Free A Thousand Nights by E. K. Johnston Page B

hidden there. Lo-Melkhiin’s mother waited for me by a worn
statue. It did not have the unsettling eyes I had become accustomed to seeing in the qasr gardens. For some reason, it made me feel more at ease, even though I still had no idea what awaited me
this night.
    Lo-Melkhiin’s mother was even paler in the dark, and bore no henna on her skin as I did. As always, her head was crowned with her lion’s-mane wig, the sandy-colored hair bleached
white under the stars the same way the desert paled under the night sky. Her dishdashah was darker than mine—blue, or maybe purple—I could not tell with such little illumination. It was
simply cut and sewed, with no embroidery and no thread like the gold that highlighted mine. I wondered if I was overdressed, but when she saw me she only nodded, and then raised a hand to fix one
of the curls that had come loose while I walked.
    “Your dresser missed a pin,” she said to me. I felt her thin fingers against my scalp as she anchored the curl to the same pin as its neighbor. She pulled my veil forward slightly to
cover the mistake. “You must be sure to hold your head still.”
    “I will, my lady mother,” I said to her.
    She nodded again and took my arm in hers. We walked away from the comfort of the statue’s gaze to the sally port in the qasr wall. This, I realized, was why the garden was hidden. The
sally port was likely concealed from the outside as well, to keep enemies unaware of its exact location. I wondered how many within the walls knew of its location. I wondered if Lo-Melkhiin’s
mother only showed it to me now because she knew that I might die. Even if I lived, there were few whom I could tell.
    The qasr walls were wide enough that the sally port was more a tunnel than a door. Lo-Melkhiin’s mother did not need a lamp in the darkness under the stones, and I followed her because
there was nothing else I could do. We did not go all the way to the exit, which would have taken us outside the qasr walls altogether, but instead turned to the side. There was, to my surprise, a
door, and behind that, a narrow stair. This we took to the top of the wall, and I breathed cool night air without palace perfumes for the first time in all the days since I had been taken in my
sister’s stead.
    “Come,” said Lo-Melkhiin’s mother to me, after I had filled my lungs three times.
    We went around the top of the wall. I saw the familiar gardens below me on one side, and the unfamiliar city on the other. The gardens were dark; even the customary lamps were unlit tonight for
the star-falling party. The city, stretching out into the desert from the safety of the qasr wall, was lit up with hundreds of little lights. Lo-Melkhiin was no tyrant, it seemed; or at least, not
one who would demand a city’s darkness for his own sake.
    I did my best not to look out at the desert and think about my sister. Did she know that stars would fall this night? Such a thing had not happened before in our lifetimes. If a Skeptic was
required to predict the fall, then my sister would know nothing of it. I did not know if the priestly crafts of my mother and of my sister’s mother were profound enough to foretell such an
event. Would the sheep be unsettled? I did not imagine they would. They would sleep through the entire thing—unless a star landed beside them—and be none the wiser. Would the night
watchman see the stars fall and raise the alarm, not knowing what it meant?
    In all the preparation, I had not given much thought to the actual event. I did not know if the stars would fall to the sand itself. Lo-Melkhiin’s mother was not afraid, which gave me
courage, but I did not like the idea that something that was a part of the sky would not remain so. I pushed my fear away. If I was not afraid of the qasr’s master, I decided, I would be
afraid of nothing else.
    At length we came to a wide place atop the wall, where flat stones made a balcony that stretched from an elaborately