Chapter 14 · Untitled Chapter

The last of them went out with their eyes on the carpet, and the majlis kept the shape of them a while—cushions still pressed flat where shoulders had rested, finjans cooling on the brass tray, one date stone left on a linen napkin by a man too bitter to finish it. The smoke of the oud had thinned to an edge of bitter resin.

Underneath it lay that dry, immoveable cold that settles into a Riyadh house once the cedar shutters have been locked against the dark.

"Kalas," Faisal said, without turning his head, and the room finished emptying itself.

He stood in the center of the carpets with the folded order tucked into the breast pocket of his thobe, directly over his ribs. He had not once raised his voice to strip them of their claim. Authority here is never shouted; it is merely what the air in a room does when a man of his standing chooses to occupy it.

When the threshold was clear, he looked at me.

"Layla."

He placed nothing after my name.