Chapter 17 · Chapter 17

The bolt went home in the corridor with an iron sound, and the cedar took it and held it, and then the house went quiet in a way I had not heard from it all evening.

I did not turn around. I kept both palms flat on the desk on either side of the folder and listened to the wing empty itself—a chair scraping beyond the wall, my uncle's voice saying one word to a closed door and getting nothing back, footsteps receding down the corridor in the order of their rank. Then the corridor was empty too, and the only sound left in the room was the dry ticking of the brass lamp.

"You did not sign," Hatim said.

"No."

"You did not leave either."

"There was a bolt on the other side of that door before I ever came into this room. It was never leaving I was choosing between."

He stood by the window when I turned, the bisht draped over his arm, the stiff collar of his thobe catching the lamplight. He had not stepped near me all evening.