Chapter 8: The Waterskin

"Since the hall," I said. "He's known since the hall."

"Since the smoke," Laleh said. "He came down here that first night before you went up. He sat on that bucket and shook."

She pointed at an upturned water bucket.

"He said, 'It's her. Nobody else uses that resin.' Then he made me swear on the wells not to tell the Vizier."

"And he let me sit behind that screen four nights in a veil."

"He said you'd run if he spoke to you."

"He was right."

Laleh grinned.

"He also said you'd be angry."

"He was right about that too."

"Good. Go and be angry at him. He's expecting you tonight. Without the screen."

That night the guards at his door were gone.

So was the servant on the stairs.

I walked in and he was standing at the balcony doors with his back to me.

He'd lit the lamp himself. I could smell it was clean.

"Laleh had it filled from the kitchen," he said. "By her own hand. She told me why."

He turned around.

He looked better after four nights of sleep. Still thin. But his eyes were clear.

"Take off the veil, Nazira."

"No."

"Please."

"You don't get a please," I said in my own voice. "You got three hundred people and a seal."

He took that.

He didn't argue it.

I reached up and pulled the veil down anyway, because it was hot and I was tired of breathing cloth.

He looked at my face for a long time.

"You're sunburned," he said.

"I walked across the Red Waste barefoot. You'd be sunburned too."

"I know."

"You don't know. You watched from the wall."

"I know because I put the water there," he said.

Neither of us moved.

"At the first cairn," he said. "The night before your walk."

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