This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi Page A

who now needed to create five gowns in addition toperforming her regular duties, suddenly required her hands more than ever—which meant her journey to the apothecary could not wait until tomorrow.
    It was on aching feet that Alizeh dredged through the evening’s snowfall, arms tight against her chest, chin tucked into her collar. Frost grew steadily along the wet tendrils of her hair, unruly strands whipping in the wind as she went.
    Already Alizeh had paid a visit to the local hamam, where she’d washed the day’s filth from her body. She always felt better when she was clean, and though the task had cost her physically, she felt it ultimately worthwhile. More: the night air was bracing, and the cold shock to her uncovered head kept her thoughts focused. Alizeh required a sharpness of mind never more than when she walked the streets at night, for she knew well the dangers posed by desperate strangers in the dark. She was careful to remain quiet as she moved, keeping to the light, and to herself.
    Still, it was impossible to ignore the uproar.
    People were chanting in the streets, some singing, some yelling, all too drunk to be understood. There were large crowds dancing, all of them working together to hold aloft what appeared to be a scarecrow; the straw figure wearing a crude iron crown. Masses of people were sitting in the middle of the road smoking shisha and drinking tea, refusing to clear the streets even as horses whinnied, carriages teetered, and noblemen emerged from the plush interiors of their conveyances shouting and brandishing whips.
    Alizeh walked through a cloud of apricot-flavored smoke, shook off an evening peddler, and pushed through a narrowgap in a group laughing uproariously at the story of a child who’d caught a snake in its hands and, delighted, had dipped the serpent’s head over and over again into a bowl of yogurt.
    Privately, Alizeh smiled.
    Some people, she noticed, were carrying signs—some held high, others dragging behind like a dog on a leash. She tried to make out the printed words, but none could be deciphered in the dim, flickering light. One thing was for certain: this was an unusual level of merriment and madness, even for the royal city, and for a moment Alizeh’s curiosity threatened to overcome her better senses.
    She tamped it down.
    Strangers jostled her, a few swiping at her snoda, laughing in her face, stepping on her skirts. She’d learned long ago that servants of her station were the most universally despised, considered fair game for all manner of cruelty. Others in her position were eager to remove their snodas in public spaces for fear of drawing unwanted attention, but Alizeh could not remove her snoda without great risk to herself; though she felt certain she was being hunted, she did not know by whom, which meant she could never let down her guard.
    Alizeh’s face was—unfortunately—too easily remembered.
    Hers was the rare exception; it was otherwise difficult to spot the difference between Jinn and Clay, as Jinn had thousands of years ago regained not only their vision but the varying levels of melanin in their hair and skin. Alizeh, like many in Ardunia, had yards of glossy, coal-black curls and an olive complexion. But her eyes—
    She did not know the color of her eyes.
    Occasionally they took on the familiar brown of burnt umber, which she believed to be the natural color of her irises, but more often her eyes were a piercing shade of ice blue, so light they were hardly a color at all. It was no wonder then that Alizeh lived always with a perpetual chill, one she felt even in the sockets of her eyes. Ice sluiced through her clear veins even in the pit of summer, immobilizing her in the way she imagined only her ancestors could understand, for it was from them that she’d inherited this irregularity. The resulting effect was so disorienting few could bear to look at the girl—and yet, Alizeh’s face