I hummed a joyful tune, licking my lips.

“Glad you’re enjoying it,” he said. “Because it’s your lunch.”

“Well, that’s okay, I can—” I could buy us some groceries with my bonus money. But he’d hate that, out of principle. Anyway, with the kitchen a mess there’d be nowhere to put them. I was used to getting by on little. I would “survive.”

“Living in that castle hasn’t stretched your stomach yet? Surprised.”

“Oh!” Speaking of the castle … I fished out the folded note from my pocket and held it out to him. “Saba wanted me to give this to you.”

There was the slightest hesitation before he took it, but no hesitation whatsoever when he opened his drawer and dropped it in.

I chewed on my lip. “Don’t you want to read it?”

“While I was out, it occurred to me,” he said, licking honey off his fingers, “you’ll need a special thread for the hyena’s amulet.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So you don’t want to read it?”

“Do you want a patronage or don’t you?”

“I’d prefer a license, but it’s a little—”

“Too late for that,” he said at the same time I did. “Our concern now is that thread. It’s woven with pure gold, very rare. The church doesn’t keep it on hand and, for obvious reasons, I never thought I’d need it again. So we’ll have to go shopping.”

I felt my nose crinkle. I was surprised I knew what the word “shopping” meant, Jember had used it correctly so few times growing up. “Food and medicine are one thing, but you expect me to steal gold? They’ll notice it’s gone.”

“No, they won’t. No one frequents where we’re going.”

I stood up and paced a little. “I have money now. We can just buy it.”

“The closest place that sells it is half a day’s journey. Besides, what would be the fun in that?”

Seeing the spark of mischief in Jember’s brown eyes made my heart kick off with excited anticipation. And, God forgive me, I only felt the slightest bit of guilt as my lips slipped into a grin.

The sun was setting by the time we left on our errand, but the moment we exited the city gate and began walking west I realized it didn’t matter that the market was shutting down for the night.

“You didn’t say we’d be robbing a grave.”

Jember let out a breath of a laugh. “But I did say they wouldn’t notice.”

Twenty minutes later, we stood in front of the stairs that led down into a tomb. Jember leaned on the small shelf-like handle of his maqomiya, then removed a long candle from his pocket and held it out to me.