K.A. Doore's Blog, page 2

It’s been pretty quiet on here, huh. Probably because it’s been pretty quiet outside of here, too. I’ve been kind of drifting for a bit, occasionally dipping my toes back in to see how the water feels, if this is where I want to jump in and dive deep and see just how long I can hold my breath this time.

Writing has been a bit like swimming in the vast and unfathomable ocean lately, and no matter how well I can hold my breath, I’ve still gotta come back up for air. And there were a lot of deep dives that I think I’m only just recovering from.

But just because I’ve been drifting doesn’t mean that there haven’t been churning in the background. Now is as good a time as any to round up some of that churning – and prove I haven’t wholly been shirking.

In November, I celebrated the release of my first and yet somehow second book. I also turned in copy edits on The Unconquered City and kept working on the start of another story that had surprised and bitten me in August.

We also!! Celebrated the funding and completion of the queer women anthology, Silk and Steel!! Which, uuuh, meant I actually had to get cracking on the short story I’d been planning.

December saw the arrival and subsequent completion of page proofs for TUC, and the giddy realization that this book is going to be real just like the other two. I also got to participate in the LGBTQ Reads Better Know an Author feature, where I talked about favorite queer books, fanfic, and the importance of fantasy in imagining a better future for us all.

January brought a surprise round of page proofs for The Perfect Assassin.

But isn’t that book out already? you ask. I thought you were done with them.

I thought so, too! But TPA is coming out as a mass market paperback in April and that’s enough of a format shift to need to check it again. In was strange going back through a book I thought I was forever done with, but I’m glad I did. And soon it’s going to be pocket-sized, just like most of the fantasy I read and bought growing up! You can even pre-order that version, if that’s your preferred format. Honestly, I’m stoked to get to see it on the paperback carousel, chilling with all the Cool Books.

After page proofs round two (electric boogaloo), I finally got around to drafting and writing and revising my short story for the anthology. Which! I turned in! On time, even!

Between all that, I also went to my third ConFusion, which is my home con, and had a great time meeting new friends and old, as well as being on a handful of panels.

And then in February, which is just concluding, I did another interview – this time at Breaking the Glass Slipper, this time about the importance of shouting about queer books, tropes, and how far genre still has to go to actually be diverse – and then I took a break.

I didn’t stop writing altogether, but my wrists had begun to hurt even with just the few hours of active typing I do a day and I realized I needed to make a change before I was staring down the toothy maws of a deadline and forced to decide between potentially breaking my wrists or a deadline.

Since I knew I wouldn’t have anything due for a while, I decided to switch my keyboard layout from the standard qwerty I’d been using for over 25 years to the non-standard but supposedly much more ergonomical dvorak.

Fun fact: suddenly being unable to type more than 10 wpm when you’re used to 80+wpm is super frustrating!! Who knew!!

After 3 weeks, my wrists have stopped hurting and I’m up to a less-frustrating 35ish wpm and finally confident with these new keys to begin properly revising the novella that will be going up here in April. The one that, if you’ve read The Impossible Contract, takes place during a particularly stressful time in all of our friendly, neighborhood cousins’ lives.

So that’s where we’re at, here at the end of February and the fading beginning of a new decade. Things have been quiet, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been still. Churning, churning, churning, but soon – soon – taking a deep breath and diving again.

The decade ends in a little less than two weeks, an arbitrary endpoint to an extraordinary time. I went from being afraid I would never figure out what I Wanted To Be When I Grew Up (TM) to being exactly where I’ve always wanted to be – with sufficient wiggle room for growth.

It was, of course, not nearly as neat nor straight a path as that sounds. While I did set the intent at the beginning of the decade to take this whole writing thing seriously, there was rarely a point where I was confident that would bring me any closer to my dream.

Instead I got really good about keeping my head down and focusing on doing the next thing, despite rejections and discouragement, despite my own self-doubt. I got so good at it that I was already mentally closing up shop on my queries for The Impossible Contract and getting ready to move on to the next thing when my agent Kurestin offered representation.

And look where that’s brought us: closing out the decade with two published books and a third on the horizon.

This decade has been A Lot, as has this year. There are a multitude of lessons to be learned, that were learned, but I think the biggest is this:

You’re on your own path.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the endless possibilities of existence, to try and suss out a way forward before you’ve even taken your first step, to look at the journeys of others and figure out how best to mirror their success.

But success isn’t that easy, or that straight-forward. A whole lot of it, in fact, is just putting one foot in front of the other and seeing where that takes you. If you’d asked me at the beginning of this decade where I thought I’d be by the end, I couldn’t have given you an answer. I certainly would never have guessed here, living in Michigan, a published author with a wife, a Toddler, and two cats.

I’m not even sure I would have chosen all that, had it been presented to me back then. But I’m glad I’m here, now, and I couldn’t imagine it a different way. Because this journey hasn’t looked a whole lot like I imagined, nor a whole lot like the journeys of others, but it’s been mine the whole time.

Now I suppose it’s that time in the blogpost to get all reflective-y, to think back on all the highs and lows of the last decade. But you know what – we’ve had enough lows to last us another decade. I want to leave this decade focusing on the highs – those are what drive us forward, after all.

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2010 started in Seattle and 2019 will end in Michigan. Two snowy, cloudy places that couldn’t have less in common. And in between: Arizona.

There was a lot to love this decade. I could go on for pages, but instead: an abbreviated list.

– Moving to Arizona. I wasn’t so sure about such a dry, seemingly empty place at the time, but I would never have made some amazing friends if we hadn’t, would never have dreamed of writing these books if we’d gone literally anywhere else.

– Getting gay married. I never thought this would be legal in our lifetimes, let alone within a few years of our ceremony. But hey! Not everyone can say they married the same person twice. And it truly has been a refreshingly normalizing experience.

– Hiking Hadrian’s Wall. A subset of getting married, as this was our honeymoon, but it was also an Experience with a capital ‘E’. We walked through rain and fog and cold and heat and up and down hills and through thistles and thirst and with shoes that pinched then hurt then flat-out made each step agony – but we made it from one side of England to the other and it was worth every step of it.

– Learning property assessment. I don’t often talk about my dayjobs on here, but I’ve had a few and they’ve been quite… varied… and I don’t regret any of them (except maybe that one, but we don’t talk about that one). I’ve learned something from all of them, but learning about property assessment and records has been the oddball gift that keeps on giving. Who knew property title could be so interesting and useful! Not me!

– Keeping chickens. Self explanatory. Did you know those tiny dinosaurs are both adorable and vicious?

– Biking to work. I learned the joys of living in a truly bike-friendly city, as well as the joys of freezing your water bottle and having it fully melt – and get hot – before you completed your 20min ride home. Arizona summers: not joking around.

– Baking cookies in the car. Again: Arizona summers.

– Discovering the joy of weightlifting. Exercise sucks. It just does. But weightlifting isn’t exercise. It’s whole purpose is to get strong and beat up out-lift your enemies. I can get behind that.

– Making friends. In Seattle. In Tucson. In Michigan. In the writing community and beyond. I’ve found so many wonderful, amazing, kindhearted people who have made my life richer in their own, unique ways and I am thankful for all of them.

– Getting published. There have been a lot of highs and lows with getting published – the ultimate of emotional rollercoasters – but as something I’ve been wanting and working toward for as long as I knew publishing a book was a Thing, it only makes sense that achieving that thing would be full of emotion, as well as conflict as the expectations built up over decades finally clashed with reality. But in the end, reality is pretty great, and having readers who not only get what I wrote, but are equally excited by it, has been the best fulfillment of my dream.

– Having a kid. Wow. Talk about an emotional rollercoaster. This deserves its own blogpost, but suffice to say that this was the best decision of the decade, hands down.

That was the 2010’s. Sitting just shy of 2020, I have no idea what to expect – but that’s kind of the point. We can only keep going down this path of ours, enjoying the journey along the way.

So here’s to another decade of the unexpected, of fulfilled dreams and fresh ones dreamt, of a path that is solely, genuinely, only our own.

Happy new year. Happy new decade.

In 2009 – and probably countless times since – there was a discussion around the utility of NaNoWriMo and how, in particular, it further encouraged people to write instead of reading. Nonsense, of course, that has since been thoroughly debunked, but at the time it kicked off my desire to prove that narrative – that writers don’t read – wrong.

Writers read. We probably read more than most, if anything. But at the same time, even ten years ago I heard a lot of writers lamenting their lack of time to read, the fact that they don’t read as much as they want to, or used to. We have towering TBR piles, we have books we’ve been meaning to get to for months, even years. We have outside obligations along with the pressing need to write.

So maybe we have a tendency to push off our reading time until later.

But now is that later.

December is the perfect time to celebrate reading and participate in National Novel Reading Month. For many, it’s chock full of holidays and travel, of long nights and distracting days. If you participated in National Novel Writing Month, then you’re maybe a little burnt out and really need to take a long break from writing anyway. Distance is the best editor, and what could be better than celebrating your win by letting yourself just chill and read, without that lingering, irritating guilt that you should be writing?

Yes, yes, you say, I don’t need to be convinced further. Just tell me the rules already!

Rules! We love rules. But for this challenge/event/adventure, the only rule is: prioritize reading.

What! says you. That’s not enough! I don’t know how to prioritize!

All right, then instead of rules, I’ve got some helpful guidelines, all of which you can dispense or double down on at will:

– Challenge yourself. If you usually read two books every month, aim for three in December. If you usually read one genre, pick a book from a genre you don’t typically read. Try different formats: poetry, novellas, shorts, comics (yes, comics count), audiobooks.

– Work on that TBR list. Pick the books that have been on there the absolute longest and read those. If the thought of reading them fills you with dread, strike them from your TBR completely and move on to the next ones in line. Life is too short to read books you’re not going to enjoy / get something out of.

– Make the time to read. You’re used to making the time to write, so now it’s time to prioritize reading. Download eReader apps for your phone and read while waiting in line at the post office / grocery store / gourmet popcorn stand. Instead of watching a movie with your partner or cat or resident ghost, read books together with hot cocoa and cozy blankets. Read aloud to each other. Listen to an audiobook on your way to work or while you’re doing the dishes. Go for a long walk with a narrator in your ears and a scarf around your nose. Only have time to read a few pages? Go for it! Every little bit adds up.

– Talk about what you’re reading. Talk about it with your friends, with your family, with your dog. Talk on Twitter or Instagram (use the hashtag #NaNoReadMo if you do!). Talk it out with your partner or therapist or resident ghost. Write about it on your blog or your twitter. Sharing what you’re reading is half the fun!

That’s all there is to it! And, of course, NaNoReadMo is not just for writers – anybody can participate. Even if you haven’t read a book in years, now is the time to try again.

So tell me: are you going to participate in NaNoReadMo? And if so, what are your goals?

2019 has been a bumper year for queer books of all flavors and genres, and especially within the science fiction & fantasy genre. While representation continues to grow within the genre, it’s important to keep highlighting queer and QUILTBAG books, since often their being queer isn’t a part of the marketing. The number of times I’ve heard someone go “oh, I didn’t even know that was gay!” and then immediately buy a book continues to underline how very important it is to shout about these books.

I’ve already highlighted many of the queer debut novels that came out this year (over both the first half and the second half of the year) and I’ve done a few threads on twitter yelling about specific representation and genres. Just recently I researched and shared a thread about all the queer adult science fiction and fantasy I could find that had come out this year, and it was far more books and novellas than even I’d expected.

But Twitter, while a great place to shout about queer books, is also a shifting, ephemeral space where things quickly get lost to the depths of the Endless Scroll (TM).

So I’m bringing that list over here for easier searching and posterity. Besides, it could be fun to do this every year and see how the list – and diversity in representation – grows!

Without further ado, and in no particular order:

2019 Queer Adult SFF Gift Guide!




The Sol Majestic by Ferrett Steinmetz:

– gay male MC (and romance!)

– sumptuous feast of a book

– srsly Kitchen Wars but like, in space



A Choir of Lies by Alexandra Rowland:

– Gay MC, queernorm world

– Stories have power!!

– Fantasy tulip mania



Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh:

– Gay MC, m/m relationship

– all my exes are in the trees whoops

– One bed trope, but it doesn’t go as expected

– Sweetly sad, good for a drizzly day and then a looong walk in the neabry woods



The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht:

– Gay MC, m/m relationship

– Pretty hot if you’re into gore

– Everybody’s awful and I love it

– Sexy, spooky, fucked up in the best ways



Lord of Secrets by Breanna Teintze:

– FAB QUEER NECROMANCER

– f/m main, but very important m/m relationship

– Bone monstrosities

– Action adventure, good for a binge read




Alice Payne Rides by Kate Heartfield:

– f/f lead romance

– steampunk time-travel shenanigans

– story about family and their chaos

– sequel to Alice Payne arrives, so you've got a box set!



A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine:

– Main f/f romance

– Most of the cast is queer

– Court intrigue!! Murrrderrr

– Intricate worldbuilding



The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons:

– Bisexual disaster MC (and disaster might be an understatement) with some m/m flirting

– Queer side characters

– Epic af

– Did you want MOTHERFUCKING DRAGONS

– It’s already got a sequel out so BOX SET




– sequel to Ruin of Kings, so maybe get these together

– queer ladies!

– did you want MORE DRAGONS

– jfc how did this get even more epic



The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie:

– bi, transmasc MC!

– queernorm epic fantasy

– Hamlet-inspired!

– 2nd person POV



Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone:

– lesbian space adventure!!

– feminist Guardians of the Galaxy??

– pew pew excitement




This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone:

– enemies-to-lovers f/f

– spy vs spy but time traveler vs time traveler!!

– epistolary format



The Outside by Ada Hoffman:

– queer autistic MC, f/f main

– space opera with Lovecraft flavor

– blurs the line between sci-fi and fantasy



The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling:

– f/f strangers-to-enemies-to-lovers

– creepy deep-cave diving

– are there ghosts or is everyone just hallucinating WAS THAT A CAT OR IS THERE A GHOST IN YOUR HOUSE



The Library of the Unwritten by AJ Hackwith:

– Bi MC, queernorm world

– Hell’s librarian!!

– Every writer’s secret dream/nightmare, having their characters step out of their books



The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz:

– Queer women protags

– FIGHT AGAINST THE PATRIARCHY but with time travel

– Bloody and complicated and full of revolution



A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker:

– Queer women MCs

– Post-apocalyptic scifi where public gatherings are illegal

– Fuck capitalism!!!



The True Queen by Zen Cho:

– f/f main

– Sequel to the excellent Sorcerer to the Crown

– Regency fantasy novel with fae and politics



The House of Sundering Flames by Aliette de Bodard:

– queer families

– 3rd in a satisfying trilogy about a post-magical war Paris

– resilience and hopepunk and Vietnamese dragons and explosions



Amnesty by Lara Elena Donnelly:

– so much gay longing

– 3rd in an excellent trilogy, you can gift it along with Amberlough and Amristice

– queer cabaret spy thriller steeped in politics and exquisite imagery



The Warrior Moon by K Arsenault Rivera:

– f/f main

– awesome warrior ladies doing awesome warrior things

– 3rd in the trilogy, gift with The Tiger’s Daughter and The Phoenix Empress for a happy gift-receivee



The Widening Gyre by Michael R Johnston:

– M/M main

– space opera, more on the “hard” sci-fi side

– disgraced MC must find their way again – and Earth



The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley:

– Queer women everywhere

– FUCK CAPITALISM

– Lots of gore, I mean do you expect anything less from Hurley??



The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon:

– F/F main

– Chonky boi of a book, good for steeping yourself in the read

– Epic fantasy with dragons and political intrigue and mystery



Floodtide by Heather Rose Jones:

– F/f main

– Domestic fantasy focused on a laundry maid (

– Good introduction to Jones' entire repetoire of queer fiction



The Fire Opal Mechanism by Fran Wilde:

– F/F main

– Sequel to The Jewel and Her Lapidary (buy that one too!!)

– Fahrenheit 451 inspired with a rumbled librarian and a thief



The Ascent to Godhood by JY Yang:

– f/f villain romance

– queer af all around

– fantasy & intrigue & magic all wrapped up tight

– 4th in the Tensorate series, all excellent novellas, gift set!!



Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson:

– multiple queer main POV characters

– longing, lyrical prose in a fantasy skin

– good for someone who “doesn’t like fantasy”

– idk if you haven’t read Jeanette Winterson before you’re missing out

– pairs well with Written on the Body



To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers:

– trans rep, ace rep, overall A++ queer rep & queernorm

– space operay, sense of wonder sci-fi

– queering science!!



Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger:

– multiple queer characters, including trans rep

– fast-paced, excellent characterization

– magical! animal! companions!!



Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir:

– lesbian necromancers

– this is the kind of book that beats up other books for their lunch money and the other books LIKE IT

– seriously gonna sweep all awards next year



If, Then by Kate Hope Day:

– F/F main

– quiet, literary sci-fi with alt reality seeping into the lives of the characters

– imminent disaster



Gamechanger by LX Beckett:

– NB, ace, aro, & bi POV characters

– + many more queeracters

– tasty mixture of sci-fi, mystery, & apocalyptic thriller



The Hound of Justice by Claire O’Dell:

– ace rep! lesbian rep!

– reimagined Holmes and Watson, both ladies, both black, both queer af

– near-future U.S. devastated by a second civil war

– sequel to a Study in Honor, so get them both!



Where Oblivion Lies by T Frohock:

– complicated relationships, but m/m main

– magic based on singing

– horror/fantasy set in-between the world wars with angels & demons



The Ragged Blade by Christopher Ruz:

– bisexual main, m/m

– what do you do when your beau becomes a murderous magician?

– dad doing everything for his daughter in a world full of monsters



The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders:

– f/f, queernorm world

– set on a locked planet, where half the world is perpetual day and the other half perpetual night, and a city inbetween

– culturally aware social scifi



The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall:

– f/f with a pansexual Lady Holmes and a trans Watson

– Lovecraftian steampunk, where reality is optional

– “punch a shark” is in the blurb idk why you haven’t bought this yet



Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear:

– lesbian MC

– lesbian villain kissing???

– chonky boi sci-fi filled with adventure & complicated relationships

– pirates! old secrets! space chases!



Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden:

– very queer, main f/f pairing

– New Weird but make it in Space

– takes place in a “biological, city-size starship carved up from the insides of a spacefaring beast” UM



Fortuna by KS Merbeth:

– bi disaster MC, f/f romance

– space opera about a family of smugglers

– drunk, prickly, bad-decision-making spaceship captain



Salvage by RJ Theodore:

– ace engineer girl, demi gay boy, + trans & disability rep

– steampunk & airships but in space?!

– murdered gods & assassination attempts & floating countries oh my

– second book after Flotsam, buy them both!!



The Perfect Assassin by K. A. Doore

– ace historian MC, many queer side characters

– murder mystery/fantasy, with intense research scenes

– queernorm desert world




The Impossible Contract by K.A. Doore

– lesbian assassin, cinnamon roll healer

– necromancy!!, actiony

– queernorm world

– sequel to the Perfect Assassin, but works as a standalone

Somehow this day has finally arrived after a million years in-between. Sometimes it felt as if I’d never see this book out in the world, sometimes it felt as if it were arriving so fast, too fast. Either way:

We’re here.

THE IMPOSSIBLE CONTRACT, the book I wrote just for me, just for fun, after trunking three books and trying to figure out what I should do next, is completely out of my hands and out there, somewhere, for you.

I feel like I’ve said a lot about this book over the years. I’ve talked about my internalized homophobia and how this book was the first one I wrote that reflected me and my friends instead of the heteronormative world I’d grown up in. I’ve talked about the query and how I went from 130k words down to 105k. I’ve talked about how this book was the first book I wrote but became the second in the series. I even talked about how I got my agent, waaay back in 2015.

I have talked to death about this book, and I am more than happy to let it go and no longer be mine, but yours.

My hope is that you enjoy it, that you have fun, and that you feel a little bit more like there’s a place for queer people in fantasy – even dumb, fast-paced, zombie-ridden fantasy.

 

[image error] The Impossible Contract can be found at anywhere wot sells books:

Barnes & Noble

Indiebound

Amazon

 

 

And, as a bonus, you can already pre-order book 3, The Unconquered City!

I have been exceptionally lucky when it comes to book covers. We can all recite the warnings we receive upon entering into the publishing world about having no control over our covers, we can all share a few nail-curling stories we’ve heard, where covers aren’t just wrong for the book, they’re outright wrong for the market (*horrified gasp*). But often, the only control an author has over the process is crossing their fingers reeeeeeaaal tight.

Thankfully, I’ve had a team that not only listened to the things I asked for, but absolutely know what they’re doing.

With The Perfect Assassin I got a spot-on Amastan and an angry jaani. With The Impossible Contract, I got a spot-on Thana and a purple wrap and a garrote and a sandstorm.

And with The Unconquered City… well, let’s just let you see?

 

 

 

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It’s Illi! With a sword! And what is going on, why is there water?!

I can’t tell you that, but I can tell you that this is a book that brings the other two together, and it’s a book about family and resilience and forgiveness, and it’s also a book with fights and conflagrations and camels.

You’ll just have to wait until June 16, 2020 to find out the rest! But thankfully you can pre-order in the meantime.

Happy autumn!! To celebrate the fact that The Impossible Contract comes out in less than two months, here’s a short story about another of Amastan’s cousins, Menna – saver of souls by day, taker of lives by night.

Ao3 Tags: Capable priest is too good at her job, denial is not just a river in Egypt, non-consensual murder, oh noes, sinnamon rolls, one good apple unspoils the bunch, not quite relationship goals, disaster lesbians, surprise corpse, workaholics anonymous

CW: Death, violence, murder, teensy bit of gore

8000 words

Cause of death: asphyxia as a result of constriction of the neck from strangulation.

Menna was never absolutely certain if the bodies and jaan she tended came to her through natural, unsuspicious circumstances or by the hand of one of her cousins. But she could guess, and if she were Azulay, she’d place a bet. Unlike him, she’d even win.

The signs were easy enough to gather. If Dihya or Azulay had been missing lately, if Amastan had been more introspective than his usual, if Ziri had been avoiding her…

They’d promised she’d always be a cousin, but they sure didn’t treat her like one anymore.

This one had been strangled. Bruises darker than wine circled the body’s neck like a charm tied too tight. Menna pulled their tagel back up, concealing the mess her cousin had made, just as footsteps tracked nearer outside the small, stuffy room.

Dihya’s work, probably. She was always a little… enthusiastic. Not because she enjoyed killing—a cousin who sought out death wouldn’t be a cousin for long—but because she always had something to prove. That she was capable, that she was strong, that she was qualified. Menna couldn’t decide if Dihya was trying to convince herself or them.

Dihya could have at least tried. Instead, it was like she knew Menna would be the one dealing with the body, covering up her mess. Which really wasn’t fair if Dihya wasn’t going to share her baats.

But sharing baats from a contract would be admitting there had been a contract, would be admitting who had been assigned to it and when and, well. That wouldn’t do.

Still, at this rate they should give her a monthly stipend.

“Heart attack,” announced Menna to the elder that had just entered the room.

She pulled a rolled sheet of vellum from her bag and spread it across the mark’s—no, the deceased’s—chest. Whatever they’d done to warrant a contract was in G-d’s hands now. But their jaani was in Menna’s and, unlike her cousins, she took her job very seriously.

She had to. It was all she had left.

Cause of death: asphyxia as a result of constriction of neck from strangulation. Heart attack.

***

THREE MONTHS EARLIER

Cause of death: sudden cardiac arrest, immediate cause unknown

The woman lay in her bed, arms folded across her chest, eyes closed and blanket pulled up to her chin as if she were asleep. The window had been opened, letting in air still heavy with remembered rain, but the scent of death—or rather, loosened bowels—still permeated every corner of the small room. That, coupled with the headache trying to pound its way out of Menna’s skull, made her stomach roil with nausea.

Okay, maybe the nausea could be blamed on the non-insignificant amount of date wine she’d had last night.

Menna closed her eyes against the dawn’s glare, which cut through the room without any spare thought for those who’d had a rough night and a rougher morning. As she edged her way half-squinting toward the window and its curtain, she was only physically in the room. The rest of her was still back home, rehashing everything she’d said to Thiyya as if she could change those words now. She’d started out feeling so correct about it all, but now the details were like broken glass, impossible to piece back together again. All she could remember through the haze of hangover was Thiyya’s disappointment.

But it wasn’t Menna’s fault. Thiyya was just as busy with her healer work as Menna was with bodies. Just because Menna couldn’t explain that some of the time, her work was less about quieting jaan and more about quieting people, well. Thiyya just needed to trust her.

It didn’t help that, actually, Menna hadn’t even been doing that. After the slightest of mishaps on a contract—it’d been messier than it should have been, but the mark was still dead—Kaseem had been avoiding her. Probation is what he’d called it. But how could she prove she’d learned her lesson if he never gave her the chance?

Really, it was his fault Menna was wound up like a spring, spending all of her spare time out training just to release that energy. She’d be fine as soon as Kaseem gave her another contract. If only she could tell Thiyya that.

In the meantime: another day, another body, another jaani to quiet.

“What do you think, ma?”

An elder stood to one side, the first at the scene. Edas was a younger elder, only a few years beyond Menna. He looked dreadfully bored, as if he’d seen a hundred similar scenes just this week. Maybe he had; post-Season always had a glut of bodies. But since Menna wasn’t yet an elder herself, he had to be here.

“They said she passed calmly sometime last night,” said Menna, trying to focus. “She’d been complaining about pains and fevers the past few months, but the healers couldn’t find anything wrong. So they made her comfortable.”

“She was a merchant, right?” mused Edas. “Probably a jealous rival or heir.”

“Not for us to determine, sa.” Menna closed her eyes, trying to concentrate, but her hands were shaking from the hangover and Edas was breathing too loudly. “Can you step out for a minute, sa? I think they waited as long as they could to call us and this could be… delicate.”

Menna didn’t need to specify; Edas knew well enough what failure meant in their work. Wild jaan haunted the sands below, reminders of what happened if a marabi didn’t perform the necessary rites in time. The likelihood that Menna might fuck up so badly that a jaani untethered here in this room, though, was so low as to be impossible. Still, she needed the space, if only for her pounding head.

Elder Edas grunted noncommittally, but a moment later the door opened and closed. Then: a silence so deep that Menna could have been standing on a bridge between platforms, the air a mid-Season stillness around her so calm that she could feel her own pulse in her fingertips and in her soles.

And beneath that silence, an absence as if the room had been left undisturbed for years. It felt like the hollow clock of bone hitting bone, echoing through a room that shouldn’t have been empty. Unlike Amastan, Menna didn’t have a problem with being around bodies. But now, alone in the room with this one, unease prickled across her skin, goosebumps rising in its wake.

Just the nausea, she told herself.

But as one part of her mind guided her hand through writing the prayers—she had them all memorized, mighty G-d this and that, just be sure you never finished writing G-d’s name, lest you call G-d down, the height of hubris and the end of a very short life—the other part picked at the room and its occupant.

The woman had definitely been poisoned. But that wasn’t Menna’s problem. She wasn’t a watchman and she wasn’t here to determine guilt. And she wasn’t a healer; she couldn’t mend what was rent. All she could do was offer the dead a little respect, a single grain of modesty. So what about this particular death was bothering her so much?

Prayers written, Menna unhooked her water skin from her belt. She dampened a cloth, then wiped the ink off the vellum. She squeezed the cloth over the deceased’s face and dribbled gray water between parted lips. She took a deep breath to center herself and to stop wondering if Kaseem were back at her room above the baker’s, his patience wearing through. This would be over soon enough.

The last drop of prayer-stained water hit the deceased’s face, rolling down her cheek to the floor. Without thinking, Menna daubed at the drop with the cloth. Her fingers brushed across cool skin, which wasn’t a surprise.

What was a surprise was the sensation of emptiness that jolted up her fingertip, through her hand, and across her heart. It was as if she’d stepped onto a bridge and her foot had found a missing slate. There was a moment of expectation, then a moment of confusion, and then several skipped heartbeats and gasped breaths as she overcompensated for the loss and tried so very hard not to fall.

She didn’t fall. She jerked back, staring at the corpse as if it’d just tried to bite her.

No jaani. Impossible. The corpse wasn’t even room temperature yet. There’d been no mention of an angry spirit, no possibility of tampering. But the absence was as obvious as a candle just blown out.

“Everything all right, ma?”

Menna started. Elder Edas had returned, silent as a snake. Menna pressed her hands against her thighs to hide their shake as she stood and turned. “It’s done. Everything’s fine.”

But everything was definitely not fine.

Cause of death: sudden cardiac arrest, immediate cause unknown Murder

***

They came together like a dropped dish against the floor, all sudden and inevitable and inescapable. Menna hardly registered the impact, just the aftermath of their bodies pressed close and inseparable, the dry breeze from her open window enough to cool their fevered limbs. Menna breathed in Thiyya’s tangled hair, relishing the smell of soft spices, of water, of dust, of sex. Their last argument felt seasons away.

In truth, it’d only been a week. But they hadn’t seen each other in the between, each taken up with their duties. Thiyya, caring for those who’d put off healing until after season’s end. Menna, caring for those who’d put off healing just a little too long. It’d been a busy week full of excuses.

And Kaseem still hadn’t come.

“Ten,” muttered Menna, fingers twining in Thiyya’s hair.

“Ten what?” asked Thiyya.

“New salas,” said Menna. “Since last time I saw you. You’ve saved a lot of people.”

“Or maybe it’s just been too long.” A pause, then Thiyya shifted beside her, somehow shaping more of her skin against Menna. “I want to see more of you.”

“Mm.” But the heaviness that had kept Menna in place was gone in an instant, her nerves lighting up at Thiyya’s words as if they were a knife.

“Why don’t you come by some evening, have dinner with my dad and aunts?”

And Amastan, Menna added silently. She could see her cousin-through-blood sitting at the same table as the rest of Thiyya’s family, trying oh-so-politely to make casual conversation and not rub it in her face that he was getting more contracts than her, getting any at all. Amastan, who had wanted nothing to do with contracts when they’d finished training. Amastan, who Kaseem seemed especially keen to employ. Amastan, who would leave his own family table to give her space if he only knew how jealous she was.

He couldn’t know. Which meant no family dinners, even though Thiyya had been asking for months now. This wasn’t what had sparked their last argument, but it was close enough to put Menna on edge.

When Menna didn’t answer, Thiyya turned in her arms to face her. “I don’t want to keep doing this.”

“We’ll both have more time soon.”

But Thiyya’s frown only deepened, solidified into a parallel of brows and lips. “Soon has been years, Menna. I thought it’d get better as we figured out our lives, but it’s only gotten worse. I don’t even know what you do most days.”

Menna slid her arm beneath Thiyya’s head. “Think of you.”

Thiyya sat up, leaving Menna’s arm cold. She abruptly turned away, casting her feet over the side of the bed, only a shove away from leaving entirely. Menna wanted to trace the ridge of that spine with her fingertips, but she kept her hands to herself.

“I need more than thoughts,” said Thiyya, a finality weighting her words like rocks.

Menna’s throat squeezed shut and her mouth went dry. The room sharpened and the scents she’d just found comfort in moments ago became unbearable. They’d argued about this before, sometimes in worried whispers, sometimes in anger that left them both regretful later, but never with this kind of heaviness.

Slowly, Menna sat up, too. “I can give you more.”

Thiyya didn’t turn. “Now? Tonight? You’ll come to dinner?”

Menna swallowed. “Soon.” As soon as Kaseem gave her a proper contract, as soon as she could earn her baats a whole bag at a time instead of parceled out in pieces for each corpse she quieted.

“I can’t wait for soon anymore.”

Thiyya slid off the bed. Menna grabbed for her, but her fingers only brushed Thiyya’s arm. That hesitation let Thiyya get to her wrap, tangled on the floor with Menna’s own.

“I can—we can see each other more. You just have to be patient. It’s temporary—”

A polite knock at the door cut her off. They exchanged a confused look. Then a firm cough from outside filled Menna with a fresh wave of buzzing nerves. She knew that cough. She’d been waiting for that cough.

But Thiyya was waiting, too, expectant on whatever Menna’s excuse was this time. Menna froze. Kaseem was right outside her door, probably with a contract in hand, her probation over but only if she answered. That meant her months of playing at two jobs, being too distracted to even think, to give Thiyya the attention she deserved, would be over soon.

If Thiyya could just wait.

Menna scrambled for the door. “I need to get this.”

It was only after she’d cracked open the door that she realized maybe, maybe, she should’ve taken the extra minute to dress. Then she caught Kaseem’s startled gaze.

“I’ll be right out,” she said before slamming the door shut in his face.

“Who’s that?” asked Thiyya, already knotting her own wrap, her braids tucked into a deep orange scarf, face carefully blank.

“Family friend.”

It wasn’t a lie, not quite. Menna wasn’t sure how her fingers stayed still long enough to finish tying the last knot, but suddenly she was dressed. Her mouth was dry, her pulse beating in her fingertips and ears, the scent of their recent occupation still heavy on the air despite the open window, their argument still ringing in her ears. Kaseem couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Thiyya would understand, had to understand, even if right now her lips were pursed in a stubborn line and she wasn’t moving from the bed.

“Um,” said Menna pointedly. When Thiyya still didn’t move—save to swing her legs under the bed’s edge—she added, “I need to talk to him. Alone.”

“Are you really doing this?”

“Thiyya. Please. It’s not like that.”

“It is.”

Thiyya’s features pinched with such sadness that Menna was torn between wanting to kiss the pout off those lips and cup that chin in her hand. She could do both. She should do both. But Thiyya was already standing, the sadness deepening into something edged with anger.

Kaseem’s cane scuffed impatiently at the floor outside.

Menna squeezed Thiyya’s hand. “I’ll see you later.”

“Come to dinner.”

“I’ll try.”

“Don’t try.” Then, some of that sadness cracked and Thiyya brushed her lips across Menna’s cheek, her breath an intoxication as overwhelming as the strongest date wine, pulling down her inhibitions just as easily, but Thiyya had already opened the door and slipped out, leaving Kaseem visible in its sliver of an opening, weathered hands atop his cane and the gaze atop his green tagel enough to sober anyone.

Mentally, Menna smoothed away all the pieces of her self that belonged to Thiyya. She straightened and hardened and became the assassin she’d been trained to be. Then she met Kaseem’s gaze.

“Come in, sa.”

***

Menna didn’t go to dinner.

After Thiyya left, Kaseem had leaned heavily on his cane in the middle of her room and said, “It’s on one of your own.”

Menna had gone cold all over; Kaseem couldn’t mean her cousins. “A marabi?”

Kaseem nodded. “I wouldn’t have brought something like this to you normally, but this is a delicate case. Discretion has been requested and I think a… familiar hand might make the work go more smoothly. Someone who is intimately acquainted with a marabi’s duties. Someone they might recognize as a friend.”

She’d taken it. Of course she had.

Kaseem had left her with a handful of baats securing her services, a tightly-rolled scroll, and a warning: all contracts were sworn to secrecy, but this one triply so. Kaseem had hoped that by hiring her, a marabi herself, they could contain the knowledge. The less who knew, the better.

“I’ll still have to bring on a second,” Menna had warned.

“Of course. But they don’t need to know the details.”

The details had been finely penned on the scroll, a list of crimes shorter than most. But their implications were disturbing.

Elder Tudarya was a kind woman. A quiet woman. Thoroughly dedicated to her work as a marabi, she’d never had time for a partner or children. A few years ago, when Menna had brought the problem of a wild jaani loose in Ghadid to the elders, Tudarya had been the most interested.

She’d been the one to first mention guul. The jaan that refused to fade away and instead grew stronger with more time, with more bodies. An impossibility in their city that had turned out to be too possible.

The list Menna held, the list she’d memorized, spoke of impiety, of sacrilege, of blasphemy. It spoke of a woman no one really knew, who used the privileges bestowed upon her by society to twist the natural order of the world to her whim. There were deaths attributed to her name, yes, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Murder alone wasn’t a good enough reason for a contract.

Messing with jaan, however.

That went beyond the watchmen and the drum chiefs. That went beyond the law.

Menna could see the pieces between the crimes, the reasons that had been written in spaces instead of words. To accuse Tudarya of blasphemy before the Circle would bring every marabi under scrutiny. After all, the line between quieting a jaani and bending one to your will was as thin as smoke.

Menna would put good money down that a marabi had been the one to take out this contract. An Elder, even. They liked things to stay quiet. A marabi who mishandled glass wasn’t a marabi for long. And one who mishandled jaan… well.

Long after Kaseem had left, a small pile of baats securing her services on the table, Menna sat staring at the coals in the hearth. She saw eyes burning bright as those coals. She saw madness burning through. She saw bodies, empty. Mourners who stood through funerals for a jaani no longer present, like performers in the streets, their words as dull as their blades.

***

Cause of death: asphyxiation and hemorrhage through compression of the neck

Ziri had been the obvious choice for her second. Azulay and Dihya were inseparable, Amastan had recently been tasked with babysitting Thana, and Hamma was too smart. Ziri was big and dull and obvious; Menna would be able to lead him on a leash. Plus, as one of the most recent graduates of the Serpent’s training program, he’d be eager to get his teeth into a real contract and wouldn’t ask any questions.

She knew that eagerness well; she’d been there herself once. Now it chafed as she tried to keep Ziri in check. She found herself echoing words Amastan had said to her not that long ago:

“Patience.”

“We have all the information from Kaseem,” said Ziri, his voice like rocks. “It’s simple enough. We could go tonight.”

“We could, but…” But she’s a marabi, Menna wanted to say. “We have to do this proper,” she said instead. “Which means we wait and we watch.”

“Are you going to talk to her?”

Menna stiffened. “Why ever would I do that?”

Ziri gestured vaguely. “It’s just that, well, you’re a marabi. She’s a marabi.”

“There are a lot of marab in Ghadid,” said Menna, as if speaking to a room full of novices. “Just because she’s a marabi doesn’t mean I know her.”

“Well, it was worth the toss.”

“I’m going to talk to her.”

Ziri nodded, as if he’d known she was going to do that all along. “And I’ll be there as back-up.”

“I don’t need back-up. I’m just going to talk.”

But Ziri had crossed his arms and refused to move—or talk, or straight up breathe—until Menna had relented.

Which was how Menna ended up with the late afternoon sun baking her back, trying not to pay any attention to the beggar making a spectacle of himself three doorways away. Ziri had gone all in with the threadbare and torn wrap, the caked dust on his hands and exposed features, his tagel barely tied over his mouth. He was shaking a metal bowl at a clump of passersby, muttering like the possessed. One of them tossed him a baat and he abruptly called out a cheerful, “thanks, sai!”

Whatever Ziri was doing, he was hoarding all the attention, which was all Menna had wanted. Menna knocked again. As she waited, she was tempted to lean her forehead against the side of the doorway and close her eyes and nap, just a little. It’d been an exhausting day already, and it wasn’t even over yet.

Still no answer. Ziri had the center enraptured with his latest antics, so Menna didn’t bother glancing around before she pushed aside the curtain and slipped inside. Compared to the unfiltered brightness without, the room was choking with gloom. But the windows were bare, their warm red hue the only think cutting their light, and a fire was alive in the hearth.

Overall, the room was cozy, if a bit sparse. A home easily big enough for an average-sized family was devoid of any sign of one; but for a few pillows kicked to one side, the living area was bare. No table, either, just a cabinet with a few spare plates and several woven baskets filled with undyed cloth.

So little, which made the body strewn across the middle of the floor all the more dramatic.

Menna had seen enough bodies to last a lifetime, and even created a few herself, but she’d rarely been surprised by one. Now a kind of calculating calm swept through her, heightening her senses at the same time it dulled any emotion. She could hear the living outside, laughing at Ziri’s antics. She could hear the crackle of flames in the hearth. She could hear the pounding of her own heart. She could hear the aching creak of warm stone.

She did not hear the whistle of a recently untethered jaani.

She knelt next to the body, careful fingers checking for a pulse and finding none. The body was still pretty warm, and when she lifted its arm to turn it over, it moved easily. So easily, in fact, that Menna half-expected the arm to jerk from her grasp and the body to sit up. But it didn’t; she rolled the corpse onto its back and stared into eyes glassy and lifeless.

It was Elder Tudarya all right. And she was only recently dead. An hour, maybe.

Maybe less.

A cold sweat prickled across Menna’s back and she licked dry lips. Distantly, she heard the groan of the crowd as Ziri did something ridiculous. She should leave. She should get up and walk away from this body and go collect her baats and just. Leave.

But Tudarya’s neck—

The Elder was almost as pale as Menna, her skin a sandy brown, so the marks on her neck stood out more than they would on most. Lines of roughened and torn skin, red bleeding through even now. Menna knew what rope did to skin, especially necks. And this didn’t look right.

Menna checked Tudarya’s hands, holding the fingers up to the wane light. If someone had strangled the elder, she would have fought. She would have scratched and hit and struggled. But Tudarya’s fingernails were clean, neatly trimmed. No torn nails. No scraps of cloth or hair or skin.

The fact that the body was still so pliant also unsettled Menna. A person who fought while they were dying grew stiff faster, sometimes to the point where they were frozen mid-fight.

Elder Tudarya hadn’t fought. Which meant Elder Tudarya hadn’t died from strangulation.

And her lips were several shades bluer than normal.

Menna didn’t want to be in this room a second longer. She rolled the corpse face-down again, then stood, not even daring to breathe. Tudarya had been poisoned. The death had been staged. All while a contract had been taken out.

On her way out, she tripped over the corner of a wide rug. She caught herself, heart hammering as if she’d been attacked instead of clumsy. Tamella had a rug like this one, thick and slightly off-center from the rest of the living room. Menna had never paid it any mind until one day Tamella had pulled the rug back and then the bricks beneath.

But no. There was nothing here for her. Someone else had made sure of that and she should take that gift. She could still be in time for dinner, make it all up to Thiyya.

Cause of death: asphyxiation and hemorrhage through compression of the neck Murder

***

Cause of death: perforation of chest, sudden loss of blood

Ziri alerted the watchmen to the problem of the fresh corpse by accidentally knocking a passing woman over and through the thin curtain. Menna wasn’t sure which of them screamed louder. But in mere moments, the platform was swarming with watchmen and Menna was safely several platforms away, the path before her clearer than ever:

Tell Kaseem she’d completed the contract. Own Tudarya’s death. And then go to dinner tonight with Thiyya and Amastan and a myriad of other cousins. Amastan wouldn’t ask. None of them would ask. None of them ever had to know.

So why did that choice prickle uneasily in her stomach like meat just a day too old?

She tamped it down as she swung into her room, musty with the day’s cast-off heat. The day was winding down, however, and the city waking up. She still had time to dust off her wrap and hair and make it to Thiyya’s for dinner. A tuneless hum loosened her chest and spread through the room, warming its corners. She hurried through her preparations, then all but ran down the stairs and back out onto the street.

For the first time in too long, she couldn’t wait to see Amastan, to meet his searching gaze and answer it with her own smug, knowing smile. She wouldn’t say anything—of course she wouldn’t—but he’d know. They’d all know.

They’d all know she was a proper cousin.

Her foot caught on a crooked stone and Menna stumbled, catching herself just outside Thiyya’s door. Her hand raised to knock on the hot metal but it stayed there, her throat tight. Somebody grumbled and pushed past her but still Menna didn’t move.

She wasn’t a proper cousin. She hadn’t killed Tudarya. And whoever had—well, they were still out there, weren’t they?

Menna dropped her hand, worrying at her lip. She could still see the body. She could still see the empty shelves. She could still see the rug.

The rug.

It might not hide anything like Tamella’s, but Tudarya had been messing with jaan and somebody had wanted Tudarya dead. And that somebody had wanted the death to look like an assassination. The question was: why?

No, the question was: why not just take the money? All she had to do was knock and go inside and let this all be, and she could go back to taking contracts and loving Thiyya and everything that was supposed to be her normal. No one would ever know. No one but her.

And the murderer.

Menna growled her aggravation and hit her head against the door. It opened a second later, startling both her and Thiyya, who was on the other side.

“You came,” said Thiyya, breathless with surprise.

Menna met that surprise with her own. And in that moment, she knew what she was going to do. Tudarya had only been dead a short while; whatever she’d been hiding was probably still there, but for how long? Even as Thiyya reached for her, Menna stepped back, shaking her head.

“I can’t make it. Thiyya—I’m sorry.”

Everything about Thiyya crumpled. “That’s it, then.” She staggered back a step. “Go.”

Menna felt sick. She’d been so certain a moment ago. Why was it all clouded now? But if the murderer had known what Tudarya was up to, if they’d decided to cover it up instead of tangling with the watchmen, or even the elders—

Then what were they hiding?

Menna had seen firsthand what a wild jaani loose in Ghadid could do. She couldn’t let that happen again. If someone was messing with jaan, she had to stop them.

“Please,” she prayed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? I’ll make it up to you then. But I have something important I have to do.”

Thiyya crossed her arms. “More important?”

“At the moment, yes.”

“Then you’ve already made your choice.”

Menna stared at her, felt the hollow where her heart had been. She had. It was true. If Thiyya was going to deal in absolutes, Menna had made her choice long ago.

Menna left.

Menna ran.

The night was full: of people, of noises, of conversations, of rich smells, of movement. It swallowed her whole and Menna drowned in it. She breathed and drank the night, crossing Ghadid’s many bridges and platforms until the city deposited her in front of that familiar doorway.

She re-adjusted her wrap, tightening knots and surreptitiously checking knives. She could only hope she wasn’t too late, that the murderer hadn’t had a chance to fully cover their tracks, not yet. She had to find what Tudarya had been killed for.

Without the body, the room was sparser than before, the rug more obvious. Menna pulled it back. Instead of the perfectly-placed bricks she’d been expecting, she found a door. Round and metal and heavy as a sigh, exactly like the doors that led down to the pumps beneath the platforms. But this was no pumphouse.

What was this door hiding?

To her credit, Menna put her ear to the cold metal before opening it. A tidy little ring in its center made it easy to grip and to haul back on. It was heavy and it did take her a moment of straining, breath held, to heave the door up and to the side. The clatter and thud of its landing eased her own simmering nerves; anything this loud couldn’t be that big of a secret. Elder Tudarya wasn’t frail, but she wasn’t Dihya, either, and she wouldn’t have made any less noise than Menna.

Beneath the lid was a neat round hole and a set of stairs leading down, down, down into darkness. She scooted across the floor to touch the first stair with her toes, her hand brushing across the metal lid. The metal rippled and bumped beneath her fingers, not nearly as smooth as it’d first looked. Menna peered closer, making out shallow indentations and marks.

It took a moment for the grooves to make any sense, but when they did, a chill spilled down her back like water fresh from the font. Prayers had been etched into the metal. The kind of prayers that were etched into the front doors of a crypt.

Menna swallowed, fingers tightening on the edge of the bricks as she reconsidered the darkness she was about to fall into. She could always come back, better prepared. But someone had murdered Tudarya and it hadn’t been a cousin. Someone had known about her misdeeds. Someone hadn’t bothered reporting her to the elders and letting them deal with it. Someone hadn’t wanted Tudarya to have a chance to talk, not even to a possible assassin.

Someone else was hiding something.

Menna slid into the darkness.

Her sight adjusted as the light from the fireplace receded. She could just see the smooth curve of the walls and the edges of the stairs as she descended. She trailed her fingers along the wall to keep steady. The stairs curled tight upon themselves, just as they did for the pumps. Just as they did for the crypts.

But there was no door to end these stairs. Light bloomed ahead, filling the space as the walls opened up and the floor leveled out. It wasn’t much: a single torch sputtering in its own oil. But it was enough to shape the narrow space, to stop her just short of running into the table at its center. Enough to cause the rows of small glass jars lined on a nearby shelf to glint, but not enough to diminish their glow.

Menna swallowed, or tried to, but her throat was suddenly sticky dry. She turned slowly, taking in the room’s meager, but unsettling, details. Larger glass jars in the cabinet across from her, full of fluid and shapes she didn’t want to peer too closely at. A cloth, once white, now blotched with brown stains, was laid out beneath an assortment of narrow, sharp knives. There was ink, too, jars of it, as well as rolls and rolls of vellum. Most were tied tight with string; already written on. Menna didn’t think the other scrolls were for prayers.

What bothered her the most was the table in the center, its metal buffed and polished but still scored with marks and nicks. It reminded her of the tables the healers had: narrow and just long enough for a body.

It was all very clean. The table had been wiped down recently and the cabinets scrubbed; even the floor was suspiciously absent of sand. Menna took a deep breath, opening her mouth enough to let the air brush the back of her throat. Only then did she smell the metallic, coppery scent of blood that she had been expecting.

She just couldn’t find any.

Last, she turned to the door on the opposite wall, the one she’d been ignoring. Considering how far beneath the platform the stairs had gone, she suspected she knew what would be on the other side. She just had to see. The door was locked, of course, but she always had picks. The door didn’t stay locked for long.

Beyond was a space far more familiar, if not comforting. Lit torches lined the curving wall of the crypt, their flames a soft persistent crackle. Aside from the occasional wet glug from the center of the room, where the pylon cut through, the room was silent. The many corpses laid flat within the wall didn’t have much to say for themselves.

Menna didn’t leave the doorway. She stared at the black holes where the corpses laid, feeling as if someone had just shoved her off a bridge. The sensation of falling threatened to overwhelm her. She stumbled backwards into the small room and shut the door, shutting out the crypt.

Tudarya hadn’t just been messing with the jaan of the recently deceased. That dead merchant hadn’t been the first to have their jaani ripped away. The only reason Tudarya lived in this too-big home that had direct access to the crypts was if she’d been messing with jaan for far longer—if she’d started in the crypts.

It made sense, in a specific, sick way. It was a marabi’s job to quiet jaan, but the only thing keeping them from doing more than that, from using jaan for their own purposes and becoming en-marab, was their word. Their teaching. The morals beaten into them day after day after day, until they were etched like prayers into their every action.

Menna stared at the small glass jars lining the shelves, each one a muddled red, and even though she’d never seen captured jaan before, she knew exactly what she was looking at. What better way to practice than on the dead in your care? Menna might not know what Tudarya’s ultimate aim had been—perhaps she’d just wanted to understand jaan better—but she could see the result.

Well. Tudarya was dead. Menna plucked one of the jars off the shelf.

She registered the noise, but didn’t react in time to avoid the arm around her throat and the cloth smothering her face. She gasped, drawing in a breath of air that dripped with oily fumes, sharp like alcohol but undercut with something slightly sweeter. Her mind fuzzed as if she’d just been drinking. She fumbled at her attacker, dropping the jar as her fingernails scraped fabric, skin. But the cloth pressed harder, covering her mouth and nose completely.

The fumes from the rag made her eyes smart. She tried holding her breath, but her chest already ached for air. Her assailant pulled her head back, as if trying to drag her down, and Menna took another breath. The world blurred as if behind thick glass.

Menna stumbled, foot slipping across something slick. The jar. She caught it with her toes before it could roll away. Then she kicked it, hard as she could, at the wall.

The cloth dropped. “No!” Her assailant dove for the jar, catching it in outstretched hands before it could hit the wall and shatter.

Menna fumbled at her belt, trying to pull a knife free, but her fingers were clumsy, her body lagging behind her mind. Her assailant clutched the jar to their chest, then stood and carefully put it back on the shelf.

“You don’t know how dangerous those are,” they said, and Menna recognized that voice.

Young. Bright. Elder Edas.

The elder stooped, picking the cloth he’d dropped off the floor. He sighed when he saw Menna had freed a knife.

“You should put that away,” he said gently. “You might hurt someone.”

Then he lunged for her. Menna struck, but it was like moving through syrup. Edas easily dodged her attack, slipping the cloth over her mouth once more. But this time, Menna was ready for him. She twisted, catching fumes in her nose and mouth, and reached for the shelf full of jars. Full of jaan.

Her fingers grazed one before Edas jerked her back. He slammed her to the ground, pressing a knee into her back even as he scrambled to keep the cloth across her mouth. Her ears rang, her pulse beat like a drum, and blackness swarmed at the edge of her vision. Every breath was like a glass full of date wine to the head, without any of the pleasantness.

She wasn’t sure how much longer she could stay conscious, let alone whether she could escape.

Then her narrowing gaze caught on a glow of red across the floor. In their brief struggle, they’d knocked another jar down. Edas was preoccupied with pinning her in place; he couldn’t stop her from reaching out a hand and snatching up the glass jar. From lifting it up in anticipation of slamming it back down again.

“What did I say?” chastised Edas.

But he had to shift his weight and loosen his hold on her mouth to snatch the jar from her hand. Menna rolled and the world rolled with her. And somehow, miraculously, the jar was still in her hand when she stood.

Edas froze this time. Menna gripped the jar tight, felt the pulse of what was within swirling, alive.

“You don’t know what’s in there,” said Edas, gently.

“Jaani,” slurred Menna. She hefted it.

“No!” snapped Edas, then more carefully, “If you break that, you’ll loose the jaani on both of us. On the city.”

Menna shrugged, exaggerating the motion because she could barely feel her skin. “Been there.”

Edas squinted, his tagel slightly askew from their fight. “You—you’re the girl who helped stop the guul last time.” He snapped his fingers. “Menna! That was your name, right?”

Menna sucked in a deep, clearing breath of air. As the blackness faded from her vision, her fury ignited. “You didn’t even know my name?”

“Just… put the jar down,” said Edas, as if he were talking to a loose goat.

Menna spun the jar in her fingers, feeling returning to her limbs. “I’m willing to bet I can handle a wild jaani better than you can. But maybe I’ll wait—if you tell me why you killed Tudarya.”

Edas dropped his hands, but he stayed as tense as a rod. “The elders suspected.”

“Did they,” said Menna. “And what did they suspect?”

Edas hesitated and in the silence she heard him wet his lips as he worked out his answer. “That they had an en-marabi in their ranks.”

“And do they?”

“Understanding shouldn’t be blasphemy,” snapped Edas. “They refuse to study jaan at all, despite having so many at hand. Its not like—I wasn’t trying to use them for anything. Tudarya was the only one who understood that. If we could just learn more about jaan and how they work, we could save more jaan.”

“In jars,” deadpanned Menna.

“Yes, at first, if need be,” said Edas. “But we’ll figure other ways to save them eventually. The elders refuse to see that, but they’ll learn.”

“And that’s why you took out a contract?”

“What?” Edas blinked, hand dropping to his side. “What contract?”

“That wasn’t you?”

“Someone took out a contract on Tudarya?” Edas narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that? Why are you here?”

“That’s a good question,” said Menna pleasantly. “Maybe I’ll just go—”

Edas lunged. Menna didn’t think: she brought up her hand in defense. The hand holding a knife. The blade bit into Edas’ chest like a prayer, sliding all the way to the hilt before either of them realized what had happened. Edas’ eyes tightened with pain, hands coming up to try and defend himself even though it was too late.

In that instant, Menna knew she only had one choice. She twisted the knife, then yanked it free and slid it across Edas’ throat.

The struggle left him along with his life and blood. Edas fell to his knees, red pouring from his neck and splattering on the floor. He slumped forward into the growing puddle of blood, thrashed briefly, and was motionless.

Menna stood vigil until the feeling returned to her hands and face, until her thoughts were no longer muddied, until the smell of loosed bowels and blood drove her from the small, enclosed room.

***

“You’ve told no one?” asked Elder Dessin.

It’d only been an hour and yet Menna was back in the small room, hands clasped in front of her, the smell of death even stronger than before. Dessin had already quieted Edas’ jaani, making certain it wouldn’t untether and terrorize the city. It’d been the very first thing he’d done; he hadn’t even hesitated at the sight of the blood, the table, the rows of glowing jars.

Like he’d been expecting this.

“No one,” said Menna.

She hadn’t wanted to get the watchmen involved, not yet. She knew how quickly rumor could turn to fact, could spiral out of control. If even a hint of what Edas had been doing got out, the Circle would drag every marabi in for questioning. The resulting trials and chaos would shake their people’s faith in the marab, could result in stupid decisions leading to wild jaan.

Now as Elder Dessin rose from beside the corpse, she knew the watchmen and Circle would never be involved.

Menna’s fingers itched toward the knife at her belt. Dessin was old and slow, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t put up a fight. But the elder didn’t move toward her. He looked up at the jars.

“Thank you,” he said, and it was all sigh, as if he’d just set down a heavy burden. “I’d assumed the rot had only spread to Tudarya. I didn’t realize how deep it’d gone.”

Menna snatched a breath. “You took out the contract on her.”

Dessin leveled his gaze at her, but he didn’t ask how she knew. Menna realized she’d been reckless, but it wasn’t like it really mattered anymore. She’d killed someone outside of a contract. There was no going back.

Dessin nodded, wearily. “It seemed the wisest route. I never suspected Edas was a part of it, too.”

Menna didn’t relax, though. Not yet. “What do you want, sa?”

Dessin turned away, staring at the corpse on the floor. “We both have secrets, Menna. If this were to get out, do you really think the Circle would care about a lone assassin? I don’t think you realize the power you hold over us now.”

“I don’t want it,” she said, hollow.

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Dessin. “But it doesn’t change the facts.” He sighed, started for the door to the crypt. “We will always be a little on edge, now.”

“What will you do about the jaan?”

Dessin paused at the door, glanced at the rows of jars. “I don’t know. Leave them, I expect. It’s the safest thing.”

“Give them to me, sa,” said Menna suddenly, earnestly. “Let me find a way to help them pass over.”

Dessin considered her. “That’s dangerously close to what Edas and Tudarya were doing.”

“The difference is that the damage is already done, sa,” said Menna. “I can’t cause anymore harm.”

“You could release wild jaan on our city.”

Menna smiled at that, humorless and cold. “At least I have experience with that. Sa.”

Dessin was silent for a heartbeat, then another. After what felt like ages, he finally nodded. “They’re yours. By all that’s holy and whole, I pray you find a solution. Now – will you help me with this body?”

***

Cause of death: cardiac arrest from asphyxiation, through swelling of the throat caused by poison

Menna recognized Amastan’s handiwork as soon as she saw the corpse. He was always so terribly careful; too careful, if anyone ever asked her. Not a single thing was out of place or even the slightest bit suspicious, which was in itself suspicious. The corpse was tangled in the sheets as if they’d died in the night with no one around.

In the midst of an otherwise normal scene, no one ever noticed the broken glass. But that’s what gave Amastan away. It was absolutely conceivable that someone in their death throes might break the water glass next to their bed. But in reality, it never happened. Not unless someone else had been there, someone who wanted to alert the rest of the house’s occupants to a death.

The tinge of resentment had faded each time she’d found another of her cousins’ marks. It had been six months since she’d killed Edas, six months since she’d been a cousin herself. Six months since Thiyya had broken up with her. Six months since it’d felt like everything was over.

But somehow, the world had kept going. And so had she.

Thiyya was dating someone else, another healer by the name of Enass. Cute girl. Gentle, but firm, and exactly what Thiyya needed. Menna was glad for them both.

Menna was seeing someone, too. She’d spent too many late evenings drinking at Idir’s and she’d snagged the attention of a server there with bright eyes and an even brighter smile. Salla seemed to enjoy hearing about the grisly parts of Menna’s work. Tonight she was going to come to Menna’s for dinner—and maybe a little more.

Menna hadn’t figured out the jars of jaan yet, but she was making progress. She knew she’d find a way to usher them across, someday. She was very good at what she did. In the meantime, she’d kept her promise to Elder Dessin and hadn’t said a word to her cousins about what had happened, about why she’d stopped taking contracts. They came up with their own reasons, each only a shadow of the truth.

The truth was that Menna wasn’t a cousin anymore; she was something far more powerful.

She was free.

And that should scare everyone.

Cause of death: cardiac arrest from asphyxiation, through swelling of the throat caused by poison  Old age

Happy July! Here’s a short story about Amastan’s cousin, Azulay – gambler, assassin, and soft cinnamon roll extraordinaire.

Ao3 Tags: anxiety, angst, gambling, pretending to be bad at this, cinnamon roll, bad choices, only choices, everything’s Fine, how (not) to make friends

CW: Mild violence, domestic violence, heights, death

“Four skies, six sands, and two squandered,” announced the watcher.

The crowded table erupted with a mixture of cheers and groans, washing the air afresh with the reek of guzzled wine and bad breath. Azulay grit his teeth and forced a conciliatory smile as the man across from him pulled the pile of baats to himself. At least Azulay didn’t have to fake his disappointment.

It turned out that even when he threw the bet on purpose, losing still felt like shit.

Go figure.

He sighed dramatically—something else that wasn’t faked—and dug deep into his coin pouch. He found one last baat and dropped it onto the table with a clatter of finality.

The cheering stilled. Faces turned to him, their expressions hidden by their wine- and spit-stained tagels but their eyes still—always—telling all. Surprise. Confusion. Amusement. Mockery.

That last one hurt. He’d gambled with this same group—or at least a collection similar to this same group—on a hundred separate nights. They knew his name. They knew his preferences. And they knew he always won.

Sometimes, anyway.

Okay, often enough.

But all it took was a different tagel, a rougher voice, and a straight back and they didn’t even know him from Saben. And Saben habitually hit on the other gamblers, so really.

He knew most people couldn’t read a man as easily as he could, or at least he’d known that in principle. It was why he was so good at what games of chance. A man’s moods were as clear to him as the horizon to a stormsayer. He used to win every round of hands and downs, two games built around equal parts chance and deception. But after a particularly large win one night, he’d been caught in an alley and he’d been taught a painful lesson about men’s fragile emotions.

The worst part was that he could’ve taken all six of them. But that would’ve been suspicious and Tamella didn’t like it when they were suspicious. So instead he’d let them quench their anger through their fists, let them argue their point with bruises and blood.

He’d quit hands and downs after that, but he couldn’t quit gambling. It wasn’t the money that snared him, or the rush that came when a hand was called or a roll thrown, but the simple fact that he was so shards-cursed good at it. With three older brothers, he’d had so very few things to claim as his own, and even fewer that he received any praise for. Not that his parents would ever praise him for this. Nothing he did would be enough for them, so why bother? Azulay could shit wood and his parents would still fawn over his eldest brother writing his own dust-covered name.

It was freeing, if he could just look at it in the right way.

Of course, now he was good at other things. Tamella had seen to that. But being good at sneaking into someone’s room and taking their life wasn’t exactly the kind of accomplishment he could share with his parents.

Azulay picked up his drink and tipped it to his lips but swallowed only air. On the opposite side of the table, the mark mirrored his actions, but swallowed wine instead. Baby see, baby do, thought Azulay grimly. He had to focus on what was important here and for once at the table, for tonight, that wasn’t his pride. Well, maybe it was. Because if he shattered this, Kaseem would never give him another contract, and what was a cousin without contracts?

Plus the whole shunned and publicly humiliated and pro-ba-bly executed thing. Those could be problems, too.

The main thing was, if he broke this, he’d no longer be an assassin.

And he wasn’t about to let that go. Gambling was one thing—the roll of the tiddas bones, that held-breath moment before they settled and the watcher finished counting, when everything, absolutely everything, was up in the air. But it didn’t hold water compared to the thrill of a contract, the moment before a life ended.

Not that he knew how that felt. Not yet. Although he’d helped his cousin with two previous contracts, Dihya had always held the knife — both literally and figuratively. But he could imagine.

Beneath the table, he traced one finger along the edge of his knife as he met the watcher’s gaze. “Again.”

The watcher glanced around the table, met agreement, and nodded. He gathered up the tiddas pieces, a dozen and more carved bones, each a different shape, a different size, a different variable, and tucked them into his sack. Then he shook the sack—once, twice—before upending it across the table. As one, the gamblers leaned in. Azulay leaned with them.

The game was simple. The bone pieces were curved and could land in a variety of different ways. Each landing represented a different amount of points, and whoever placed their bets closest to the total points tossed, won.

There was no way to cheat at tiddas. No way, unless you knew a few things about the table’s surface, about the dealer, and about that particular tiddas set. And Azulay knew them all.

But so did many of the other players.

It was a game of chance only in theory. The trick was accounting for all of the variables. And there were other ways to play. If your bet was far enough off, you could push for double, keeping all bets on the table for a second throw. If two players were within a certain amount of the throw, you could call a triple, where everyone who held in could stay through three throws and whoever came closest two out of the three throws took a third of the pool. And there were other rules, too, rules that came with the particular dealer or the particular inn or the particular night.

So long as every player agreed, anything went.

Tonight, they’d agreed on wine. Or rather, Azulay had suggested it and the others had gone for it. And now the mark’s cup quite literally ran over, he could barely keep up. His eyes were red-rimmed with drink and his calls increasingly slurred, but he was winning, dust cover him.

Azulay closed his eyes for a moment while the dealer counted; if tonight went as it should, dust would.

“Five skies, two sands, four squandered.” The watcher paused for a heartbeat, then said, “One for G-d.”

The table erupted into a chaotic mixture of cheers and groans. Without opening his eyes, Azulay pushed his last baat across the table to the mark.

He’d get it back soon.

***

“The street is spinning—is the street supposed to be spinning?”

The mark squinted suspiciously at the stones between his feet as he walked—well, more like stumbled—and then he rested that squint on Azulay. Or at least he tried to. He couldn’t seem to find Azulay at first, then his gaze locked on with a sharp keenness, his fingers tightening around Azulay’s arm.

“It shouldn’t be spinning,” continued the mark.

“No,” agreed Azulay. “That’s not very kind of it.”

“Not kind at all.” The mark nodded, but the motion was so overemphasized that he almost fell over. A giggle burst from him like a gasp. “But you are, sa. Thank you for helping me home, even though I took all your baats.”

That was the fifth time the mark had thanked him and they weren’t even a platform away from the inn. But Azulay smiled anyway so the warmth would reach his voice. “It was a fair game, sa.”

“Of course it was. It’s always a fair game.” The mark winked at him, his eye staying shut so long Azulay wondered if he’d forgotten to open it again. Then his other eye closed and Azulay wondered if the mark would just pass out here, on the street.

That wouldn’t do. The contract had been very specific. Azulay gave the mark a gentle shake and slowly, slowly, those red-rimmed eyes reopened.

“Huh,” he said distantly. Then, “What was your name again?”

“Saben.”

“You remind me of my son,” said the mark, ignoring the answer. “We used to play tiddas together, too.”

“What happened?” asked Azulay, despite himself.

“He’d always call the bet as it landed,” continued the mark, his voice brightening with a smile. “Never got it, bless, but he thought it was more fun that way. He wouldn’t ever listen to advice. Now I haven’t talked to him in years. Moved out. Apprenticed. But also doesn’t want to be around me any more.” The smile broke and his voice turned wistful.

Azulay felt a stirring of compassion for the mark and tamped down on it as hard as he could. He wondered if Dihya could hear the mark from where she was, if she was following as close as she’d promised. She’d been breathing the warm night air on a nearby roof instead of sharing the same breath as a bunch of drunk gamblers.

They’d agreed early on that the weight of this contract would fall on Azulay’s shoulders. He was more at ease amongst gamblers, at soft touches of deception. They’d planned this contract together, but ultimately it was up to Azulay to carry it out. This was supposed to be an easy one. But the mark was still talking.

“Lost my wife soon after that,” he said. “It’s been… it’s been a hard year. By G-d, I miss her.” His voice cracked and his foot caught on the stone. He stumbled, but caught himself on Azulay’s arm. A chuckle hissed from him. “She’d hate seeing me like this. Didn’t use to be this way. Didn’t use to be…”

Now the compassion hardened into guilt. It was mostly Azulay’s fault that the mark was so drunk, after all.

“What’s your name again?” asked the mark for a third time. Then, without waiting for an answer, “I’m Lamek. Azal name, I know. But I’m not Azali. I mean, I am. My mother was. Came with a caravan and stayed. She always complained about the camels, hated the noises they made. Said it reminded her of someone throwing up. Or maybe it was the other way around.”

The mark chuckled and then groaned, hand rubbing at his forehead again and again. “Oh shards — what’s she going to think when I’m hungover tomorrow? Like I’m the sands-cursed son she says I am, that’s what.”

“We’ll get you home and cleaned up,” said Azulay. “I know just the thing to prevent hangovers.”

Lamek’s gaze locked on Azulay like he was the King of the Wastes. “G-d be praised,” he said with no small amount of reverence.

“No praise needed,” said Azulay with a grin and a chuckle, but the joke went over Lamek’s head. “The important thing is to preserve your breath.”

But Lamek didn’t take the hint. As Azulay guided him down the street—first the wrong one, until Lamek finally realized they were headed the wrong way, then back and down a different street—Lamek kept talking. Apparently Azulay had nabbed himself a chatty drunk. Couldn’t he have been the belligerent sort instead? Azulay found himself reciting Lamek’s list of crimes in his head, the reason for his contract, but it was increasingly difficult to place them at the feet of this bumbling drunkard.

Theft, threatening with a weapon, harassment, emotional manipulation, financial manipulation, assault, disfiguration —

And all of that against his wife, Hazul.

No wonder she’d left. But that hadn’t stopped the mark. The disfiguration had come after she’d packed her trunk and moved back home with her family. He’d drawn a knife on her in searing daylight and pulled its sharp blade across her cheek. The healers couldn’t stop it from scarring; it was too late in season and there wasn’t enough water to waste on something that didn’t threaten her life.

But it did, Azulay had thought while he’d read the contract. It threatened her life every day. It was a reminder that he was out there still, the one who’d hurt her. Able to take more at any time. Unpunished.

Hazul had petitioned her drum chief, but she’d been given a few days’ escort by the watchmen and nothing more. Despite the attack happening in public, in a street, she’d found no one who would vouch for her story. And so, her plea had been dismissed. The watchmen had satisfied their duty. And the mark walked the streets of Ghadid without a care while she spent every moment looking over her shoulder.

Not for much longer, if Azulay had anything to do with it.

The mark stopped suddenly, finger pointing at one door among many. “That’s it. We found it!” He patted Azulay on the shoulder, or at least tried to; he hit Azulay’s bicep instead, palm slamming into the knife hidden there. Azulay winced, but the mark didn’t seem to notice.

“G-d bless you for all your help, friend. I’d’ve fallen off a bridge without you.” The mark squinted at Azulay. “Saben, you said?”

Azulay nodded. “I’m not finished with you yet.” He stepped around the mark and opened the door for him, “Remember that hangover cure I promised you?”

“A hundred blessings,” said the mark reverently, stumbling through the doorway.

Ahead, just as Azulay had known there would be, were the stairs leading up to the mark’s room. The contract had been very specific in how the act needed to be carried out. An accident, of course. Lamek—the mark, Azulay corrected himself—was known for drinking. Not excessively, not often anyway. But Azulay knew a half dozen ways to up the chance.

And if the mark happened to fall down the stairs and break his neck, well. Accidents happened.

Azulay hung close as the mark heaved his weight onto the first step, leaning forward as if all the world were trying to drag him down.

“I have water to spare,” the mark was saying, still talking, as if silence might condemn him if he ever stopped. “If you have time, I can make some tea. It’s so quiet here—I still get lonely. Don’t worry—we won’t wake my mother. She can sleep through a storm.”

The mark was on the third step now. There were twelve total. Azulay matched him, step for step, the heaviness in his stomach spreading to his limbs. Could he do this? The mark seemed like such a nice guy. The kind of friend Azulay would make around the tiddas tables. The kind he’d share drinks with, learn his life’s story, commiserate with and advise. Despite his cousins’ teasing, Azulay gave good advice. It was hard not to when he could feel a man’s emotions as well as his own.

And Lamek’s loneliness spilled into the air around him like smoke from a fire.

A life. Azulay couldn’t believe he was hesitating, now. Of course, his cousin Amastan was always hesitant, always worried about what it meant to take a life. But Azulay had always known it was necessary. He’d taken several before, without even thinking.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

This guy—maybe there was more to the story. The contract had come from a friend of the wife’s. It could’ve been partially fabricated. The wife could’ve done equally terrible things to Lamek. Did the man deserve to die over a single, impulsive moment?

“I might get to see my son soon,” Lamek was saying. “He’s a performer, now. One of those with the swords and the silks. He’s amazing. He wouldn’t ever let me come to one of his shows. Embarrassed, I guess, to see his dad there. But this one will be out in the streets, part of the end of season celebrations.”

Halfway up. The bottom floor fell away, empty space on one side of them, wall to the other. Azulay could do it now, shove Lamek hard and he’d fall—but he might not die. He might break a leg, an arm—wouldn’t that be punishment enough?

But Azulay would be botching the contract, he’d be screwing up any chances for another, and he’d only be proving to the others that he really wasn’t good at anything but gambling.

They took the next step together.

“Of course, his mother might be there, too.” Lamek’s tone darkened. “She poisoned him against me, whispering lies in his ear like a jaani, confusing him about what’s real and what isn’t.”

“What will you do if she’s there?” asked Azulay, equal parts hoping for and dreading the answer.

“Dunno.” Lamek shrugged, the motion exaggerated with drink. “Depends, I guess. If she keeps her lies to herself, I won’t have to do anything.”

Lamek’s hand tightened on the railing. He paused. He was over halfway up the stairs now. Azulay’s heart was in his throat; how could this stairwell be so long? But at the same time, he could see the street outside after season’s end, the dancers and performers filling it with color and movement. A boy among them all, deftly spinning in bright reds and yellows from the top of a ladder. Below, one woman among the many watching, her head tilted up and eyes on the boy, a wisp of a smile on her face.

But not for long. She’d glance around and check the crowd soon, worried, weary. The sun would catch her face, spill silver down the scar across her cheek. It’d highlight the fear that would spread her pupils, flush her cheeks, and catch her breath. And then she’d be gone, like a wisp of late-season cloud, blown away by her own terror.

All so Lamek could walk free, unpunished.

Azulay’s will hardened.

“We’re almost there now,” he said with a lightness he didn’t feel. “We’ll get you safely in bed and your hangover cured and you’ll never have a worry again.”

“That sounds lovely,” sighed Lamek.

Finally, his grip loosened. Finally, he took another step. Over halfway now. A few more steps would put him high enough.

“Tea, though,” continued Lamek. “You should stay long enough for tea. I owe you that much. There aren’t enough people in this G-d-spat town that would be so kind to a drunk. And people don’t talk to me like they used to, not since… well.” He shook his head. Another step.

“Since?” prompted Azulay, despite himself.

“Since the accident,” said Lamek. “And it was an accident,” he added fiercely. “The drum chiefs saw that, even if my own neighbors don’t. They shun me, like I’m a madman.”

“But you’re not a madman.”

“No! No, of course not.”

“You did what any reasonable person would do.”

A sigh. A step. Then, “You understand.”

Azulay did. He hated it, but he did. He could understand the anger of a moment, an act cast and too late reconsidered. The harm called, the bones what they were, what they always would be. Too late to take back a bet. Too late not to have taken a chair at the table, too late never to have set foot in the inn.

But then you dealt with the dust-cursed consequences.

Lamek took another step.

“I do,” said Azulay. “And I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” said Lamek.

It was a simple thing. A nudge at the back of the knees. A pull on the shoulder of the wrap. A stumble. A stutter. A fall.

Lamek let out an “oh” of surprise before his legs betrayed him and the stairs took him. A crack, clatter, thud—and then silence. No movement, no sound, nothing but a body crumpled at the base of the stairs like so many cast bones.

Three squandered, thought Azulay. One for G-d.

He waited for a heartbeat, then two, his own blood roaring like wind in his ears. His mouth tasted like ashes and his chest felt as heavy as lead. Distantly, he heard voices next door, loud and concerned. But the body didn’t move. Slowly, slowly, Azulay did.

He didn’t remember climbing out the window. He didn’t remember how he got to the roof. But he must have. Dihya was waiting for him on the rooftop, her wrap a plain beige and her face bare. She uncrossed her arms and started toward Azulay, a hand out, a smile warming her features, then paused. She dropped her hand and her smile.

“His neighbors heard the crash,” she said. “I saw one leave to get a watchman. Someone will find the body soon. You did well, Az’.”

“Yeah.” Azulay kept walking past Dihya, unable to stop, unwilling to turn back. He’d done what he had to, he told himself. He’d thrown the bones and now he’d deal with the consequences.  “We’ll get a lot of baats for this one.”

“It’s not supposed to be easy,” called Dihya.

“I know.”

But knowing didn’t change the roll’s outcome.

***

The heat beat like a drum against Azulay’s skull, almost in time with the real drum that filled the street with thunderous reverberations. Color pulsed with the beat and between that and the crowd and the sun, it was all Azulay could do not to be sick. He’d told Dihya he was going to go fill his skin at the pumphouse and it’d only been half a lie to get out of the dark house and away from her postmortem.

He did need the water, but first —

The beat quickened. Fabric in reds and blues and yellows swirled, vibrant and blazing in the full light. Between and beneath, boys and men and others danced, their bare arms glistening with oil and paint. A ladder rose in the middle of the performers, hoisted aloft by half a dozen hands. A boy burst from the bustle of movement, climbing the ladder rung by rung until he balanced at the top. He couldn’t have been older than Azulay had been the very first time Tamella had broken into his room and held a knife to his throat.

The boy spread his arms and the fabric with them, thin enough to blaze with sunlight and wash the crowd in gold. Azulay scanned the crowd, found the one upturned face that glowed with love instead of light. Azulay didn’t see a scar, but he didn’t need to.

He didn’t know if the boy was Lamek’s son. He didn’t know if the woman was Hazul. It didn’t matter. It was enough to know that out of a thousand different casts, one could land correctly. It was enough to know that it was possible.

He didn’t have to wait for the watcher to call it.

 

Cover photo by fotografierende from Pexels

Happy July! Here’s a short story about Amastan’s cousin, Azulay – gambler, assassin, and soft cinnamon roll extraordinaire.

Ao3 Tags: anxiety, angst, gambling, pretending to be bad at this, cinnamon roll, bad choices, only choices, everything’s Fine, how (not) to make friends

CW: Mild violence, domestic violence, heights, death

***

“Four skies, six sands, and two squandered,” announced the watcher.

The crowded table erupted with a mixture of cheers and groans, washing the air afresh with the reek of guzzled wine and bad breath. Azulay grit his teeth and forced a conciliatory smile as the man across from him pulled the pile of baats to himself. At least Azulay didn’t have to fake his disappointment.

It turned out that even when he threw the bet on purpose, losing still felt like shit.

Go figure.

He sighed dramatically—something else that wasn’t faked—and dug deep into his coin pouch. He found one last baat and dropped it onto the table with a clatter of finality.

The cheering stilled. Faces turned to him, their expressions hidden by their wine- and spit-stained tagels but their eyes still—always—telling all. Surprise. Confusion. Amusement. Mockery.

That last one hurt. He’d gambled with this same group—or at least a collection similar to this same group—on a hundred separate nights. They knew his name. They knew his preferences. And they knew he always won.

Sometimes, anyway.

Okay, often enough.

But all it took was a different tagel, a rougher voice, and a straight back and they didn’t even know him from Saben. And Saben habitually hit on the other gamblers, so really.

He knew most people couldn’t read a man as easily as he could, or at least he’d known that in principle. It was why he was so good at what games of chance. A man’s moods were as clear to him as the horizon to a stormsayer. He used to win every round of hands and downs, two games built around equal parts chance and deception. But after a particularly large win one night, he’d been caught in an alley and he’d been taught a painful lesson about men’s fragile emotions.

The worst part was that he could’ve taken all six of them. But that would’ve been suspicious and Tamella didn’t like it when they were suspicious. So instead he’d let them quench their anger through their fists, let them argue their point with bruises and blood.

He’d quit hands and downs after that, but he couldn’t quit gambling. It wasn’t the money that snared him, or the rush that came when a hand was called or a roll thrown, but the simple fact that he was so shards-cursed good at it. With three older brothers, he’d had so very few things to claim as his own, and even fewer that he received any praise for. Not that his parents would ever praise him for this. Nothing he did would be enough for them, so why bother? Azulay could shit wood and his parents would still fawn over his eldest brother writing his own dust-covered name.

It was freeing, if he could just look at it in the right way.

Of course, now he was good at other things. Tamella had seen to that. But being good at sneaking into someone’s room and taking their life wasn’t exactly the kind of accomplishment he could share with his parents.

Azulay picked up his drink and tipped it to his lips but swallowed only air. On the opposite side of the table, the mark mirrored his actions, but swallowed wine instead. Baby see, baby do, thought Azulay grimly. He had to focus on what was important here and for once at the table, for tonight, that wasn’t his pride. Well, maybe it was. Because if he shattered this, Kaseem would never give him another contract, and what was a cousin without contracts?

Plus the whole shunned and publicly humiliated and pro-ba-bly executed thing. Those could be problems, too.

The main thing was, if he broke this, he’d no longer be an assassin.

And he wasn’t about to let that go. Gambling was one thing—the roll of the tiddas bones, that held-breath moment before they settled and the watcher finished counting, when everything, absolutely everything, was up in the air. But it didn’t hold water compared to the thrill of a contract, the moment before a life ended.

Not that he knew how that felt. Not yet. Although he’d helped his cousin with two previous contracts, Dihya had always held the knife — both literally and figuratively. But he could imagine.

Beneath the table, he traced one finger along the edge of his knife as he met the watcher’s gaze. “Again.”

The watcher glanced around the table, met agreement, and nodded. He gathered up the tiddas pieces, a dozen and more carved bones, each a different shape, a different size, a different variable, and tucked them into his sack. Then he shook the sack—once, twice—before upending it across the table. As one, the gamblers leaned in. Azulay leaned with them.

The game was simple. The bone pieces were curved and could land in a variety of different ways. Each landing represented a different amount of points, and whoever placed their bets closest to the total points tossed, won.

There was no way to cheat at tiddas. No way, unless you knew a few things about the table’s surface, about the dealer, and about that particular tiddas set. And Azulay knew them all.

But so did many of the other players.

It was a game of chance only in theory. The trick was accounting for all of the variables. And there were other ways to play. If your bet was far enough off, you could push for double, keeping all bets on the table for a second throw. If two players were within a certain amount of the throw, you could call a triple, where everyone who held in could stay through three throws and whoever came closest two out of the three throws took a third of the pool. And there were other rules, too, rules that came with the particular dealer or the particular inn or the particular night.

So long as every player agreed, anything went.

Tonight, they’d agreed on wine. Or rather, Azulay had suggested it and the others had gone for it. And now the mark’s cup quite literally ran over, he could barely keep up. His eyes were red-rimmed with drink and his calls increasingly slurred, but he was winning, dust cover him.

Azulay closed his eyes for a moment while the dealer counted; if tonight went as it should, dust would.

“Five skies, two sands, four squandered.” The watcher paused for a heartbeat, then said, “One for G-d.”

The table erupted into a chaotic mixture of cheers and groans. Without opening his eyes, Azulay pushed his last baat across the table to the mark.

He’d get it back soon.

***

“The street is spinning—is the street supposed to be spinning?”

The mark squinted suspiciously at the stones between his feet as he walked—well, more like stumbled—and then he rested that squint on Azulay. Or at least he tried to. He couldn’t seem to find Azulay at first, then his gaze locked on with a sharp keenness, his fingers tightening around Azulay’s arm.

“It shouldn’t be spinning,” continued the mark.

“No,” agreed Azulay. “That’s not very kind of it.”

“Not kind at all.” The mark nodded, but the motion was so overemphasized that he almost fell over. A giggle burst from him like a gasp. “But you are, sa. Thank you for helping me home, even though I took all your baats.”

That was the fifth time the mark had thanked him and they weren’t even a platform away from the inn. But Azulay smiled anyway so the warmth would reach his voice. “It was a fair game, sa.”

“Of course it was. It’s always a fair game.” The mark winked at him, his eye staying shut so long Azulay wondered if he’d forgotten to open it again. Then his other eye closed and Azulay wondered if the mark would just pass out here, on the street.

That wouldn’t do. The contract had been very specific. Azulay gave the mark a gentle shake and slowly, slowly, those red-rimmed eyes reopened.

“Huh,” he said distantly. Then, “What was your name again?”

“Saben.”

“You remind me of my son,” said the mark, ignoring the answer. “We used to play tiddas together, too.”

“What happened?” asked Azulay, despite himself.

“He’d always call the bet as it landed,” continued the mark, his voice brightening with a smile. “Never got it, bless, but he thought it was more fun that way. He wouldn’t ever listen to advice. Now I haven’t talked to him in years. Moved out. Apprenticed. But also doesn’t want to be around me any more.” The smile broke and his voice turned wistful.

Azulay felt a stirring of compassion for the mark and tamped down on it as hard as he could. He wondered if Dihya could hear the mark from where she was, if she was following as close as she’d promised. She’d been breathing the warm night air on a nearby roof instead of sharing the same breath as a bunch of drunk gamblers.

They’d agreed early on that the weight of this contract would fall on Azulay’s shoulders. He was more at ease amongst gamblers, at soft touches of deception. They’d planned this contract together, but ultimately it was up to Azulay to carry it out. This was supposed to be an easy one. But the mark was still talking.

“Lost my wife soon after that,” he said. “It’s been… it’s been a hard year. By G-d, I miss her.” His voice cracked and his foot caught on the stone. He stumbled, but caught himself on Azulay’s arm. A chuckle hissed from him. “She’d hate seeing me like this. Didn’t use to be this way. Didn’t use to be…”

Now the compassion hardened into guilt. It was mostly Azulay’s fault that the mark was so drunk, after all.

“What’s your name again?” asked the mark for a third time. Then, without waiting for an answer, “I’m Lamek. Azal name, I know. But I’m not Azali. I mean, I am. My mother was. Came with a caravan and stayed. She always complained about the camels, hated the noises they made. Said it reminded her of someone throwing up. Or maybe it was the other way around.”

The mark chuckled and then groaned, hand rubbing at his forehead again and again. “Oh shards — what’s she going to think when I’m hungover tomorrow? Like I’m the sands-cursed son she says I am, that’s what.”

“We’ll get you home and cleaned up,” said Azulay. “I know just the thing to prevent hangovers.”

Lamek’s gaze locked on Azulay like he was the King of the Wastes. “G-d be praised,” he said with no small amount of reverence.

“No praise needed,” said Azulay with a grin and a chuckle, but the joke went over Lamek’s head. “The important thing is to preserve your breath.”

But Lamek didn’t take the hint. As Azulay guided him down the street—first the wrong one, until Lamek finally realized they were headed the wrong way, then back and down a different street—Lamek kept talking. Apparently Azulay had nabbed himself a chatty drunk. Couldn’t he have been the belligerent sort instead? Azulay found himself reciting Lamek’s list of crimes in his head, the reason for his contract, but it was increasingly difficult to place them at the feet of this bumbling drunkard.

Theft, threatening with a weapon, harassment, emotional manipulation, financial manipulation, assault, disfiguration —

And all of that against his wife, Hazul.

No wonder she’d left. But that hadn’t stopped the mark. The disfiguration had come after she’d packed her trunk and moved back home with her family. He’d drawn a knife on her in searing daylight and pulled its sharp blade across her cheek. The healers couldn’t stop it from scarring; it was too late in season and there wasn’t enough water to waste on something that didn’t threaten her life.

But it did, Azulay had thought while he’d read the contract. It threatened her life every day. It was a reminder that he was out there still, the one who’d hurt her. Able to take more at any time. Unpunished.

Hazul had petitioned her drum chief, but she’d been given a few days’ escort by the watchmen and nothing more. Despite the attack happening in public, in a street, she’d found no one who would vouch for her story. And so, her plea had been dismissed. The watchmen had satisfied their duty. And the mark walked the streets of Ghadid without a care while she spent every moment looking over her shoulder.

Not for much longer, if Azulay had anything to do with it.

The mark stopped suddenly, finger pointing at one door among many. “That’s it. We found it!” He patted Azulay on the shoulder, or at least tried to; he hit Azulay’s bicep instead, palm slamming into the knife hidden there. Azulay winced, but the mark didn’t seem to notice.

“G-d bless you for all your help, friend. I’d’ve fallen off a bridge without you.” The mark squinted at Azulay. “Saben, you said?”

Azulay nodded. “I’m not finished with you yet.” He stepped around the mark and opened the door for him, “Remember that hangover cure I promised you?”

“A hundred blessings,” said the mark reverently, stumbling through the doorway.

Ahead, just as Azulay had known there would be, were the stairs leading up to the mark’s room. The contract had been very specific in how the act needed to be carried out. An accident, of course. Lamek—the mark, Azulay corrected himself—was known for drinking. Not excessively, not often anyway. But Azulay knew a half dozen ways to up the chance.

And if the mark happened to fall down the stairs and break his neck, well. Accidents happened.

Azulay hung close as the mark heaved his weight onto the first step, leaning forward as if all the world were trying to drag him down.

“I have water to spare,” the mark was saying, still talking, as if silence might condemn him if he ever stopped. “If you have time, I can make some tea. It’s so quiet here—I still get lonely. Don’t worry—we won’t wake my mother. She can sleep through a storm.”

The mark was on the third step now. There were twelve total. Azulay matched him, step for step, the heaviness in his stomach spreading to his limbs. Could he do this? The mark seemed like such a nice guy. The kind of friend Azulay would make around the tiddas tables. The kind he’d share drinks with, learn his life’s story, commiserate with and advise. Despite his cousins’ teasing, Azulay gave good advice. It was hard not to when he could feel a man’s emotions as well as his own.

And Lamek’s loneliness spilled into the air around him like smoke from a fire.

A life. Azulay couldn’t believe he was hesitating, now. Of course, his cousin Amastan was always hesitant, always worried about what it meant to take a life. But Azulay had always known it was necessary. He’d taken several before, without even thinking.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

This guy—maybe there was more to the story. The contract had come from a friend of the wife’s. It could’ve been partially fabricated. The wife could’ve done equally terrible things to Lamek. Did the man deserve to die over a single, impulsive moment?

“I might get to see my son soon,” Lamek was saying. “He’s a performer, now. One of those with the swords and the silks. He’s amazing. He wouldn’t ever let me come to one of his shows. Embarrassed, I guess, to see his dad there. But this one will be out in the streets, part of the end of season celebrations.”

Halfway up. The bottom floor fell away, empty space on one side of them, wall to the other. Azulay could do it now, shove Lamek hard and he’d fall—but he might not die. He might break a leg, an arm—wouldn’t that be punishment enough?

But Azulay would be botching the contract, he’d be screwing up any chances for another, and he’d only be proving to the others that he really wasn’t good at anything but gambling.

They took the next step together.

“Of course, his mother might be there, too.” Lamek’s tone darkened. “She poisoned him against me, whispering lies in his ear like a jaani, confusing him about what’s real and what isn’t.”

“What will you do if she’s there?” asked Azulay, equal parts hoping for and dreading the answer.

“Dunno.” Lamek shrugged, the motion exaggerated with drink. “Depends, I guess. If she keeps her lies to herself, I won’t have to do anything.”

Lamek’s hand tightened on the railing. He paused. He was over halfway up the stairs now. Azulay’s heart was in his throat; how could this stairwell be so long? But at the same time, he could see the street outside after season’s end, the dancers and performers filling it with color and movement. A boy among them all, deftly spinning in bright reds and yellows from the top of a ladder. Below, one woman among the many watching, her head tilted up and eyes on the boy, a wisp of a smile on her face.

But not for long. She’d glance around and check the crowd soon, worried, weary. The sun would catch her face, spill silver down the scar across her cheek. It’d highlight the fear that would spread her pupils, flush her cheeks, and catch her breath. And then she’d be gone, like a wisp of late-season cloud, blown away by her own terror.

All so Lamek could walk free, unpunished.

Azulay’s will hardened.

“We’re almost there now,” he said with a lightness he didn’t feel. “We’ll get you safely in bed and your hangover cured and you’ll never have a worry again.”

“That sounds lovely,” sighed Lamek.

Finally, his grip loosened. Finally, he took another step. Over halfway now. A few more steps would put him high enough.

“Tea, though,” continued Lamek. “You should stay long enough for tea. I owe you that much. There aren’t enough people in this G-d-spat town that would be so kind to a drunk. And people don’t talk to me like they used to, not since… well.” He shook his head. Another step.

“Since?” prompted Azulay, despite himself.

“Since the accident,” said Lamek. “And it was an accident,” he added fiercely. “The drum chiefs saw that, even if my own neighbors don’t. They shun me, like I’m a madman.”

“But you’re not a madman.”

“No! No, of course not.”

“You did what any reasonable person would do.”

A sigh. A step. Then, “You understand.”

Azulay did. He hated it, but he did. He could understand the anger of a moment, an act cast and too late reconsidered. The harm called, the bones what they were, what they always would be. Too late to take back a bet. Too late not to have taken a chair at the table, too late never to have set foot in the inn.

But then you dealt with the dust-cursed consequences.

Lamek took another step.

“I do,” said Azulay. “And I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” said Lamek.

It was a simple thing. A nudge at the back of the knees. A pull on the shoulder of the wrap. A stumble. A stutter. A fall.

Lamek let out an “oh” of surprise before his legs betrayed him and the stairs took him. A crack, clatter, thud—and then silence. No movement, no sound, nothing but a body crumpled at the base of the stairs like so many cast bones.

Three squandered, thought Azulay. One for G-d.

He waited for a heartbeat, then two, his own blood roaring like wind in his ears. His mouth tasted like ashes and his chest felt as heavy as lead. Distantly, he heard voices next door, loud and concerned. But the body didn’t move. Slowly, slowly, Azulay did.

He didn’t remember climbing out the window. He didn’t remember how he got to the roof. But he must have. Dihya was waiting for him on the rooftop, her wrap a plain beige and her face bare. She uncrossed her arms and started toward Azulay, a hand out, a smile warming her features, then paused. She dropped her hand and her smile.

“His neighbors heard the crash,” she said. “I saw one leave to get a watchman. Someone will find the body soon. You did well, Az’.”

“Yeah.” Azulay kept walking past Dihya, unable to stop, unwilling to turn back. He’d done what he had to, he told himself. He’d thrown the bones and now he’d deal with the consequences.  “We’ll get a lot of baats for this one.”

“It’s not supposed to be easy,” called Dihya.

“I know.”

But knowing didn’t change the roll’s outcome.

***

The heat beat like a drum against Azulay’s skull, almost in time with the real drum that filled the street with thunderous reverberations. Color pulsed with the beat and between that and the crowd and the sun, it was all Azulay could do not to be sick. He’d told Dihya he was going to go fill his skin at the pumphouse and it’d only been half a lie to get out of the dark house and away from her postmortem.

He did need the water, but first —

The beat quickened. Fabric in reds and blues and yellows swirled, vibrant and blazing in the full light. Between and beneath, boys and men and others danced, their bare arms glistening with oil and paint. A ladder rose in the middle of the performers, hoisted aloft by half a dozen hands. A boy burst from the bustle of movement, climbing the ladder rung by rung until he balanced at the top. He couldn’t have been older than Azulay had been the very first time Tamella had broken into his room and held a knife to his throat.

The boy spread his arms and the fabric with them, thin enough to blaze with sunlight and wash the crowd in gold. Azulay scanned the crowd, found the one upturned face that glowed with love instead of light. Azulay didn’t see a scar, but he didn’t need to.

He didn’t know if the boy was Lamek’s son. He didn’t know if the woman was Hazul. It didn’t matter. It was enough to know that out of a thousand different casts, one could land correctly. It was enough to know that it was possible.

He didn’t have to wait for the watcher to call it.

 

Cover photo by fotografierende from Pexels

I’d been anticipating two exciting bits of news today, but turns out there are FOUR. I guess we’re having a Florida time of it – when it rains, it just straight up hurricanes, huh?

So instead of posting about each individually, let’s just toss them all into one big update post:

First off, applications for the 2020 Debutante Ball are open!

This is the collaborative blog I’ve been writing for over the past year, chronicling not only my own personal debut experience but also thoughts/advice on writing, craft, and other books. I and four other debut authors have been sharing the site, maintaining it, and basically partying nonstop since last August, but our time there is quickly coming to a close. And that means it’s time to select the next class.

So if you’re a female or non-binary author with a debut novel out any time between September 2019 and August 2020 – apply! I highly recommend the experience.

Second: I’ve been a part of the 2019 Debut Authors group since the very beginning and one of my favorite things I’ve done for that group is shout loudly and often about queer debuts on Twitter.

Now, the Bronzeville Bee has given me a spot online to shout about those books more permanently.

The first half of my extensive-but-in-no-way-exhaustive list went up today:

Queer Debuts from January to May 2019

The second half will be up tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Third: I did an interview over at Reads Rainbow!

It was a lot of fun! Go over and read me talking about fanfic, some of my favorite reads, the perfect gif for The Impossible Contract, and what song kickstarted the plot for The Perfect Assassin. Then keep checking them out all month because they’ll be featuring more interviews with more queer authors. !!

Fourth and last but by no means Least

THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE IMPOSSIBLE CONTRACT IS UP AT TOR DOT COM

THIS IS NOT A DRILL

THIS IS JUST ME SCREAMING

AAAAAAH

Photo by Karen Cantú Q on Unsplash