Payam grinned. “Of course I knew you would. Have some more tea! This commission will finally send me on my haj to Chenja. Birthplace of the martyr, may she bless this transaction. A fine day for both of us!”

Rhys stumbled outside into the warm dawn. The rest of the settlement was back from prayer, and the streets were alive with the hiss of cats and the song of Khairians. He had three hundred notes in his pocket. He went immediately to the trading post and paid two hundred and eighty five of it toward his tab, and used some of the rest to buy coconut milk, lizard eggs, protein cakes, rye flour, and a packet of sen-laced tobacco. He hid the tobacco deep in the pocket of his burnous and walked home.

Inside, Nasrin played at the center of the main room with a dead grasshopper. He heard Elahyiah singing softly to Rahim in the other room. Mehry would be at school by now.

“Da!” Nasrin said, and held out her arms. He stared blankly at her for a moment, because she suddenly reminded him so strongly of his dead daughter Souri that he experienced a moment of dissonance.

His body went through the expected motions. He reached for his daughter. Picked her up. She patted his face with her little hand. But he was still numb. Disconnected.

“Rhys?”

He turned. Sometimes it surprised him how easily he answered to that name. It was not his given name, Rakhshan, the name that marked him as a Chenjan deserter. He wondered if he would ever hear his given name again.

Elahyiah came to him. Her abaya was stained with spit up. She had a rag in one hand. Her skin was sallow, lusterless, and her tangle of dark hair was knotted back from her dark, gaunt face.

“I brought groceries,” he said, setting Nasrin back down. The girl cried out in protest and waved her arms at him.

“You received a job?”

“Yes, of course.” He pulled back the curtain from the set of shelves they used as a makeshift pantry. Four cockroaches the size of his thumb dropped from the curtain to the floor.

“What is it?”

“It’s a translation job. It’s not local, though. We’ll need to pack our things and go north with the next caravan.”

He carefully put away all of the groceries. When he was finished, she still had not said anything.

He turned.

Elahyiah’s face was stricken, as if he’d just said that her father died. He watched her crumple. She leaned against the wall for support. She pressed the rag to her face and choked back a sob.

“Elahyiah?” he said. He reached for her, but she smacked his hand away.

“No,” she said. “No more. No more of this.”

“It’s just one more move. A few weeks’ travel.”