“Yes, and you slam the door when you come into the house late at night and wake everyone up,” Arwia groused. She shifted our basket of offerings for Linaza to the other arm. We couldn’t enter the temple without a gift, so we’d brought a selection of our favorite things.

“At least I am good at earning coins, if not at being silent like the rest of you walking dead.”

Though she’d slept through our conversation early this morning, she’d jumped at the chance to leave the house. I’d begged her to stay behind, but she refused. Her ruse was that she wanted to sell Nanaea’s linens. The two of them had teamed together since Nanaea had proven to be ineffective in bartering, whereas Iltani could wring coins from a stone. But if I knew Iltani, she’d be flush with money in a half hour and two cups of sweetwine deep before noon.

“Just sell them quickly and get back home.” I lowered my voice. “There are people literally trying to kill us.”

“Kill you. They want nothing to do with me. I was a poor rat in Alu. They have no idea I’m here or who I am. Anonymity, as I’ve come to find out, is grand, especially if you’ve been after another woman’s husband.”

“For the sake of the gods, Iltani.” I scowled at her, but she just laughed.

We jostled around another group of warriors into the Libbu that encircled the Palace. Its six domes of rose gold glittered in the warm morning light, and jade-green tents were scattered around it like seeds in a field. People haggled with the merchants in front of them over baskets of fish and multicolored shawls.

Many of the merchants’ tents, however, were gone. The spice tent had disappeared. The silks. Even quite a few of the stalls selling trinkets for children and scorpion amulets for praying to Linaza. A few weeks ago, I’d had to trade healing services for just the smallest bottle of arnica, and I was rapidly running out. Trade from the sea had been cut off by the skirmishes near the ports, apparently led by Uruku and his mercenaries. It was going to be severely problematic if it wasn’t resolved soon.

A family went by, a little girl clinging to the mother’s hand, a skinny father leading two roped rams at her side. Iltani’s eyes dimmed as she followed the man with her eyes.

“Is that one of the husbands you’ve been hounding?” Shading my eyes against the sun’s glare, I looked up at the rounded crimson temple that sat in the middle of the Palace’s domes. Arwia had said that the queen spent the morning in prayer and we could find her there.

“No.” She cleared her throat, and the twisted smile was back on her face. “Reminded me of someone from Alu. Now go. Shoo. Be gone. I have money to make, and your presence reduces my chances significantly.”

As we reached the sandstone stairs, I felt a surge of love for this poorly mannered friend of mine and tugged Iltani into a hug. “Make smart choices. And stay with Dagan and Kasha. Think of them, if not yourself, all right?”