The whistles kept traveling.
Not loud enough for the whole city to stop, but sharp enough to pass from lane to lane like a message moving through hidden hands. Yusuf heard one from the lower quarter, another from somewhere east, and then a third so close it seemed to skim the wall beside them before fading into the roofs beyond.
The man in white rose at once.
"We move now."
Yusuf did not argue. He had reached that part of exhaustion where argument cost more than obedience.
They slipped out from the shelter of the broken rooftop room and into the open again. Late afternoon light had begun to tilt, laying long gold bands across tile and plaster. From above, Fez looked almost peaceful in that hour. Smoke rose from ovens in thin pale threads. Laundry shifted on lines. Pigeons wheeled and settled. Somewhere below, the smell of khobz baking drifted upward and struck Yusuf with sudden, vicious clarity. Home. Evening. His father returning with the dust of trade on his sleeves. The sound of a kettle lid tapping as tea simmered.
He stumbled.
The stranger caught his arm without looking at him. "Stay with your feet."
Yusuf yanked his arm back more sharply than necessary. "I am here."
"Barely."
That angered him because it was true.
They crossed one roof, then another. The buildings here were older and less even, patched through generations by people who had solved problems with whatever material or patience they could afford. A parapet crumbled under Yusuf's hand and showered grit into the lane below. He jerked away, heart kicking.
"Do these roofs all want me dead?"
"No," the man said. "Some are simply undecided."
Yusuf shot him a look. The stranger did not appear to notice.
Ahead, the roofline broke into a descending series of terraces connected by narrow ledges, beams, and one slanting plank set across a gap that Yusuf immediately distrusted on sight.
"Tell me we are not using that."
"We are using that."
"It looks as if a bored child built it."
"Then try not to insult the child by falling."
Yusuf stopped at the edge.
Below the plank was a courtyard with a central cistern and a mulberry tree pushing up from one corner. A woman spread wool blankets on a line while two girls chased each other around the cistern base with shrieks of laughter. From up here the scene looked painfully ordinary. Intimate. Untouched by the day chasing him across the city.
The girls looked up.
One of them froze, blanket half dragging behind her.
Yusuf realized how strange he and the man in white must look, appearing above family courtyards like badly behaved spirits.
The woman saw them next. Her mouth tightened, not in fear exactly. In judgment.
The stranger touched two fingers to his brow in the briefest apology and crossed the plank.
As if that settled matters.
Yusuf muttered, "This is humiliating."
He stepped onto the board. It bowed immediately. The courtyard below seemed to deepen just to spite him. He kept his eyes on the far side and moved in stiff, ugly steps that made the plank complain under his weight.
Halfway across, a whistle sounded again. Much nearer.
Then a shout.
From the roof behind them.
Yusuf looked back.
Bad idea.
Three men had emerged onto the last terrace they'd crossed. One pointed. Another was already running.
Yusuf's balance vanished.
The plank shifted under his foot. His arms flung out on instinct. For one terrible instant he saw himself falling not into empty air but into a stranger's courtyard, into broken dignity and worse, into hands that would hold him down while the men behind caught up.
Then the far side rushed toward him.
The stranger had stepped back onto the plank, seized Yusuf by the front of his burnous, and dragged him the last few paces with enough force to send both of them stumbling onto the opposite roof.
Below, one of the little girls laughed.
Not cruelly. More from nerves than humor. But it burned all the same.
Yusuf tore free and got to his feet. "Do not do that again."
"Then cross like a man with a future."
Behind them the first pursuer reached the plank and slowed. Even he did not trust it at full speed. Good. A small mercy.
The man in white was already moving. "This way."
They climbed.
Not stairs this time. A stack of projecting stones beside a blind wall, then a low cedar beam, then the lip of a roof so steep Yusuf had to crawl the last stretch on hands and knees. His bandaged palm throbbed with every touch. Sweat slipped down his back under the burnous. The city air tasted of dust, smoke, wool dye, and the sea-salt faintness carried inland on certain evenings when the wind turned right.
By the time he pulled himself over the top, his chest was on fire.
The roof they reached was one of the highest yet.
Fez opened around them in jagged layers of red tile, white walls, hidden courts, and rising minarets. Westward, the late sun turned upper windows briefly to brass. Eastward, the maze thickened into shadow. Yusuf could see market awnings like scraps of color stitched into the city's body. Hear the distant murmur of trade continuing below as if none of this mattered.
The height made his stomach dip.
He stepped back instinctively from the edge.
The stranger noticed. Said nothing.
That was worse somehow.
They crossed the high roof at a crouch. Wind moved more freely here, tugging at Yusuf's hood and carrying the smell of pigeons from nearby coops. One roof over, old men sat around a board game in the dying light, so focused on it that they seemed not to notice two fugitives passing above the lane beyond them. One did glance up eventually, took in the scene, and only muttered, "May God protect fools," before returning to his game.
Yusuf almost wanted to argue that he had not volunteered for this.
A thrown stone clacked against a chimney behind them.
Not close. Warning.
He looked back.
The pursuers had reached the high roof now, though more spread out than before. One carried a short bow.
That changed the world immediately.
The stranger saw it too. "Down."
They dropped flat as an arrow hissed over them and vanished across the next roof.
Yusuf's breath caught in his throat.
"I preferred the knives."
"No, you didn't."
Another arrow struck the roof tiles ahead and snapped.
The stranger rolled toward a low parapet, peered once, then motioned Yusuf after him. They crawled the remaining distance and dropped into the shadow of a raised pigeon house built against the far side of the roof.
The birds inside burst into offended noise.
"Quiet," Yusuf whispered to them, which would have been ridiculous under any other circumstances.
The stranger glanced at him. "Good. Keep talking to pigeons. It suggests stability."
Yusuf wiped sweat from his upper lip. "If I live through this, I may become difficult."
"You already are."
An arrow thudded into the wooden side of the pigeon house.
The birds exploded upward in a storm of wings.
One clipped Yusuf across the face. He cursed and ducked as feathers filled the air.
The stranger used the moment.
He rose just enough to grab the arrow shaft, snapped it free, and hurled it back not at the bowman but toward a stack of clay pots on the adjacent roof. The pots shattered in a crashing burst.
From below came immediate shouting.
Women's voices. Angry. A man bellowing from a stairwell. The kind of furious domestic uproar no pursuer wanted around a hidden chase.
Good. Yusuf understood that one even before the stranger moved.
They ran again while the roof behind them dissolved into confusion.
This section sloped sharply toward a line of connected terraces with laundry strung so thickly between poles it formed shifting walls of cloth. White sheets. Indigo-dyed wraps. A red-striped haik that slapped Yusuf across the face as he passed. For a few wild seconds the world became fabric and fading sun and the smell of soap not fully rinsed out.
He heard footsteps behind the laundry, too close to tell whose.
A shape lunged through the hanging cloth.
Not the stranger.
One of the pursuers.
The man's hand caught Yusuf's burnous hood and yanked him backward. Yusuf choked as the cloth tightened against his throat. Panic flashed white and stupid through him. He drove an elbow behind him. It struck ribs. Not enough. The man dragged him harder, trying to bring him down.
Yusuf twisted, lost balance, and both of them hit the tiles in a crash of limbs and cursing.
The pursuer was heavier. Stronger too. He smelled of sweat, wool, and stale cloves. Yusuf got one hand on the man's wrist and saw, with cold immediate clarity, a knife coming out.
Too slow.
The stranger appeared from the other side of the laundry line and kicked the man off him.
Not a wild kick. Precise. Heel into the side of the knee. The joint bent wrong. The pursuer screamed and collapsed sideways into the wet cloth, tangling himself.
Yusuf stared, stunned for half a beat.
"Up," the stranger said.
He got up.
They burst out of the laundry maze and onto a roof edge too abruptly. Yusuf skidded to a halt with his toes almost over empty space.
Below lay not a courtyard this time but a narrow street, two full stories down. A vegetable cart rolled beneath at exactly the wrong moment, piled with turnips, onions, and bunches of herbs that looked absurdly vivid from above.
There was no roof directly across.
Only a lower awning over a workshop entrance, then beyond that a balcony, then a slanted tile run.
Yusuf looked at the stranger in disbelief. "No."
"Yes."
"That is not a roof. That is a collection of regrets."
Another whistle sounded behind them. Closer again.
The man in white grabbed Yusuf by the forearm. "Listen carefully. You jump to the awning. It will dip. Do not freeze. Move at once to the balcony rail. From there, the roof."
"That sounds impossible."
"It sounds sequential."
"I hate you."
"Yes."
The bowman emerged through the laundry behind them.
The stranger pushed Yusuf once.
Not off. Forward.
Yusuf swore, ran the final steps, and jumped.
The awning caught him with a violent sag that nearly folded him into the street. Dust burst upward. Someone below screamed. He bounced, scrambled, and threw himself at the balcony rail just as the awning cords began to tear.
His hands caught wood.
Pain shot through his right palm. He ignored it. Or failed to feel it properly. Same result.
He dragged himself up as the awning behind him gave way completely with a ripping crash onto the workshop entrance below. A man burst out of the doorway shouting curses so creative Yusuf would have admired them under other conditions.
The stranger landed lightly on the balcony beside him a breath later.
No time.
They crossed the balcony, vaulted its far side, and hit the slanted roof beyond. Yusuf slid three steps before finding traction. The roof ended in another terrace enclosed by low walls and stacked with baskets of drying mint.
The smell rose sharp and green as they barreled through.
Yusuf's legs had begun to tremble. Not from fear alone anymore. From depletion. Every climb, jump, crawl, and sprint had been stealing from muscles unused to this kind of demand. His lungs worked like torn bellows. His throat burned. He had not really stopped since the alley.
The stranger noticed. Of course he did.
"How long can you keep moving?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"An urgent one."
"I don't know."
"Then decide quickly."
Yusuf almost snapped back. Instead he said, more honestly than he liked, "Not long."
The stranger looked ahead, measuring roofs, light, distance, pursuit.
"Then we change the route."
They angled away from the taller rooftops and descended through a broken line of lower terraces, moving toward a district where the houses sat closer and the parapets rose higher. Easier to hide. Harder to leap. Yusuf was grateful enough not to say it.
Twice they flattened against walls while watchers crossed parallel roofs. Once they crouched behind stacked amphorae while a pair of boys carrying pigeon feed wandered past on a neighboring terrace, arguing in Darija about whether a local wrestler could defeat a bull. Yusuf listened to that nonsense with aching disbelief.
Then came another problem.
They reached a roof whose far side had collapsed years ago, leaving a jagged gap and a half-fallen cedar beam stretching toward the next building like the spine of something dead.
The stranger stopped.
Behind them, footsteps again. Several.
Ahead, the beam.
Yusuf laughed once. Short. Airless. "Of course."
The stranger looked at him. "Can you do it?"
"No."
"Good. Fear is finally making you accurate."
That should not have helped. Somehow it did.
The beam was wider than a man's foot, narrower than comfort, and tilted slightly downward toward the far roof. Beneath it lay a dark interior courtyard full of broken masonry and one dead fig tree bleached pale by years of sun.
The stranger crossed first, arms loose, balance effortless.
Yusuf stepped onto the beam and immediately understood too much about height.
The city noise fell away. Not really. But enough. His hearing narrowed around the scrape of his sandal, the small groan of old wood, the hammer of his own blood.
Halfway across, he looked down.
Mistake.
The courtyard seemed to rise toward him.
His breath hitched. The beam swayed. Or maybe that was him. Hard to tell.
"Yusuf."
The stranger's voice came from the far side. Calm. Low.
"Do not look at the fall. Look at me."
Yusuf lifted his head.
The man in white stood at the far roof edge, one hand extended, not dramatically, just there. Solid. Annoyingly solid.
"Come on," he said.
Yusuf did.
One step. Then another.
The footsteps behind grew louder. Somebody shouted. Wood thudded as one of the pursuers reached the near side of the beam.
Yusuf's body wanted to hurry. His balance wanted him dead.
He forced himself into smaller steps. Breathing through his nose because if he opened his mouth he thought panic might escape fully formed.
The last pace nearly undid him. His left foot slipped on old dust. He lurched sideways.
The stranger seized his wrist and hauled him onto the far roof.
A moment later the beam behind them cracked under the weight of the first pursuer and dropped one end violently. The man yelled, flung himself backward, and barely avoided falling into the courtyard below.
Yusuf landed on hands and knees and stayed there.
For a few breaths he could not move at all.
His whole body shook. Not just his hands now. Everything.
The stranger crouched beside him, not touching him this time.
"Look at me."
Yusuf didn't want to. He did it anyway.
"You are still alive," the man said.
A stupid thing to say. An obvious thing. Yet the words anchored somewhere.
"I noticed," Yusuf whispered.
"Good. Stand."
Yusuf laughed again, weaker this time. "You are impossible."
"Yes."
He got to his feet because apparently that was what this day demanded over and over until a man either obeyed or ceased being one.
The sun had lowered further. Evening was beginning to gather in the cracks of Fez. The muezzin would call soon. Maybe several already were in other quarters. Prayer and pursuit sharing the same hour.
The stranger looked toward the sinking light, then to the shadows thickening between the roofs below.
"We are close now," he said.
Yusuf swallowed against a dry throat. "Close to what?"
The man turned and started toward a descending roofline hidden behind taller parapets.
"Where fear stops being your worst problem."
Yusuf stared after him.
Then, because he no longer had the luxury of being anything but moving, he followed into the deepening gold and shadow of Fez.
End of Chapter 6