whether it needed to end in bloodshed. Shifrah said, “His location.”
The waitress nodded and left.
Aker leaned forward. “That was a dangerous play. If she calls you back there and you can’t deliver what you promised, she might just kill you for wasting her time.”
Shifrah nodded. “Then I’ll try to keep her entertained.”
Kenan gave her a questioning look, but she shook her head. She had no intention of translating every little scrap of conversation into Mazigh for him, so there was no point starting now. He could learn Eranian if he wanted to know so badly.
When the waitress came back only a few minutes later, Shifrah felt a cold lump in her chest.
The first gambit worked. Time to press my luck.
The waitress indicated Shifrah with a sharp jerk of her head. “You. Come with me.”
“What about my friends?” Shifrah stood up. “I’m not fond of being alone in strange rooms with strange people.”
The waitress glanced at the men. “You can bring one of them.”
Shifrah was about to say Aker’s name when she saw the brooding look in Kenan’s eyes. It was a glimmer of the old Kenan, the angry young man she had met in Espana, the one with the crazy plans and the barely contained rage at the idiots trying to control his life.
Better not to leave Kenan alone. And the waitress doesn’t seem to like Aker for some reason, so better not to bring him along.
“Kenan. You’re with me.”
The Mazigh narrowed his eyes a bit and paused, but then he stood and followed her.
They wound through the dining room with its muffled voices and shuffling papers and then ducked through a curtained doorway at the back stair. They passed two thick-necked men and Shifrah wondered if they would just ask for weapons or actually search for them, but neither man moved to stop them. The waitress led them on into the next room, which was a lounge similar to the dining room, only smaller and furnished with a single long table. Several men and women sat along the far side of the table like a panel of inquisitors, and the waitress indicated that Shifrah and Kenan were to stand before them. Then the woman in black left, closing the door behind her.
The seated people included a small elderly Puntish man with ink-stained fingers reading a letter, a fat Eranian woman picking at a plate of cheeses, a tall Songhai priest flipping through a large book lying open on the table to display a series of erotic illustrations, four youths scribbling figures madly in leather-bound ledgers, and Zahra El Ayat.
Zahra sat in the center, a few papers, pens, inkwells, and glasses of water and wine scattered in front of her. Unlike her compatriots, who were all amusing themselves with other pastimes, Zahra was leaning back in her tall chair and staring at her two new guests.
Shifrah stared back, unimpressed. Zahra was a little older and a little leaner, but otherwise unchanged. Long black hair tied back with a silver clasp, high cheek bones, huge hypnotic eyes, plump pouting lips, lapis lazuli necklaces from the near east, jade rings from the far east, and a dress cobbled together from the fashionable courts of both Aegyptus and Italia, Shifrah guessed. She looked wealthy. She looked confident. She did not look amused.
“No Aker? Pity. Well, to business then. Omar Bakhoum is dead.” Zahra flashed the briefest of fake smiles. “But you know that. I was beginning to think Shifrah Dumah was dead as well, but here you are.”
“Why would you think I was dead?” Shifrah glanced at the black-robed guards in the corners. There was no guessing what weapons they might have in the folds of their clothing. If the waitresses had guns, then anyone might, which was strange. Guns had always been rare in the Empire. “After all, you’ve been sending me jobs and collecting my commissions for the last eight years or so, haven’t you?”
Zahra nodded. “But as I recall, the last job you did for me was more than a year ago. Rui Faleiro, wasn’t it? And then you disappeared. I assumed the Espani had caught you and dropped you into a prison or a nunnery or whatever it is that people like them do with people like us.”
“I’ve been in Marrakesh.”
“Really? Because we still have a drop in Arafez, but I haven’t heard from you.”
“I’ve been in Tingis, keeping quiet and working local.”
Zahra raised an eyebrow. “Local work for local money? That’s not my Shifrah.”
“I was never your Shifrah. I was Omar’s. And I thought I still was until two days ago.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was my job to keep you up to date with the latest gossip. I’ve been a little busy running this city and half the Middle Sea.” Zahra picked up her wine, her rings clinking against the glass.
“Running this city?” Shifrah smiled. “I wonder what Master Rashaken would say if he heard that.”
Zahra rolled her eyes. “Don’t be thick. You know what I mean. You saw what I have to deal with out there in The Cat’s Eye. Over two hundred gangs and syndicates all looking for a piece of Alexandria and your precious Omar left me to keep it under control. It’s a madhouse on a good day.”
“And a war zone on a bad one. I remember,” Shifrah said. She glanced at Kenan. With the entire conversation in Eranian, the Mazigh wasn’t even trying to pay attention. He seemed to be having a staring contest with one of the guards. “So I suppose you were the one who set me up with the job for Lady Sade? What was the master plan there?”
“Oh nothing important, just a retirement plan, really,” Zahra said. “Topple the new government and put the old aristocracy back in charge. Maybe spark a war or two with the Songhai so the Mazighs would need a little support from Alexandria. Eventually I planned to ingratiate myself with Sade and the new Mazigh royal court so I could move to Orossa and live out my days in the palace. It’s a fortress on top of a mountain where they import luxuries by airship from all over the world. It sounded heavenly.” Zahra narrowed her eyes and flared her nostrils. “But that’s all gone now.”
“I heard Sade got herself killed by the palace guards.”
“I heard you got your eye gouged out by an old woman.” Zahra smiled. “And I see that part, at least, is true. But that’s all in the past now. Business is business, as Omar used to say.”
“Yes, he did. Speaking of Omar, I’m surprised that he turned over his responsibilities to you. I never knew you two were very close.”
“I didn’t say we were. Omar never wanted to run the bottom half of Alexandria, but he was the only person Rashaken could trust not to turn into a petty warlord and ruin the big plan. You know Omar. All he cared about was finding more sun-steel.”
Aetherium. It keeps coming back to aetherium.
“So is that why you came back?” Zahra sipped her wine. “You finally came back after all this time just to see why Omar hasn’t written you?”
“No. I came back because a friend of ours killed a famous Espani in downtown Tingis two days again and then had the brilliant idea of leading the police straight to my door.” Shifrah crossed her arms so that the tips of her fingers could just barely touch the butts of her knives inside her jacket.
“Aker?”
“Aker.”
The Aegyptian woman frowned into her empty glass. “Ever since he got that damn sword, he’s been a pain in all our sides. Even Master Khai is annoyed with him these days.”
“That I can believe. He came to Marrakesh to steal a bit of sun-steel for himself. The westerners have finally discovered it, by the way. They call it aetherium.”
Zahra laughed and set her glass down a bit clumsily. A warm flush crept up into her cheeks. “I bet their clever scientists are all scratching their heads and wondering why it’s so rare in their part of the world, too. Idiots.” She waved for the boy at the end of the table to pour her another glass of the red. “So, Aker ruined your fun in Marrakesh. This must be a souvenir, then. A Mazigh gunslinger. Is he any good? Can he shoot a coin out of the air?” She laughed and rested her full glass on her knee.
“He has his uses.” Shifrah glanced at Kenan and saw he had shifted his humorless gaze to Zahra herself.
Don’t antagonize her. This isn’t Tingis!
She turned back to the woman at the table. “I won’t take up much of your time. I can see you’re a busy woman these days. I just came to find out where Omar went.”
