The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Amina al-Sirafi, #1)

by Shannon Chakraborty

they have little compunction when it comes to spreading vicious rumors about her body and her sexuality: these things that men obsess over when they hate what they desire and desire what they cannot possess.

For this scribe has read a great many of these accounts and taken away another lesson: that to be a woman is to have your story misremembered. Discarded. Twisted.

“Your father must have been a giant. I suspect you could likely bear my palanquin all on your own.” What a compliment to note my worth as it compares to carting her rich ass around.

“I know who you are!” Salima shook her letters more furiously. “I tracked you down through your family once. I can do it again and so could others if they learn what I know.” I cracked my fingers. “You need to stop talking about my family like that. When you do, it sounds as though you are threatening us. That makes me very unreasonable, Sayyida.”

For while the pious claim money doesn’t buy happiness, I can attest from personal experience that poverty buys nothing.

Is this what we pay taxes to support?” I have not, in the entirety of my life, ever paid taxes.

I glanced at Tinbu. “Do you think you’ll be able to swim?” His voice was laced with pain, but he nodded. “You’d be amazed the things I can do when fleeing prison.”

Some of the wealthier trade ships and many of the warships around here carry at least some form of the concoction, which they typically cobble together themselves in an effort that has never, ever gone wrong and burned down their own vessels.

Tinbu crossed his arms defensively over the creature. “Payasam is not an ‘it,’ and she eats from my rations alone. The crew is very fond of her; she has brought us only good fortune.” “You were all about to be crucified for murder and brigandry.” “Until—in an astonishing bit of luck—my best friends turned up to save me.”

Dalila emerged from the galley and frowned, her gaze narrowing on his midsection. “You got fat.” “Says the woman squinting like her eyesight is going,” Majed replied tartly.

“You are going to get us eaten by a tree spirit.” Tinbu stepped back, as though to put space between Dalila and himself, and then addressed the tree’s canopy. “Do not blame me for her offenses!” “Tinbu, stop yelling at the tree. Dalila, stop stabbing the tree.”

There was no need to make the situation worse by openly conspiring against him. Even if I did briefly entertain notions of shoving him off the cliff. The motherfucker would probably bounce and then climb back up to murder me.

You certainly don’t look like what I expected of a woman of your creed, hidden behind walls and veils and sharing a husband with a dozen others.” “I must admit I find myself equally surprised. I assumed most Franks covered in their own body filth and tattered animal hides.” I smiled. “I can trade caricatures too.”

“Dunya al-Hilli.” Falco sat back, his entire demeanor changing. “You did not come because I summoned you.” No shit, asshole.

“It was like a wild animal when we first encountered it. And Falco was not interested in a pact. He wanted to own it. The marid would probably gobble him up if it could.” “So you’re telling me there’s a chance?” “No, that’s not what I’m telling you at all!

“A leopard? Ah, yes, I think I remember. They used to call your grandfather ‘the Sea Leopard,’ no?” “Your obsession with me is embarrassing.”

Ah, dear sisters, I can see from the looks in your eyes that some of you know where this is going. There are certain men, even lunar aspects, who do not handle rejection with grace. So in a fit of stung male feelings, al-Dabaran decided to bewitch Bilqis’s washbasin, hoping to spy upon her bathing. It did not go according to plan.

I shall like to go on the record in saying that ascending a magical seaweed rope no one else can see—and that may or may not disintegrate at any moment—up the moving body of a warship-sized scorpion as it shrieks and tries to stab you with its stinger remains, hands down, one of the worst fucking experiences of a career that involved having Falco’s foul maggot potion shoved down my throat.

“Then it’s settled,” Tinbu declared. “But may I make a suggestion? Should any of us find ourselves in the position where we are being persuaded to cut a deal with a magical creature, let’s not. Or at least bring it to the group for discussion.”

Is the Moon of Saba a real legend? Absolutely not: one does not spend one’s time reading stories of djinns and demons and then give directions to summoning such a creature in a commercial novel.