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glance, she would never have survived six years on the streets. No lone female would be tolerated, let alone one dressing herself in men’s clothing. It was a sin, a crime. She would have been punished severely according to the law, and then . . . she shuddered at the possibilities.
    No, her disguise was good. Nobody knew she was a girl; only Ali, who was like a little brother to her and who slept on a straw mat near her each night. And Laila. She’d discovered the imposture years ago, but she’d kept the secret and helped Ayisha perfect her disguise. Laila understood the need for it.
    To everyone else Ayisha was that street boy, Azhar.
    And nobody—not even Laila—had any idea who her parents were. That knowledge was more than Ayisha’s life was worth.
    Rather, it was exactly what her life was worth.
    She trusted no one with that secret. She did her best to forget it herself. It was only when someone came hunting her that she was forced to remember.
    Someone like this Englishman.
    But he couldn’t possibly have divined her secret, not in one glance, not in two. She’d just been careless, skidding to a halt like that, showing too much interest in him, that’s all. It wouldn’t normally matter, except those uncanny eyes seemed to see everything.
    She would be more careful in the future.
    She caught up with him again a short time later. She’d changed her turban, and now instead of a dusty blue cloth, it was white, with a strip of red twisted through it. She always kept an extra tied around her waist. In a crowd, people searching for you looked for your turban; change it and you were a different person.
    She shadowed him all day, keeping herself well back, hidden in shadows or doorways, down alleys, behind others. Several times he turned and scanned the surroundings as if he knew somehow she was there. Luckily she was small and shabby and very skilled at being inconspicuous.
    He visited most of her father’s former servants that day. He was very thorough, damn him—not like the others who’d come before.
    Each time he took the leather folder containing her picture from the inside pocket of his coat and showed it to them. Each time they would peer, nod, then shake their head or shrug.
    But at no point was there any chance for her to steal the picture. A dense crowd would be best, like the one she’d first seen him in, but he hadn’t returned to the busiest part of the city.
    All afternoon it had been small houses in narrow lanes or dead-end alleys; bad locations for an out-of-practice thief to revive her old skill, even if he wasn’t followed most places by curious onlookers and street beggars, some of whom she knew. And who, therefore, knew her. And would be sure to gossip about Azhar’s interest in the picture.
    Now the Englishman was standing at the doorway of a man who’d done odd jobs. He was fatter now, but she remembered him. Gamal. She’d never liked him. It would have been polite to invite the foreigner in. All the others had, but Gamal wanted everyone to see his grand visitor, so kept him outside in the sun.
    Ayisha couldn’t approve his rudeness, but she could take advantage of it. Luckily a small group of curious onlookers had gathered. She edged closer.
    “Hah! I knew you were lying when you said you weren’t interested,” a voice whispered triumphantly at her elbow.
    “Ali, what are you doing here?” She cursed silently and hauled the boy back out of earshot. “I told you to help Laila with the pies.”
    “And so I did,” Ali said indignantly. “And now she has sent me to pick greens for tomorrow’s pies.” He held up a cloth bag.
    “I see no greens growing here,” she pointed out. “The river is the place, so go. I told you to stay away from this man.”
    “Aw, Ash, picking greens is woman’s work and—”
    It was an old argument and Ayisha had no patience with it. “And eating and being disobedient is a boy’s? Do you want to grow up like Omar?”
    Ali grimaced, not liking