Malti stuffs her fists into her mouth.
“Do you want to go back and clean up?” Cavas asks quietly. It’s the first time in three days that he’s spoken to me in a tone that isn’t dismissive, and I’m annoyed by how happy it makes me.
“I’d better not.” I lower my voice so that Malti doesn’t hear. “Rani Amba is on the warpath this week. She might send me to prison for muddying her precious sangemarmar floors.”
A laugh booms out of him, surprising both of us. My heart, stupid thing, begins to thrum—even more so when he pulls the checkered cloth off his shoulder and offers it to me. “It’s clean. Washed it this morning.”
“Thanks.” The cloth smells of lye, honeyweed, and horses. I try not to bury my face in the scent.
We walk the remaining way in silence, but it doesn’t feel as strained as it was the day before. It’s not until Malti begins galloping with Dhoop that I speak again.
“I’m sorry. For what happened in Chand Mahal.”
“For the kiss?” he asks quietly.
“Yes—I mean, no!” I flush when his gaze locks with mine. “Are you sorry?”
“No.” He doesn’t look away, though I think I see red creeping up his neck. “I’m sorry for what I said to you, though. About being a means to an end. I was … frustrated, I suppose. I took it out on you.”
If it leads to more kisses, I don’t mind so much. I don’t voice the thought out loud, but something about my expression must have tipped him off, because he smiles again.
“You should smile more,” I say. “It improves your face.”
He laughs.
“Why were you frustrated?” I ask after a pause.
He frowns, turning away to watch Malti and Dhoop for a while. “There is a … man—or at least I thought he was a man—whom I meet up with from time to time. You heard me mention his name at Chand Mahal the other night: Latif. He looks a bit like the girl who spoke to us there. Gray eyes. Gray skin. Strangely … colorless. Latif was the one who convinced me to bring you to the palace. After what happened at Chand Mahal, I wanted answers. But Latif hasn’t answered me the way he usually does when we communicate. Come to think of it, he was ignoring me before that as well.”
A living specter. The words hover unspoken in the air, a mammoth in a tiny room. I can’t help but feel queasy. What do the living specters want with me? As for this Latif. Now that Cavas mentions him again, his name sounds familiar, as if I’ve heard it somewhere, spoken by someone else before.
Queen’s curses, why can’t I remember? No wonder Amira calls me useless.
“That must have taken some convincing,” I tell Cavas. “You hated me.”
“I never hated you, Gul.” A slight smile. “But yes, Latif promised me something if I got you in here. Usually he lives up to his promises fairly quickly, but I haven’t been able to get hold of him again.” Cavas pauses, his smile fading. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what that girl said. About how she is a living specter. There’s a part of me that wants to ask Papa directly, but he’s been so ill lately, so tired. I just … couldn’t.”
My mind races, picking out something that I remember Cavas mentioning before. “You told Juhi that your father has Tenement Fever. Is there no cure for it?”
“No. Tenement Fever doesn’t go away—unless you leave the tenements. If my contact doesn’t live up to his promise, then I’ll have no choice but to join the army. It’s the only way I can get out. Get Papa to a safer place.”
My elbows tighten painfully; I realize I’ve been gripping them hard with my hands. The army. “Cavas, that’s—”
“I know what you’re thinking. My father doesn’t approve, either. He promised I’d see him dead if I ever joined.” He gives me another smile, but this one doesn’t reach his eyes. “I don’t know what’s worse—that, or to see him die little by little every day.”
I say nothing for a long moment. That Cavas would be willing to pledge his loyalty to a ruler who has done nothing for non-magi except torture them baffles me.
Or does it?
I try to imagine myself in Cavas’s shoes. Imagine what it would have been like if my parents were still alive, but desperately ill.
“I don’t like it, but I understand why you’d make that choice,” I say finally, meaning the words. “It’s always easier to defy someone when you have nothing to lose.”
Cavas says nothing in response, but a moment later, I feel the back of his hand brushing mine.
Push it away, Gul, a voice in my head warns. Push his hand away before someone sees and reports you to Yukta Didi.
But then Cavas’s thumb brushes my wrist, and I stop thinking of everything except for the warmth of his skin, of my own quickening pulse. It’s how we stand, for several long moments, until Malti and Dhoop slow down to a trot, and we’re forced again to break apart.
Queen Amba summons me to her chambers the next morning. I pause outside the ornately carved door—this one with designs of a river, a sunlit orchard, and a lion—and lightly knock.
“Enter.”
Amba sits on cushions next to a large mirror, wearing a ghagra-choli of the palest pink. Right behind her, a servant pulls up sections of her wet hair, holding a fragrant pot of burning incense underneath. If the queen was planning an interrogation, she certainly isn’t dressed for it. Heartbeat slowly steadying, I bow low.
“Yes, yes, enough of that,” Amba says impatiently. “You’ll accompany Rajkumari Malti in the garden today. She’s had enough riding this week. You’ll find her in the gold room with her tutor.”
“Yes, Rani Amba.” My jaw unclenches. She doesn’t know about me and Cavas. No one knows. Except perhaps Princess Malti.
As Queen Amba said, I find Malti waiting for me in
