Chapter 14 · Chapter 14

The paper had been folded twice and left on the table between the cups, and by the time he spoke I knew the fold of it better than I knew the pattern on the carpet.

"You brought a document into this room," I said.

"It was already in this room. I only brought it out where the light is."

He had not sat. He stood where he had stood since the latch turned, at the edge of the lamplight, and the Oud in the mabkhara had gone past smoke into the scent that settles into wool. My Abaya was still on me. The pin had not moved in my tarha. I had decided that in the corridor, and I was not going to be the one who altered it first.

The deed was for the private wing. I had signed the edge of it in the spring, in a room with a clerk who kept his eyes down on the paper as though my hand were something that could burn him.