Chapter 11
Isika left Petitions one afternoon and found Jabari sitting on the steps in front of the palace. She watched him for a moment as he sat with his chin in his hands, gazing out across the town and the stone road to the valley below.
He glanced up. “Hey,” he said. “I was just thinking about you.”
Isika felt heat come to her face. “Aren’t you always?” she asked, sitting next to him.
He laughed. “I meant more than usual,” he said. “I was thinking about how tired you must be, going back and forth from pottery where I know Tomas bosses you without mercy, to Petitions, where my parents make you sit for hours. Aren’t you exhausted?”
Isika felt tears prick behind her eyes at the unexpected sympathy.
“Well,” she said, composing herself. “I did come from a Worker village, so I underst
