IN THE SILKY GLIMMER OF a sunlit window, she saw motion, then heard it: a flutter of wings, the sound like blades of grass in the wind, pushing together, then apart. Alizeh was washing the windows of Baz House on this beautiful morning, and when compared to her tasks the day before, the work seemed almost luxurious.
The sound of wings grew suddenly louder then, and a tiny body careened into the window with a soft bop.
Alizeh shooed it away.
The fluttering insect repeated this action twice more. Alizeh checked to make sure she was alone before she held up a single finger to her lips. “You must be quiet,” she whispered. “And remain close to me.”
The firefly did as it was bade, and landed gently on the nape of her neck, where it folded its wings, crawled downward, and ducked its head underneath her collar.
Alizeh dipped her sponge in its bucket, wrung the excess water, and continued scrubbing the smudged glass. She’d reapplied the salve to her hands and throat last night, which had made her pain quite manageable this morning. In fact, in the presence of the sun, all the terrors induced by the events of the evening prior had faded. It was easier for Alizeh to declare her fears dramatic when the skies were so clear, when her hands no longer throbbed in agony.
Today, she swore, would be easier.
She would not fear the condemnations of the apothecarist; nor would she concern herself with the prince, who had only done her a kindness. She would not worry over her missing handkerchief, which would doubtless be
found; she would not fear for her health, not now that she had her salves. And the devil, she reasoned, could go to hell.
Things were going to get better.
Tonight, she had an appointment inside the Lojjan ambassador’s estate. She was engaged to design and execute the creation of five gowns, for which she might hope to collect a total of forty coppers, which was nearly half a stone.
Goodness, Alizeh had never even held a stone.
Her mind had already run wild with the possibilities such a sum of coin might provide. Her wildest hope was to secure enough customers to make a regular living, for only then might she be able to leave Baz House. If she was careful and kept to a tight budget, she prayed she’d be able to afford a small room of her own—maybe somewhere sparsely populated on the outskirts of town—somewhere she might never be bothered.
Her heart swelled at the thought.
Somehow, she would manage it. She’d keep her head down and work hard, and one day she’d be free of this place, these people.
She hesitated, her sponge pressed against the glass.
Alizeh could not help but think how strange it was that she worked in service. All her life she’d known she wanted to spend her life in the service of others, though not at all like this.
Life, it seemed, possessed a sense of irony.
Alizeh had been brought up to lead, to unify, to free her people from the half-lives they’d been forced to live.
Once, she’d been meant to revive an entire civilization.
The painful frost growing inside her veins was a primitive phenomenon, one thought lost to her people a millennia ago. Alizeh knew only a little of the abilities she was rumored to possess, for though there was an inherent power in the ice that pulsed through her, it was a power that could not be tapped until she came of age, and even then would not mature without the assistance of an ancient magic buried deep in the Arya mountains, where her ancestors had built their first kingdom.
And then, of course, she would require a kingdom.
The idea struck her as so preposterous it nearly made her laugh, even as it broke her heart.
Still, it had been at least a thousand years since there’d been news of a Jinn born with ice in their blood, which made Alizeh’s mere existence
nothing short of miraculous. Nearly two decades ago whispers of Alizeh’s strange, cold eyes had spread among the Jinn the way only a rumor might, expectations building every day upon the slopes of her young shoulders. Her parents, who knew she would not be safe until she came of age at eighteen, had removed their daughter from the noisy, needy world, secreting her away for so long that the whispers, without fuel, were soon reduced to ash.
Alizeh, too, was forgotten shortly thereafter.
All those who knew of her had been killed, and Alizeh, who had no ally, no kingdom, no magic, and no resources, knew her life was best spent simply trying to survive.
She no longer had any ambition beyond a desire to live a quiet, undetected existence. In her more hopeful moments Alizeh dreamed of living somewhere lost in the countryside, tending to a flock of sheep. She’d sheer them every spring, using their wool to weave a rug as long as the world was round. It was a dream at once simple and implausible, but it was an imagining that gave her comfort when her mind required an escape.
She promised herself things wouldn’t always be this hard. She promised herself that the days would get better, bit by bit.
In fact, things were already better.
For the first time in years, Alizeh had company. And as if to remind her, the firefly nudged her neck.
Alizeh shook her head.
The firefly nudged her again.
“Yes, I know, you’ve made it very clear that you’d like me to come outside with you,” she said, scarcely breathing the words. “But as you can plainly see, I’m not allowed to leave this house at will.”
She could almost feel the firefly grieve. It wilted against her neck, rubbing one little arm over its eyes.
The creature had snuck into Baz House last night, during the brief window of time it took for the prince to open and close the back door. It had flown hard and fast in her direction, pelting her in the cheek with its little body.
It’d been so long since Alizeh had seen a firefly that, at first, she hadn’t recognized the creature. When she did, she smiled so wide she hardly knew herself.
Alizeh had been sent a firefly.
A communiqué.
From whom? She did not know. Though not for a lack of effort on the part of the insect. The poor thing had been trying to drag her outside since the moment it found her.
There was a special relationship between Jinn and fireflies, for though they could not communicate directly, they understood each other in ways unique only to the two species. Fireflies were to Jinn what some animals were to Clay. Beloved companions. Loyal friends. Comrades in arms.
Alizeh knew, for example, that this firefly was a friendly one, that it already knew who she was, and that it wanted now to guide her to a meeting with its owner. Though it appeared neither the firefly nor its owner understood the limits surrounding Alizeh’s freedom.
She sighed.
She took as much time as she dared scrubbing each delicate windowpane, enjoying the expansive view to the outside. It was rare that she was afforded so much time to take in the beauty of Setar, and she relished it now: the shattering, snowcapped Istanez mountain range in the distance; the frosted green hills in between. Dozens of narrow rivers fractured the landscape, the valleys blue with turquoise and rainwater, bookended on either side by miles of saffron and rose fields.
Alizeh was from the very north of Ardunia—from Temzeel province— an icy, elevated region so close to the stars she’d often thought she could touch them. She missed her home desperately, but she could not deny the splendors of Setar.
Without warning, the bell tolled.
It was noon, the morning now officially at an end. The sun had slid discreetly into position at the apex of the horizon, and Alizeh marveled at it through the glass, at the jolly warmth it emanated across the land.
She really was in a fine mood.
She recognized that it had been good for her to cry last night, to release a bit of the pressure in her chest. She felt lighter this morning, better than she had in a long ti—
The sponge dropped from her fingers without warning, landing with a dull thud in its soapy bucket, spraying her fresh snoda with dirty water. Anxiously, she dried her wet hands on her apron and pressed closer to the window.
Alizeh could not believe her eyes.
She clapped a hand over her mouth, overcome by an irrational happiness to which she was almost certainly not entitled. That wretched Fesht boy had nearly slit her throat; what reason did she have to be delighted to see him now? Oh, she didn’t know, and she didn’t care.
She couldn’t believe he’d come.
Alizeh watched him as he came up the walk, marveling anew at his shock of red hair and prematurely long frame. The boy was an entire head taller than her, and at least five years younger; it was a wonder to her how he grew at all for a child who ate so little.
The boy arrived at the fork in the footpath then, making a sharp right where he should’ve gone left, his unsettling choice directing him straight to the main entrance. When Alizeh was certain his vivid figure had disappeared for good, her joy evaporated.
Why had he gone to the front door?
She’d instructed the boy to come to the kitchens, not the main house. If she hurried right this second she might, under the pretense of collecting more water, be able to rush down to meet him. But if he was discovered at the front door not only would he be whipped for the impudence—she’d be cast out for having promised him bread.
Alizeh sat back, her heart racing at the thought.
Was this her fault? Should she have explained things more thoroughly to the boy? But what street child was deluded enough to think he might be admitted through the front door of a grand estate?
She dropped her face in her hands.
The firefly fluttered its wings against her neck, asking the obvious question.
Alizeh shook her head. “Oh, nothing,” she said softly. “Just that I’m fairly certain I’ll be thrown out onto the street . . . any minute now.”
At that, the firefly grew animated, taking flight and tossing its body once more at the window.
Bop. Bop.
Alizeh couldn’t help her smile then, however reluctant. “Not in a good way, you silly creature.”
“Girl!” A familiar voice barked at her. Alizeh froze.
“Girl!”
In a flash, the firefly flew up the cuff of Alizeh’s sleeve, where it shuddered against her skin.
Alizeh turned slowly from her seat in the window bay to face Mrs. Amina, where the housekeeper somehow managed to tower over her even from below.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Who were you talking to?” “No one, ma’am.”
“I saw your lips moving.”
“I was humming a song, ma’am.” Alizeh bit her lip. She wanted to say more—to offer up a more robust lie—but she was warier than ever of saying too much.
“Your job is to disappear,” Mrs. Amina said sharply. “You’re not allowed to hum, you’re not allowed to speak, you’re not allowed to look at anyone. You don’t exist when you work here, especially when you’re abovestairs. Do I make myself clear?”
Alizeh’s heart was racing. “Yes, ma’am.” “Get down here. Now.”
Alizeh’s body felt suddenly heavy. She climbed down the rickety wooden ladder as if in a dream, her heartbeats growing louder as she went. She kept her eyes on the ground as she approached the housekeeper.
“Forgive me,” she said quietly, keeping her head down. “It won’t happen again.”
“I daresay it will not.”
Alizeh braced herself, waiting for what seemed the inevitable strike, when Mrs. Amina suddenly cleared her throat.
“You have a guest,” she said.
Very slowly, Alizeh looked up. “I beg your pardon, ma’am?”
“You may meet him in the kitchen. You will have fifteen minutes.” “But— Who—”
“And not a minute more, do you understand?” “Y-yes. Yes, ma’am.”
Mrs. Amina marched off, leaving Alizeh sagging in place. She couldn’t believe it. A visitor? It had to be the boy, did it not? The Fesht boy.
And yet— How could a street child have been admitted into the home of a duchess? How might he then be granted an audience with the lowest servant in the order?
Oh, her curiosity would not quiet.
Alizeh did not walk, but flew to the kitchens, lifting her sleeve to her mouth as she went. “It looks as if I won’t be tossed into the street after all,” she breathed, hardly daring to move her lips. “That’s good news, isn’t it? And now I’ve got a . . .” She trailed off, slowing down when she realized she could no longer feel the firefly’s legs on her arm, nor its wings against her skin. She peered inside her sleeve.
“Where are you?” she whispered.
The firefly was nowhere to be found.
