It dawned on me then how important he was to my craft. He helped me. He supported me. He championed me, trying to push me further.

With him by my side, I was better at what I did, not worse. Tears pricked my eyes.

He didn’t hold me back, he held me up.

The tears in my eyes rolled down my cheeks. “Dagan.”

He turned his head.

“I love you.”

He nodded, a small, sad smile on his face. “Don’t cry, my sweet. I love you, too.”

My voice broke. “And I’ll love you no matter what happens with Nasu, all right? We’re together in this, like you said before when you helped me with Rish. And together we’ll find a way out. I swear it. I swear it.”

I held his eyes as I cried. After a moment, his eyes filled, too, and he stretched across the outbuilding as far as he could, extending his long leg to try to reach me. I stretched as far as I could, too, and could just barely manage to brush my sandal against his.

We were a partnership, and for both of us, that meant giving. I wasn’t sure I was ready for marriage, and didn’t think I owed him that. But now, sitting here, looking at that amber-eyed boy, I knew what I wanted: a life with him. I was a healer, but I was a healer in love with my broad-shouldered, bighearted Dagan, and for the first time really ever, I realized that didn’t make me weak.

It made me powerful.

She is fair, she is fair, she is lovely and fair.

Singing my abum’s song, the Boatman sits in the corner of my old hut, mist enshrouding his shoulders, candlelight flickering softly from the sconce near his head.

Nasu kneels at his feet, sharpening a dagger against a leather strap, and Dagan sits next to Nasu, a big grin on his face as he casts his final lots and beats Uruku in twenty squares.

“Aha!” he shouts. “You bet against me, and you will lose every time!”

He collects his golden coins and shoves them into his purse at his waist, but they all fall out the second he drops them in. Morose, Uruku picks up my brother, Kasha, by the scruff of his neck and marches toward the door.

I try to speak—to stop him—but my mouth has been sewn closed with tight, neat stitches. Nanaea appears at my elbow, the needle and thread in her hands.

Near my ummum’s pallet, Iltani is braiding a rope, end over end over end over end, her tongue stuck in the corner of her mouth, a black cloak over her shoulders. Smears of kohl outline her eyes and run down her cheeks from where she’s been crying.

She is fair, she is fair, she is lovely and fair.

Dagan looks up. “Did you hear that?” he asks me. “Who is singing?”