawafa failed to use it wisely.”
“That's simply not true,” Khawla insists. “The Lallat had a system of laws in place to ensure magic was used for the benefit of the community and never for personal gain or to inflict harm. Magic didn't die out. It was stolen by men who were jealous because they weren't gifted the same strengths.”
Shay can't deny that it makes a certain sense. After all, if Al-Mukhtar were really against magic, they would take more definitive action to stop Snow from being produced. “The Naturalists think we should all be equal. As in no one being allowed to have magic at all, in any form.”
A stillness comes over Khawla, her face a picture of neutrality. “What do you think?”
“Me?” Shay rubs the silver crystal. Even now she can sense the ants that crawl through the cracks of tile in the floor, leaving a scent trail to guide their colony to a new food source.
The pregnant mouse in the wall that has just woken up and is collecting materials for her nest. And the hungry spider on the ceiling, gliding rung to rung across its web, descending upon its prey.
It can be overwhelming, a constant buzz of awareness she's not sure what she's supposed to do with.
“I think maybe prayer is the only magic we really need.”
“So, let's say someone is born with a natural talent for painting: Should they use that gift and glorify their Lord by sharing the beautiful pieces of art they create? Or should they deem their gift forbidden, and deprive the world of their talent, believing God alone has the right to create objects of beauty?”
“Beauty?” Shay thinks of Hind, so desperate for a blitz that she'd forsake her own child, of Sami's infanticidal mother. The touched ones rotting away in the darkened alleys of the Bib. “Have you not seen the damage magic can wreak?”
“Not magic,” Khawla says with gentle firmness. “Snow. And yes, I have. But it won't be like that when we return natural magic to the women of Mekchaouen.”
She speaks with a passion that's unsettling. Or maybe Shay has become more cynical. If these Lallat are real, they certainly picked the wrong girl to reveal themselves to. “How does that work?”
Khawla squints. “How does what work?”
“How will the Sisterhood return women's natural magic? What's the plan?”
“I don't know,” Khawla admits. “The details exceed my ranking. But I do have a friend who could be persuaded to take the hjabat to our leader and ask what should be done with it. I was planning on meeting him tonight. Would you consider coming with me?”
Shay blanches, a new panic squeezing her throat. “You were planning on going out? Tonight?”
“Don't you know?” Khawla vibrates with barely contained excitement. “Tonight is Jou Boulka!”
Every sowing season, Mekchaouen's citizens dress up in animal skins and cook meat over large fires in the street.
Ghita never allowed Shay to attend the festival, calling it a celebration of debauchery.
Shay always thought it was more about the symbolic struggle between good and evil, but she never wanted to go badly enough to argue the point.
We can't just leave without telling the bone-eaters. I could be arrested if I'm recognized. Al-Ghaba Mayita is too dangerous at night. The whole world is too dangerous.
All these reservations play through Shay's mind, but she can see on Khawla's face how important this is to her.
She either truly believes the realm can be saved, or she thinks the ring will earn her recognition from her faction's leadership.
Shay can understand both desires, even if she isn't completely on board with the cause herself.
“I suppose it wouldn't hurt just to see if the ring really is important.”
“Yes!” Khawla jumps up, yanking Shay with her by the hand. So great is her excitement, Shay wonders if Khawla intended to ask her to the festival all along. And despite her misgivings, she hopes that is the case. “This is going to be so much fun. And don't look so worried. I have a plan!”
Of course she does. As Khawla drags her from the bone-eaters’ quarters, Shay remembers her reason for entering them in the first place. “Khawla, wait. I wanted to ask: Have you happened to see my prayer beads anywhere?”
“No …” Khawla halts. Her body freezes up, and her eyes flutter closed.
After a brief moment, she opens them and marches straight to Aicha the scarab beetle's glass living enclosure.
She removes the lid, dips her hand inside, and withdraws it with Shay's beads dangling from her fingers. “I wonder how those got in there …”
“I have no idea, but thank you.” Shay takes the beads. She must have dropped them in the enclosure while she was in the bone-eater's room yesterday.
After noticing Deebi's increasingly frustrated attempts to train his pet, Shay decided to use her abilities to secretly help him.
But she doesn't tell Khawla that. She may not be involved with the Naturalists, but she's still a rebel.
And instead of spurning magic, this new faction seems to revere it.
All Shay wants is to lie low and keep her neck noose-free, and advertising her ability probably isn't the best way to accomplish that.
She does find it most peculiar that Khawla knew exactly where to look.