I press my feet to the floor of the coffee shop, anchoring myself. Boba had been preparing the treasures of Ai-Khanoum for transport to the museum. It is unlikely they ever made it out of the palace. Instead, they were joined by whatever else the guardians of the museum could manage to smuggle into the palace before the Taliban rolled through to cleanse the city of icons.

I take a deep breath. Since speaking with Shair, I have become even more determined to face my past.

“I have a ring from Ai-Khanoum. I’ve had it for years, but I don’t think it should be with me anymore. It should be in the Kabul Museum.”

Clay takes his second sip of coffee. I’m sure it is cold by now, but he seems like the type of person who is accustomed to consuming food and drink at the wrong temperature.

“But before I turn it over, I need to know it will be safe there.”

“Can I ask how you came to be in possession of this ring?” Clay asks gently.

I feel Mom’s eyes on me. I look out the window. Day has succumbed to dusk, and the city begins to twinkle.

Ai-Khanoum, city of the Lady Moon. How had she felt when men speaking in foreign tongues brushed the dust from her walls, when she saw her reflection in the glistening eyes of explorers eager to claim her?

So many nights I’ve dreamed of a woman whose figure ran the length of a city. I see her emerging from the khaki earth, a goddess waking from slumber. Sand slips away from her knees and forehead, moonlight fills in the slivers of space between her limbs and frames the skyline of her face, the arch of her spine, the contours of her breasts. She dips her toes into the tumbling waters of the Amu Darya, her movements graceful as in a fairy tale. It is a dream from which I am always eager to wake because I know, if I linger, I will only doom myself to see her fall again.

Chapter 50

From this dizzying height, the earth looks like a topographical map, with contours implied by shifts in hue. From this height, the eye cannot discern road from river—or friend from foe.

A few months ago, an American airstrike went awry. Sixty children were among the dead. I didn’t look at the pictures, but still my head swam with images of small, grayed lips and lifeless eyes. Of motionless angels wrapped in white sheets. I was struck with a migraine so severe I could hardly think straight as visions snapped through my head like shrapnel.

I cannot allow that to happen now. I open my bag and swallow two pills, washing them down with a sip of cranberry juice.