Huda hurried outside, trying to hide her relief. Rania had been away in Baghdad for almost three months—a lifetime for twelve-year-old Huda. She feared Rania would forget all about her, now that she was a student at the prestigious Baghdad Ladies High School. Huda imagined Rania and the other highborn girls trading tips on where to vacation in Britain, or which Paris bakery had the best croissants. Huda had no doubt they ordered them in flawless French.

The two girls hurried past the sheikha’s fragrant rose garden, then the cavernous garage with the family’s collection of shiny motorcars.

“So what did you do for fun in Baghdad?” asked Huda.

“You know,” Rania shrugged. “The usual stuff.”

What was this stuff? wondered Huda. She had no idea what was “usual” for a student at Baghdad Ladies High School, and Rania was more mysterious than ever. As they crept past the stable, a sleek gray mare poked her nose from the window of her stall and whinnied. Huda pulled a floppy carrot from her pocket.

“What else have you got hidden in there?” giggled Rania. “A mother goat? A top hat? A fishing rod?”

“I’ve got what we need for our ceremony,” she said, determined to show Rania that she could be mysterious too.

The mare snuffled the treat from Huda’s palm, and the girls continued on, past the vegetable garden and the sheikh’s beehives. They paused when they reached a wall of tall grass.

“You’re not scared, are you?” said Rania.

“Of course not.” Huda raised her chin. She might not know how to order breakfast in French, but the wetlands were her domain. “Let’s go.”

Hemmed in by hissing curtains of grass, the two girls followed a narrow goat track to the river. Rania eyed the silty shore nervously.

“What now?”

“Come on,” said Huda, slipping off her sandals and feeling the sand between her toes. “I’ll show you.”

She had to admit, she was enjoying the situation. Rania usually seemed so confident, so adult. In Baghdad, she had celebrated her fourteenth birthday, shed the last traces of baby fat, and returned to the farm taller and more beautiful than ever. Huda felt dowdy beside her, even in her best apricot dress. But at least here, surrounded by rattling cattails and fleets of clucking waterfowl, she was in her element.

“I have one more special item in my pocket,” she announced.

Rania leaned closer. “What is it?”

Huda paused, milking the drama, just like her grandmother did before revealing the signs in the coffee grounds. With a flourish, she extracted a knife from her pocket. The double-bladed jambiya was no machete, less than six inches long from the tip to the base of the buffalo-horn handle. But when Huda held it aloft, the curved blade caught the sun and split it into rainbows.

“This is for our blood oath,” she proclaimed.

Rania’s eyes grew round.

“Where did you get it?”