The Forty Thieves by Christy Lenzi

Author:Christy Lenzi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: little bee books
Published: 2019-11-19T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

16

The following morning while Mistress sleeps, I stick gold pieces from the cave into my sash and hurry with Jamal to the bathhouse. I have a plan to make it seem like Master died in bed, but before I can do anything, I need to see Saja. The aching guilt I feel for Badi’s death is too much to bear another day. When we reach the bathhouse, it isn’t open yet. Saja will be working with the other servant girls in the courtyard, doing the laundry.

Jamal scowls at the ground, kicking stones in the road as we near the gate. I try taking his hand, but he yanks it back.

“Leave me alone.”

Lately he’s pulling away from me, like a thread unraveling from a garment. If I don’t do something, I’ll lose him completely and feel more cold and alone than I already do.

“Jamal, you were right.”

He stops and kicks a rock toward me, almost hitting my shin. “About what?”

“About everything. That I’m not your master and I’m just a slave. You were right about Red Beard—he won’t want you to ride with him now that I made you leave. And the magic—you were right about that, too.”

Jamal looks up in surprise at that, a glimmer of interest in his eyes, but quickly turns away again. He hasn’t forgiven me yet.

I dig a rock loose with the toe of my sandal and kick it between Jamal’s feet. “But I was right about some things. I was right to want to keep you from joining the gangs. I may not have done all the right things, but I was right to want to stop you, Jamal, and you know it.”

He frowns at the rock near his foot.

“But I was wrong about something important.”

He steps on the rock, pressing it into the dirt.

“I was wrong when I said it was your fault that Badi died. I was sad and angry. I threw those words at you when I should have just thrown them away, because they aren’t true. It isn’t your fault, Jamal.”

He keeps his eyes on the stone. “Then whose fault is it?”

I stare at the rock, too. Tears rise to my eyes. “Badi chose to do what he did on his own, but he didn’t realize how dangerous it was. Neither of you did.” The burden of a hundred stones in my heart starts to lift. “He just wanted to be a brave warrior and stop the boys from hurting you.”

My heart lightens just a fraction at the truth of my own words. Badi’s death isn’t my fault, either.

“You would have done the same thing for him, wouldn’t you?”

Jamal nods and picks up the stone. “Badi tried to help me just like Saja helped you. Because that’s what friends do.”

The truth in his words is a mixture of bitter herbs and sweet honey. Just when I finally open my heart to Saja’s friendship, I’ve lost it.

As Jamal and I near the courtyard entrance of the bathhouse, a hulking khādim guard walks his rounds past the locked gate.

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