“Is everything all right?” Zhang asked then.
On the wall, the shadow nodded—the man did not. “Yes, everything is all right. It’s better than all right.”
Zhang relaxed a little. “Would you like some soup? It’ll be finished soon.”
“No, thank you. The body has already eaten.” Gajarajan shook his head. “I’m actually here because, well—I’ve discovered something very unexpected.”
Zhang set the knife down beside the cutting board and turned back to the shadow. Naz watched, waiting for one of them to say something. The starchy water slicked from the potatoes began to collect at the blade’s serrated edge as it rested on the counter.
“If it would be possible to meet in your room, that would be best,” Gajarajan continued.
Naz put her hand on Zhang’s shoulder.
“I think it might be best if Zhang and I met alone at first, Ahmadi. It’s a . . . sensitive subject.”
That made Zhang edge closer to her, in a way that made her heart thrill. “All three of us go,” he said firmly.
THE MEETING LASTED ONLY A FEW MINUTES. IT SEEMED AT the time as if it had gone on forever, but the sliced potatoes were still sweating when Naz finally went back downstairs, even though neither one of them wanted dinner anymore.
Gajarajan still needed a few days, to make sure everything was perfect, he’d said. On Ceresday—New Orleans’s eighth weekday, thanks to Wifejanenokids’s old mistake—Zhang could come by anytime. He would be waiting.
Afterward, Naz and Zhang sat outside on the porch, bowls of soup untouched beside them, staring out at the empty street. Everyone else was inside their houses, eating. The rest of their own housemates hovered momentarily in the kitchen one at a time, then escaped back to their rooms, sensing the danger.
“What time will you go, on Ceresday?” Naz finally asked. “I think you should do it in the morning. Just go first thing.”
“Ahmadi,” Zhang pleaded. He looked more tired than she’d ever seen him in his life. “I know we have to talk about it, but not yet. Just not yet.”
Naz nodded and turned back to what was left of the sunset. They sat that way in the quiet for a few more hours, just feeling how it felt to be the two of them together, side by side. She tried not to think about how it very well could be the last time.
They didn’t fight until they got up to the room, well after midnight.
The One Who Gathers
IN THE COURTYARD OF THE SANCTUARY, SWORDS CLANGED. The volunteers leapt backward into their ready stances again.
“Watch your blind spots,” Malik instructed. “Faster!”
“You trained them well,” Gajarajan said against the wall beside him as the volunteers sprang for each other once more, some striking, the others parrying. Farther away, he could feel the sensations in his body’s flesh—the twitch of long-unused muscles, microscopic imitations in response to the sparring matches the shadow’s eyes were seeing.
“They’re tough,” Malik said. “They had to be. There was no room for mistakes in D.C.—or on the road here.”
“And you want to go back out there.”
Malik studied the volunteers grimly as they continued to train, arms crossed. “You agreed my idea was a good one.”
Gajarajan nodded. He thought of Dr. Zadeh. “It is. I just meant—I was taught once by a wise man that sometimes people do drastic things in the face of difficult circumstances. A sort of coping mechanism. I worry this mission may be such a thing.”
“Of course it is,” Malik said.
Gajarajan said nothing—waited for Malik to continue if he liked. He respected that. That Malik was a man who didn’t shy away from understanding his grief, even if it made the pain sharper than if he left it as a dark, vague thing. It was a sign of true strength.
Malik looked down. “I just—I don’t know what else to do with myself for the next few months. Not being able to see her. And maybe—never again.”
“Vienna—” Gajarajan began, but Malik waved his hand as if to dispel what the shadow was about to say next.
“I understand there are rules,” he said. “That what you do in the sanctuary is dangerous.”
“Those rules are as much for your and the rest of the city’s safety as hers,” Gajarajan replied.