“What?” I ask.
“I’ve never seen you smile before.”
“That’s not true,” I say. Could that be true? Do I smile so infrequently?
He shakes his head. “Never. Not like that. Not a real smile.”
“Oh, so you’ve seen some of my fake smiles?”
He shrugs. “A few. Mostly when you’ve been trying to get rid of me.” Am I so transparent? Or have I just underestimated how much Deven notices? The thought both thrills and terrifies me.
“Maybe we can work on increasing the smiling along with the food?” he says. I can’t help it; I smile again, and he smiles back and we just stare at each other for a moment. Then he turns to Mani and pats him on the back. “See you soon,” he says. Before I know what’s happening, he folds me in an embrace and kisses my cheek. It’s not just a quick graze either; his lips linger there, soft and warm. Panic races across my skin. I didn’t have time to turn, to position him safely. He pulls away and my fingers find the place where his lips rested. The spot is still warm and I can feel the contours of my cheekbone underneath my fingertips, so it’s far enough from my lips. I sigh in relief and then clap my hand over my mouth. That sigh could so easily be misinterpreted. The way Deven is grinning, I see it probably has been.
“Goodbye, Deven,” I say, carefully avoiding looking directly at his face.
“Bye, Marinda.”
I take Mani’s hand and we walk away. I resist the urge to look back as long as I can, and when I finally do, Deven has disappeared.
When Mani and I get back to the flat, Iyla opens the door. My stomach plummets. What is she doing here? She must know that I’ve been with Deven. She must have followed me or…and then I focus on her face. A fresh bruise blooms across her jaw—bright red bleeding into purple.
I gasp. “Iyla, what happened?” She meets my eyes and shakes her head, just a fraction. I understand her immediately. It’s a signal as old as our pairing—he’s here, it’s not safe to talk. I look beyond her and, sure enough, Gopal is leaning back on one of the chairs, his hands clasped behind his head. I squeeze Iyla’s fingers as I brush past her and step into the flat.
“Marinda,” Gopal says, his voice dripping with sweetness. “So nice to finally see you.” My mind is racing. What does he know? What did he do to Iyla? How can I avoid making it worse for her? For me? Mani is hiding behind my legs, a fistful of my skirt in his hands.
“I didn’t know to expect you,” I say. I try to keep my voice casual, airy, and I’m praying to the ancestors he can’t read me as well as Deven can.
“Of course you weren’t, rajakumari,” Gopal says, letting the chair drop onto all four legs. “I just came to tell you that we sorted out our little misunderstanding.”
“Oh?” I’m not sure exactly where he’s going, and this is the most neutral response I can think of.
“Yes,” he says, standing. “It turns out Iyla here was sloppy. Didn’t tell me that our target regularly spends time in the bookshop.” Iyla’s expression is stony. “That could have made our timing rather…imprecise.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. My heart is hammering. I’m not sure if Gopal really believes that Deven didn’t show or if he’s laying a trap for me. Either way, I have no idea what’s next. Gopal starts pacing around the flat—he can cover the whole distance in just a few steps, and it’s making me jumpy.
“Our young man showed up with the book—still very much alive—and when I discovered this, I was…” He pauses and searches my face. “Well, I was heartbroken, Marinda. I thought you had betrayed me.” My mouth has gone completely dry. I have betrayed him and I’m trying desperately to keep any hint of it from showing up in my expression. I can feel the vial in my pocket, resting against my thigh like an accusation, and I have to resist the urge to touch it. The last thing I need is Gopal demanding I turn out my pockets. Gopal clasps his hands in front of his body and rocks back on his heels. “Then I talked to Iyla, and after some…questioning…she admitted that the boy visits the bookshop often. That he could have obtained the book outside the window I gave you.”
Oh, no. What have I done? I’ve made Iyla look like a liar and now he’s punished her. “I’m sure she didn’t intend—”
“No, Marinda. Don’t defend her. It was reckless and unprofessional.” He throws her a hard look. “And completely unacceptable.” Iyla lowers her head, chastened.
Bile rises in my throat. I don’t know how to fix this, and I’m still not convinced that Gopal isn’t playing some kind of game. If he knows that Deven spends time in the bookshop, it must have occurred to him that I might have seen Deven before, that I might know him.
“So,” Gopal says. “We will try again, and this time Iyla is going to get it right.” He turns to me. “And so will you.” His gaze slides to Mani and then back. He lowers his voice to a whisper. “We wouldn’t want your brother’s health to worsen, now would we?” Something cold creeps down my spine. The medicine that Gopal provides for Mani is the only thing that is keeping him alive. If he took it away…“Are we clear?”
I nod. It’s the only option right now—to promise compliance. Gopal draws his lips back from his teeth in what I think is supposed to be a smile. “Good girl,” he says. “I’ll let you two sort out the details, but I want that boy dead by the end of the week.” He looks back and forth between me and Iyla, and he must be satisfied with the expressions on our faces, because he leaves without another word.
Mani lets out a shaky breath and I hug him to my side. Iyla is looking at me with daggers in her eyes.
“What is going on?” she asks.
“I was about to ask you the same thing.” I’m stalling now. How much do I tell Iyla? How much can I trust her? I can’t stop picturing her with Deven—laughing with him, kissing him. Iyla touches her jaw and I have a vision of coming back in the next life as a dung beetle. I’m being so insensitive—it’s obvious what’s going on with her. “Iyla, I’m so sorry,” I say. “What happened?” She steps toward the edge of the bed to sit, but there’s something wrong with the way she’s moving; it’s too deliberate, too careful. “What did he do?” I ask again. She meets my gaze and this time her eyes are shiny—it’s the closest Iyla ever gets to tears. She turns her back and gingerly lifts her shirt. My hand flies to my mouth. Gopal hitting us to make a point is nothing new—my face has been discolored by his rage more than once—but this is something far worse. At least ten large welts climb up Iyla’s back like a ladder. Some of them are crusted with dried blood.
He has whipped her.
“Oh, Iyla.” My eyes fill with tears, but I blink them away. Mani is watching, his mouth hanging open in horror, and if I lose my composure, I’ll only make it worse for him. I wish that he didn’t have to see this, wish that I could protect him, but now it’s too late. It was too late the moment Gopal placed him in my arms. I squeeze Iyla’s hand. “I’ll get something to clean you up.” I go to the sink and return with a washcloth soaked in warm water and soap.
Sometimes I wish I could turn off my memories. Or better yet, erase them completely. Because this feels too familiar, sitting with Iyla, cleaning her wounds. Feeling guilty for her injuries. Trying and failing to bandage her body and my soul. It’s happened more times than I can count. Once when we were twelve, Gopal broke Iyla’s arm. He had given her a target—the father of a girl about our own age. Iyla was supposed to befriend the girl and spy on the father. It was meant to be practice for all that would come later. Three weeks into the mission, Iyla had gotten attached.
“I want you to promise me that you won’t have him killed,” she told Gopal one night at dinner.
He snorted. “I will do no such thing.”
“Pari has already lost her mother. If you kill her father, she’ll be an orphan.” I flinched because Iyla had used the girl’s name. There was no faster way to enrage Gopal than by referring to the targets like they were people.
He fixed her with a cold stare. “You aren’t in a position to ask for prom
ises and you won’t get any from me.”
“Then I won’t spy on him for you,” Iyla said. Her face was cold and defiant. My whole body froze, taut with alarm.
Gopal dabbed the corners of his mouth with his napkin, as calm as if Iyla had asked him to pass the pepper. He stood and placed the napkin precisely at the side of his plate. And then in one swift motion, he grabbed Iyla’s forearm and snapped it over his knee like it was a twig.
Iyla’s eyes went big and all the color drained from her face, but she didn’t cry out. She didn’t make a sound. I did, though. I cried enough for both of us as I held her and rocked her back and forth.
And I was still sobbing later as I made her a sling from an old sari and tied it behind her neck.
“Why aren’t you crying?” I asked her. “Why do you never cry?”
She didn’t answer right away. But finally she said, “If I cry, then he thinks he controls me.”
“He broke your arm, Iyla. He does control you.”
“No, he doesn’t,” she said. But we both knew it was a lie.
Her arm healed fine. It was a clean break—the kind that comes only with practice.
And now I feel like we’re right back where we’ve always been. It takes me twenty minutes to clean her wounds. I work slowly with as much gentleness as I can. Iyla stares straight ahead and only flinches twice.
“Thank you,” she says when I’ve finished. She turns and studies my face for a moment and then says, “Did he really not show?” My heart falls into my stomach. How can I tell her that this is my fault? I press my lips together and close my eyes.
“I couldn’t do it,” I say finally.
Iyla goes very still. “Why not?”
I open my eyes. “Because I know him, Iyla. And he’s not a bad person.”
She fixes me with an icy stare. “That’s never been your call, Marinda. Never.”
“You know him too. Do you think he deserves to die?”
She’s quiet for a moment. “It’s not for me to say,” she says softly.
“Iyla!”
She shoots to her feet. “No. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to moralize to me. I have known all of them. Every single one. And you’ve never asked me what kind of people they were or if I thought they deserved to die. Then you get cozy with one boy and you suddenly decide you’re in charge of this whole operation? You put all of our lives at risk?”
I’m too stunned to speak. I’ve always thought I had the bigger burden, the greater guilt. I’ve never thought about what it must be like for Iyla. To know them all. To care about them.
“Were they all like Deven?”
She sits heavily on the bed and winces. “Not all of them. But a lot of them, yes.”
I feel like I’m going to be sick. I sit down and put my head in my hands. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“We don’t have a choice, Marinda.”
I hesitate. What will she do if I tell her the truth? Can I afford to confide in her? Can I afford not to? Mani catches my eye and shakes his head. He can see I’m close to telling her and he doesn’t want me to. He doesn’t trust her. But Mani doesn’t easily trust anyone and he doesn’t know Iyla like I do. Before Mani was born, she was the closest thing to family that I had. Choosing to love her, choosing to believe that there was at least one person in the world I could rely on, was the only thing that kept me sane for the first ten years of my life. She can be cunning and cruel, but my life has been in her hands before and she’s always kept it safe. I lift one shoulder and hope Mani understands—I don’t know what else to do.
“We do have a choice,” I say. “I want to make Deven immune.”
Iyla looks up sharply. “What are you talking about?”
“I visited Kadru.”
Iyla blanches and her eyes go wide. “Why would you do that?” There’s a tremble in her voice, and I remember how much Iyla hates Kadru—even more than I do.
“To get venom. For Deven. If I can give him a little at a time, he’ll be immune. He’ll be safe.”
“You love him,” she says. It’s not a question.
My cheeks heat. “No. No, that’s not it. I just don’t want him to die, Iyla. Not by me and not by any of the other vish kanya either.”
Something dark passes over her face, but it’s gone so quickly that I think I must have imagined it. She shrugs. “But Gopal will still expect him to be dead. Poison kisses aren’t the only way to kill a man.”
The threat in her words hits me like a slap. If I won’t kill Deven, she will. All the compassion I had for her bleeds away and I’m left only with rage.
“The vish kanya make good assassins because we don’t leave evidence behind—nasty things like stab wounds. So if you think you can win Gopal over with your newfound loyalty and a sharp knife, I’m afraid you’re going to be very disappointed.”
Iyla’s eyes flash. I’ve hit a nerve. But then her expression goes forcefully blank and her voice turns dismissive. “I have no desire to win him over,” she says. “But I’m also not going to be punished because you’ve suddenly grown a conscience.”
I’m losing her. She’ll go to Gopal, and Deven will be dead before sundown. And probably Mani too, once Gopal knows I betrayed him. If I can’t convince her to keep quiet because it’s the right thing to do, I need to find another way. But Iyla is almost impossible to manipulate. How do you control someone who doesn’t care about anything except not being controlled?
I force out a hard laugh. “I guess he finally owns you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were always so sure you’d never belong to Gopal,” I say. “It always disgusted you that I let him control me. And yet look at us now—I’m defying him and you’re following his orders like a well-trained puppy.”
She flinches and I hate that I’m hurting her. But I’ve found a weak spot and I need to put pressure on it—it’s the only way to wrest the power back. “When you run to him to tattle on me, make sure to do it with a newspaper between your teeth. Like a good dog.”
Her jaw tenses. “Gopal doesn’t control me.”
I take a step toward her. “Then who does, Iyla? Or are you really that cold that you just enjoy seeing innocent people die? Has it started to be fun for you? Maybe you’re not obeying Gopal as much as you’re turning into him.”
She opens her mouth like she’s about to say something and then snaps it closed. I’ve never seen her look so unhinged. “Fine,” she finally says. “What’s your plan?”
Some of the pressure lifts from my chest. It’s not a truce—not even close. But at least she’s listening.
“We can’t openly defy him,” I say. “So you do exactly what he asked you to. Set up the meeting. But try to give me a few days so I can get Deven two more doses of venom.”
Her head snaps up. “Two more? You’ve already poisoned him?”
I swallow hard. It’s more than I intended to tell her. “Yes. Mani and I had lunch with him today.”
For just a moment Iyla’s detached mask slips and there’s something raw and vulnerable in her expression. “How did you get him to take it? Does he know about you?”
I shake my head. “I slipped it into his drink when he wasn’t looking.”
Iyla gives a low whistle. Her face is back to normal again, cool and impenetrable. “Impressive. You’re more devious than I gave you credit for.” It’s not clear whether she means this as an insult or a compliment. She stands up and her movements are stiff. My gaze wanders to the bruise on her cheek, and my stomach twists with new guilt.
Iyla tilts her head to one side, watching me like an inquisitive bird. “Ah, Marinda. Do you feel guilty for getting me beaten?”
My face falls. “Of course I do.”
Her smile disappears and her expression goes hard. “Good.”
A shiver runs through me. I know that voice. It’s Iyla at her worst. “I never meant for—”
She laughs and waves a hand in front of her face to stop me.
“Lighten up,” she says. “I’m only teasing.” But she’s not. She blames me. For each welt, for every bruise. Not Gopal, who wielded the whip, but me because I refused to kill. She’s angry with me. It makes her a dangerous ally, and suddenly I wish I hadn’t told her anything.
She eases her bag over her shoulder, careful to avoid her back, and starts to walk away, but I reach out and catch her fingers in mine. She freezes and our eyes meet. Just for a moment I’m taken back to our childhood, when it was us against Gopal, us against the world.
Now it’s just us.
“I’ll make him pay for this,” I say, softly so that Mani can’t hear. “One day Gopal will be the one to bleed.”
She lets go of my hand and looks away. “I’ll let you know when I have the meeting place.”
Her hand is on the doorknob. “Iyla,” I say. “If you hurt Deven…” She turns and raises her eyebrows in a question. “If you hurt him, I’ll kill you myself.”
Our gazes lock and I refuse to be the first to look away. After a long pause she nods once and then slips out the door, closing it softly behind her.
I glance over at Mani and he’s glaring at me. “I didn’t have a choice,” I tell him.
“That’s what you always say.”
“Mani—”
“I don’t feel good,” he interrupts. “I’m going to have a rest.” He crawls under the covers and turns his back on me. His rejection stings. I can think of only a handful of times Mani has ever been angry with me, and all of them were years ago. Like always, he falls asleep almost immediately, and I have only my thoughts to keep me company. And they are gnawing a hole in my middle. What if Mani is right? What if it was a mistake to tell Iyla? Though for the life of me, I can’t come up with an alternative. Gopal knows Deven is still alive, and he’s forcing another meeting. At least now there’s a chance I’ll have Iyla on my side, a chance she’ll help me save Deven, help me protect him from more than just the vish kanya. But she could just as easily go to Gopal. I want to trust that she still cares about me, that she still has a shred of humanity left, that she’s still the girl I knew all those years ago who got her arm broken to try to save a playmate from the heartache of losing a father. But if I’m honest with myself, I haven’t seen that Iyla in a long time.
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