caught sight of him and edged over, slipping into the empty chair.
“I’m sorry, Ifra,” she said.
“It’s all right.”
“I never… realized… I don’t know.”
He spread his hands. “Join me for dinner.”
That put the ghost of a smile on her lips. “I will.”
The serving girl brought a plate of food right out to her. The room was even busier now-all the chairs were gone, the bar was full, and some people who had come in after their friends were just standing at tables, holding drinks and talking. Individual conversations were impossible to catch, but the names of Luka and Belin were on everyone’s lips.
“We need to make a plan,” Ifra said. “And we need to make it carefully. We know what we want. To find Erris, if we can. To put you on the throne. To get the fairies behind you. To get Belin out of the picture. But what does Belin want?”
Violet leaned in closer. She still had that spark of excitement in her eyes-probably a part of her still felt like she was in a story. “Well, it sounds like people aren’t too happy with him. He wants me so people won’t be as upset, but… he must also want to keep me from going anywhere or talking to anyone important.”
“Yes. And he’ll know that if you’re on the throne, you can give me orders.”
“Can I give orders that contradict his orders?”
“Sometimes jinn are bound to families, and if that happens, the person usually names a successor, like the eldest son, who takes precedence in giving commands. Luka named Belin as his successor to the throne, so I assume he’ll take precedence. But I really won’t know unless you gave me contradicting orders, because the commands will tug at me.” He frowned. “Try not to do it. I don’t want to get pulled in two different directions.”
“I’m going to try my best to seem like a stupid little girl who just wants dresses and cake. I’m good at that.”
“I bet.”
She gave him a withering look. “I suppose I will order you around anyway, in stupid ways. Like, ‘bring me my slippers!’ Make him think I don’t see you as anything but a slave. We don’t want him to know there’s anything between us.”
Was there something between them? Ifra couldn’t stop looking at her, even when she was acting spoiled. Maybe even especially then. Not that she ought to just get away with it. “Maybe there won’t be, after all of that,” he said.
She briefly stuck out her tongue. “What about Nimira?”
“What about her?”
“She and Erris were going to look for Erris’s real body in the fairy kingdom. What if she tries to come after us now? Celestina-if she’s all right-she… she’ll be worried about me too. I know she will. She’s sort of a mother hen sometimes.”
“I don’t know.” Ifra ran his fingers through his hair. So many personalities to keep track of, and how was he supposed to anticipate what they all would do? “How would she even make it through the fairy gate? We didn’t have any trouble, but that’s because of me. Would Nimira be able to pass as a trader?”
“I don’t know, but I think she’s pretty clever.”
“Maybe we can send her a letter,” he said. “Tell her what our plans are, so she’ll hopefully wait it out. I think she’d only be disruptive at the moment.”
“Yes.”
Violet trailed off. A man with a flute and a girl with a fiddle had walked in the door, playing as they went, which prompted the reappearance of several drums and rattles that had been set aside earlier in favor of eating. Conversation turned impossible, unless they wanted to scream directly into each other’s ears. Everyone joined in the old songs about the Green Hoods, songs about heroes hanging, revenge, rebellion.
Ifra felt vaguely nervous, comparing this raucous gathering to the stately hall of Telmirra-they seemed worlds apart. Belin didn’t even seem to know how discontented the border folk were, or maybe he simply didn’t care.
Violet leaned close enough to shout into his ear. “This is so exciting! Think what they’d say if they knew I was here!” Before he could respond, she added, “Don’t worry! I won’t.” She sat back, hands clapping.
A young man approached her, his cheeks flushed. “Care to dance, miss?”
She glanced at Ifra.
“Go ahead,” he said, too fast, seized by an impulse to push her away, to show himself he didn’t care. She gave him a slightly impish look and then took the proffered hand. The young man whirled her into the heart of the crowd, packed in the once-open space in the middle of the floor between tables.
The fairy men dressed quite a bit differently from the humans of Cernan. They didn’t shy from color. Dark blue and forest green coats whirled and bobbed in the firelight, while other men had stripped to shirtsleeves and embroidered vests. Violet’s clothes still looked out of place-too drab and too fussy in the wrong sort of way-buttons and puffs and flounces. But her heart belonged here, Ifra could tell. She looked far away from her concerns, smiling, hair flying, cheeks full of high color.
Ifra finished his cider and stood. He started clapping with the rest. When Violet saw him, she beamed and took her leave from the young man, slipping between two other couples and offering her hand to Ifra. Her best smile seemed to be for him alone.
Ifra took her hand, pulling her against him-you couldn’t move in the room unless you were close, but he wanted her there, in any case. They fell into step, feet stumbling because neither really knew how to dance. Of course, Ifra had never heard music like this before, but it reminded him of the dances he’d seen at the bazaar. Drums needed no language.
When the song was done, Violet grabbed his collar and dropped a kiss on his lips. She laughed and went back to her own unfinished cider. Someone had taken their chairs during the song. A new song began with all the wobble of a newborn animal, and then someone came in with an accordion and threw everything off. The musicians were arguing about what to do next.
Violet looked at him over the rim of her cup. Her chest was heaving from the exertion of the dance, although she was trying to play coy.
He slipped an arm around her waist. She put down the cup. He kissed her this time, and hard. She pulled him to her-much more boldly than he expected a girl to move.
“What kind of books have you been reading all these years?” he said.
She clung to him, spoke into his ear. “I just-I’ve been sick forever, and once I got better, I thought
She sat atop the table, drew him closer and kept kissing. No one even seemed to notice them. The music had finally found its way again. A faint haze of tobacco hovered in the room.
It was only later, much later, after they had danced again and kissed again, had danced some more, after he had carried a half-drunk and entirely exhausted Violet to bed, that he realized he too had moved far away from his concerns. That night, he had not been a jinn, with all the responsibilities it entailed.
He had been, simply, Ifra.
And a very, very happy Ifra, at that.
Chapter 21
Every day, I waited to hear the sound of the train whistle on the winter air. Annalie managed to communicate with Karstor through spirit channels and was told he was sending a doctor as soon as possible. Mostly, I heard nothing but branches cracking from the ice, or the wind moaning at the windows. February storms kept the train from running, and even on pleasant days I imagined that Cernan, the last stop on the route, was hardly a priority for the men clearing the tracks.
