The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani (story reading .TXT) 📕

on the other side of the tax office, a two-story structure of adobe and plaster, just like home, if a great deal bigger. Its humble appearance is hidden behind the other buildings, making it invisible from the palace proper.

An elderly woman sits on a cushion in the large welcoming room, spindle in hand. She glances toward me inquiringly as I enter. “Can I help you, kelari?”

“I’m looking for Kirrana.”

“I believe she’s still upstairs. Follow the hall back, take the stairs up—you’ll be all right on those? Good then; hers is the third door on the left.”

I thank her and hurry on, reaching the top of the stairs just as Kirrana steps out of her room, a satchel over her shoulder.

She looks at me in surprise. “Rae! Are you coming to see me?”

“Yes. Is there somewhere we could chat for a few minutes?”

“Of course. Come in,” she says, and ushers me into her room.

It’s a small space, and clearly shared. Her side has only two cushions set out, a stack of blankets, a midsized trunk for belongings, and a wardrobe. No doubt her sleeping mat is rolled up within it, along with the rest of her belongings. The other side of the room is its opposite in every way, the sleeping mat out and only barely visible beneath a tangle of blankets, clothes spewing from the open wardrobe, and the floor littered with bottles and containers of what can only be makeup.

Kirrana offers me a cushion. “What did you want to talk about?”

Hidden away in the women’s residence with the door closed, I feel as safe talking to Kirrana as I did in the princess’s rooms, warded from listening ears. “Do you remember our conversation about the snatchers?”

She stills, focusing on me. “Yes.”

“Can you swear to me you won’t speak of this to anyone?”

“I swear it.”

“All right. I’ve found out that the children who are snatched are transported by boat downriver. It’s possible they’re also taken by other routes, but of a half dozen children who were snatched, five reported boats.”

“You think these children are being taken out of the country, or just taken downriver?” Kirrana asks. “I assume out, but . . .”

“Out of the country,” I agree. “Too many have been lost for them to all be here. My contact in the city thinks so as well.” It’s so little, without the connection to the Circle. I don’t dare mention that to Kirrana, not after promising Alyrra my discretion. This one detail of how the boys were transported hardly seems enough to launch an investigation from. It is hope alone that has brought me here.

Kirrana nods slowly. “That means the snatchers are leaving through Lirelei . . . and probably coming back in that way as well. In any transaction, something is always received for something given. They’ll be bringing whatever it is they are trading for the children as they come in.”

“Can that—would that be reflected in their taxes?”

Kirrana twists her mouth to the side, thinking, and then says, “I doubt there’s a trail through any tax filings. We’re talking about the black market. For that, you have to look for anomalies. Things coming into the country that we’re not sending out exports to equal.”

“So how do I search for that?” I ask, hope making my words come a little too fast. Anomalies has the sound of something that can be traced.

Kirrana grins. “First, I’m sending a page to my family to tell them I’m coming tomorrow. Then I’m collaring a friend who works in the administrative archives who can lend me her key. And then I’ll show you how to search the reports from the port wardens in Lirelei, and we’ll look for anomalies.”

“You’re sure you want to do this?” I ask as she hops to her feet. “If anyone discovers what you’re actually researching, it will put you at risk.”

“I know. But it still needs to be done, and I’m not sending you off to muddle through this on your own. I’ll be right back.”

Kirrana, as it turns out, makes a habit of doing people good turns, and so the particular friend in question only asks her to be sure to put back whatever she’s researching when she’s done and lock up behind herself.

We make our way to the administrative archives, a building I didn’t know existed till this moment. It is lit by luminae lamps, which is stunning until you consider that the building is filled with paper and would go up like a bonfire if real lamps were used and a stray spark fell in the wrong place.

We pass room after room of shelves, and then tour a number of additional rooms, Kirrana murmuring softly to herself as she inspects the ledgers and bound stacks of papers carefully stored on the shelves.

“Here,” she says finally, at a door with a plaque that reads, quite helpfully, “Lirelei, Five-Year Port Records.”

I turn slowly, considering the floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with records, from incident reports to ledgers containing logs of every ship that docked or weighed anchor there. “That’s . . . a lot of information.”

Kirrana grins. “We’ll start with the incident reports. You take this year’s, I’ll take last’s. We’re looking for something showing up that shouldn’t have—something valuable. Here.”

She hands me a stack of papers bound together between two thin boards—a precursor to the actual bound set of papers with a proper cover that she lifts down for herself. We settle ourselves at a table in the larger central workspace, and start reading.

There are incidents of cargo being accidentally destroyed, a ship piloted by a drunken captain that rammed into one of the docks, and various other occurrences. A great deal of damaged property, but not much else.

“What would constitute an anomaly?” I ask as I turn another page to find a report of a ship that accidentally ran aground a league up the coast and required a rescue ship to unload its cargo before its hull could be repaired.

“We’re looking for an import that was unexpectedly found and should have been declared. Something the