Those were not thoughts I needed to have. That way lay madness and would be exactly what Vadoma wanted. In fact, I thought maybe all of this was exactly what Vadoma wanted. Divide and conquer. It had taken less than a day upon her arrival in Castle Lockes to weave disharmony and chaos into my carefully constructed life. I’d gotten my happily ever after, and now look where I was: in a hot and dusty room so very far away from home with people I didn’t trust, all the while I wasn’t speaking to my mentor nor his mentor, Kevin and Gary were getting divorced (or something, I didn’t even want to know), Ryan was being an asshat who I wanted to kick in the shins, but then also suck his cock. That left Tiggy. Sweet, wonderful, reliable Tiggy. I would seek him out as soon as I left here.
“Ruv,” Vadoma said, sounding pleased about something. “Perhaps you can show my grandson here Mashallaha. Alone. Just the two of you. By yourselves.”
And there went subtlety right out the window. “Maybe we could—”
“It would be my honor,” Ruv said, bowing low.
“There isn’t time—”
“Nonsense,” Vadoma said. “You are our guest. Ruv will show you Mashallaha. Tonight, we have a feast in your honor. Tomorrow, you will go to the dragon. And we’ll see what we see.”
“I really must insist that we—” I tried again.
“I’m an old lady,” Vadoma said. “I’m tired now. I must rest. Leave me.”
And I was ushered out by Ruv before I could even say another word.
OUTSIDE THE stacked carriages, I blinked against the harsh sunlight, my eyes having gotten used to the darkened room. It took me a moment to realize that Ruv had his hand on my arm still, and I pulled out of his grip as gently as I could. He didn’t react.
“There are many wonderful things about Mashallaha,” he said. “The greatest wonders in all of Verania.”
“I’m sure there are,” I said. “And your city is very beautiful. But we’ve been traveling a great distance and—”
“Your mother grew up not that far from here. Did you know that?”
Well, no. I hadn’t. And while there was an itch under my skin to go find Ryan, to make sure he and the others were okay, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see where she’d come from. Because regardless of what had brought us here or why she’d left to begin with, this was my history. And I was immersed in it for the first time. Granted, this place and its people hadn’t made the best first impression, what with the racism and the general sense of coercion for me being here at all, but still….
“She did?” I asked.
Ruv smiled at me. “I didn’t know her, obviously, as she was gone before I ever came to be. But I’ve heard the stories. People speak of her with much love and respect.”
I frowned. “I thought they weren’t allowed to speak of her at all. Isn’t that the point of being shunned?”
“She followed her heart,” Ruv said. “And while tradition is important, there is something romantic about it that sparks the imagination. And here you are now, returning to where she left. It’s like a circle has been completed.”
In a weird way, it was. This place didn’t feel like home—it would never feel like home, I was sure of that—but there was something about it. Something that felt familiar. And it wouldn’t take long, right? The others probably wouldn’t even notice I’d been gone by the time we’d get back. And to think about what I could tell Mom I’d seen when I got back to Lockes….
So I said, “Yeah. Sure. Okay. Lead the way.”
And the Wolf’s smile widened.
MASHALLAHA WASN’T big, certainly not compared with Lockes or Meridian City, or even compared to the Port. But it was bustling in a way the others weren’t. Lockes always carried with it the divide between the classes, the rich and the middle and the slums. In Meridian City, the heart that beat within it was diseased and corrupted, and it was every man (or woman) for themselves.
Mashallaha was different in that there was a thrum to it, an order to everything everyone did. There didn’t seem to be any disparity in wealth, no sense of desperation or deviousness. There were no nobles. There were no working whores on the street corners. Oh sure, people hawked their wares, shouting in bright, colorful voices—that was something similar, something I thought was universal in almost every market. But it was the way the people went about it. There didn’t seem to be any slick solicitation, no shifty-eyed I’ll make you the best deal I can. People came, people bought what they needed, and they left.
It was… different.
It didn’t mean it was better, though.
Because I could see the curiosity on their faces, the barely disguised looks in my direction before the gazes turned away and the whispers began. It made sense, really, because while there wasn’t a specific division in say, the affluence of the people around me, there was a major difference between those from Mashallaha and those that weren’t. Those that were from Mashallaha were dark skinned and dark haired, dressed for the desert. Most were barefoot in loose clothing made of thin, sheer material. Both men and women wore colorful scarves around their heads to protect them from the sun above.
Then there were the tourists, the light-skinned people who wore clothing perhaps not best suited for the desert, sweat on their faces as the women cooled themselves with large ornate gypsy-made fans, the men wiping away excess moisture with small embroidered gypsy-made kerchiefs.
And then there was me. Stuck somewhere in the middle. I was not as light skinned as the tourists. I was not as dark as the gypsies. I was somewhere in between. That coupled with the fact that my grandmother was the leader of most of the people around me no doubt added to whatever mystique they thought I had, for better or worse.
It was uncomfortable, that feeling.
I was used to being stared at these days.