“Send this back where it came from. Wrap it up and send it back, and never mention to Mr. Villai’Muladah that it was ever sent here in the first place. Will you do that?”

He blinked. “There’s no return address, sir.”

But I knew the address. Amran lived in a converted bar named The Refuge on Rivai Street. I asked Mosol for a piece of paper. On one side I wrote the address; on the other side, I wrote a reply. I wrote that Dirva did not need Amran’s help filling that blank spot.

“Send it here. Make sure this note makes it into the package. I very much appreciate this,” I said.

Mosol chewed his cheek. “It won’t be cheap.”

I tabulated all of my savings. “How much?”

“Probably more than you have.”

I cursed under my breath. “I have…uh…around seventy-five marks saved up. How much?”

The boy sighed. He gave me a sympathetic look. “Close to three hundred.”

“Can you…can you keep it here? I’ll pay you as I get the money. Can you hold it down here and send it back when I’m paid up? Just so long as Mr. Villai’Muladah never knows it’s here.”

Mosol took the painting. “I’ll talk my mother into it. He won’t know.”

“Thank you, Mosol. Thank you.”

It took me nearly six months to pay up the smugglers.

When I went up to the apartment, Dirva could tell immediately that something had happened. He didn’t ask anything; he just stuck his head around the corner, eyebrows raised. Nisa sat curled in his armchair, still in her coveralls, fiddling with a small clockwork mechanism. “I’m fine,” I said.

“Are you?”

Nisa glanced at me over her mechanism.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Shayat, you know, she gets under my skin. That’s all.”

Dirva watched me for a second longer. He went back to whatever he was doing in the kitchen. I sat on my cot across from Nisa. “What is that?”

“It’s nothing yet,” she said. “Just clacking gears right now. I should make a bird from it or something, but I never get that far. I always end up leaving them naked. Who’s Shayat?”

“My student. I tutor her in languages.”

“She gets under your skin?”

“Oh, she’s awful.”

“Then why tutor her?”

“Because Ariah is vain,” Dirva yelled from the other room.

Nisa laughed and cast me a curious look.

“Well, her father’s a tailor,” I said, blushing. “We have a deal. I get clothes made for free if I tutor her.”

Nisa smiled and went back to her mechanism. “I read that set of poems you translated for me. The ones from the gold elves.” She pulled the notebook out of her pocket and handed it to me. I flipped through it and saw copious notes in the margins. “I think your translations are getting better.”

“They are?”