“Guardsmen! Thieves!” she bellowed, her booming voice causing heads to turn from all over the Libbu. Iltani upended the booth in the woman’s face, sending tinctures and casks flying. Startled, people screamed, looking around in alarm. But Iltani dropped to the ground and stuffed her satchel with as many tinctures and potions as she could.

“Come on!” I yanked Nanaea’s arm, hauled Iltani from the ground, and ran toward the Libbu gate to flee as people pointed at us, at others, alarm on their faces, cries in their throats. But Iltani pulled all of us in the opposite direction.

“What are you doing!” I screeched as she tugged us around booths toward the Palace.

“They’re going to be looking for three women dressed as men at the Libbu gate. We can’t go out looking like this.” She yanked me around a Libbu stall where two young women were shooing flies away from baskets of fish stinking in the midday sun.

“Hide us,” Iltani barked at the women. One of them, drooping in an emerald-green tunic, belly filled with child, looked up with mild curiosity. She shrugged a plump shoulder and looked at her friend.

“We should hide ’em.”

Her friend paused, a handful of grapes halfway to her mouth. “You always do this, Bikku. Such a bleeding heart. They’re probably thieves.”

She frowned at us, and Iltani growled. “I’ll slit both of your throats if you don’t. Your choice.” She flicked the robe away from her thigh, where she’d strapped a long, gleaming blade.

The pregnant woman—Bikku—clutched her belly protectively and jerked her head behind her booth. Both went back to eating their fruit as we sneaked around behind the stall.

“Dear Selu, what is wrong with you?” Nanaea glowered at Iltani as she tugged us to the ground into a pile of fish guts, scaring a dog away that was eating its afternoon meal. All at once, I felt something prickly on my cheek, as if a finger was brushing against me. The image of the Boatman holding out his bony fist with something tucked inside wavered up into my vision, and I gasped, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes.

“Stop it! Stop!” I whispered.

“Sister, what is wrong with you?” Nanaea crouched low, peeling the beard from her face.

“Nothing,” I responded shakily. Everything. Dead men’s heads moaning on a wall and cold fingers of the Boatman on my cheek are not normal. Not normal!

“Well, figure it out.” Iltani slapped my thigh. “You’re squawking like a chicken, and we need to plan our next steps.”

“Yes. What are we going to do?” Nanaea looked around the Libbu, the place where she’d stood not long ago, receiving the so-called honor of being a dead man’s bride.

“I’m not sure.” I bit my lip, swallowed the panic that had settled in my throat, and tried to think about it logically. Rationally. We needed to get to Assata’s to meet Dagan and figure out a way to give Uruku the gochala.