Chapter 16 · Chapter 16

The latch went home with a sound like a knuckle against wood, and then the wing had nothing in it but the lamp and us.

I heard the outer corridor empty itself. A door, further off, then a second one. The uncle's voice did not come through the wall, and I was glad of it, because I did not want to spend this night listening to a man decide what I was.

Nayef stood where he had stood when the door was still open. He did not cross to me. That was the first thing I understood about him, and I understood it late: he never came at a thing he wanted. He waited to see whether it would walk to him.

So I did not walk.

I put my hands to the Tarha and drew the pin out, and the cloth came away from my head and my hair came down, and I folded the Tarha once, twice, and set it on the low table beside the tray. Then the Abaya, from the shoulders, down. It slid more than it fell.