“A novice found something interesting when she went in to clean your dormitory today,” Kali says, interrupting my thoughts.
“Oh?” I keep my voice casual, unaffected.
“Yes. She found a map of Ambarvadi and Ambar Fort tucked inside the pillow on your cot.”
“That old thing? I got it at the village fair last year.”
“Indeed.” Kali holds up the scroll I designed with slow, painstaking care. “With details about the queens’ palace: the entrances and exits, notes on the number of Sky Warriors in Raja Lohar’s army down to the number of courtesans he employs. There’s also an empty square drawn in for the king’s palace. Interesting. Where did you hear about that?”
From Papa. From eavesdropping on Kali and Juhi. From the palace guards who occasionally get drunk on orange liquor at the Javeribad inn, blurting out secrets to girls with veiled faces and pretty laughs. It was the first thing Kali taught me when I began to pickpocket: how to laugh pretty.
Though Kali can’t read my thoughts unless she’s touching me, I am careful not to laugh now or tell her anything of what I know. Not that I know much when it comes to Raj Mahal. The palace guards grew abruptly tight-lipped when asked about that, which made me wonder if there is some kind of magic binding them to secrecy.
“So you found the plot of the story I’m working on,” I say with a shrug.
She raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You’re writing a story?”
It’s such a poor lie that I want to kick myself for it. I’ve never been the sort to live in dreams. Not when there are days when my own memories fail me and I forget my mother’s favorite sweet. Or wonder if there really was a mole on the side of my father’s cheek.
Except in the nightmares that shake me awake sweating, my mouth bloody, my cheeks sore from being bitten. In nightmare, at least, I can remember every detail about my parents and the day they died. The silver thread running through the weave of Papa’s green tunic. The rabdi Ma made that morning, garnished with fried cashews and raisins. The tale of the two moons that Papa recited every Chandni Raat as carefully as a spell.
Instinctively, I reach for the three silver beads that I always wear around my neck. What if Papa had never answered the door when the Sky Warriors had knocked? Would the three of us have had time to escape? Would I still have my parents with me?
“We always wonder about these things, don’t we?” Kali says softly. “The what-ifs?”
I bite my tongue. I must have spoken my last thought out loud, because Kali hasn’t touched me at all.
“I’ll have to shackle you to the house, you know.” There’s a hint of regret in Kali’s voice. Her hands glow blue.
“I know.”
I may have escaped the shackle for breaking the rules to leave the house tonight. Kali could chalk that up to a bored girl wanting to enjoy a festive evening. But the map is another matter altogether. Sneaking out to find a way into Ambar Fort could not only potentially get me arrested, it could reveal the location of the Sisters and endanger them as well. And Kali can’t ignore that.
I don’t try to run. Or argue. I am no match for Kali in close combat, especially not when she uses magic. I offer her my hands, wrists turned up, and then my feet. The spell burns my skin like a hot splash of oil, even though it leaves no marks. A shackle effectively confines you within a space of the spellcaster’s choosing—in this case, the four walls of the orphanage—the magic forming an invisible barrier against every door and window, even against the ground if you try to dig your way out. I know. I’ve tried.
“You’ll tell Juhi about this, won’t you?” I ask.
“You know I have to.”
I sigh. Juhi’s anger is always ten times worse than anyone else’s, mostly because of the heavy disappointment she attacks you with first.
“Sleep well, pretty girl.” Kali gives me a wry smile.
“I will.” I force myself to smile back.
I will sleep well—once I get into the palace, to the demon king, and sink a dagger deep into his heart.
6CAVAS
I was twelve years old when I first entered the palace stables, when coincidence—or perhaps the sky goddess herself—put me directly in the path of General Tahmasp, unofficially called the Spider in the palace for his intricately spun battle plans. Officially, the general is the commander of the king’s army, which also makes him head of the Sky Warriors.
As a young boy, though, I did not know who he was. If I had, I might not have had the courage to do what I did then—to reach out and stop him from brushing against a shrub a few feet away from the stable door and getting bitten by a venomous grass snake protecting her eggs.
I still recall the shocked sound the general made when I touched him, the way he stared at the prints my dirty fingers had left behind on his sleeve, the mud that had splattered the front of his pristine white uniform. I remember the hard grip of my father’s hands on my shoulders as he pulled me back, his profuse apologies to the general.
“What in Svapnalok did you do that for, boy?” General Tahmasp asked me in a stern voice. “Did you find it amusing to soil my uniform?”
I swallowed the stone in my throat and explained myself, even though I was sure that I would be imprisoned and that my father, too, would be punished for bringing me with him to work.
Instead, General Tahmasp looked at Papa and said, “Don’t you work in the palace stables? Keep this boy there with you, and train him.
