Page 74 of The Lustrous Dark
In the third room, a group of women stands gathered around a long table. In the center, what looks like a three-dimensional map of Nezjar floats at eye level above the polished surface. Using precision focus, the touched ones direct the glowing vapor from their hands toward raised areas of the map that seem to represent things such as crop fields and major businesses.
As puzzling and intriguing as these spectacles are, the risk of being discovered is too high for them to look in on every room. Hind is already sitting up by the time they reach her. The lantern, now held by Khawla, paints her groggy face in a spectral light. Her eyes are so deeply hollowed, they might as well be holes. She grunts—annoyed, but proving she's not yet the ghost she looks to be.
Relief unfurls in Shay's chest. She's not too late.
“Too bright,” Hind screeches slinging her arm across her eyes.
Khawla lowers the lantern. “Sorry.”
Hind rubs her cheeks before focusing on Shay. “Shuika? What are you doing here?” Her gaze swings from Shadi back to Shay with growing fright. “How were you captured?”
“It's not what you think.” Shay shakes her head. “We're helping you escape.”
Hind points a thin finger first at Shadi and then at Walid. “Aren't they Moulays?”
Shay wants to explain that Shadi and Khawla are her friends. That they belong to a faction of the resistance movement. But her words get stuck as she stares at the shape of Hind's body up close. Knowing she was with child was one thing, but seeing the domed cup of her swollen belly makes it much more real.
“How is it possible?” she whispers.
Hind sighs, her hands instinctively cradling her womb. “It was foolish to come here. You should have stayed where you were safe.”
Safe?It's a small word. Like a pebble that starts an avalanche of remembered hurt and betrayal. The last time she felt truly safe was with Ghita. “In Al-Ghaba Mayita, you mean?”
“You had a better chance of surviving there than here, especially if your father finds you.”
“My what?” Shay retreats a step, and the backs of her legs bump the side of a body, another touched one sleeping on a low seddari. “You said you didn't know who my father is.”
The woman Shay has inadvertently disturbed moans. “What's going on?”
“Nothing, go back to sleep,” Hind mutters. “Just a pair of newcomers. I'll help them settle in.”
Hind attempts getting to her feet in a series of unsteady wobbles. Khawla jumps in and helps her, allowing Shay a better look at her mother once she's upright. Any questions about her paternity slip away. Hind's arms have grown thinner, and they were not substantial to begin with. Her legs look liable to snap under the weight of her protruding belly.
She tugs Shay close by the elbow, swaying with the effort. “You need to get out of here, quickly.”
“I'm not leaving without you,” Shay huffs.
“I'll only slow you down.” Hind's voice rises, high and tight, igniting a string of grumbles as more touched ones are jarred from their sleep. “Just go.”
“I have a safe place we can stay,” Shay insists, more gently. “If you don't care about saving yourself, do it for the child that grows inside you.”
Hind pouts, but doesn't argue, seemingly stymied by this.
“Khalti, we must hurry.” Khawla beckons them back toward the transportation box. Shay breathes a little easier when Hind allows herself to be shuffled along into the vestibule, where Shadi again turns the wheel that closes the sliding door. At the last moment, when only a slit remains, Shay thinks she glimpses a woman who rises to her feet and stares at them, a woman so pale that she radiates a faint shade of blue.
The opening seals, and with a noisy shudder, the box begins its upward return. Upon arriving back at their starting point below the prayer room, Shadidiscovers that the handle of the wheel, when in a locked position, can be used as a lift to assist with climbing out of the vestibule.
All seems calm as the group emerges and makes their way downstairs, but back in the courtyard, it becomes evident an alarm has been raised. Moulays scramble in all directions, orders and replies shouted back and forth across the distance. The unconscious Moulays must have awoken or been discovered.
“Come, you should leave by the back gate, where deliveries are made,” Walid says, gesturing for them to follow. “There are no incoming shipments on the schedule at this hour.”
“Good thinking,” Khawla says, “But maybe we should create a distraction, try to get everyone heading in the other direction.”
“The ammunition building is nearby.” Walid nods. “I know just the thing.”
They use the abundant plants and trees throughout the courtyard gardens as positions of cover and make their way to the ammunition room, the small building Shadi noted when surveying the complex.Smallbeing a subjective term.
“I'll be quick,” Walid promises.
