Aunt Farrah stopped walking abruptly. ‘There are no weapons allowed beyond this point.’
Immediately the twins held up their hands. ‘Don’t look at us.’
‘Or me.’ Tamid was breathing hard from the walk up the mountain. But he had refused my help over and over until I’d stopped offering it.
That left the three of us.
Reluctantly I unbuckled my holster. The boys followed suit. Sam gave his guns a quick, showy and totally impractical twirl around his fingers before offering them to Aunt Farrah. Jin and I handed over our knives and guns, too.
‘Is that everything?’ Aunt Farrah demanded as she leaned them gingerly against the wall. I could see stacks of weapons under the canopy now, guns and bombs and swords and knives. A whole arsenal stored in the crumbled building. ‘He will know if you’ve kept anything hidden.’
It wasn’t everything. I’d seen Jin hold back one of his pistols, tucking it into his belt before pulling his shirt over it. I fiddled with the spare bullet I’d kept in my pocket. Between the two of us we had a working weapon. ‘I’m all out of knives and guns.’ It was the closest to an honest answer I could give. But it seemed to satisfy her. ‘Aunt Farrah,’ I asked as she started walking again, ‘what is this place?’
‘We saw the error of our ways.’ Aunt Farrah’s hands were folded in her khalat. Her hard demeanour had suddenly changed as we passed some invisible barrier into the camp, her head bowing like she was going to prayers. ‘We were arrogant to try to claim this world for our own by building houses in the sands when we are meant to roam it.’
Sure enough, as we pressed deeper into what was left of Sazi, there were hundreds of tents, a riot of colours dotting the otherwise bleak mountain landscape. And among them were hundreds of people, more than all of Dustwalk, Deadshot and Sazi put together. Men and women crowded between tents and small fires, laughing and talking. Clusters of women sat together sewing a patch in a torn tent canvas. A group of men seemed to be carving things out of wood. It reminded me of the camp we’d lost, a sanctuary hidden from the world.
Two children dashed past us, screaming with laughter. And to my surprised I recognised one of them.
‘Nasima!’ I called out my little cousin’s name without thinking. She skidded to a stop, dark braid swinging in an arc, whipping her back. She stared at me blankly, warily, like I was a stranger.
‘It’s me.’ I pressed my hand to my chest, like I might when talking to a foreigner. Only she was my blood. ‘Amani, your cousin. Don’t you remember me?’
‘No you’re not.’ Nasima took a bold step towards me, in challenge. ‘Amani is dead, my mama said so.’ then she retreated. ‘Are you a Skinwalker?’ she asked. ‘That’s what my mama says about people who pretend they’re other people.’
I started to tell her that if I were a Skinwalker, it would take more than a sheema to protect me from the sun. But she wasn’t listening. ‘Skinwalker!’ Nasima called out, turning and running away from me. People looked up at us as she bolted. On instinct, Jin moved between me and the staring eyes. Only there were no guns pointing our way, no knives being drawn.
They were as unarmed as we were. Defenceless.
Then we heard it through the crowd.
‘Tamid?’
The voice made me stand up straight. It was a voice I was used to being scolded by, for always being around, for corrupting her son. Tamid’s mother pushed her way towards us and my heart faltered a little. The last time I’d seen her had been from the back of a Buraqi, behind Jin, as we’d fled blood and chaos and she’d tried to crawl her way towards her son, who was lying bleeding in the sand with a bullet through his knee, thanks to me. Just before he’d been taken prisoner and brought to the city along with Shira.
Now as she moved towards her son, her face was full of tentative, uncertain hope.
‘Mother.’ Tamid limped towards her. And the hope broke into joy. She rushed to him, moving faster than he could on his false leg. She was crying before she even reached him, clasping him in her arms like he was still a little boy. I caught a few words between her sobs as she clung to him. What happened to you? What did they do to you? And then: You’re alive. You’re alive. Over and over again.
I realised I’d been holding myself like there was an iron rod in my back, waiting for the reproach that was coming my way for what I’d done to her son. But it never came. She didn’t even see me. She didn’t care that he’d been taken away. Just that he’d been brought back.
‘Father?’ Tamid asked, pulling away, looking around, though less hopeful. His mother shook her head.
‘He didn’t …’ She hesitated. ‘He was deemed unworthy. He saw into your father’s heart, and what he did to you.’ Tamid winced. When Tamid was born with a crooked leg, his father had wanted to kill him. Tamid’s mother had saved her son. ‘He burned for it.’ Neither Tamid nor his mother looked particularly sorry about it. I couldn’t say I blamed them. I wondered who else had been judged too sinful by this man in the mountain.
I looked over at my aunt. There was pain scrawled on her face. Two people had been taken from Dustwalk the day I disappeared with Jin. Only one of them would ever come back. Aunt Farrah would never be reunited with Shira this way.
‘Aunt Farrah,’ I tried again, ‘your grandson … In the city. Shira named him—’
‘What is she doing here?’ The belligerent voice cut me off. I knew it instantly. You have got to be kidding me. So my reckoning with my past wouldn’t come from Tamid’s mother after all.
I turned around and faced Fazim Al-Motem. If we really were being judged for our sins, then I didn’t have to worry, not if Fazim was still alive. Fazim had claimed he was in love with Shira, until he tried to threaten me into marrying him so he wouldn’t tell everyone I was the Blue-Eyed Bandit. All because he wanted the money I’d get for capturing a Buraqi.
If that wasn’t a sin I didn’t know what was. And yet, here he was, strutting towards me.
‘Pretty bold for a criminal to show her face here,’ Fazim crowed. He looked shorter than I remembered. I vaguely wondered if I’d got taller. ‘Stealing from your own family.’
‘Leave it, boy.’ Another voice spoke. It was my uncle, I realised. I scarcely would have recognised him if my cousin Nasima hadn’t been clutching his hand, still eying me warily. He was wearing rags instead of the fine clothes of a horse merchant, and his hair and beard had grown long.
But Fazim took another swaggering step, full of false confidence as he crossed the rocky terrain to confront me.
‘Do you think he really can’t see that this is a mistake?’ Jin said below his breath, so only I could hear him.