Chapter 13 · Chapter 13

The Finjan at my feet had stopped steaming before the house decided to go quiet.

I heard the page turn before I heard him. Then Talal Al-Zahrani came as far as the inner doorway, put one hand on the frame, and stopped, and did not cross the gilt line any more than I had. White thobe, collar closed, cuffs straight, no Bisht — a man dressed for a hall he had already been carried out of.

"You counted the wrong book," he said.

"It was the book the hall gave me."

"The hall wrote that book." No heat in it, which was worse than heat. "Every column in it was agreed before you sat down. You were not brought here to count, Mariam. You were brought here to sign."

I stayed where the brass ran across the marble. "Then sign it yourself. If it is already decided, my hand adds nothing."

Something crossed his face and did not stay long enough to be called anything. He turned his hand over, palm up, toward the room behind him — not a gesture for me to come closer, only a direction. "The true one is in there.