Outside, her brothers and the new farmhand are harvesting the spice shrubs, while her father checks the chicken-cows, to see which is ready for slaughter. Razer and her very oldest brother have retreated to Father's study to reprogram the irrigation system (and comment all the changes. Apparently un-commented moderations to any code are a pet peeve of Razer's).

The women of the household, however, have gathered in the house's remotest room to spin yarn or thread. Two of her cousins have some sort of weaving project on a large loom, though they've been secretive about just what they're going to use it for when it's done. Her aunts sit in a corner repairing clothes, while Mother embroiders the collar, sleeves, and hem of a jilbab.

Ilana stares down at the newest bolt of fabric (another gift from Razer) and realizes she's not going to have enough for both a khimar and a niqaab. She's already cut it, leaving it circular, and begun to hem it. A shame, since the black fabric feels so soft. It'd be nice against the lower half of her face.

She has just finished the hem when they all hear the low, hissing whine of a breaking down harvester.

Her father shouts, "Micah! Micah, get away-!"

The whine stops for three seconds. Instead they hear a cry, the anguished, startled moan of a man who just watched a solar-powered engine drive a threshing blade into his skin and drag it out again. He hasn't begun to feel it yet.

Ilana doesn't doubt that he will.

She rushes to the kitchen - the only room in the house equipped to deal with so much blood, the first place any farm hand goes when something inevitably goes wrong - and doesn't even stop to think about putting on her khimar.

She pulls aside the tapestry dividing the kitchen from the rest. It nearly comes loose in her fingers, but she's through the doorway. She can feel her heart speeding up, wild, out of control, just like her fingers. She sees her father first, the blood on his hands and soaking his collar; sees her brother, Ephram, whose face has gone pale. Razer and Reuben careen into the room. Reuben looks panicked; Razer looks eerily calm.

Micah. The new hand. His thaub has two gaping holes in it. A gash in his arm bleeds freely, while blood wells up from another cut to his chest. His breathing is heavy, labored, and his eyes have widened. His face looks very pale.

Ilana clasps her hands together for just a second, spares the time to take two deep, calming breaths. She can't do a thing if her hands are shaking.

"Micah," she says, "it's all going to be alright."

(Who's she reassuring, really?)

Her father shreds Micah's shirt so she can get to the injuries quickly. He doesn't bother going for a knife; he just strips his gloves and uses the sharp points of his nails.

Antiseptic first; Micah gurgles low in his throat in an effort not to scream. Ilana applies it to his chest. Razer and Ephram have to hold the farmhand down so she can dribble it over the cut on his arm.

Then topical anesthetic. Micah goes limp after that. Reuben, her oldest and tallest brother, supports his weight.

She threads the needle. Unasked, Razer dips his hands in the antiseptic. She pushes Micah's shirt away; Razer pushes the jagged edges of Micah's skin together for her. She sews the cuts closed.

The black medical thread creates the illusion of new markings on Micah's gray skin.

Two weeks pass, and Ilana drifts between anxiety and relief. Every day she doesn't see Razer seems to itch, almost, but every day closer to the next time he'll visit lets her breathe a little deeper.

The day he usually visits arrives. He does not.

She spends the day almost listless, grinding rice flour and sorting spices with an ear on the kitchen door and an eye on the window. Her cousins all nudge each other and whisper amongst themselves. She ignores them.

By noon, Ilana has resigned herself to the fact that he is not coming and is half worried something has happened to him, half afraid that being in a public space without her khimar has ruined everything. But she can't regret it: if the price of her modesty, her privacy, is someone else's life, it's too high.

Toward the end of the day, Ilana pauses in her counting of shoumar seeds. She has to still her hands at the realization. If Razer is willing to pay that price, he is not the man she thought he was.

Mother sweeps into the kitchen just as Ilana begins loosening the khimar she made of Razer's second gift.

Mother looks at her for a moment. She stares into Ilana's eyes, seemingly searching for something, before cupping the palms of her hands against Ilana's face.

"Oh, child," her mother says. "I told your father it was a fool idea. Next week we'll go to the city and see him."

Mother knocks on her door. Ilana rises, pulls her best abaya on over a deep gold caftan and chooses a white niqaab instead of her usual practical black. Last of all, she wraps her hair away in the fabric Razer gave her. His first gift.

Her mother even coaxes Father into a more fashionable white thaub instead of his dusty, practical gray-brown one.

She tries to tell herself this visit is nothing to be so excited about. And yet she can't seem to tear herself away from the cart's windows

She knows the city's skyline: flat roofs, square windows. The buildings are blocky, and no few of them have low doors or ceilings that go much higher than the windows.

As they pass through the market square, she sees a host of bazaars. Merchants behind stands or beneath awnings shout at the passerby, competing for attention with men who store their wares on carpets and sit beside them. Everywhere she turns, she sees tapestries, glinting jewelry, women in silks much finer than anything she owns.

And then she sees Razer. He's wearing his usual engineer jumpsuit, but for once there's no grease on him. She registers a man and woman standing behind him, but he looks up.

Over the nose-bridge of her niqaab, their eyes meet.

Razer smiles again.

After this, the negotiations begin. Her parents meet with Razer's employers - the closest people he has to parents of his own, or so he says and they're all content to believe him - and talk about whether Razer and Ilana are suited for each other. Ilana's cousins serve coffee and tiger-lamb skewers; neither Ilana nor Razer is permitted near these proceedings.

Then the age-old financial battle ensues: does he owe a bride-price for carrying away their daughter to the city, or do her parents owe his employers a dowry for luring their best engineer away to a farm?

"We could stay here," Razer says. He cuts a karmuush open with an ungloved hand and offers her half.

It's a polite gesture, automatic. Ilana waves the half of the fruit away, since she'd have to take off her niqaab to eat it. (Reuben reaches between them and takes it, happily sucking on the dark brown fruit and spitting out golden seeds.)

"You don't really want to stay with the farm. You just think I do."

Razer kicks a rock out of their way, then looks up at the horizon. "I could be happy here."

"Razer, you'd be happiest in the city."

Instead of denying it, he pulls his gloves back on and says, "I want us both to be happy." He hands his half of the fruit to Reuben and says, voice dry, "I like your family."

"We both want more in our lives than this farm."

His smile looks crooked, confiding, but she recognizes the warmth in his eyes.

Ilana is a fixer, too.