I try to recruit Kali’s help, but she shakes her head. “This is between you two. I am not going to interfere.” Kali’s thick bandage is now gone, three upraised scars marring her waist under the band of her sari blouse.
“I’m sorry.” The words feel heavy in my mouth.
“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.” Kali’s cool voice isn’t a reprimand. Not quite. But after hearing the story Juhi told me, I’m not surprised by her reaction. By wielding Amira’s terrible secret as a weapon, I’ve broken Kali’s trust as well.
As a last resort, I painstakingly pen a note in my best writing on fresh parchment: I apologize for the hurt I inflicted on you. Gul. When it’s empty, I slip into the room Amira shares with Kali and place the note on her cot.
I don’t see Amira the next day or even the next. Then, one afternoon, as I’m crouched to the ground, sweeping the courtyard as part of my chores, a shadow falls over me. Amira. I start rising to my feet, another apology poised on my tongue, when she holds up the note and slowly tears it in one half. Then another. Bit by bit, allowing the pieces to float to the ground, like a tree shedding leaves during the Month of Drought.
“Sweep that up, will you?” she says before turning on her heel and walking away.
Rain clouds gather in the sky on the night of my test. The light drizzle eventually grows into a steady downpour, and several novices rush into the courtyard, laughing, splashing in the puddles like five-year-olds. Normally, I would be right there with them, but I’m too depressed tonight.
I head to the training room—more out of habit than any willingness to practice—and pull out the map I’d made of Ambar Fort over the past two years. I hold the parchment straight and slowly rip it in half, then in quarters. Moments later, I’m sitting on the ground, surrounded by pieces of paper. Why keep the map when I am never going to get into the palace?
You still have the test, a voice in my head reminds me.
“What’s the point?” I say out loud. I feel dull all of a sudden, the anger draining out of me. “I’m going to fail.”
The daggers I normally use are now locked up in the armory—along with Amira’s spear. I stare at the gunnysack in the corner of the training room—the one I’d tried to destroy six weeks ago. Outside, rain continues to pour, the drops tapping against the room’s small window.
Tap tap taptaptap tap. The sound brings forth a memory from my childhood, when we lived in the village of Sur. Rainy afternoons, when I would sneak into my parents’ bedroom and lie on my father’s side of the bed, reading one of his old scrolls to the sound of a sparrow persistently pecking at the mirror nailed to the door of the old cupboard.
“Why does it do that?” I asked Papa once. “The sparrow?”
“It thinks another sparrow lives in the mirror,” Papa said, smiling. “Look at its focus! It does not know it’s staring at itself. It’s a lesson of sorts, don’t you think?”
“A lesson?”
“A reminder really. To step back sometimes and allow yourself to look at the bigger picture.”
And that’s what I do now. Instead of focusing on a single, simple memory, I step back and recall the sound of my father’s voice. I retrace the lines and planes of his face, the scar that he’d grown a beard to hide. I recall the booming way he laughed whenever he found anything funny; I pretend I can feel the sandpaper texture of his hand brush my cheek again. Papa’s favorite color was green, like the tunic he wore at the moon festival two years ago. He believed in justice and in the good of the world, and he loved me and Ma unconditionally.
My mind grows still. Warmth skids from the birthmark and across my right hand, which begins glowing like the sun. Sparks erupt from my fingertips, rise and swirl in the air, encircling me in a web of light.
Without thinking, without even understanding why, I use my hand to gather the sparks, buzzing like fireflies against my palm. My head begins to pound. Just when I think I can’t bear the pain in my skull any longer, a beam of red light bursts from my hand—and forms a spear that sinks into the sack, rice spilling out like water, turning to dust as it hits the ground.
Moments later, I grow aware of another presence in the room. When I turn, I find Juhi standing by the door, her dark eyes reflecting my still-glowing hands.
“J-Juhi Didi. Did you see what I…”
“I saw,” she says. “I saw everything.” As she moves closer, I see a smile. And something else that I’m too afraid to give a name to.
Slowly, she waves a hand over the ruined sack. I hold my breath, waiting for a long moment. But nothing happens. My magic held true. I have passed the test.
“Wait here,” Juhi says abruptly before leaving the room. I wonder if she has gone to fetch Amira and Kali, but a moment later, Juhi returns alone. In her hands she’s holding—
“The seaglass daggers you like so much.” She gives me a smile. “My father gave them to me when I was sixteen. But, based on what Amira told me, I think they suit you better.”
“Juhi Didi!” I protest. “I can’t!” But when she presses them into my hands, I find my fingers curling around the hilts, the fit so perfect that they might have been made for me.
“Performing death magic without a weapon is still dangerous,” Juhi reminds me. As much as I long to deny this, I know she’s right, my head still throbbing from the
