That was exactly what I had planned to do. I hadn’t been able to go with the line work; I lacked the time. I sighed and pulled the blanket closer. The songs had a draw on me as tangible and inevitable as Sorcha did, as Shayat did, but he was right. In the days that followed, I spent my time in my apartment or in Dirva’s house. I told Dirva everything—Shayat, skipping out on my work assignment, all of it. We sat on his back stoop speaking Vahnan for hours while Sorcha taught Nuri chess and djah. The boy was a wonder with games. Dirva told me I was playing with fire. He told me I had been for a long time. He told me I was reckless. He told me he worried about me. And I had nothing to tell him to assuage his fears.

One evening, he took me outside to talk. We sat close to each other, shoulder to shoulder. Any man sitting close to me, by then, drew looks, and the neighbors took note. Dirva let them. I could feel it bothered him, that it woke a long-buried wariness, but he let them. “I think you should go back to Alamadour. Vathorem says he can find you work. He says Dor is on the lookout for a shaper to take as his right hand.”

“Dor will take Vathorem as his right hand.”

“Vathorem will not let him. Go to Alamadour. No one will put you in a factory there. No one will care about you and Sorcha and this woman.”

“Dirva, no, I’m his falo.”

He looked at me and sighed. He let me feel him, then. He pulled all his walls down and let his mind pour into mine. There was worry. There was gratitude. There was a great well of fondness and love. There was no blame. “The thing about red parents is they come and go. Sometimes one has to strike out. Sometimes they just want to strike out. He is safe here, and we can care for him, and you can’t care for anyone the way you’re living.”

I shook my head. “I belong here, with you. With Nuri.”

He sighed again. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come back. It was selfish.”

“You didn’t know I would end up like this. No one did.”

“It was selfish. I do not always see past myself. Ariah, I am telling you that Rabatha will bring you nothing but struggle and heartache. Like the City brings me nothing but struggle and heartache.”

I shook my head again. A thread of anger wound through me. “Sorcha won’t leave Nuri.”

“He won’t want to, no,” Dirva said, “but he is smart enough to flee a sinking ship.”

“How do you know? You never talk to him!”

Dirva’s walls flew back up. He stood up to leave. “I eavesdrop,” he said quietly, “and I watch.”