very small in his hand. I wondered what it would feel like to have it aimed our way. “No trouble, understand?”
“You’re supposed to return us unharmed, though,” Johnny said. “That’s why they put us in here. You’re not going to shoot us. There would be an international incident.”
“Oh? Move.” He paused, and met her gaze, then flicked it down to the big officer on the floor, getting to his hands and knees, trying to focus on our faces. “Quickly.”
The new cop led us out into the hallway, as crowded as the front of the station had been, and down a set of newer concrete stairs into a car. We’d grabbed our bags, but hadn’t taken the water. My mouth and throat felt so dry that I thought I might start coughing and simply choke to death on my swollen tongue. And as soon as I’d thought it, it was all I could think about. Panic placed a hand over my face and pressed down.
Through graying vision and the thick plastic grate between us and the new cop, I heard Johnny say, “Who sent you?”
“You know who.”
“No, I mean who specifically. They hardly have enough power to let you pull something like this, do they?”
“No, we do not; and some argued against using it at all. But the cats have been reporting unusual sightings lately,” he said, quietly, in perfect English with a faint French accent, his voice much deeper than before. I bit down a gasp as I watched his face shift and blur in the rear-view mirror, as if he’d been wearing a thin mask that had suddenly floated away. “They saw you come into the station.”
“Lucky,” Johnny said. “Can you give us a ride to Al-Qarawiyyin?”
“Tariq has asked to speak to you.”
“We can’t spare the time.”
“I know you cannot,” the cop said. “Not if even half the rumours are true. They will raise the alarm at the station at once, and then there will be a city-wide alarm. I do not know if anything can be done about that. We cannot be everywhere at once. But I agree with their decision to bring you, and we are going all the same.”
“Sightings of what?” she said thoughtfully, evidently agreeing to disagree with the last part of his statement.
“…Impossible things.”
He fell silent then, and refused to answer any more of her questions. After a few blocks, we pulled over and he bought water and a bag of smoked almonds at a haroun, then ducked into the back seat and sliced through our zip-ties. Johnny opened my water and fed it to me in little sips while I tried to get circulation back into my fingers.
“What’s going on?” I said as we got going again, cold water splashing down my shirt. “Don’t really care who answers. Pick someone.”
“You’ll see,” Johnny said, staring intently at the front seat. “Almond?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I WAS ABOUT to doze off when the car stopped, and we stepped out into the coolness and silence of a back alley, ending in a one-storey white clay building.
“Where—” I began, and flinched as the headlights turned on; we both turned and watched the cop car reverse out. When I looked back, dazzled from the light, Johnny was already disappearing into the building’s open door.
We crossed a small round courtyard, then entered a hallway, dim and heavily scented—roses, pine cleanser, herbs. There was another odour underneath it, though, as if someone had hosed the place down with air freshener to hide something. I felt my hackles go up. The walls were hung with several layers of rugs, the floor white tile. Light came from a few dim, wide lamps, barely bright enough to show the rich colours of the rugs. A small movement as we passed showed a gray tabby darting down one of the hallways. The cats have been reporting unusual sightings...
I shook my head, and we emerged into a low-ceilinged room ringed with wooden benches, the floor covered in more rugs, cushions, and blankets. The walls were plaster interspersed with dark wood beams. A small metal cart held a duplicate of Johnny’s coffee machine from back home, blue enamel instead of red.
“Tariq,” Johnny said, her voice inscrutable. I strained to hear something in it: hope, excitement, happiness, fear.
“Joanna. What a long way you have come. I almost did not believe it.” A tall man emerged from another door with his hands out, so suddenly I thought for a second that one of the shadows had stepped away from the column.