Chapter 3

The landing was, as promised, gentle.

Selene felt it through the floor of the cabin—a subtle shift in pressure, the tires meeting the runway with a kiss rather than a claim. The reverse thrust hummed, the aircraft slowed, and through the oval window she watched the world go from white cloud to gray tarmac to the particular gold of desert light that she'd been learning to recognize in the weeks since the wedding.

She was awake this time. She'd insisted on it, even though Rais had looked at her in that particular way of his—the way that was an argument in itself, silent and patient and utterly immovable. But she'd felt, suddenly, fiercely awake, the sleep burned out of her by the strange currency of his attention. She wanted to be present for this. She wanted to see what happened at the end of a flight when the man in charge had, for once, let the schedule wait.

The aircraft taxied to a stop. Beyond the window, she could see the terminal building, a low structure of glass and pale stone, and the black town cars waiting on the tarmac like patient animals. The engines wound down. The cabin lights flickered once, twice, then settled into the dimmer hum of the ground state.

And the cabin door opened.

The attendants appeared first. Farhad, moving ahead with a practiced efficiency, and Anwar behind him, their faces carefully neutral, their bodies held in the posture of men who had seen something they would not speak of without permission. They didn't look at Selene. They didn't look at Rais. They looked at points in the middle distance, as if the entire scene required a deliberate, mutual blindness.

Rais rose.

It was a slow unfolding, a settling of his height across the cabin. He did everything slowly, she'd noticed—or perhaps it only seemed that way because he was so rarely in motion at all. He adjusted his thobe, a small, unconscious gesture, and reached down to collect the cream blanket from the seat.

"You'll want this," he said, and handed it to her.

Selene took it. The wool was warm from the cabin air, soft against her fingers. "For the car?"

"For you." He said it simply, and started down the aisle ahead of her, leaving her to follow.

She stood. Her legs felt strange, as if the long sleep had rearranged them. She adjusted the satchel on her shoulder, smoothed her dove-gray top, and walked after him down the aisle, past the empty seats, past the dark wood panels, past the small, sealed world of the cabin and into the bright, loud, ordinary reality of a Gulf afternoon.