Mira was lining up the clay pots along the wall, one by one, because Nura had asked for the small ones to be moved before the water jars were filled. The courtyard was still cool in the morning shade. Dust clung to Mira’s toes, fig leaves rustled overhead, and the cracked cistern sat quiet in the middle like it was waiting to be useful again.
Mira stopped with her hands on a pot. A thin thread of water was slipping across the packed ground from nowhere she could see. It should have been going into the shallow channel that led to the cistern. Instead, it was curling away toward the bake nook doorway, just a little stream, shining in the sun.
She crouched lower. The line of wet dirt bent around a chipped jar, then vanished under the wall shadow. No one else seemed to notice yet. Tariq was over by the stair, pretending a broom was a spear. Nura was counting jars with her fingers and frowning at the missing one near the gate.
Mira touched the damp ground. It was cool where it should have been dry. The little stream had not come from the jars she had moved. Something in the courtyard was sending water where it should not go.
If she told Nura right away, Nura would want the jars put back exactly as they were. If she called Tariq, he would probably leap in and splash after it. Mira could also follow the wet line herself before it dried in the sun.
But the stream had already slipped under the wall shadow, and now it was hiding where she could not see it.
What happens next?
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