market, Maha by her side.
“This way,” she told Maha, and Maha gave her an indulgent smile and followed along. Talif had said the pottery school was to the right, and she spotted it immediately. A swinging sign hung from a wooden post driven into the front of a low building, with Thrower’s Haven written in Arabic script. “There it is,” Laila cried, even though she knew Maha could see it just as easily as she could.
They moved through the crowd on light feet, arriving at the front entrance to the studio in moments. Nostalgia washed over her, gentle and warm.
“I used to come to places like this,” she whispered to Maha. “When I visited my grandfather. I was so young, but they let me come sit in the classes anyway.”
The two women looked through the wide double doors, which were thrown open and held back with sandstone doorstops. The studio inside was one long room, airy and whitewashed, the back wall open to a courtyard. Twelve potter’s wheels dotted the space, and eleven of them were being used by children whose laughter bounced up to the ceiling and fell down over Laila like rays of sunshine. The hum of the wheels buzzed below everything else. Talif bent over one of the wheels, and he was laughing with a boy who looked about ten. The clay beneath their hands wiggled in and out of form and finally collapsed. “You’ll get it next time,” said Talif, and then he looked up. “Your High—”
“Ara,” Laila said quickly. “Call me Ara.”
A smile spread across Talif’s face. “Ara it is. Welcome to the pottery studio. Would you care to join us?”
“Very much.” The way her throat tightened surprised her. “I would like that.”
“Class, let’s greet Ara. She is a friend of mine and a master potter.”
Laila’s heart thrilled at the sound of master potter, though she wasn’t sure that a master’s degree necessarily made her a master of anything.
“She’ll be...helping us today?” Talif tossed the question across the room at her, and Laila snagged it out of the air.
“I will,” she answered. “I will.”
Laila hung her veil from a hook on the wall by the door and plunged in feet first. She bent down next to the closest student—a little girl named Jana—and helped her with the base of the little pot on her wheel. Jana’s dark eyes danced, and dimples decorated her cheeks when she grinned. Something in Laila’s chest unknotted. The world tightened down to the pottery studio, with the chatter of children against her ears, the warm breeze coming in from the open back wall, and the way the clay felt under her hands.
“Ara.”
The soft voice came from just off her shoulder, and Laila glanced up from the pot she’d started when nobody else needed help. The empty potter’s wheel had called to her. “What is it, Talif?”
She kept her eyes on the clay in her hands and finished off the lip of the pot, letting the wheel come to a slow halt.
“It’s been several hours,” Talif said gently. “I’m worried you might be wanted back at the palace.”
Laila blinked and stretched. The light outside in the courtyard had a warmer glow, trending toward evening. “I don’t think time has ever gone so quickly in my life,” she said. “I should get back, you’re right.”
“I’ll fire this in the kiln for you,” Talif said. “Go. And you’re welcome here any time. I mean it.”
“I’ll be back.” She hustled to the sink at the side of the room to wash her hands, signaling to Maha to call the driver. “I can’t wait.”
Laila slid into her seat in Zayid’s private dining room, a smaller version of the royal dining room on the first floor. Though the room held a round table that could seat five or six, they sat alone.
“Hi.” She brushed a stray lock of hair away from her face. “I’m sorry I was a bit late.”
He considered her carefully, dark eyes grazing over her skin. “No apology necessary. Your trip to the market seems to have done you good. What did you do while you were there? Shop?”
“I just threw some clay around at Talif’s studio.” An unstoppable grin came to Laila’s face. “It always makes me feel better.”
Zayid nodded slowly. “So that explains the clay in your hair.” He reached forward and plucked something from just over her ear—a small hunk of dried clay. “And on your face.” He swept the pad of his thumb over her cheek, and Laila’s eyes