Bet On It

‘Bet On It’ is a chapter of the comic, preceded by The Promise and followed by The Space Between Us.

Episode 1

Sam and Aria talk about her plan to open a restaurant while they exercise together on a running track. They tell her it’s selfish to keep working instead of moving to the palace to do great things. Sam proposes another lap, with a bet: if she wins the race, Aria never bothers her about her work again, and if Aria wins, he gets a surprise.

(This episode also has the first instance of the pronouns page.)

Episode 2

Sam almost wins the race by using a Rasul ability to run very fast, but Aria uses their web teleportation to win instead. Sam kisses them as his surprise.

Episode 3

Sam and Aria regret that they won’t be able to avoid Sam’s family and Aria’s sisters respectively when summer arrives. Zach and Musa wait for Sam at a station. When she returns, Emira passes them all in cat form to avoid having to pay for a train ticket, which upsets their brother Omar.

Episode 4

Zach says hi to Emira, and Musa gives them a formal greeting worthy of Rasul. Zach questions why Musa doesn’t greet Sam and him with the same formality, given they are both Rasul too. Emira and Omar part ways from them when they arrive at the sooq. They split up, with Sam and Zach looking for furniture together to put in Sam’s upcoming diner. They can’t afford anything. Zach approaches a street vendor peddling prophecies taken verbatim from Aria’s weekly prognostications, and blackmails him out of 50 dinar in exchange for not telling the sooq administration, to spend on furniture.

Episode 5

They find a man who was selling Bird scriptures, but he is closing, having been asked to leave by the sooq administration. It seems there were complaints about the stall for practising Bird religion in a city where there are few believers. The man offers Zach a flyer for a mosque. Musa rings Zach and asks to be rescued from situation in another part of the sooq.

Episode 6

When Zach and Sam arrive, Musa reveals that, having lost a bit of money to them in Deathhead, they wanted Musa’s earrings as collateral before letting him go to an ATM. The earrings were Musa’s mother’s. Zach and Sam realise that none of the people playing Deathhead are Rasul, so wouldn’t be able to detect any magic. Zach and Sam offer the players double or nothing in another round of Deathhead.

Episode 7

Sam uses her powers to cause her opponent to turn over Al Muhyi, the Deathhead card, and lose the game. They take their money and leave. Sam claims she won using “women’s intuition”. Zach wonders if she ever loses — she says there is one person she can’t win against, who Zach guesses is her lover who she is having an affair with. They spend the winnings on furniture.