“Spare nothing,” Yasha declared, raising his staff. “Make him slaver at the mouth. Fill him to bursting!”

  Manservants and maidservants stormed the chamber, bearing platters stacked with enough sweetmeats to rot a man’s teeth. Kaleb dropped to his knees in thanksgiving. Wafers sparkled before him, slathered with honey, resting in beds of almond paste. He scooped them greedily, shamelessly, for they were sweeter than the lips of an adulteress. He scraped yogurt bowls clean, licked them shiny. He poured raisins down his throat, coughed, laughed, and kept going.

  After choking down the last bite, Kaleb fell onto his back and let out a belch. Must be how fatlings felt before the slaughter. If that was Sidoniya’s plan, so be it. He could die happily now.

  Yasha tossed something. Kaleb sat up, finding a twine-bound bundle. He untied it, separating a robe from leather sandals.

  The chamber had emptied, Sidoniya’s beasts nowhere to be found. Nor anyone else. Not that Kaleb minded. He needed a moment to himself. He slipped into his robe and laced his sandals.

  “Sidoniya demands an audience with us tomorrow,” Yasha said.

  Kaleb rubbed the back of his neck, happy not to feel fur. “Were you lying to that girl, or will she really be your disciple?”

  “She will indeed.”

  Jaspeth sighed heartily, making himself known. “See, Yasha? Kaleb’s a fool. At this rate he won’t live to see another moon.”

  Yasha patted Kaleb. “I trust my disciple to live a long, fruitful life.”

  “Easy to say when you’re not attached to him.”

  Yasha rapped his staff against the floor. “I’d like to show you something, Kaleb.”

  Kaleb stood. “What about Sidoniya? What’d you tell her? I reckon it has something to do with your father.”

  Yasha nodded, almost to himself. “Nothing that concerns you. You’ve enough to worry about.”

  “Fine, but—”

  Yasha suddenly gestured toward the door. “Show him in!”

  A maidservant entered, leading a camel.

  Kaleb recognized those eyes, those lashes. He embraced Eber. “Thought I’d lost you, boy! Where were you?”

  “Where you left him,” Yasha said. “Care to join me in the springs? You refused me last time.”

  Kaleb nodded, unhanding Eber. “I could use a bath myself.” Several baths. “Where’s Nebu? I need to ask her something.”

  “In the guest quarters,” Yasha said, starting away. “No more trouble, please. I’d like to leave without starting a war.”

  “What do you need to ask that girl?” Jaspeth asked.

  “Worry about yourself,” Kaleb said.

  He stalked the never-ending halls of the palace, passing room after room, sandals slapping marble flags. How could anyone live here? One could grow old wandering these halls, never seeing the same wall twice.

  He reached a great, sprawling warren of high ceilings and quiet coves. The guest quarters. Two guards stepped from their alcoves like they’d been carved from the walls themselves, raising spears.

  “Not another step, boy,” one growled.

  Kaleb pushed away his bronze spearpoint. “I’m with Yasha. We’re Sidoniya’s guests.”

  The man swallowed, lowering his spear. “Come along.”

  “I’m looking for a girl, the annoying one.”

  He pointed down the corridor. “Last chamber on the right, before the turn.”

  Kaleb stepped through a curtained doorway. Nebu was here, back turned, hands folded in prayer. Moonlight streamed through a latticed window, making her glow.

  “Done yet?” Kaleb asked.

  She yelped and spun around. “Don’t scare Nebu like that! Especially when she’s praying.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Did you hear? Nebu’s joining you! But why does Yasha need disciples?”

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  “Ask him yourself,” Kaleb said. “What do you know about Azavel the Wise?”

  Nebu crossed her legs. “Only that she’s the mother of Nebu’s tribe, and yours. Toraph was strong, as was Baphom, and Azavel mothered them both.”

  He nodded. “We’re flesh and blood, aye, along with three other tribes. Would my father have gone to one of those tribes?”

  “Maybe.”

  “He could be living among your tribe?”

  Her face darkened. “No one wants to live among Nebu’s tribe. They’ve been slaves for hundreds of years.”

  Kaleb clenched his teeth, unable to make sense of it all. “We used to be one people, and now we’re all in chains? How’d that happen? How’d we lose Azavel?”

  Nebu looked into his eyes, her expression graver than should’ve been possible for someone like her. “That’s what happens when you throw your children to the jackals.”

  Night had fallen outside the ziggurat. The sky was clear, glittering with constellations. The Sailor drifted boldly along the ecliptic. Not far off, the Blushing Star fell within bowshot of the Eight-Pointed Star.

  Beneath a waning moon, Kaleb tested Eber’s new saddle. Yasha must’ve bought it in the market. Sturdy, yet uncomfortable. Rawhide covered its wooden frame, and there was no give. Kaleb’s tailbone ached.

  The breeze sent a spray of almond blossoms in his face. One stuck to his nose, and he sneezed on Eber. There were other scents in the air—sweat, semen, and perfume wafting from roadside terraces. There, lovers lay in tangles, groaning, writhing beneath the stars.

  Someone slinked out of the shadows, a cat-eyed whore whose bangles tinkled with each step. She stopped Kaleb and caressed his thigh with a henna-painted hand. “Any shekels, little lamb?”

  Jaspeth showed himself. “How far does three coppers get us?”

  Her jaw dropped, and a shudder passed through her entire body. She turned, screeching, scampering for safety. Not even a whore would suffer Jaspeth.

  What did that make Kaleb?

  He hauled on the reins, bringing Eber up short at the foot of a rocky hill. He swung down, and his sandals crunched into gravel. Three caves yawned up ahead, each one belching steam. The middle one whispered.

  He spat and ducked inside.

  Heat hit him like a slap. He followed muffled voices, followed blue-flamed sconces mounted along the walls, and both led him to a hollow where stone spikes hung from the ceiling. It reeked of sulfur in here, and a troop of dog-faced baboons perched among the crags, grunting, chittering in their animal tongue, grooming each other with overeager hands. Kaleb stumbled over a heap of robes and sandals.

  “That you, Kaleb?”

  He followed the voice, then glimpsed someone beneath the shifting steam. Yasha, in the form of a woman. She sat in the spring, hands folded behind her head, hanks of wet, black hair covering her nipples.

  Next to her in the spring was Sidoniya.

  Kaleb scowled, feeling his bile rise.

  Sidoniya lifted her chin haughtily. “What’s wrong, Toraphite? Used to bathing with fleas?”

  She won’t get a rise out of me. Kaleb shed his robe and tested the spring with his foot. He plunged into the steaming soup, giving the other two a wide berth.

  “I’d no idea Toraphites were so prudish,” Sidoniya sneered.

  “Badmouth my tribe all you like,” Kaleb said. “We’re better than you layabouts.”

  “Did you enjoy your hooves? They looked quite good on you.”

  “Watching you weep like a lovesick child was better.”

  Yasha sighed. “Can’t you two get along?”

  Kaleb smacked the water. “Not after what she did.”

  Sidoniya narrowed her eyes at him. “Are criminals not punished where you’re from?”

  Beautiful eyes, he might add. Maddeningly beautiful. He tried to focus. “I’m only here to find my father.”

  “Your father’s not here,” Yasha said, wringing her hair out with both hands. “I already looked.”

  “I doubt you looked everywhere,” Kaleb said. “But knowing my father, he wouldn’t be in a place like this.”

  “Mmm,” Sidoniya said. “If he’s your father, he doesn’t belong here.”

  Jaspeth groaned. “Kill me if I must listen to any more bickering.”

  Kaleb considered that.

  It’d be easy to drown his brother, easy to end his pitiful life. Here, in front of Yasha and Sidoniya. No one would care, and the world would be a better place afterward. Murdering one’s kin was wrong, though. Kaleb wasn’t so rotten, right?

  “Tell that thing to stop leering at me,” Sidoniya growled. “I’ll gouge those eyes out.”

  “Listen to her,” Kaleb muttered to Jaspeth.

  She grimaced. “Strange that no one ever put you down, what with that abomination at your side.”

  Kaleb felt a baboon fingering his scalp, but he was too irked by Sidoniya to care. “What about your brother? I heard Yasha back there.”

  “Apharoth is no concern of yours.”

  “He killed my tribesmen.”

  “That sounds like something he’d do.”

  “You won’t be getting him back alive.”

  Sidoniya smirked. “He’ll do worse to you than I ever did, Toraphite.”

  “Enough, Kaleb,” Yasha said, unstoppering her wineskin. “Sidoniya met our demands. The least we can do is return Apharoth.”

  Kaleb shifted as the baboon sniffed his scalp. “You dragged me into a right mess, didn’t you? All I wanted was to find my father.”

  She took a hard quaff, then chuckled. “Nothing worth having comes easily, Kaleb.”

  Sidoniya splashed her face with palmfuls of water. “Only here do things come easily, which is why you shouldn’t leave. Forget your damn promise to Azavel’s children. Live here in plenitude.”

  Kaleb finally swung his fist, and the baboon leaped away. “Yasha’s not one to sit still.”

  Yasha stoppered her skin. “My disciple knows me too well. Truth be told, I’m already restless. There’s more to the world than Hezebel.”

  Sidoniya raised a brow. “Oh? And what will you do after you’ve seen enough of this world?”

  “Maybe that’s when I’ll return to Hezebel. Yes, and grow my own vineyard. I’ll make wine that’s coveted by the gods themselves.”

  “I’ll be sure to partake of it.” The queen turned to Kaleb, regarding him suspiciously. “Well, Toraphite? What’ll you do when everything is said and done?”

  “Tell her I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Her?”

  “My mother.”

  Kaleb leaned back, soaking up the spring. It couldn’t cleanse him of his sins, but at least it could wash away the filth of days past. That was enough for tonight.