“Then you think too well of them,” Amun said. They walked in silence for a moment longer. Then Amun said, “You have a way with people. They like you. It changes how they view you.”

Amun made it sound as if Mehr had a natural touch with people. She didn’t. Mehr cultivated connections with people by necessity. She’d learned to be whatever she needed to be, in order to win favor and gain the knowledge she needed to ensure her own survival.

Instead of telling him so, Mehr shook her head. “Oh, Amun. If you had known me before, in my father’s house, you wouldn’t say so. I wasn’t well loved.”

“I doubt that.”

“Doubt all you like. It’s the truth.” She clutched her new clothes tighter to her chest. She’d tucked the soap between the folds of cloth, letting the sweetness of the herbs permeate through the bundle. She inhaled the scent of it now: lush like the rose gardens of the Governor’s palace. “I have no special gift. I just try a little harder with them than you do.” That was to say, of course, that she tried at all.

“Do you miss your father’s household? Your family?”

“They’re different things,” Mehr said. “But yes. I miss my family.”

“I miss mine too.”

Mehr gave him a sharp, surprised look. He’d never mentioned his family before.

“Will you tell me about them?” she asked tentatively.

“My mother was strong,” he said, after a while. “Strong and clever with a knife. My father was gentler, but neither of them was weak. We lost our clan, so we traveled between villages and settlements, bartering blood and rites in return for everything we needed to survive. They were good people.”

“What happened to your clan?” Mehr asked.

Amun shrugged.

“The rare ones with the amata—or the ones the mystics thought might have the amata—were hunted down. They used their blades to save themselves,” he said matter-of-factly. “Clans like ours became afraid of trading with villages. They feared that the villagers would tell the mystics how to find them. Food became scarce. When our clan began to starve, some left Irinah to start again. The rest of us tried to survive in smaller, less noticeable groups. That was what my parents chose to do together.”

Amun stopped, letting out a slow exhalation. His jaw was granite, lines of tension furrowing his brow. She hadn’t realized how tense he had become, or how tightly she’d been holding her own breath inside herself, coiled like wire.

“What happened to your parents?” Mehr asked him softly.

She regretted her question almost instantly. She placed her hand on his arm, watched as he lowered his head.

“Amun,” she said. “I’m sorry, I—”