He pressed his hands against her face. She felt the dampness of tears—not her own, but hers.
“I didn’t take you because I was paid, Zainab. I took you because when he described you, I realized we were the same. We were both ghosts. I thought… I thought if I could protect you, if I could show you the world through my words, maybe I could get my soul back. But then I fell in love with the ghost. And that was never part of the plan.”
Zainab froze. The betrayal was there, yes—the lie of his identity—but it was shrouded in a far more painful truth. He wasn't a beggar of fate; he was a beggar by choice, a man living in a self-imposed purgatory.
"The fire," she murmured. "Aminah mentioned a fire."
“My past is burning,” he said. “I have nothing left of that man, Zainab. Only the knowledge of how to heal. I treat the sick in the village at night, in secret. That’s where the excess copper comes from. That’s how I bought your medicine last week.”
Zainab reached out, her fingers trembling as she traced the contours of his face. She found the bridge of his
