Chapter 23 #3
“Really?” Shay asks, immediately thinking Khawla must have sensed where the monsters were in Ard Al-Ghul and thus avoided them.
Khawla has downplayed her capabilities, much like she once kept her drawings tucked away.
And Shay doesn't think it's because she's self-conscious or anything like that; it's more like she has little interest in showing off. “You're amazing, you know that?”
“Thanks,” Khawla says modestly. “But it requires us getting past the locked gate and armed guards first.”
“Luckily, I have a plan,” Shadi says. The afternoon lapsed while they waited in the prayer room for the rain to clear, snacking on the meat and biscuits Khawla had packed.
Now his brown eyes shimmer with the pomegranate shades of dusk.
He gingerly removes a bundle wrapped in clover bean leaves from a pouch tied around his waist. “Any guesses what this is?”
“Cookies?” Khawla raises a jaunty eyebrow. “Are we to bribe the soldiers?”
Shadi unfolds the leaves, revealing a tater sponge. Shay sucks in a breath. The trick worked when she tried it on a touched one who'd just given birth, but would it be effective on two healthy young men armed with deadly weapons? The same weapons that took Ghita's life?
Khawla's lips upturn, her smile growing wider as Shadi reveals his plan, a probable sign that her stomach, unlike Shay's, is not currently gnawing itself over the plethora of ways this could go wrong.
Shay breathes like it's her new occupation, pushing air in and out to expel her nerves.
She must either accept the risks, to herself, to the friends she has not had nearly enough time to enjoy the pleasure of knowing, or she can walk away and leave Hind's fate in the hands of Mukhtar Jawad.
She's not doing that. Not after that bastard turned his soldiers on Ghita and let them kill her.
The trio creeps up to the main gate, its solid wood doors carved with ornate and intricate designs, so beautiful that people often walk out of their way just to look upon them.
Here, they wait quietly for the Moulays making their rounds to march by.
After the metronome of their heavy boots first approaches and then passes the gate and continues on around the perimeter, Shadi employs a couple of special pins and a turning tool to pick the lock.
The efficiency of his work, the speed with which the mechanism yields a satisfying click, speaks either to an issue of faulty hardware or of Shadi's hidden expertise in the art of burglary.
Thirty beakers later, the guards return.
When the bobbing shaft of light from their lantern peeks over the edge of the high walls, Khawla hefts the tater sponge to the other side, where it hits the ground with, hopefully, enough force to burst on impact.
The guards march forward, unaware they could be headed into an unseen curtain of poisonous fumes.
Two quick thuds. The lantern light swerves and stills, shining up from a crooked angle. Shadi slowly pushes the door open. Covering their mouths and noses with the leaves, they slip inside.
Khawla and Shay help Shadi drag the limp bodies behind a band of thick hedges to conceal them.
Shay averts her eyes while he undresses one of the unconscious Moulays and switches the guard's clothing with his own.
With a snarl of fabric, Khawla rips one shoulder of her tunic.
She bends and digs her fingers into the earth, looking half-feral in the rising moonlight, and rubs soil in a cool, musty smear across Shay's cheek.
“Ready?” she asks.
Shay nods. After all, it's too late to do much else. She must hide what doubts fester inside her well enough, because Khawla nods back in satisfaction.
Khawla takes up the guards’ lantern while Shadi holds a confiscated musket at their backs.
He pretends to be marching the girls, who pretend to be his prisoners in an attempt to make it look like Khawla isn't the one they're following.
She guides them toward the courtyard at the center of the complex.
Shay's heart pounds. With each pair of Moulays they pass, her fear surges.
No one gives them a second look until they come to a garden with an extravagant fountain, one that could rightly be called a pond, burbling at its core.
What appear to be lava rocks glow from the bottom and create a blue shimmer that reflects off the surrounding walls and tiles.
A Moulay, who seems to be taking a break from his duties, sits at the edge of the fountain with his back to them.
He looks incredibly young, a boy who should be kicking balls with friends or catching salamanders in the creek.
Khawla leads them past, quickening their pace to avoid his notice.
As they're about to cut right around a screen of assorted shrubs, the boy calls out to them.
Shay isn't sure what he says because he says it in Waheeli, the language of the Hazmaggi tribe. Shadi must understand the words, though, because they bring him to a sudden stop. He doesn't turn around at first, not until the boy calls out again, this time a name: “Yassine?”
Shadi turns. The musket he's holding clatters to the tiles below. “Walid?”
The boy and Shadi stare at each other, both their faces sliding from shock to a much deeper emotion. Then, to Shay's confusion, the boy leaps up and runs toward Shadi at the same time Shadi runs toward him. They meet, or more accurately crash into each other, and cling in a tight embrace.
Shay doesn't know who Yassine is, but it's clear the two know each other in some meaningful way. If she had to guess, she'd say they're family. The boy wriggles from Shadi's arms and looks around furtively. When he speaks again, it is in Mekanch. “What are you doing here?”
Shadi lays his hands on the boy's shoulders and drops his voice to a hush. “We need to find someone in the entourage, someone who may be key to the Sisterhood's success. Can you help us?”
“The entourage is kept in a secret chamber of Mukhtar Jawad's residence,” the boy says, speaking quickly. The look of concern on his face edges toward terror with each passing moment. “But you should leave while you can. The chamber is inaccessible to all but the mukhtars and the Snow Queen.”
Shadi frowns. “Who is the Snow Queen?”
Khawla, who has picked the musket up from the ground, steps closer. “You've gotten bigger, Walood.” She smiles and reaches to tousle the boy's hair, but he ducks back shyly.
Shay joins them, sure to keep a watchful eye, scanning not only the lower courtyard, but the upper terrace that frames it. Though distant footsteps and voices echo, no one comes near enough to notice them.
“She grooms the young women who are brought into the entourage,” the boy explains to Shadi, his mouth twisting in distaste. “But it's like Mukhtar Jawad did something to her. Her powers are … extreme.”
“Yes.” Khawla gasps. Her eyes begin to flutter rapidly, opening and closing. “I can feel her. She gives off a strange energy. I've never felt another Shawafa like it.”
“Can you find her?” Shadi asks.
Khawla nods, blinking slowly as her eyes refocus. “I think so.”
“You're not listening.” Walid steps back, away from Shadi, shaking his head.
“Come with us,” Shadi says with an ache in his voice. “We will help you escape, too.”
“I can't,” Walid says with a melancholy unbefitting his tender age. “We must find a system we can use to communicate. People often talk in front of me, and because I'm young, they think I'm not listening or don't understand. I can be an informant.”
“It is dangerous,” Shadi argues, but the struggle in his eyes says he knows Walid's suggestion is not without merit. “Mmi misses you.”
“Yas …” Walid looks at the ground. He makes a sound like choking. “You don't understand the things they've made me do. I could never look her in the eyes again. You know her. The way she sees everything your soul tries to hide.”
A flash of red fabric alerts Shay to the approach of two Moulays. She elbow nudges Khawla, who quickly passes the weapon back to Shadi.
Shay hangs her head as the guards come closer, her hair falling over her face. Khawla picks at her arms and tugs strands of her hair, mimicking the behaviors Snow predisposes touched ones to.
“Salaams.” One of the Moulays steps forward and peers closely into Shadi's eyes. “Are you new to the kasbah, khoya? I have not seen you around.”
Shadi swallows, then lifts his chin. “It's my first day.”
The Moulay stares at Shadi for a moment longer before glancing at Walid, who nods in confirmation of Shadi's claim.
“They buddied you up with the tadpole? That figures.” The Moulay chuckles, slapping a hand to Shadi's chest. “Well, if you've brought these two in to join the entourage, you better get them to the Snow Queen promptly.
And don't be tempted to have a little fun with them before delivery.
The Queen doesn't take kindly to that. The last Moulay who tried it lost his manhood.”
“Frostbite.” His companion grabs his crotch, wincing in sympathy for the plight of the Moulay in question.
The first Moulay's eyes roam over Shay, lingering at her forearms and torso. He dusts the front of Shadi's uniform before dropping his hand and stepping aside. “No one would blame you if you wanted to swipe those leathers, though. They'd fetch a comely coin.”
“I—um—I'll be careful. Thanks.” Shadi prods Shay and Khawla forward with the musket barrel, and Khawla subtly guides them toward the residential building on the right side of the courtyard, presumably where Mukhtar Jawad resides.
The door to the building is locked, but Walid has a key, which is fortunate because it would be difficult for Shadi to pick the lock with the two Moulays they left in the courtyard boring holes into their backs.
Inside, a long hallway stretches out, the length of it dim despite the combined effort of glittering sconces spaced along the wall and a large punched-brass lantern roped from the ceiling.