I didn’t know what to say. That he had chosen this poem, that he had performed it so beautifully, so movingly—

“Was it … before Azaghar? That you retrieved the necklace?” I asked, clearing my throat.

He still hadn’t looked up. “At M’Gaadir,” he said. “Just before we left.”

“Idris—”

What I felt I didn’t know how to say. Instead I lowered my face to his and kissed him. I heard the necklace strike the carpeted floor as his hands swept along my ribs and over my back. The grief in his recitation had lodged like a shard of glass in my heart, and I never wanted to think on it again. I never wanted to imagine that we would have to grieve one another in such a way, that we would be so irrevocably separated, that we would allow people to drive us apart.

In truth, nothing needed to be said. Eventually we lay entwined before the fire, my head on his heart, his fingers marking a trail over my spine. I remembered what I’d thought in M’Gaadir—that I wanted a lifetime of this. Poetry and politics and passion.

“Amani,” Idris said, his hand stilling on my back. “Do not think I am so easily distracted.”

I said nothing, though I imagined he could sense the stillness that fell over me.

“What bothers you?” he asked softly.

The problems I’d confronted earlier in the evening reared their heads. Idris had sworn to support me, to support all rebel efforts. But saying so and doing so were two different things, and I’d not yet put it to the test. And something such as this—I didn’t know how to explain it to him. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

“I have been given an assignment,” I said at last.

He stilled for a moment, then sat up. “Your first?”

I forced myself to meet his gaze. “No,” I said softly.

“Then why the reticence?” He frowned.

“It requires Maram’s cooperation. It requires her to make a great sacrifice,” I said, sitting up beside him. “I don’t know— I don’t think it’s a sacrifice she’s ready to make.”

His frown was severe. “Amani, I don’t think she will. Collaborating with the makhzen is one thing. Making a sacrifice for the rebels—knowing that you’re a rebel…”

“She knew,” I said softly, “before you did. That I was a rebel. She’s known all along.”

His eyes widened. “And yet you live,” he said.

“I meant what I said to her at M’Gaadir. She will be a great queen and leader. But waiting—we can’t afford it. We don’t have time.”

“And you would take the risk?”

“The future of the whole world, Idris, against my fear,” I said. “What should win?”