“If that’s where good news is best delivered, then certainly,” she said. Tilly looked at me and I nodded. She touched my shoulder before she exited the room. They stood just outside the door, where I could still see her listen and nod and point at something in the distance. I looked at the expression on the man’s face. If he was one of Antonia’s friends, why did he seem so wary of us?

I touched my hip, feeling for the lump beneath the fabric of my pants. Just before we left Antonia’s apartment with Indigo, I’d locked myself in the bathroom to use the small sewing kit in her medicine cabinet. My mother had taught me to sew buttons onto shirts, and in the bathroom I managed, without too much difficulty, to stitch the ring into the pocket of my pants. It felt routine now, corrupting my parents’ teachings so that I could find ways to survive in their absence.

I had thought about leaving the ring behind, placing it on the shelf of the medicine cabinet for Antonia to find. She likely would have taken it to the Kabul Museum. I didn’t know if any of the Ai-Khanoum pieces had made it there or if they were still trapped in the basement of Arg. But this ring had become a talisman for me. As if this loop of ancient gold held together boulders instead of gems, the ring prevented me from feeling untethered, vulnerable to any rogue wind.

I stood and looked out the office window. Tilly and the man were out of view. I could make out the shapes of people moving down the hall, and some passed close enough that I could see the shiny buttons of a blouse or the geometry of a man in a jacket. There were hardly any soldiers in sight in this part of the embassy, and those I saw didn’t seem to be carrying a weapon. People moved purposefully, but breezily.

The door opened and Tilly stepped back into the room, her lips thin and her shoulders pulled back. She tucked the envelope with my birth certificate back into her handbag. The man next to her had an expression equally grave on his face, his hands deep in his pockets.

“Aryana, honey, we’re going to spend the night in town. This gentleman, Mr. Harris, has been kind enough to find us a hotel close by so we won’t have to go far. By tomorrow,” Tilly said, turning her pointed attention to the man beside her, “Mr. Harris is going to have a shiny passport ready for you. He understands how eager we are to get you home.”

I, the reluctant liar, nodded and pretended my name was Aryana.