Its fronded leaves fanned wide, shading both sides of the wall, blocking her run.

His father, at eighty-two, still worked the family farm back in Nebraska. He ate four eggs, a rasher of bacon, and a pile of buttered toast each breakfast and smoked a cigar each night. His mother was even more fit. Solid stock, his father used to brag. Just like my boys.

Kara entered, resplendent in a traditional Omani thob gown of flowing red silk with gold filigree embroidered along the hems. She abandoned any headdress, leaving her auburn hair free, and wore Prada sandals. As always, to Kara, a line had to be drawn between the traditional and the fashionable.

It was her attention to detail that made her such an accomplished curator.

miracle she had survived. Safia prayed for no other such miracles in her life. They came at too high a price.

He had exposed her, threatened her position with the Guild, brought her low.

She could not seem to connect the past to the present.

whispering of futures that never came.

Kensington ancestry dating back to the fourteenth century.