Chapter 17 · Chapter 17

He did not go back to his chair.

He came around the table instead, unhurried, and stopped at the edge of the light, close enough that I could smell the oud still in the folds of his thobe and the cold of the courtyard on the cloth. I set my finjan down on the saucer without a sound, which cost me more than I wanted him to see.

"One thing," he said. "Before the rest."

"The rest was promised."

"It was promised to a woman sitting at my table with a folder open and a pen in her hand. I have been trying to decide which of the two of you asked."

"There is one of me, Talal."

"Then answer it once." He did not raise his voice. He never needed to. "Did you come into this wing tonight as the council's investigator, or under your own name?"

The lamp hummed. Beyond the wall, the corridor had gone quiet in the way a corridor goes quiet when someone has decided not to be heard, and I thought of my name said once out there and then swallowed.

"You know what my post is."

"I know what it is.