lit only by the sunlight falling through the doorway and the tiny yellow glowing eyes of the incense. The light wavered on the faces of the water pipes, distorted and discolored as it glanced off to illuminate the walls. A thin gray haze filled the upper half of the room and Shifrah ducked low as she stepped inside and let her eyes adjust to the darkness.
The bodies came into focus slowly. Men and women lay on the floor, slouching against the walls, reclining on pillows, and even sitting bolt upright on decaying couches covered in moth-eaten blankets and torn shirts and colorless rags.
No Aker here.
She turned and pushed past Kenan back into the street, now moving twice as fast as before in search of that scent again.
Where are you? Where are you hiding?
An hour later she stood triumphant in the center of yet another darkened den. The smells were more muddied here, no doubt due to more exotic leaves and herbs in the pipes. She didn’t recognize them, but she recognized the grinning lips and glassy eyes, and she recognized the man in the corner.
“Aker.”
He stared blankly at her. “Zahra?”
She smiled down at him. “Soon enough.”
Kenan was more than willing to pull the Aegyptian out of the corner and propel him out the door into the blinding glare of the afternoon sun. The Mazigh detective seemed to take a particular delight in contorting Aker’s arms behind his back to keep him yelping and gasping and babbling to be let go. Shifrah eyed the short sword on the Aegyptian’s hip, but she did not touch it.
She guided the two men across the city, staying on the busiest streets and in the center of those streets, and many of the passersby who saw them coming made way for them and then kept their eyes elsewhere.
“They look scared,” Kenan said.
“Who?” she asked.
“Everyone. Look around. It’s like we have the plague.”
“We do. A green plague, and its name is Osiris.”
She plunged on through the crowds, her hands never far from her blades, but they reached The Cat’s Eye without incident. Shifrah counted five men of various unfriendly bearings loitering outside the restaurant, some pretending to be looking elsewhere and others not bothering to pretend. But they didn’t raise a hand to stop the prisoner from being escorted inside.
The stern-faced waitress led them straight back through the crowded dining room to the private office where Shifrah found Zahra holding council just as she had that morning. The Aegyptian woman’s face brightened at the sight of the man in green. Shifrah noted the look in her eyes.
I expected her to be angrier, or at least cruelly pleased. Not…delighted.
They held Aker upright in front of the long table so everyone could see the man clearly enough. Shifrah said, “Well, here he is, as promised.”
“Where was he?” Zahra asked in Eranian.
Shifrah switched languages to match. “In a dark, smoky corner.”
Zahra stood and circled the table to stand face to face with Aker. “You caused quite a stir this morning, Aker. You upset my clients and partners. You broke one of my nice chairs. And then you had the gall to run away like a little child. Why?”
Aker blinked and exhaled slowly. He tried to straighten up a bit, to pull free of his captors, but Shifrah held him quite still. He cleared his throat, “Well, after the last time, I wasn’t sure how forgiving you were going to be.”
She smiled.
I don’t like that smile. Shifrah said, “You don’t need me here for this. I just want my information and I’ll be on my way.”
Zahra kept her eyes on Aker as she spoke to the Samaritan. “I knew you’d find him quickly. He’s often spoken of your time together. I knew you understood him better than my men would. It was very kind of you to offer to help.”
“Oh? I don’t really think either one of us deals in kindness.” Shifrah tried to catch Kenan’s attention with her eye, but he was too busy glaring at the guards in the corners. “So if you could just tell me what I want to know, I’ll be on my way.”
With a long sigh, Zahra finally looked at the taller woman. “Omar? You know, you haven’t been gone very long. It hasn’t left my people much time to look into the matter.”
“Do you have anything?” Shifrah frowned.
I’ll take anything at this point, as long as I don’t have to come back here again. And why is she still looking at him like that?
“Scraps of rumor, nothing more.” Zahra waved over her shoulder and the older gentleman with the ink- stained fingers blinked to life and cleared his throat. “Ahem. Eight years and three months ago, Omar Bakhoum was here, in this very office, setting up The Cat’s Eye.”
Zahra sighed. “But he called it The Wandering Eye. Go on.”
The gentleman lifted a small scrap of paper. “Shortly thereafter, Master Omar left Alexandria on a west- bound train after informing Master Rashaken that he was going to investigate a theory.”
“What theory?” Shifrah asked.
“He believed he had found the largest undiscovered deposit of sun-steel in the world,” the man said. “Master Rashaken did not seem to think much of this. He said that Master Omar was likely to fail, and to return empty- handed by the end of the year.”
“You spoke to Master Rashaken about this?”
“No,” the old man said with a tired sigh and a squinty look over the rim of his crooked glasses. “I spoke to his valet. Servants are cheaper than masters, and far more reliable in their information.”
Shifrah glanced at Zahra. “You’re spying on the Sons of Osiris?”
“I have a city to maintain.” She shrugged. “Do you want the rest of the information or not?”
“Tell me.”
The gentleman said, “After six months, discrete inquiries were made by the Temple into the whereabouts of Master Omar. A man in Carthage reported that the master had indeed passed through that city on his way west, but no one had seen him since. We had no agent in Marrakesh at that time, so we have no way of knowing whether the master traveled that far, or farther still. He may have sailed to the New World, for all we know.”
Shifrah frowned. “He was looking for a large deposit of aetherium? Could he have been looking for the Espani skyfire stone that fell into the Strait two years ago?”
The man shrugged. “Possibly. We have no way of knowing.”
“Oh, Aker,” Zahra sighed. “What am I going to do with you?”
Again, Shifrah noted the strange tone in the woman’s voice. She’s too calm. There isn’t even a hint of anger in her. “Then I guess we’ll be on our way. A pleasure doing business with you, Zahra. Perhaps later we’ll talk about a more formal arrangement for my work in the future.”
“Mm.” Zahra waved her away. “Later then.”
Shifrah let go of Aker’s arm and stepped toward the door. She said in Mazigh, “Come on Kenan, we’re done here.”
“Fine.” Kenan still had Aker and he pushed the wobbly Aegyptian back toward the door.
“No, he stays,” Zahra said in Eranian. She pointed at the floor to indicate that the man in question was staying right there.
“He’s wanted for murder in Tingis,” Kenan replied in Mazigh. And then more slowly he said, “Murder. Tingis. Marrakesh. So that’s where he’s going. With me.”
Shifrah translated for Zahra, who waved two fingers over her shoulder and the armed men in the corners stepped smartly out into the room.
“Kenan!” Shifrah kept her eye on the nearest guard. “Aker stays here.”
“I told you I was taking him,” the detective said.
Shifrah frowned at the two men drawing their pistols. She knew the dining room behind her was full of armed
