Excerpt from The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Finally, Rawiya and Bauza came upon a walled city in a valley. Caravans of merchants from the Sahara and from Marrakesh spilled onto the grassy plain dotted by eucalyptus trees. The green rope of the Fes River split the city in two. The folded chins of the High Atlas cast long shadows.

Inside the city gates, Bauza trotted between plaster houses painted shades of rose and saffron, green-crowned minarets, and gilded window arches. Rawiya was dazzled by jade roofs and jacaranda trees blooming the color of purple lightning. In the Medina, merchants sat cross-kneed behind huge baskets of spices and grains. The tapestry of colors caught Rawiya's eye: the frosted indigo of ripe figs, rust-red paprika. Hanging lanterns of wrought metal and colored glass sent tiny petals of light that clung to shadowed alleyways. Children pattered through the streets, smelling of tanned leather and spices.

Rawiya guided Bauza toward the center of the Medina, where she hoped to find the mapmaker. Dust from the streets painted Bauza's hooves. In the heat of the day, the shade of carved stone and mosaic tile felt cool, refreshing. The cries of merchants and spice vendors deafened Rawiya. The air was thick with sweat and oil, the musk of horses and camels and men, the bite of pomegranates, the sugar-song of dates.

Rawiya searched among the merchants and travelers, interrupting sales of spices and perfumes and salt, asking about a man who traveled weighted down by leather-bound scrolls and parchment-paper sketches of the places he'd been, a man who had sailed the Mediterranean. No one knew where to find him.

Rawiya was about to give up when she heard a voice: "I know the person you seek." She turned and saw a man stooped in front of a camel tied to an olive tree. He sat in a small courtyard off the Medina, his white turban wrapped close around his head, his leather shoes and robe coated in a sheen of travel dust. He beckoned her closer.

"You know the mapmaker?" Rawiya stepped into the courtyard.

"What do you want with him?" The man had a short, dark beard, and his eyes as he studied her were polished obsidian.

Rawiya added up her words. "I am a merchant's son," she said. "I wish to offer my services to the mapmaker. I wish to learn the craft and earn a living."

The man smiled, catlike. "I'll tell you where to find him if you can answer three riddles. Do you accept?"

Rawiya nodded.

"The first riddle," the man said, "is this." And he said:

Who is the woman who lives forever,

Who tires never,

Who has eyes in all places

and a thousand faces? "Let me think." Rawiya patted Bauza's neck. Hunger and heat had made her light-headed, and the mention of a woman made her think of her mother. Rawiya wondered what her mother was doing—probably watching the sea for Salim. It had been so long since she'd had Baba to watch the water with her, to walk with her through the olive grove. Rawiya remembered when she was small, how Baba had told her of the sea, that shape-shifting woman who never died—

"The sea," Rawiya cried. "She lives forever, always changing her moods. The sea has a thousand faces."

The man laughed. "Very good." And he continued with the second riddle:

What is the map you take with you

everywhere you go—

the map that guides, sustains you

through field and sun and snow?

Rawiya frowned. "Who always carries a map? Do you mean a map in your head?" She looked down at her hands, at the delicate veins running the length of her wrist and palm. But then— "The blood makes a kind of map, a net of roads in the body."

The man eyed her. "Well done," he said.

Rawiya shifted from foot to foot, impatient. "The third riddle?" The man leaned forward:

What is the most important place on a map?

"That's it?" Rawiya said. "That's not fair!"

Excerpted from The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar. Copyright © 2018 by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar. Excerpted by permission of Touchstone. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.