“Miss, I mean you no harm,” he called out to her. “But you must remove your snoda.

For
your safety.”
She froze at that, at the sound of his voice.
Kamran was heartened by this and dared to approach her, overcome not only by
concern for the girl, but by an impassioned curiosity that grew only stronger by the
moment. It occurred to him, as he dared to close the gap between their bodies, that the
wrong move might spook her—might send her running blindly through the
streets—so he moved with painstaking carefulness.
It was no good.
He'd taken but two steps toward her and she went flying into the night; in her haste she
slipped, landing hard on cobblestone, scattering her packages in the process.
Kamran ran to her.
Her snoda had slipped an inch, the wet netting sealing around her nose, suffocating her.
In a single motion she tore the mask from her face, gasping for air. Kamran hooked his
arms under hers and dragged her to her feet.
“My—my packages,” she gasped, raindrops pelting her closed eyes, her nose, her
mouth. She licked the rainwater from her lips and caught her breath, keeping her eyes
shut, refusing to meet his gaze. Her cheeks were flush with
color—with cold—her sooty lashes the same shade as her sable curls, wet tendrils
spiraling away from her face, some plastered to her neck.
Kamran could hardly believe his fate.
Her reluctance to open her eyes provided him the rare opportunity to study her at
length, without fear of self-consciousness. All this time he'd been wondering about the
girl and now here she was, in his arms, her face mere inches from his own
and—devils above, he could not look away from her.
Her features were both precise and soft, balanced in every quadrant as if by a master.
She was finely designed, loveliness rendered in its truest sense. This discovery was
surreal to him to the point of distraction, all the more so because Kamran's calculations
had been wrong. He'd suspected she might be beautiful, yes⠀”but this girl was not
merely beautiful.
She was stunning.
“Hang the packages,” he said softly. “Are you hurt?”
“No, no—” She pushed against him like she might be blind, still refusing to open her
eyes. “Please, I need my packages—”
Try as he might, Kamran could not understand.
He
knew
she was not blind, and yet she pretended at it now, for reasons he could not fathom. At
every turn this girl had baffled him, and just as he was beginning to digest this, she
threw herself to the ground, sparing Kamran only seconds to catch the girl before her
knees connected with stone. She pulled away from him, paying him no mind even as
her skirts sank into the old slush of the filthy street, her hands fumbling
in the wet for sign of her wares. She moved suddenly into a stroke of gaslight, the flame
bracing her in its glow.
It was then that Kamran noticed the bandages.
Her hands were wrapped almost to the point of immobility; she could hardly bend a
finger. It was no wonder she struggled to hold on to her things.
He quickly scooped up the scattered items, depositing them into his satchel. He didn't
want to scare her by shouting over the rain, so he bent low and said close to her ear:
“I've got your packages, miss. You may be easy now.”