“Nobody move!” barked a Sentinel wearing a captain’s armband.

Malik’s head swam as he tried to make sense of the situation. Raids by regular Zirani soldiers had been common back in Eshra, but the Sentinels were different. Sentinels were reserved for the kinds of missions the public wasn’t supposed to know about, stealing families in the dead of night and torturing information out of enemy combatants. Even then, they only ever worked in ones or twos, never dozens out in the open like this.

“What’s going on?” cried one brave soul, and a bristle ran through the crowd. Malik clutched his swelling cheek, unable to take his eyes off the Sentinels’ weapons. Their swords and shields were as white as their armor, already splattered with blood though the raid had just begun.

The Sentinel captain stepped forward. “This area is under lockdown until further notice, by order of Ksar Alahari.”

“You have no right to hold us here!” yelled a woman at the front of the group, and several others shouted in agreement. The shouts grew into a chant, and the group surged forward, Malik swept up in the motion against his will.

“Stay where you are!” warned the captain, but the crowd kept advancing. In unison, the Sentinels unsheathed their swords and rushed to meet the angry people.

The shouts of protest morphed into screams of terror. The Sentinels descended in a swarm, hacking and slashing at any person who tried to push past their human barricade. One grabbed an old man by his hair and tugged him backward, and the snap his neck made as it broke seemed as loud as thunder. Even as the Sentinels fought, they seemed to be searching for something or someone, cutting through the crowd like weeds in their haste to find it.

Malik tried to crawl forward, but someone shoved him back, and the taste of blood mixed with sand exploded in his mouth. He grimaced into the dirt, pushing weakly to his hands and knees. He had to get up. Nadia needed him to get up.

Malik tried to stand once more, but he was forced down again as the crowd barreled past him. Every inch of his body hurt, but for Nadia he had to—

“Get up.”

A girl with bright amber eyes crouched beside Malik, offering him her hand. In this chaotic, blurry world, she was the only thing in perfect focus, and Malik didn’t fight as she pulled him to his feet. Hand in hand, they slipped through the raid and into a darkened doorway several streets from the plaza.

The second the girl let him go, Malik fell to the dusty floor. His chest constricted with pain, his breathing labored as the world swam in and out of focus.

“Are you all right?” the girl asked. She reached for him, and Malik jerked away sharply.

You’re not breathing, the still-functioning part of his mind said. Ground yourself. Be present. Stay here.

Malik opened his eyes and forced himself to take in his surroundings. He was in a house long abandoned to the ravages of time, cracks lining the walls and broken furniture scattered about the floor suggesting that this was not the first raid the dwelling had seen. There was no sign of the grim folk either, likely scared off by the commotion outside.

The girl still knelt over him, and there was something so familiar about her that it made Malik pause. She wore a simple servant’s robe embroidered with the Alahari gryphon, and as she stared at him as if he’d lost his mind—which he wasn’t certain he hadn’t—Malik remembered her.

Eyes like a lion.

“I know you,” he said weakly, wrapping his mind around that one concrete fact.

The girl’s hand flew to her headscarf. “How?”

“I . . .” Slowly, he sat up. His whole body ached, and even speaking was a struggle. “. . . Solstasia Eve. Outside the Dancing Seal.”

“Oh. Right.” The servant girl slumped forward. “You’re the boy who ran into me, though you were covered in dirt then.”

Malik began to say she had run into him as well, but a crash from outside cut him off. He glanced at the girl, who stared wide-eyed at the door with her hands balled into fists.

“We should—the second floor,” said Malik, rising to shaky feet. “If they storm the house, we can hide up there.”

One of the worst parts of the panic attacks was the physical fatigue after, the way the energy drained from his limbs as though he’d run a marathon. Malik stumbled after the servant girl, and they were nearly at the top of the stairs when she halted, clutching her head.

“I’m fine,” the girl said as Malik approached her. She hurried up the steps, massaging her temples. “Don’t worry about me, just—”

Her foot caught on the hem of her dress. There was a loud ripping sound, then she pitched backward onto Malik, who got his arm around her waist at the last second. He nearly toppled over until the girl grabbed the banister and steadied them both. For a heartbeat, the only sensation was that of both needing the other to remain upright, and a familiar smell that Malik could not name wafting from her, jumbling his thoughts. Then they both looked down.

A tear ran up the side of the girl’s dress, revealing long legs, wide hips, and—

Heat rushed to Malik’s face, and he looked away. Luckily, the servant girl’s attention wasn’t on him.

“Rat piss!” She grabbed the loose pieces of fabric and let out a string of expletives that Malik would have covered Nadia’s ears for. “Great Mother kill me, I can’t walk home like this!”

“It’s all right.” Malik was still light-headed, but he had a better sense of his bearings than before. He checked the door to make sure the girl’s tirade hadn’t alerted the Sentinels to their presence. “There should be something around here that can help with that.”

The girl gathered the torn fabric, and Malik followed her to the second floor, which was just as ruined as the first one had been. The house was little more than two rooms stacked on top of each other, yet there was a familiarity to the cramped quarters. If Malik closed his eyes, he could almost hear Nadia running across the cracked floor, or Nana shouting for someone to bring her another blanket. This family he didn’t even know was closer to his own than any he’d seen in Ziran thus far, and the thought of the awful fate that must have befallen them twisted the knot of anxiety in Malik’s stomach even tighter.

As the servant girl sat on the edge of the bed, Malik searched through the overturned chests until he found what he was looking for. He held the needle and thread out to her.

“I’m sorry the color doesn’t match, but you should be able to fix that tear with this.”

The girl stared at him. “I don’t know how to use that.”

What type of servant didn’t know how to sew? But time was of the essence, and she was right that she couldn’t walk through the city with half her dress falling off.

“Perhaps I could—if you wouldn’t mind—may I?” Malik stammered, gesturing to the fabric. The girl nodded, and he gathered the torn edges in his hands. Keenly aware of the weight of her gaze, Malik knelt before her and began to fix the tear. He did his best not to touch her skin, but it was nearly impossible given their close proximity. Every time their skin made contact, nervous energy pooled low in Malik’s stomach, causing him to shift awkwardly. The Mark twisted back and forth across Malik’s chest in a frenzy.

“You’re a noble, but you know how to sew?” asked the girl. Her voice was low and comforting, not unlike the steady beat of a drum signaling the start of a story.

The corner of Malik’s mouth twitched up. “You’re a servant, but you don’t?”

The girl simply laughed. Malik peeked up at her through his lashes, immediately lowering his gaze when their eyes met. His experience with women he was not related to was virtually nonexistent, and too humiliating to recount. Hopefully, his panic attack earlier hadn’t looked as embarrassing as it had felt.

Malik worked fast, his fingers forming the stitches on muscle memory from the years he’d spent mending his family’s clothes while they worked the fields. The sounds of the raid were muted as if happening somewhere far from there, and his thoughts wandered to the boys he’d left behind. Driss and Tunde were likely back at the Azure Garden by now; Malik had to get back soon, before he aroused suspicion with his disappearance.

The girl winced again, massaging her temples, and Malik looked up. “Does your head hurt?”

“Always.”

“Have you tried camel’s hair?”

Rain. That was what this girl smelled like. Rain and other green, earthy things Malik hadn’t seen since he’d left Oboure. Where had she found a place so green in the middle of this barren land?

He continued, “Wrapping a braid of camel’s hair around your head will dull the pain.”

“Camel’s hair?” The girl raised an eyebrow.

“It’s true. My grandfather used to get the worst migraines until he started doing that.”