“First you see things others don’t,” she says. “Now you hear them, too? Do it another time and I’ll be the one who fills in your application at the asylum.”
“Major, I swear I saw shadows near the window!”
“Shadows,” she scoffs. Her cold, pale-brown eyes stare right through me at the painting on the wall behind. “Next you’ll be telling me that you saw the Pashu king Subodh risen from the dead.”
She stalks out, her boots tapping the sangemarmar tiles, her blue-and-silver tunic swishing in the air. The other Sky Warrior glances our way one last time before following her out. It’s not until the door to Chand Mahal closes that my grip on the magic loosens. My tongue unravels, a strange thickness to it, and my body tingles, as if doused in warm water after being frozen for a long time.
I turn to Cavas. “What happened?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He lets go of my hand as if burned.
Had we not evaded the most bloodthirsty Sky Warrior I’ve ever come across, I might have been kinder and left the interrogation for another day. “You turned us invisible.”
“That was you.” His voice is sharp, as harsh as it had been the morning Juhi and I first went to him for help. “You and your magic tricks. I had nothing to do with it.”
“That was no trick,” I tell him. “Your being able to see that living specter wasn’t a trick, either.” Cavas turns away from me, and I know he does not want to believe me. But I know what I heard. I saw the way Cavas’s head had moved—his eyes always focusing exactly where the specter’s voice came from. I know what I felt when I wished for us to disappear—finding Cavas’s magic drawn to mine like sparks, strengthening our combined powers into a flame.
“Something happened between us today,” I say. “Something that’s far too big to be ignored. As for those living specters—I think I might have heard one of them months ago at an inn in Javeribad. Maybe it was the one you called Latif. Maybe it was someone else. But they led me to the moon festival, saying that someone there would help me get into the palace. I think it was you I was supposed to meet, Cavas. It was you all along.” As I speak the words, my confidence grows. I may not have solid proof, but my gut tells me I’m on the right track.
“You’re dreaming. I was not at the moon festival to meet you. It was sheer coincidence that I even saw you there.” But his fists are clenched, and he doesn’t meet my gaze.
“It can’t be coincidence that your father is the one Juhi wanted me to see!” I prod. “It can’t be coincidence that the specter brought us here together with her singing. There must be some reason we keep connecting time and time again.”
“There is no connection between us. There is no prophecy, no jantar-mantar involved,” he says coldly, emphasizing jantar-mantar, a phrase used to describe illusions, cheap tricks that have nothing to do with magic at all. “I don’t know what the living specters are up to, but I didn’t bring you here because I believe in some fabled Star Warrior. You are no more to me except a means to an end.”
If he means to slice into me with those words, he succeeds. Brilliantly. But he underestimates me if he expects me to burst into tears and act wounded. Instead of walking away from him, I move closer, slow enough that he has enough opportunity to get away, to dodge my approach if he wants to.
He doesn’t.
A heat that has nothing to do with the weather or with magic simmers under my skin, reflects in his darkening pupils.
I’m not sure who makes the first move. All I know is that in the next moment, I’m pressed into the space between two paintings, his hand flat on my lower back, anger fusing his lips to mine. I welcome the rage, match it with my own: bite for bite, kiss for kiss. Somehow I know no matter how angry he is, Cavas will not hurt me.
Not physically at least.
My mind issues warnings about magi and non-magi, curses and boundaries, staying away and avoiding big mistakes.
My body takes over, ignoring the warnings. It welcomes the unsteady beat of my heart, the liquid heat between my thighs. It grows malleable, anger fading to a background hum. For a long moment, all I can think of is the skin right above my clavicle that he’s gently tracing with his tongue.
“Is this a means to an end, too?” The words slip out, my mind winning for the moment.
He raises his head. Anger flashes on his face once more. Underneath that, there’s something else. An emotion he shutters with a blink of his eyes before I can put a name to it.
I didn’t say anything wrong. Surely, after the things he said, my cruelty is justified.
So why do I feel guilty when he stalks out of Chand Mahal?
Why does it feel as if I’ve lost?
24GUL
Somehow, I keep my wits intact and return my dagger to its hiding place in the garden before heading to the palace again.
Rain pours in torrents the next morning, the clouds overhead blacker than Queen Amba’s mood. Before the end of the afternoon, a serving girl leaves the queen’s chambers in tears, blood trickling down both nostrils.
“Whoever said things look better in the morning was lying through their teeth,” I hear another servant mutter while sweeping the lobby floor, and I can’t help but agree. The morning also does nothing to improve my guilt over what happened with Cavas in Chand Mahal.
Cavas isn’t wrong when he says we aren’t friends. Though the living specter specifically told us to stick together, being around me can only get Cavas into trouble. As selfish as I am in many ways, trouble
