You could come back to Hara, Maryam had said. Your father has asked for you. A pause. The snip of shears. Maryam’s fingers, thin and cold, on her scalp. He asked me to remind you that as long as he lives, you have a place in our home.

But Roshana had no right to that knowledge, so Arwa only added, “My family understand I wish to mourn my husband in peace.”

Roshana gave a sniffle and released Arwa’s hands. She placed her fingertips gently against Arwa’s cheek. “You must still love him very much,” she said.

I should weep, Arwa thought. They expect me to weep. But Arwa didn’t have the strength for it, so she simply lowered her eyes and drew her shawl over her face instead, as if overcome. There was a flurry of noise from the crowd. She felt Roshana’s hand on her head.

“There, there, now,” said Roshana. “All is well. We will take care of you, my dear. I promise.”

“She should sleep,” Asima quavered from her seat. “We should all sleep. How late is the hour?”

It was not a subtle hint.

“Rabia,” said a voice. Arwa looked up. Gulshera was speaking, gesturing to one of the women in the crowd. “Show her where her room is.”

Rabia hurried over and took Arwa’s hand in her own, ushering her forward. Arwa had almost forgotten that Nuri was present, so she startled a little when she heard Nuri’s soft voice whisper her name and felt her hand at her back.

Roshana’s outpouring of emotion had both embarrassed Arwa and left her uneasy. She’d treated Arwa the way a woman might treat a daughter or a longed-for grandchild. She wondered if Roshana had either daughter or grandchild somewhere beyond the hermitage. She wondered what sort of family would discard a woman here to gather dust. She wondered what sort of family a woman would, perhaps, come here to hide from.

She thought of her mother’s hands running through her own shorn hair. She thought of the way her mother had wept, as Arwa hadn’t: full-throated, as if her heart had utterly broken and couldn’t be mended.

I had such hopes for you, Arwa. Her voice broke. Such hopes. And now they’re all gone. As dead as your fool husband.

Arwa followed Rabia through the crowd into the silence of a dark, curving corridor.

The widow Rabia was dying—nearly literally, it seemed, from the way she kept spasmodically pursing and loosening her lips—to ask Arwa questions that were no doubt completely inappropriate to put to a freshly grieving widow. Accordingly, Arwa kept dabbing her eyes and sniffling as they shuffled forward, mimicking tears. If the woman was going to ask her about her husband—or worse still, about what happened at Darez Fort—then by the Emperor’s grace, Arwa was damn well going to make her feel bad about it.