He pressed his hands to her face. He felt the dampness of her tears; not his, but hers.
I didn’t bring 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 make you see 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 wrapped in a far more painful truth. He wasn’t a beggar of fate; he was a beggar by choice, a man living in self-imposed purgatory.
“The fire,” he whispered. Aminah mentioned a fire.
“My past burns,” she said. I have nothing left of that man, Zainab. Only the knowledge of how to heal. I treated the village sick at night, in secret. That’s where the excess copper comes from. That’s how I bought your medicine last week.
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