Idris mounted the stairs to the tower balcony with a heavy gait, and when his head cleared the landing my eyes widened. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was mussed. He looked as if he had stumbled directly out of bed and walked to me. He sank into the chair directly behind me and when I turned laid his head against my ribs and circled his arms around my waist.

“Idris?” I said softly. My hands hovered a breadth above his hair, unsure if I should touch him or not. My heart hammered behind my ribs. “Are you alright?”

“Nightmares,” he said hoarsely. His forehead pressed against my ribs as if he might find solace in whatever lay behind them, and for a moment his fingers tightened their grip. My hands settled on his hair and shoulder of their own volition.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I should have pushed him away—he was not mine to comfort anymore. But I was not cruel and I loved him and even now he turned his face away and shuddered, as if the nightmares haunted him still.

“It was different, this time,” he said, his voice rough. “Normally it’s just flashes, but this time—”

One hand tightened around my waist, the other pressed against my back.

“They hid me away—my mother knew what was coming. She could see the desert sand rising on the horizon. Mathis had sent an entire army to subdue the city. You know when I was eight—I was sickly. War does that—you can’t keep anything down because you’re worried about air raids or— She could pick me up. And that evening she picked me up and fled across the estate and hid me away.

“I promised her I wouldn’t leave the hidden room—and I just … waited there for hours. But I heard her.” I looked down at him but he hadn’t looked up. His shoulders were hunched, his back stiff. “She didn’t scream when they took her away. Or when they lined everyone up.”

“Idris—”

At my voice he looked up. There was no one else in the tower room but us—only us, and his grief, and what we felt for one another. I smoothed a hand over his cheek and tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. His eyes slid closed as if I’d given him solace or benediction.

“You remind me of them,” he said, covering my hand with his.

“Them?”

“The freedom fighters,” he said. Some of his tension eased as he smiled. “You’re fearless and have a sense of justice.”

He didn’t know what I did in secret, that I had allied with the makhzen and rebels both. Perhaps he sensed it, or perhaps it was simply as he said: that I reminded him of women in that time, and that alone stoked his fear.

“Everyone has a sense of justice—” I protested.