by SGD Singh
“It's okay,” Asha whispered, smiling. “I have creepy eyes, too.”
Himat tried to smile and was about to say something when Uma's voice boomed over the crowd.
“All right, show's over.” She looked down at Asha and Himat, sitting on the floor, then turned to Lexi. “Pradhan. Hewitt. You are on kitchen duty for the rest of the week,” she said. “And that goes for you two as well.” She pointed at Nidhan and Asha, who opened their mouths to protest.
Uma's gaze swept over the crowd. “You will each learn to practice mutual respect. There will be no brawling, no profanity, and absolutely no bullying tolerated. Is that clear?” Everyone nodded. “Good. The kitchens are in the obvious place, next to the mess hall,” she told them, throwing her braid over her shoulder, and entering Training Room Two.
Lexi stalked down the corridor and through the door without a word. Asha helped Himat up, and she and Nidhan made their way back upstairs, instead of joining the others in the next class.
“Do you know what happened?” Asha asked him under her breath. “I didn't hear anything.”
“Something about a… British knee-spear? Or—”
“Wait. Britney Spears? He must've called her Britney Spears.” Asha rolled her eyes. “Pretty extreme reactio—”
“So there's no knee spear?” Nidhan looked disappointed.
Asha started to laugh, but stopped herself as they entered the mess hall and she saw Lexi's expression.
Nidhan put himself between Himat and Lexi, and they found the door to the kitchen between two lemon trees.
It was the largest kitchen Asha had ever seen, bigger even than the restaurant in Miami. Bhangra music blared. Standing at a massive chunk of granite, under a canopy of copper pots, a round man with a baseball cap on backwards sang along at the top of his lungs, dancing while he chopped onions.
He looked up at them with black, sparkling eyes.
“Oh good,” he called over the music. “You guys can finish chopping these.” He bent down, and brought a fifty-pound bag of onions onto the counter.
“I'm Tanvir.” He bowed, smiling. “Chef, warrior, master-molder-of-young-minds, and husband extraordinaire.” He slapped Himat on the shoulder. “Don't look so serious, guys. Kitchen duty's a blast! Here's knives. Chop all of those. Not each other.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Lexi. “Diced, mind you. I'll be back after picking mangoes.”
As he danced out the back door, Asha noticed he wore a New York Yankees hat. He resumed singing off-key, and they watched him pass the window a couple of seconds later.
Lexi sat as far away from Himat as she could get and began furiously chopping. Nidhan, across from her, began trying to peel an onion. Asha watched tears fill his eyes as he cursed under his breath, blinking, and guessed it was probably his first time doing food prep in his life. She handed him a silver toothpick, saying, “Hold this between your teeth. It should help your eyes,” and divided up the onions, adding half of Nidhan's pile into her own.
Getting to work, Asha said to Lexi in Spanish, “Are you going to tell me what happened, or what?”
Lexi just chopped louder.
“You know, millions of women would love to be called Britney Spears.”
Lexi shot her a glare.
Nidhan looked back and forth between them. Asha ignored him and kept speaking in Spanish.
“I mean, she's a beautiful, sexy, talented—”
“Asha,” Lexi said. “Shut up.”
Asha looked across the counter at Himat, who chopped studiously without meeting anyone's eyes.
Lexi finally sighed, chopping faster, and answered in Spanish. “If you really want to know, he made sleazy tongue gestures at me. After I kicked his little, scrawny, pretty-boy ass. That, plus the bullshit Britney Spears thing… I don't know, Asha, I just—”
“Holy shit, Himat!” Asha said, switching back to English. “You did the disgusting tongue thing? At Lexi?” She was trying very hard not to laugh. “Man, you are lucky to be alive—”
Nidhan stood up, still holding his knife. “He did what?”
Lexi said, “Let's just drop it, okay?”
She and Nidhan looked at each other for a long five seconds.
Then she turned to Himat, her voice icy. “He'll never do that again.”
Himat met her gaze and paled. He nodded once and went back to chopping.
Asha said to Himat, “Your name… it means courage, right?”
He shrugged, eyes on his onions.
Nidhan sat back down. “Well, I don't know about courage, Pradhan, but to do that after the ass-whooping you received. That certainly took some cojones, my friend.”
Lexi and Asha burst into laughter, and finally Himat smiled sheepishly and said, “I'm sorry for disrespecting you, Lexi.”
She nodded once at her onions. “Nidhan? Don't try to speak Spanish.”
Asha laughed, slipping into her best Colombian accent. “Yeah, it hurts my ears when you do it.”
Ten minutes later, Tanvir stumbled back into the kitchen, dripping wet, with a basket of mangoes. He looked around and said, “Okay, good. All friends now. Let's go pick more fruit.” He put down the mangoes and headed back outside, motioning them to follow him into the downpour, radiating enthusiasm. “Then there's peeling, cutting, juicing, jamming… is jamming a word for making jam? Anyway, lots of work to do, then there's dinner to get ready by oh two hundred.”
For the next three hours, they picked fruit in the pouring rain. All Asha learned was that it's not easy to climb a tree in a storm.
At eleven-thirty Tanvir announced it was time to make dinner and no one was more disappointed than Nidhan to learn it would be quinoa, onions sautéed with turmeric on beets and daikon, mango cardamom sauce on kale, and chickpea spinach tomato soup. The only thing that sounded good to him was the warm ginger honey milk with lots of cream, black pepper, and cinnamon.
“Is the food always like this?” he asked Tanvir, the hope in his eyes making Asha and Lexi smile.
Tanvir looked blank. “Like what?” He laughed. “You'll get used to it. This is the healthiest diet for a high-stress lifestyle. Every one of these foods has an excellent reason for being on the menu. For example,” he stirred the pot of soup. “Garbanzo beans, among other things, heal stress and strengthen the nervous system. Tomatoes, for your kind information, help with stress and detoxify your blood, and help counter fatigue, which you will appreciate in about four hours.” He started washing wheatgrass, and Nidhan shuddered. “And kale! Kale, I'm not even gonna talk about 'cause we don't have enough time to give its superb qualities justice.”
Asha saw Nidhan grimace.
“And are there always drinks after every class?” Nidhan looked like he might try to live on just rose ginger milk.
Tanvir nodded. “They go with the classes. Drinks for muscle health, nerve tonics, blood purifiers… people complain but it's about time we stopped eating just for the taste of things.” Tanvir hit a coconut in righteous indignation, the pieces flying across the large counter, and Nidhan gawked at him. Tanvir shook his head. “You'll be able to eat whatever you want on the weekends. After that, you should be used to the food here within a year, am I right?”
† † †
Himat, at Asha's request, joined them for dinner. Lexi left the mess hall and returned holding Gucci sunglasses. She offered them to him, saying, “You should know you don't need to wear them here, but… if you ever need… I mean want to…”
Himat accepted them with an awkward nod. He looked like he was struggling not to immediately hide his bright red eyes as he put the sunglasses in his pocket.
Lexi sat down, looking uncomfortable, and Asha and Nidhan grinned at her.
Himat cleared his throat, talking to his plate. “I know it doesn't excuse my behavior, but I… was never around many females growing up…”
“Where did you grow up?” Lexi looked skeptical. “A monastery?”
“Pakistan?” said Nidhan, and Asha kicked him under the
table.
Himat blushed. “We were raised in a strict ‘men are superior to women’ environment. My mom pleaded with my father and uncles to send me here as soon as my eyes started… which makes sense now that…” He looked at Asha and blushed again as she smiled. Lexi rolled her eyes. “I never thought—”
“He looks like an angel!” Ibha, Karan, and Ursala interrupted as they crowded around the booth, falling to their knees and breaking into the absolute worst rendition of Elvis's “Angel in Disguise” to loud laughter and applause. Himat smiled and finally began to meet people's eyes.
Karan slid into the booth, slapping Himat on the back. “Dude, you can scare the crap out of civilians anytime you want.”
Himat just shrugged, and Karan changed the subject, filling the four of them in on the Healing class they'd missed.
Word of Lexi's martial arts skills must have spread, because ten more people came over to their booth to socialize with her. The small blonde girl, Mia Santos, joined them, shoving Karan over. She reminded Asha of a tornado, she had so much energy. She'd come from Colombia, she told them, along with Chucho Vega, a completely tattooed boy with spiky hair, and Freya Castillo, a skinny girl with long, dark hair worn in a French braid and burn scars covering what was visible of one arm.
“We heard you guys found this place in under ten days? Amazing!” Mia smiled, flipping her curls.
“Well, actually, it was Asha, not—us,” Lexi told her.
Mia answered in such rapid Spanish, Asha knew Lexi only caught half of what she was saying. “Still, oh my God, you guys! Me, Chucho, and Freya wandered around the entire country for, like, four months! By the end of it, we were ready to strangle each other, right?” Her laugh was loud and warm. “I came this close to calling home and giving up, you know? But then we ended up finding it, like, finally so…”
Lexi just blinked at her.
Asha switched to English. “So, your parents just told you what to do?”
“Well, obviously we knew we were looking for the Indian Infernal Guard Headquarters. But, I mean, it's a pretty big country… it was Freya who ended up feeling the pull so, technically, I could still have no—”
“The pull?”
“Yeah, you know, like, you're being pulled? Like you know where you're meant to be. Wait. You were raised Innocent, right?” She looked at all three of them. “I'm sorry you guys… I didn't mean…”
“Why do people do that?” Lexi asked, glancing at Asha who turned to her food.
“Well, wouldn't you?” Mia said. “I mean, if you can protect your kids from danger—I know I would. Not everyone has Talent. Our class is the largest in a long time. Usually there's, like, five kids a year, I heard. So there are kids born to parents like ours who have no Talent. If they're Innocent, they don't have to feel, you know, shitty about it or whatever. Then they can just be normal civilians.” She shrugged, smiling at Asha. “Lo hacen por amor, Asha.” They do it out of love. “Don't be sad.”
Someone snorted, and Asha looked up to see the two exotic beauties leaning on their booth like bored models. The taller one, blinking the longest eyelashes Asha had ever seen, said, “Normal like Shaan.” She shuddered visibly. “Imagine, a Collector!”
“Or Kairav,” said the smaller girl, with eyes the greenish-yellow of a cat. “Teaching amateurs spiritual… whatever! Even worse.”
The tall one said in a low voice, “Neither of them ever developed any Talent, despite being born in two of the best families…” They both looked pointedly at Asha.
Then ignoring everyone else at the table, they introduced themselves to Lexi as Tzirga Dutt and Ariella Kahlon, from Delhi. They laughed at Himat's blossoming black eyes, and began talking about weapons and different martial arts disciplines until Asha started falling asleep. They only left after Lexi agreed to meet and train with them in fifteen minutes, during their personal time.
Tanvir told the four of them they had an hour to themselves before reporting back to the kitchen, so Asha went up to her room, closing the door and kicking off her shoes. They had been warned not to fall asleep, but she definitely got the feeling she wasn't included in Lexi's training invitation.
The rain had stopped, and Asha settled onto her balcony with her harp. The full moon illuminated the garden below, making stark contrasts in the distant forest beyond the fort wall.
Asha sat and listened to the crickets and frogs for a few minutes before she began playing her mother's version of the Japanese ballad, Kojo no Tsuki, Moon Over the Ruined Castle.
As the music filled the night air, Asha thought of her parents, wondering what Talents they'd had. She felt certain that her mother would have enjoyed being with her now, listening to her play, sitting together in peaceful moonlight.
Asha still hadn't heard from him, but she texted BapuJi every day before going to sleep, telling him about her day—or night.
Feeling alone, Asha thought of her hawk. Did he wonder where she was?
He's a bird! He's not wondering anything…
As the song ended, Asha looked up.
And gasped.
She could see every detail of the forest as if she stood in it, in the middle of the day. She saw the sleeping birds. Every feather on each sleeping bird. Frogs eating mosquitoes as they hovered over puddles.
What is happening?
Asha continued to look around herself in disbelief. She could see every leaf, every petal on every flower, every piece of fruit. It was as if she had been given super-human eyesight.
A movement caught her eye and Asha looked at the top of the hill beyond the trees. She caught her breath.
Silhouetted in the moonlight was the figure of a woman on a horse. Asha closed her eyes and shook her head. No, not a horse. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, and Asha's heartbeat sped up painfully in her chest.
This ‘horse’ had scales that shimmered in the moonlight like cicada wings. When it leaned down to scratch its leg, giant ram horns cast shadows on the soft dirt. Asha watched in fascinated horror as it pawed the ground with cloven hooves. And instead of a mane… wait. Bones? Bones like human fingers protruded out of the creature's neck. It turned its head toward her and yawned huge jaws, revealing spiked teeth that glinted in the moonlight. It blinked glowing, orange goat-like eyes.
But it wasn't until the woman on the creature turned her face to the fort that Asha stifled a scream and began to panic.
The woman had a sort of terrifying beauty, with black hair flowing softly in the wind. Purple and blue silk billowed around her. She held a silver staff in her right hand. When the woman—Asha realized she wasn't much older than a girl, looked down from the hill, right at Asha, she felt the blood drain from her face. She couldn't move. There was such intense, cold hatred in the girl's eyes that Asha felt more terrified than she had ever felt in her life.
She sees me.
A heavy pounding on her door brought Asha back to her senses. She broke eye contact and turned from the terrifying pair on the hill, moving on shaky legs through her room to open the door.
Aquila Desai stood in a thin white T-shirt and black pants, his brown hair looking even more disheveled than usual, his agave eyes filled with concern.
He was so close she could touch him.
They stared at each other for a long moment before Aquila said, “Asha?”
She blinked. It was the first time she'd heard his voice, low and beautiful.
And saying her name.
“Are you okay?” he said. “I just thought… I mean…”
Asha's eyes wandered over him of their own accord, taking in the toned muscles of his arms under smooth skin, his broad chest. She blushed, struggling with a strange desire to have his arms around her.
Okay, I have officially lost my freakin' mind.
Some small part of Asha's brain reminded her that she hadn't actually called for help, but the rest of it was flooded with relief that Aquila was there. Tearing her eyes away from him, she turned and pointed to the balcony. Wi
ncing inwardly at how ridiculous she was about to sound, she told him, “I just saw someone—something, on the hill behind the forest. A lady—a girl, but, like, a really scary girl. She was on a horse… uh… monster-thing…”
Aquila tensed, alert. “What kind of monster? Describe it.” He walked through her room and out onto the balcony, scanning the hill.
“I normally—um, before tonight, I couldn't actually see the hill,” Asha said lamely.
“Changes start happening as you near your seventeenth birthday. It's normal,” he said with a dismissive wave. “You say it was a horse?”
“Well, not exactly…” Asha described what she saw, feeling distinctly like a lunatic, but Aquila paled as he continued to scan the forest. He didn't seem to think she was crazy at all.
When she finished, he said, “Well, they can't actually get in, so don't worry about that. But I have to go tell Afzal. Immediately.” He ran his ringed hand through his hair. “Underworlders aren't supposed to be able to come this close to Headquarters, or even find it for that matter.” He turned to her then, and Asha was painfully aware of how close he was as he looked down at her. “I have to… that is… if you're okay?”
“Um, I'm fine,” Asha said.
Aquila didn't move.
Asha met his eyes. “I'm okay. Really.”
He gazed at her for a long moment, and it made Asha feel as if she were the most important thing in the world to him. Great. Now you can add delusional to insane. He just met you! Asha lowered her eyes, feeling herself blush again.
Aquila lifted his hand to her face, his voice barely over a whisper. “Asha, I…”
She raised her eyes to his, heart pounding.
“Asha!” Lexi's voice called out from the room behind them. “You left your door open. Oh my God! Tzirga and Ariella can fight, yaar!” She laughed. “I mean, really fight! Did I mention I love it he—”
Lexi saw Aquila and stopped short, her mouth dropping open, and he lowered his hand, never having touched her.
Nodding to Asha, Aquila walked out, closing the door behind him.
“So!” Lexi crossed her arms. “I leave you alone for, like, five minutes and next thing I know you're shacking up with Jordan Witzigreuter.”
