He didn’t help anybody.

Unease filled my belly as I recalled the Boatman scooping Lugal Marus in his bony arms and disappearing into the Netherworld from the tomb. Mudi had told me—repeatedly to the point of nausea—that the Boatman was once a warrior, cursed to his post for murdering innocents in war. She said he spoke to healers because he was trying to gain his freedom by helping prevent the deaths of as many lives as he took. But despite her telling me to listen to what he had to say, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The breaths I heard in my ear when I was pounding out a new tincture in my mortar made me shudder. The glimpses of his face right before I fell asleep every night stole my breath.

Communing with the spirit world went against everything logic told me to do.

Kasha burst into the tent, his dark curls falling down past his shoulders. Since he’d escaped the Palace, he’d refused any trimming, saying he’d been shorn like a sheep once too often in his life. Now he would live his life as he wanted. This morning, I’d made him wash himself, but I’d let him win the haircut argument. At least it was clean.

“Sisters, girls, all of you. You’re wanted by the priestess. It’s dusk.” He swiped a cup of sweetwine off a table, dancing out of reach when I tried to grab it back. “It’s time!”

Simti grabbed me by both shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. “Now you’re going to wipe that worry line away.” She ran her finger between my eyebrows. “This wedding is a joyous occasion.”

I softened my forehead. Relaxed my shoulders. “I’m happy for you, Simti. I just worry about Mirrum. And I’ll miss you around our house.”

Simti shared the bedchamber with Arwia and Iltani. Huna used to share it as well, but she’d sickened and died from an infection she wouldn’t let me treat. She’d never forgiven me for pulling her away from the riches and glory she’d expected in the afterlife.

Her eyes glistened. “And I’ll miss you, too. All of you.”

Iltani hauled us both to our feet, her warm brown eyes glassy, a smirk on her dimpled face. “You know what I don’t miss? Our old rotten city of Alu. That pisspot. Coming here was the best decision I’ve ever made and praise be to Selu—I mean, Linaza—for that. I was a rat in that city. Here, I’m happy and feast like the goddess I am.”

“Iltani, you wouldn’t drink yourself into a stupor every night if you were happy.”

“Spoken like a woman who can’t hold her brew.” Iltani’s eyes dimmed for a moment before she tossed back the rest of her drink. “I couldn’t be happier to leave the stink of Alu behind.”

“Liar,” Nanaea said, shrugging out of her sweaty clothes.

She wiped herself down, and pulled on a tunic as blue as a summer sky, one that matched my ummum’s shawl tucked around her elbows. Stooping to eyeball herself critically in the looking glass, she smeared a dab of red on her lips, and topped it all off with a copper circlet on her shiny black hair.