Page 20 of The Immortal's Trick
“Those you care for,” he says, “are lucky to have someone as loyal and fiercely protective as you in their lives.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
Those words…his tone… It’s like heseesme. Like he’s seen into my soul and knows the deepest parts of me.
And oddly enough… Ilikeit.
8
Two days have passedsince the night of the play. I spend each one drifting between tasks, daydreaming, reliving every moment at the theater.
I replay the performance repeatedly in my mind—the rhythm of the actors’ voices, the tragic unraveling of the heroine’s fate, the aching beauty of the final scene. I’ve invented entire backstories for characters who barely spoke and whispered new lines into their mouths while scrubbing the same dish clean three times over.
But the memory that haunts me most isn’t the drama on the stage.
It’s Lome.
His eyes. The intensity of them. How they seemed to pull truths from me I hadn’t known I carried. How, in a single evening, he saw me—not as a daughter, sister, or young woman struggling with responsibilities—but as someone more.
Someone worth looking at.
I tried to temper my emotions by telling myself Nebet is likely the one he wanted—if either of us.
She’s older and prettier. She understands men, how to smile at the right moments, and how to soften her voice so that people lean in to listen.
But when I’d voiced that to her, she only scoffed.
“You are naïve,”Nebet says, brushing oil through her hair in front of the vanity in our shared bedroom. “Lome barely let a minute pass without looking at you. He sees no one else.”
I shake my head, unwilling to believe it. “He doesn’t know me. It isn’t possible.”
Nebet’s expression flickers with disapproval. “Don’t insult yourself. You’re lovely, Eshe, and you should be honored that such a man gives you his attention. It is not every day a girl is so lucky.”
Her words sting with truth. I don’t want to hear them. Not when I know—when we both know—what her future might hold.
“Even if what you say is true,” I twist the string from my frayed blanket around my finger, “nothing will come of it. Lome is a visitor to Alexandria. In time, he will leave and return to his home. He will forget us. Forget me.”
Nebet’s knowing eyes read every emotion and thought I try to conceal.
Whatever she sees makes the corner of her mouth rise ever so slightly. “I would not be so sure.”
“Ani!”My brothers’ simultaneous shouts pull me out of the memory.
I put down the plate I’m washing and dry my hands on a cloth before walking toward the home’s main entrance.
Sure enough, my childhood friend stands outside the front door with Ruia and Sab circling him like wild dogs.
“Do you want to play jacks?” Sab questions.
Ruia bounces on his toes. “Or how about marbles?”
I step over the threshold and hold up my palms. “Enough,” I tell my brothers. Both immediately cease their jumping. “Ani may not be here to entertain you.”
I look up at him and smile. “Hello, Ani.”
He smiles back, but it’s weak. Fleeting. “Eshe.”
“Would you like to come inside? Have a glass of wine?”
