Everything seemed to be falling into place. And as soon as I watched the bridal gifting to make sure Yashub made good on his bargain with us, I would take Uruku out if it was the last thing I did.

Their hair swept up and away from their slender necks, the girls in the gifting kept their eyes down at their dirty feet. Hordes of wealthy men, with thick, beaded necklaces around their throats, threw elbows and shoved one another for a better view of the girls paraded past their greedy eyes.

My insides felt as if they’d been boiled in oil as they trailed past me. When Iltani walked by, red rouge caked over her freckles, lips smeared with gold, I reached out and grabbed her foot to try to tell her it would be all right, but she was not in her head. She kicked my hand and yanked away from me, her face screwed up in rage as she was tugged along. She looked garish. Dangerous. And itching to fight. Dagan murmured something soothing, but his words were lost to me.

My friend.

Iltani spat insults to those who crowed at her as she was half marched, half dragged to the center platform. There were at least thirty girls in white gifting tunics—maybe more—shoved into a cluster like little sacrificial doves. Iltani looked too beautiful for her own good. The wealthiest men, who got to choose first, would select her, and Yashub was not the richest by far, though Dagan had tried to give him ample proof otherwise. Yashub’s purse bulged with coins, and a silver headdress glittered on his grizzled head.

Dagan sighed bleakly as the girls were arranged on the dais. He picked a callus on his hand. Opened his mouth to speak. Clamped it shut. On our trek into the city, we’d barely spoken a word. Every time he’d opened his mouth, he’d closed it, as if thinking better.

After a few minutes, I could take it no more. “What’s wrong? Do you not agree with our plan?”

He rubbed his eyes. “It’s not about the plan,” he whispered. “I’m upset about Rish. I’m really upset, actually. I couldn’t sleep last night while he suffered.”

I twisted my hands in my lap. “That’s my fault. I should have known better than to leave his wound open.”

He flushed. “I’m not upset at you. I just wish he weren’t in such pain.”

A noose of guilt tightened around my throat.

Shame pulled it tighter.

“I do, too. I should have listened to myself, and he would probably be healing instead of suffering right now.”

He glanced furtively at the crowds milling about, while vendors sold food too pricey for the starving people at the edges of the crowd to buy.

“Are you listening to yourself now, though?” He laced his fingers together over his knees. “That’s what I was trying to say. Maybe Mudi was right that the Boatman is trying to commune with you? You told me last night that he’d taken a bottle from a satchel he was wearing. But yet, you mixed a poison from flowers you found by the river. Are you sure there wasn’t something in your healing satchel you could have used? Did you look?”