Thank you everyone for reading!

Enjoy!

Christine

Chapter 35

The Faith

"They don't serve alcohol, regrettably," chuckled my father, standing from his seat at the black metal table. "It's a cafe. Tea? Or coffee?"

It was an hour to Erik's performance, and many of tonight's audience seemed to have the same idea we had. The cafe across from Franklin's theatre was bustling.

Ibrahim sighed dramatically at my father's words, waved a hand, and looked at him father with faux irritation - a disarming slight smile on his lips. "Coffee, then. Full of sugar and cream, if you please."

My father chuckled, glanced behind him at the rapidly filling building, and said, "Tell you what, M. Jahandir." He said his name quietly. He leaned in fractionally. "I'll ask if they stock sherry and to slip some in your cup."

I watched Ibrahim tip his head back and laugh, his joy infectious - I couldn't stop the grin that formed on my face. "This," he said, "is why you are my favorite Frenchman."

My father looked genuinely pleased, and gave me a wink. "Tea for you, Christine? As you normally take it?"

I was still smiling wide. "Yes, please, Papa."

He nodded to Ibrahim. "So, coffee." To me. "And tea. Be back shortly." He watched as the line grew out the door. "Or not soon. We shall see."

He turned and joined that line. In front of him, two older ladies in very large burgundy hats tittered girlishly over some shared joke, the sound high pitched and nasal. Noticeable in volume, enough to turn a few heads. My father, the hermit, gave me a look that was surely meant to be pitiable.

It only made me giggle.

I looked away, to the street, toward the theatre. Above us, the early evening sky was darkening to a rich cobalt, the streetlights coming alive like fae in flight with the help of the lamplighters - the men magic in themselves with their ability to illuminate the night. As the day died, Paris came alive.

"If my parents knew I drank," Ibrahim said then, and I looked at him. His ebony eyes were two starry nights in the gaslight. "They'd have a..." He stopped, and laughed. "I forget the French word for it. Problem with the heart that makes your mind stop working correctly."

"A...stroke?" I offered.

"A stroke." He nodded. "That's what they would have." And sighed. "I'm sure Nadir would comment on my lack of knowledge of that word, saying 'see? You are unfit to be a teacher of the language'. Ah well."

"Why would they be so affected by your drinking?" I thought back to the time he was passed out on Erik's sofa in Persia. "Do they...fear you'll be dependent on the bottle?"

He raised a brow like it was the silliest question in the world. "No, Rose, they'd be appalled at the bottle itself."

"Oh, I see. Is...does your family..." I paused. "If you don't mind my asking, of course..."

"We are past pleasantries and small talk by now, Christine." His face was warm.

I tucked a hair behind my ear. "Does your family refrain from drinking due to some...family dependence? Your father, perhaps?" I'd lowered my voice, but it didn't stop the blush on my face. The words felt forward even as I said it.

He frowned and cocked his head. "Perhaps you do not know that alcohol is forbidden."

I blinked. "In your household?"

"In Islam."

Oh.

I sat up straighter. "But you-"

"I," he cut me off, "can think of at least one more thing forbidden in Islam that I also enjoy." His accompanying smile was rueful. "To be quite honest, I wouldn't call myself very devout when it comes to my religion. One might say I question it entirely. I believe in Allah, of course. I have much love for Allah. But it is...the rest of it." A quick quirk of the brows, and his voice dipped to a whisper. "My father himself would faint to discover that his son was a wine-drinking infidel who partakes in sodomy."

I looked down, though not out of embarrassment. I was far too used to Ibrahim to feel that. "Erik also questions his faith."

"He's told me," he said, "though our disbelief is inverted. I still believe in my diety. He does not."

I prayed that he was starting to.

"Don't misunderstand me," Ibrahim continued, "I do not question Islam out of a hatred for it. It is a beautiful faith, full of love. But it is not for me. My soul was not meant for it. I've always felt that, even as a boy." He thought for a moment. "Nadir's own observance of the religion became spotty - yes, strict Nadir - after the death of Rookheeya. That hopeful part of him broke, I think." A hint of conflict crossed his eyes, there and then gone. "Before that time, he was apparently hard in his conviction. Now, he seems to pick and choose the tenets and rules he follows. He would never outright lie or steal or harm a child, but he has no issue killing his nation's Allah-chosen leader, hurting those who might get in his way." He let out a humorless throaty sound. "No issue, either, with spending alone time with my sister - which is simply not done in Persia, even with Reza present. Nadir is neither her husband nor a member of her family."

Ibrahim looked away, toward a couple walking past. Both were equal in the look of love they shared, but very separate in age. The man appeared to have twice as many years as the young woman. "Alas," he said, and shrugged. "Despite it being the height of impropriety - and you know how much I care for proper behavior..."

I grinned. "Oh, of course."

"The alternative would have been bringing her along to Erik's show - and the concept of that had made her eyes bulge - or leaving her alone. I didn't find that comforting when she is due to deliver her child any day now."

"Why not hire someone to watch her?"

He blinked. "I-"

"A caretaker of some kind. You could have put out an ad."

"An ad?"

"In the paper. The same way you'd find any service staff."

"I am...actually quite angry I did not think of this. I've never had to hire staff, admittedly; they've always seemed to just appear, and with everything recently, after fending for ourselves on the road from Persia to France, I suppose it slipped my mind to inquire."

I smiled. "I can help you put something out to find help. I've never done it myself, but it shouldn't be an issue. They don't necessarily have to speak your language, but - oh, there is Reza's nanny, if Nadir would part with her for an evening every once in a while. Someone to help with Azizah."

"Unavailable." He blew out a dismissive breath. "Or so M. Khan claims. Besides, Azizah wants him to look after her. She'd be disappointed now if I got someone else."

"Hm," I mused, and thought of the look of kindness Nadir had given Azizah. Realization sprouted. "It's funny. It's as though he's taken to her."

He frowned.

"I only meant," I clarified, "that something about her seems to have softened him."

He didn't like that any better.

"I understand why this might bother you - trust me, Nadir and I are not best of friends. But...I'm saying that I really doubt he'd hurt her. I think...even with everything he's done, I think that Azizah is in good hands."

For some reason, he disliked that even more. He sighed. "She'd have said no to him watching her, to their lessons in French, had I forbidden it."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean she wouldn't have questioned me had I forbidden her from speaking to him, even though she likes his company as much as he apparently likes hers."

I looked at him silently for a few moments, then turned to the cafe. My father was no longer in the line out the door, which must have meant he'd made it inside. I turned back to my friend across from me. "Would you have forbidden it?"

His lips thinned, pulling his short-cut beard upward. "I thought about it." I could see some war of emotion, some stormcloud, in his eyes. "But while I question my faith, while Nadir is choosy in his convictions, Azizah has always been faithful. To Islam's tenets, to Persia and its rules. She prays five times a day, every day, while I don't remember the last time I've lowered myself to a prayer mat. She wears her hijab, even though it's not compulsory here in France - she feels naked without it. And she would never question the command of a man in her family - she would never disobey or argue with her elder brother...with me." His dark eyes shone. "So you see, I cannot say no to her request to see Nadir. I refuse to take advantage of her submissive nature as her...husband did."

He looked almost sick, hateful, at the word 'husband'. Hateful at the man in question...and hateful, I realized, toward himself.

I bit my lip. "Are you worried Nadir will take advantage?"

A flicker of dark emotion. "No. No, I don't think so. Not in that way. He never partook in the abuse of the Garden Flowers, didn't even pretend to as I did. He never looks at women at all - never looked at them while married, either. I hate to admit it, but he is a gentleman in that regard. More of a model Muslim than any other member of the Persian court - imbibing perverts, the lot. Not all, but enough to be shameful. I suppose all people of power have some corruption, though, don't they?" A thought, sudden and bright, lit his expression. "I never told you."

"Told me what?"

He smiled. "Erik should be safe from anyone in Tehran."

I stared, waiting, mildly confused.

He laughed at my expression, joviality returned to him from the darkness. "I mean to say that I did an excellent job of convincing Erik's enemies - those that hated and feared him for his killings - that he'd had little choice in the matter. That he'd merely been following orders, loyal to the Shah but wishing for his duties to end. That, despite his desire to stop the killings, he mourned the loss of Izad's brother even as he left with his concubine for France."

The smile on my face was automatic, a symptom of the relief in my core - relief for a worry I hadn't even realized I carried. "Thank you, Ibrahim."

He continued, "People there pity him, loyalists and rebels alike. Besides-" He looked away suddenly. "Even those who liked the Shah are secretly glad he's gone. They've found Izad more palatable." He swallowed, eyes shuttering. "He was...easy to love."

My stomach dropped. "Ibrahim..." But I trailed off. There was nothing I could really say.

I didn't get the chance, besides. My father returnes with our beverages, and Ibrahim regained his previous joyful mood. As though it had been there the entire time.

No trace of sadness at all.

Erik's movements were full of fluid grace, a twirl of the wrist here or a flourish of the arm there, as he made objects appear and disappear before our very eyes. As he put voices of various tones, pitches, and languages in our ears. Made sparks - literal sparks - fly from his fingers, made instruments play on their own.

At the thunderous applause, I felt immense, swelling pride.

Erik felt vengeance. He bowed as though in gratitude; but when his gaze landed on a red-haired man in front, I knew the bow was a show of servitude to the god of chaos and revenge.

That the god was working its own magic at this very moment.