The scent of cedar and parchment clung to Aneesa's fingertips as she balanced barefoot on a stool, one arm full of scrolls, the other reaching for the highest shelf in her father's private collection. The late afternoon sun streamed through the carved wooden shutters of the shop, catching in the dust motes and making the air sparkle like gold.
Her father's bookshop, Bayt al-Hikma, House of Wisdom, was more than a place of business. It was her sanctuary. A quiet temple of forgotten texts, foreign tongues, and stories that stretched beyond the Sierra Nevada to the ends of the world.
Men came from every corner of Andalusia to buy what her father sold: rare knowledge, exotic goods, secrets pressed between pages. And yet it was Aneesa they often remembered. Not for her beauty, though she had it, but for her sharp mind and sharper tongue, both veiled behind a demure smile.
She'd grown up in these walls, under the soft rustle of paper and the murmur of old men debating astronomy or philosophy at the front table. Her father had taught her to read when she was five, taught her Arabic and Latin by seven, and entrusted her with customer dealings by ten.
Today, she was seventeen, and this was her kingdom.
"Aneesa!" her father called from the front counter, his voice warm but distracted. "Bring me the red-bound copy of Kitab al-Kimya** a gentleman from Córdoba is asking after it."
She grinned, hopping down. "If he plans to summon gold, he'd best start with gold."
Her father chuckled, rubbing his graying beard. "Don't scare away my customers with your clever tongue."
She slipped past the bead curtain into the back storage and retrieved the book with practiced ease. As she returned, she paused, noticing the breeze shift. The heavy scent of jasmine and rosewater drifted into the shop, quite out of place, too sweet, too deliberate.
At the door stood a woman in ivory silk, her veil sheer enough to reveal striking eyes lined in kohl and lips painted crimson. Two maids flanked her, silent and polished like sculptures.
Aneesa handed her father the book. He accepted it, but his eyes were no longer on the customer who stood before him, a well-dressed nobleman in robes of indigo and eyes like fire watchful, quiet, and oddly curious. They were on the woman in the doorway.
"Are you Omar ibn Saleh?" the woman asked. Her voice was smooth as silk, but cool, like the edge of a blade.
"I am," he replied, setting the book down in front of the nobleman whose eyes were transfixed on Aneesa and walking towards the doorway.
The mysterious woman stepped forward, letting the light fall on her gold-tasseled sandals. "I've heard you carry stories from all over the world."
"I do," her father said. "And who might I be addressing?"
"A widow," she said, "with a taste for poetry, and a generous purse. But you can just call me Safiya."
Aneesa felt the air go still. Her father blinked once, slowly, the way he did when he was intrigued but trying not to show it. That look he got before bidding high on a rare volume.
Safiya smiled. "May I come in?" Omar smiled and escorted the woman into his shop as he spoke of his most prized collection.
Aneesa watched as Safiya glided into the shop and behind the curtain towards her father's back room like a ship arriving to a quiet bay. Beautiful. Poised. And dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with daggers.
When she finally realized that she too had been hypnotized by Safiya, she raised her eyes to meet the nobleman's gaze, a look she had never experienced from eyes the color of amber.
"Are you going to buy that book?" she asked, sharper than intended.
The nobleman smiled and looked down at a pouch of gold on the counter. "I already have," he said as he turned and exited like the wind that brought Safiya in.
For the rest of the day, her father barely looked at her. Aneesa pretended not to notice him courting the woman with tall tales, warm tea, and a flirtatious grin. Aneesa filled orders, translated a passage for a student, and reorganized the scrolls on the top shelf. But her chest felt tight every time she heard their laughter or caught Safiya glancing at her as if to announce that her father's heart was hers.
Something had shifted. The wind in the shop no longer carried the scent of old paper and worn leather. It now carried something sharp and permanent.
That night, her father closed the shop early and sent Aneesa on her way. She was waiting up for his return, and when he did get home, his robe smelled of Safiya's perfume.
Aneesa sat alone in the courtyard, watching the shadows lengthen across the tiled walls. She pressed her mother's pendant to her chest and tried to read, but the words swam before her eyes as they filled with tears of mourning.
She didn't know why, not yet. But she knew her life was about to change.