“Time flies quickly in my line of work,” Latif always says, even though he never mentions what that work is.
A thanedar passes by, glancing at my face first and then at my palace-issued orange turban, with its identification pin in the center. His gaze travels over my white tunic and dhoti, the pointed tips of the worn leather jootis on my feet. I brace myself for the slurs, more out of habit than out of fear. Dirt licker. Abomination. Get out of my way, filth. But when he simply nods and moves along, I realize the uniform has done the trick. In the palace, every servant wears a uniform, whether they are magi or not. Here, in this moment, no one knows about who I am or the blood that runs through my veins. Unless the thanedar decides to ask me to identify myself on a whim—to press my thumb into the tip of his lathi, waiting for the wooden staff to change color, the way it would for a magus.
A beat passes. Two. I let go of the breath I’m holding. Overhead, through the shifting veil of glowing insects, two moons hang in the sky. Sunheri, the yellow moon, and Neel, the blue one. According to legend, the moons were both goddesses once. “Friends first and then lovers,” Papa told me, “until one of Sunheri’s many suitors killed Neel out of jealousy.”
But their love was a true one. A moon appeared in the sky one night: blue, like the color of Neel’s skin. Pitying her plight, the sky goddess granted Sunheri’s wish to join Neel—turning her into a moon as well—a faded yellow orb that waxes and wanes, that grows full, but never brightens to gold except for one night out of every three hundred and sixty. On Chandni Raat—the night of the moon festival—the only night in the year when the blue moon appears in the sky.
There are those who call the story of the two moons a myth. A tale of childish fancy, spun into a clever way of gathering coin for the king’s depleted coffers after two successive wars. Out of the story of Neel and Sunheri emerged the moon festival: a night for lovers, revelry, and mischief. A night where it’s possible to find your neela chand. In Vani, the words neela chand literally translate to “blue moon,” a phrase that refers to your mate. Your perfect other half.
A few feet away, I spy a pair of girls, no older than fifteen, holding hands as if preparing to launch into a rain dance spin. But then the girl dressed in yellow rises to her tiptoes and lightly kisses the cheek of the one dressed in blue. The fireflies, drawn by their laughs, glow brighter, several twirling around the girls before rising up to float overhead again.
Bahar, the girl I once thought would be my mate, used to laugh like that, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief, her face full of joy. Yet, on the heels of that image, I recall another one: Bahar, her skin leeched of color, dragged off in a cart by a thanedar, her hands bound behind her back. The charge was magic theft—made by a palace worker who allegedly saw Bahar’s hands glow green while helping her mother in the kitchen garden.
That Bahar also had a tiny birthmark on her cheek did not help matters. I remember running after the thanedars’ wagon, screaming, “It’s not a star!” before one of them hit me in the chest with a spell that knocked me unconscious.
My insides feel raw, like skin singed with hot oil. I am about to turn away from the girls when I see it again. The fireflies flickering. A crack of darkness within the light.
I see the girl’s dusty brown feet first: bare of anklets and shoes, skimming the packed earth with such lightness that she barely leaves a footprint. Unlike the bright silks of the other revelers, she’s dressed in black, her plain choli leaving most of her back bare and her arms covered to the elbows. If there’s a hint of color, it comes from the tiny blue mirrors embedded in the depths of her ghagra, making the wide skirt glimmer like a starry sky.
Her thin dupatta veils most of her face, but even I know what she’s up to when her hand lightly brushes the back of a man’s tunic belt, when she walks away with a polite apology, a furrow etching her brow.
A pickpocket who didn’t hit her mark. Unlike Bahar, this was a real thief, trying to steal gold and silver coins for the tiny bits of magic embedded in them. The magic in the coins itself isn’t very powerful. The palace’s stable master, Govind, calls the magic in money dead magic, limited in the things it can do. “It is true that non-magi can access bits and pieces of the magic embedded in coins; they can even produce a few sparks if they try,” he told me once. “But for this sort of magic to have any consequence, a treasure trove of coins would be needed. You’d also need a talented alchemist to distill the magic from the coins and stabilize it. For magic to be truly powerful, it must be alive, must be part of the person manipulating it.”
Yet I also know that, regardless of the truth, those who have no magic of their own would risk anything—including imprisonment or death—to get their hands on some.
It’s perhaps this thought—or maybe some other instinct entirely—that draws me away from the spot where I’m supposed to wait for Latif. I weave through the bodies pouring down the narrow lanes of the bazaar and duck under the jutting beam of a sweets stall, following the girl dressed like the night. Like a shadow.
Except she isn’t a shadow, and the next person she targets—a young merchant with sharp eyes—catches hold of her wrist.
“What do you think you’re doing?” His voice cuts through the surrounding chatter like a cudgel, draws the attention of a nearby thanedar. “Thief!”
The girl’s dupatta slides down her head, revealing frizzy hair as black as surma, a cleft on a stubborn chin, and gold eyes as hard as the firestones from Ambar’s jewel mines. She gives the merchant a sudden, dazzling smile and tosses her long braid behind one shoulder.
“I apologize,” she says. “I thought you were my mate.”
In Ambar, a person’s looks are often enhanced with glow: shimmery creams, oils, and powders ranging from the pure gold dusting the cheeks of the royal family to the cheap sugar oil used by the poor. A glowing face is an indicator of being blessed by the gods, whether magic flows in your veins or not, and can be traced back to the figures in ancient paintings found in caves in the mountains of Prithvi. Two kings and two queens, four rulers of a then-united Svapnalok who were said to have descended from the gods and goddesses themselves.
My father doesn’t believe in these theories about outward appearances. “Inner radiance is more important,” he always says. And there must be some truth to this, because even without a trace of artificial shimmer, the girl’s brown skin is luminous. It reminds me of another face—one that can still wake me in the middle of the night, her screams ringing in my ears.
“Oh really?” A grain of lust slides into the merchant’s angry voice. I’ve heard that tone before. Seen similar leers on other magi men. It doesn’t matter that the girl failed to steal from the merchant. He will not let her go without a price. “Or did you just want a kiss from me on this two-moon night? Where is this so-called mate of yours?”
“Here.”
I don’t realize I’ve spoken until the merchant’s neck snaps in my direction, along with those of several others. I clear my throat, noting the merchant’s furious look as the girl wrests her hand from his grip. “I’m right here.”
It’s probably a good thing that everyone is now staring at me, because I’m the only one who sees the girl’s eyes widening for a fraction of a moment before her features smooth into a mask again. She smiles at me.
“Where were you?” The tone is lighthearted. Flirtatious. The sort that makes heat creep up my ears even though I know it’s false. A show put on for an unwanted audience.
“By the bangle stall.” I force a trace of impatience in my voice. With the thanedar waiting nearby, I even manage to sound convincing. “Don’t you remember?”
Taking advantage of the confusion our little scene is causing, the girl steps out of the merchant’s reach and makes her way toward me. There’s an expression in her eyes that could range from anything between anger and fear.
“I forgot,” she whispers. “Will you forgive me?”
I open my mouth to say yes and lead her away.
She rises on her feet and leans in, cutting off the word with her lips, chasing it away with her tongue. I want to wrench my head away. I want to freeze time.
My kisses with Bahar were gentle. Innocent. They didn’t make the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand up, nor did they make my blood simultaneously rush to my cheeks and groin. The girl runs her hand up my jaw and then around my neck, her fingers lightly brushing the curlicues of hair at the nape. Without thinking, I tilt my head slightly, fitting our mouths tighter. Deeper. Where my hand grips her wrist, her flesh burns, feels like stone when I was certain it was soft moments earlier.
Cheers and laughter erupt in the background. The girl breaks the kiss, her mouth wet in the firefly glow. Her golden eyes are wide, oddly curious. On a normal day, the crowd would have shouted at us for being vulgar and told us to get bound for the next three lifetimes. But, on Chandni Raat, kisses are seen as auspicious, are even encouraged to promote future bindings.
I slide my fingers through the girl’s. The curiosity in her eyes vanishes, sharpening to something else when she focuses on the king’s emblem fastened to the front of my turban.
“Come,” I say with a glance at the merchant, who still watches us with suspicion. “Let me take you home.”
The people in the crowd laugh again.
“Stole your heart with that kiss, did she, boy?”
“Gave him a little something in return, too!” someone else says, pointing at my dhoti.
The statement makes me grit my teeth. The girl’s radiant smile edges on a smirk. For a second, I can almost pretend that the warmth in her eyes is real.
“Keep up the act,” she whispers into my ear. “The thanedar is eyeing us like a dustwolf.”
I ignore the jolt that goes through me at the brush of her lips and draw her away from the scene, weaving through the crowd that, by some miracle, has decided to indulge us for being young or stupid or perhaps both. A few moments later, the girl lets go of my hand.
“Don’t get too attached, pretty boy.” Her voice has the texture of gravel and honey. “I might burn you.”
I feel my face grow hot with embarrassment. “I have no intention of getting attached,” I inform her as coldly as possible. “What possessed you to steal from that merchant anyway?”
“What are you talking about? I wasn’t steal—”
“Don’t you know how dangerous it can be for people like us?”
The girl frowns. Her mouth opens, as if to say something, then shuts again.
“Which part of the tenements are you from, anyway?” I continue. “I don’t remember seeing you before.” It’s likely I might have missed her. The tenements outside the city of Ambarvadi are spread out over only fifteen square miles of land, but nearly a hundred thousand non-magi live within its boundaries. On the other hand, she may not be from the northern tenements at all, but a villager from the tenements in the southern part of the kingdom.
The girl says nothing. A faint flush colors her cheeks. Unlike the other women at the festival, she wears no jewelry, except for a simple black cord around her neck with three silver beads in the center. I decide to fill the silence. “I’m Cavas. From the west end of the tenements. I work in the stables at the palace.”
“Cavas,” she says my name out loud, as if testing it on her tongue. “How did you, uh, know I was, uh, from the tenements?”
I smile. “Magi generally don’t need to steal coin.”
“Is that so?”
“Of course.” I’ve seen it happen before. The king’s messengers sounding the news throughout Ambar, thanedars raiding the tenements for possible suspects, making arrests, tightening the rigid laws already in place for non-magi.
“I know it’s difficult sometimes,” I tell her now. “My father and I have nothing to eat some days. But it’s better to earn an honest living than to get arrested for attempted theft.”
Unless lies are the only way you can survive, a voice taunts in my head. I push it aside.
She stares at me for a long moment. “You’re wrong.”
I frown. “About earning an honest living?”
“There was no attempt at theft. When I do attempt to steal, I rarely fail—especially in a crowd like this.” She’s about to add more when her eyes narrow on seeing something—or someone—behind me. “Hide. Now.”
“What are you talking—”
She gives me a hard push, nearly knocking me into a nearby stall. That’s when I see them—a giant thanedar in white, along with the merchant from before. The latter is pointing at the girl and shouting. “There she is! The girl who tried to steal my purse! Thief! Thief!”
Another thanedar reaches out to catch hold of the girl. He screams in agony as flames lick at his sleeves—a cheap magic trick that can be purchased at any stall—a trick I’ve seen some non-magi use whenever they want to evade detection by the thanedars, even though it never works for long. The girl skips backward, ducking behind a man with a cane, and lets forth a trill of mocking laughter.
“Thieving girl!”
“Catch her!”
But they cannot. The girl truly is a shadow, weaving around a group of desert musicians and a pair of dancers balancing several clay pots on their heads, before sliding and disappearing into the stall of a Javeri seamstress. The fireflies, I notice, seem to be helping, no longer flickering out, but plunging entire areas of the festival into darkness and chaos. Screams erupt around me. I duck behind a clothing stall, next to several tall rolls of fabric, to avoid being knocked over. A group of thanedars thunder past, the outlines of their white tunics glowing in the dark.
Then light breaks through, a giant orb of it bursting out of a thanedar’s lathi, hovering in the air overhead. Other thanedars follow suit, and soon the bazaar is suffused with harsh white beams. I press myself farther into the rolls of fabric when I notice the merchant the girl had pickpocketed again, talking to someone.
“… a boy, too … orange turban…” Fragments of the merchant’s voice reach my ears, making me freeze in place.
“Which boy?” The thanedar’s voice is louder, more impatient. “There are about a hundred boys wearing orange turbans here. Did you get a good look at him?”
My shoulders sag with relief when the merchant shakes his head, frustration etched on each line of his face. The thanedar turns away and raises his fingers to his mouth. A whistle, magnified to four, possibly five times its normal volume by magic, cuts through the noise.
“We ask you to remain calm,” he says in a deep voice. “We will have everything in order.”
But even as the officers stalk the bazaar, peeking under tables, questioning stallkeepers, and marshaling a group of rowdy city boys out of their way, I can tell they are too late. The fireflies have begun to light up overhead. The girl is gone.
A girl who, if the insects’ odd behavior was any indication, has whisper magic in her veins. A girl who, whether she was a thief or not, never needed my help in the first place. The realization is like being doused in ice water and scalded by fire all at once.
How could I have been such a fool?
I wipe a hand roughly across my mouth, but the memory of the kiss remains seared into my skin.
A hand clamps over my shoulder, and for a second, I grow still, thinking someone has recognized me from the scene I caused earlier that evening.
“Well”—a man’s voice brushes softly against my ear—“that was quite a show, wasn’t it?”
Latif is finally here.
He holds up a cloth-covered box, its edges crusted with sequins. “I got these for you.”
If the distinct smell of the rose syrup and ghee rising from the wood did not give away the box’s contents, then the burst of moisture at the back of my tongue definitely would have. A box of chandramas. Filigreed dough shaped like full moons, foiled with gold and garnished with rose petals and dried honeyweed seeds, a chandrama is a delicacy made only during the moon festival. I still remember the one and only time I tasted one—or the broke
n half of one—salvaged from the partly eaten food tossed into the palace garbage heap. An explosion of sherbet and roses in my mouth. A single moment of bliss, followed by an odd sense of loss. Gold eyes flash in my memory. I push aside the thought of the thief’s kiss—the only other taste that left me with a similar feeling.
I look into Latif’s pale, nearly colorless eyes. “What do you want?” I ask. A single chandrama costs no less than twenty-five silver rupees. Boxes like these are even more expensive, worth more silver than I would be able to save in a year. After a year of dealing with Latif, I know that gifts from him do not come without a price.
“Why must I want something?” he asks mildly. “Can I not bring sweets for my friend?”
If my nerves weren’t already frayed by what happened at the festival, I would laugh. Latif is many things. A follower of Prophet Zaal and Sant Javer. A connoisseur of sweets and lateness. A master at invisibility magic. But he is no one’s friend.
I study Latif’s face now—beard, the blue-black shadows under his eyes, his skin so leeched of color that it looks gray in the moonlight. Latif always wears the same clothes when I see him: a long gray tunic with a vest and matching narrow trousers. Gray jootis encase his feet. Unlike most Ambari men, who wear their turbans in tight, practical coils around their heads, Latif wears his gray turban the way the merchants, shopkeepers, and high-ranking servants at the palace do—in elaborate layers, with the edge fanning out from the top left. I wonder at times if Latif’s strange appearance is due to the magic he uses to vanish so often. Or if he’s averse to bathing. But I hold back my questions.
After all, this man has been paying me ten whole swarnas every month for the past year in exchange for telling him secrets about the palace and its inhabitants—an act that could land me in prison or get me executed if anyone ever found out. But secrets can also be used to buy medicine from the black market and mixed into Papa’s morning tea. When you’re poor, secrets can very well be the difference between life and death.
“Tell me.” Latif’s voice takes on the singsongy tone I’ve grown familiar with. “What news of the palace?”
Hunted by the Sky Page 4
