“What about the last one?”
“That’s the one everyone’s been talking about! There was this serving girl—you know, the one who accompanies Rajkumari Malti? She crossed the rekha to the other side!”
My heart sinks to somewhere around the region of my toes. I feel Govind watching me from the other end.
“She fought a mammoth from Prithvi! And get this—”
“I’m going to fill Raat’s trough with water,” I say.
I don’t want to listen to more. I don’t want to hear how the mammoth gored Gul with its tusks or crushed her underfoot. I don’t want to remember her laughter or the empathy shimmering in her eyes when I told her about joining the army.
I shouldn’t be thinking about Gul.
Not when she’s probably the reason behind the dreams I’ve been having since we both turned invisible in Chand Mahal. They’re strange dreams, filled with spirits of people I do not know, clawing at my arms and legs, begging me to listen. Last night’s dream had been even more chilling. I saw my mother again; only this time, instead of walking with me in the Desert of Dreams, she was at the center of a storm, surrounded by dustwolves. The closer I got to her, the more her body changed, fur sprouting from her skin, her hands and feet turning into paws. Long canines gleamed as she roared, her pale-green eyes the only part of her that remained on a terrible feline face. Save us, she cried out. Save us, Cavas. I woke, sweat soaking my tunic, a scream locked in my throat.
I’m still thinking of the dream this morning. It’s perhaps because of it that I find myself headed past the garden, toward Raj Mahal. I’m not a woman, so the magic of the rekha has no effect on me, feels like nothing except a slight disturbance in the air. A pair of serving boys rush past, none paying attention as I make my way across the too-green lawn, toward the crowd gathered outside the shimmering palace. I am not sure what I’m expecting upon reaching Raj Mahal—a funeral procession? Bodies wrapped in shrouds to be buried in unmarked graves outside the city?
I don’t expect to find two courtiers lying on the grass nearby, giggling and smelling strongly of honeyed madira, their cups lying forgotten nearby. I don’t expect to hear cheering up ahead, as Acharya Damak attempts unsuccessfully to dodge a group of rowdy men showering him with blue flowers conjured from thin air. There is no wake here, I realize. Only a celebration, which, from the sounds of it, has been going on for some time. I spot the king watching the unfortunate acharya, with a bored expression on his face and a jade wine cup in his hand. Next to the king stands a girl with a trail of blood running down her temple, but otherwise unharmed. Gul. Or Siya, as the bejeweled courtiers call her over and over again, her name a victory chant in their mouths.
She survived. By some miracle, the way she helped us both survive Chand Mahal.
Or perhaps it was no miracle, I think. Perhaps this is what she was always meant to do.
Gul, with her too-thin face and far-too-sharp eyes. Eyes that continuously scan her surroundings, that pause and widen when they fall on me. I might be invisible to a crowd of magi, but Gul has always been able to see me. The way I’ve always been able to see her.
What she has to do with me is not important, Latif had told me. What she has to do with you is.
And it’s about time I found out exactly what he meant.
The trouble with Latif: He hasn’t appeared in nearly two weeks.
Even after constant rubbing, the green swarna in my hand remains cold—which it never has in the past.
“What are you doing?”
I look up to find Papa standing overhead, staring at me. “N-nothing.” I put the green swarna aside nonchalantly. “Found this on the road on the way home tonight. Looks like it’s a fake, though.”
“Hmm.”
“Did you take your medicine today?”
He grimaces. “I’m feeling fine.”
“That’s because you took your medicine on time for the past week.” I try not to sound impatient. It was the way this medicine worked. With lots of doses and lots of rest. The moment Papa began exerting himself with more than the most basic of chores around the house, things began falling apart.
“I’ll make you some tea.”
“It tastes like poison.”
“If it were poison, I wouldn’t be arguing with you right now,” I say dryly. “Go rest.”
The cot creaks behind me with his weight. Flames lick up the wood on our small stove. I put the kettle on. When the water is steaming, I pour it into a brass cup and stir in the herbs.
“Your ma used to do this, you know,” Papa says suddenly. “Make tea. Scold me for letting it get cold.”
An image appears in my mind: the strangely familiar woman I saw as a five-year-old, a woman who looked startlingly like the portrait of Ma hanging in our house. Papa called that moment a figment of my imagination, and for the longest time, I accepted his answer. Never questioning it except for the past five nights.
I sit on his cot and grip my knees with shaking hands before speaking. “I saw a little girl five nights ago at the palace. She said she was a living specter.”
Papa frowns. “You didn’t see a living specter, Cavas. I told you this when you were a boy.”
“I know what you told me.” I feel my jaw grow taut. “I also know that I was the only one who could see her. There was a magus in the room with me, and she couldn’t see the girl. Besides, that girl wasn’t the only living specter I’ve seen. There’s another, whom I’ve been meeting every month now. For a whole year.”
Papa falls silent.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.” My
