Petra went so silent that Neel might have thought she’d gone, except he seemed to sense her confusion. I can’t see anything, she finally said. I’m awake. I explained this to you. I wouldn’t ever see what you see, even if we were dreaming while we spoke.
Neel felt a surge of frustration. By “show you something,” I meant I want to look at something, and describe it. If that’s all right by you.
Her answer was quick. Of course.
Neel took a key from his pocket and unlocked the desk drawer. It was filled with a few little things—uncracked nuts, a cheap silver ring, a wooden whistle—and lots of fruit. The open drawer looked like a painting, with colored spheres of red, purple, and orange framed by the wooden rectangle of the drawer. Some of the fruit was old and shriveled. Neel described what he saw. I stole it all. I can have almost anything I want, but I stole this. I don’t even eat the fruit, or play the whistle. I just keep it here. I don’t know why. His eyes automatically sought a window, as if looking through one would help him see the answer, but his gaze met a blank wall. The library was the only room in the palace with no windows, to protect the books from sunlight and heat. The room was cool and dark and candlelit. I don’t know why I do it.
Gently, Petra said, You steal to remind yourself of who you are.
Neel nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see him do it. Let’s talk again tonight. You can come to me while I sleep, can’t you? I can’t reach you like that. I don’t have the gift. He didn’t say that he had been going to bed early so that he would fall asleep before she’d expect it. It’d be nice to see you.
The stitch that linked their minds seemed to vibrate with tension. I don’t think that’s a good idea, Petra said.
Why?
Because it’s confusing. It’s strange to hear things that are real and see things that aren’t.
You and me can handle strange. Things got pretty strange when we busted out of Salamander Castle, or when you summoned that air spirit.
This is different. There was a short silence. Iris is calling for me, Petra said. Then she was gone.
Neel stared at the open drawer of fruit. He thought about how Petra refused to use her gift in this one way that had become important to him. He knew that Petra, so sure of herself sometimes, could shrink away from her strengths, especially when it came to magic. If she had decided not to speak to him through dreams, well, wasn’t that like her? Yet he couldn’t shake a cold certainty.
She did not want to see him. She did not want him to see her.
Neel scooped up a pomegranate, then dropped it back in the drawer. He wasn’t hungry. Why was he hoarding fruit he would never eat? Why did people cling to what they couldn’t use, or long for what they didn’t need, or shun what they had? Neel thought about the Maraki, the Ursari, and the coconut plantation. He thought about the ball.
Neel shut the drawer. He had come to a decision.
He was going to enjoy this party.
* * *
WHEN THE ROMA threw a ball, they did it right. And this time, unlike the coronation dance, the planning was largely placed in the hands of the Lovari tribe.
“But the king is not Lovari. He is one of us,” Arun told Gita.
“They look on him as one of their own,” Gita said. “He can use all the support he can get.”
“But the seating arrangements for dinner!” Karim wailed. “It will be chaos if the Lovari are in charge!”
Neel, who had been half listening until this argument arose, immediately sided with Gita. The Lovari knew how to have fun, and fun was what he wanted.
The Lovari tribe leader was thrilled. Jasmine threw her people into a whirlwind of preparations, and they were eager to please the king. They had noticed the sullen, caged look he’d worn throughout the coronation ball. They did not want to see it on their night. They hired the best acrobats to entertain during the dinner. They consulted Neel’s mother to make certain his favorite dishes would be served. With a wince and a shrug of the shoulders, they invited the Pacolet crew and sent them to the best Kalderash tailors in the Vatra. Those Maraki might be a little savage, but they were the king’s special friends. Or at least they used to be.
The ball was a crush of color. The dresses were simply cut—the island was too hot for ruffles and flounces—but the embroidery alone proved that hours of needlework had been devoted to this night. No one wore the same shade, and the people crowding into the ballroom seemed like an almost liquid rainbow that shifted and trickled and poured.
The guests were lucky. As if on command, a high wind kicked up. It blew through the large windows and entrances to balconies that were designed for quiet, dark conversations. The wind eased the Vatran heat and made the guests even livelier than usual. They would have been curious, anyway, to see what this night would bring. But the cool wind made their curiosity wide-eyed and awake.
They were not disappointed. When the king arrived, they fell silent.
Neel wore a long, loose, and sleeved tunic cut from cloth of gold. The effect was startling. It gave his eyes an unearthly color. It somehow drew attention away from the scars on his face—the rough marks left from a disease that had nearly killed him as a small child, and the short line made by the knife of a Spanish boy Neel had picked a fight with years ago. Despite the careful simplicity of his white pants and leather sandals, Neel’s appearance seemed extravagant, even for a king. Maybe it was the sapphire that flashed on his ear, or the smirk he gave the crowd. Perhaps it was the scoot perched on his shoulder. Whatever it was, Neel did not look quite so young as everyone knew he was. He looked like an idea, an idea of what a new kind of king could be, and ideas have no age.
A fiddle was tuned, a piper blew an experimental trill of notes, and the crowd began to chatter and find partners for the first dance. Neel saw Karim trying to catch his eye. The adviser nodded meaningfully, no doubt referring to their earlier conversation about whom Neel should choose for his first dance. “Someone important,” Karim had begged. “A tribe leader’s daughter, perhaps?”
Poor Karim. He was about to be disappointed.
Neel scanned the crowd. He approached Nadia and said, “Hey.”
Her eyes coolly measured him, then paused to stare at the scoot. “I see you’ve made at least one friend in the Vatra.”
“Want to dance?”
“Not with that.” She pointed at the fuzzy animal, which chittered angrily.
Neel gently removed it from his shoulder. “Scoot along,” he told it, and it jumped from his hands to climb the walls to the ceiling, where copper plates nailed to the rafters caught the torchlight and glowed like small suns.
“Come on,” Neel said as the musicians played the opening notes of a Lovari tune. He grabbed Nadia’s hand and tugged her into the dance.
For a few uncomfortable minutes, neither of them said anything. Then Nadia commented, “You really can dance. You’d almost be the perfect partner. Too bad you’re so short.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said smoothly. “It gives you a good view of everyone else.”
“I already see things pretty clearly.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean: I don’t think you’re dancing with me for the pleasure of my company.”
Neel floundered for something to say. “There’s no one here I’d rather dance with.”
Nadia snorted. “Only because she isn’t here.” Neel started to speak, but Nadia cut him off. “What do you want, Neel?”
“Help me again. With reading.”
“And why would I do that?”
“I want to be better. I want to be better at this.” He waved a hand at the ballroom.
She looked at him just before he spun her in a circle. “Maybe I will,” she said.
“Maybe?”
“What did you decide to do about the lease?”
He led her left, and back, and right, and didn’t answer.
“Rumor has it you’re going to tell Tarn and Shaida tonight,” Nadia persisted.
>
“So this is the lay of the land. You won’t help me unless I help the Maraki.” The smile was back on Neel’s face, but this time it looked cold.
“That’s not how I meant it. I just want to know.”
“You’ll know soon enough,” he said. “When the rest of the Vatra knows it, and not before.” The dance ended and he released her. With the briefest of nods, he turned away.
She snagged his wrist. “I truly didn’t mean it like that.” Her voice, for the first time Neel could remember, was soft. “I will help you, whatever you decide. Even though you’re an annoying, short-tempered student.”
He relaxed. “Thanks, Nadia. I promise I’ll be patient from now on.”
“No, you won’t. But it’s nice of you to lie.”
Neel acknowledged this with a half smile before walking away. He glanced at the table where the tribe leaders sat and squared his shoulders. He might as well get this over with.
After a quick whisper in Gita’s ear, Neel stepped out onto a balcony and waited. It wasn’t long before Tarn and Shaida joined him.
“Cousin.” Tarn made the word sound like a threat. “What have you decided?”
“The lease will go to the Maraki.”
Tarn smiled as Shaida tried to school the disappointment from her face.
“With conditions,” Neel added.
“Conditions?” Tarn said.
“The Ursari already have a good operation going on that plantation. What do a bunch of sailors know about farming coconuts? You’d spend a year figuring out how to run everything. You’ll employ whoever’s working there now, and pay them their current wage.”
“Fine,” Tarn said impatiently.
“And—”
“And?”
“—you can only sell ten percent of the coir.”
Tarn’s eyes went dangerous.
“And you can’t sell it in Europe,” Neel continued. “Too likely it’d end up in the hands of the Hapsburg Empire, who isn’t exactly our friend. Sell it to Asia if you like, or the Ottoman Empire. The rest, you keep and use.”
“Are there any more conditions of yours?” Tarn said through gritted teeth.
“Matter of fact, yes. You’ll give the coconut meat to the Ursari.”
The corner of Shaida’s mouth twitched.
“How do you expect us to turn a profit?” Tarn demanded.
“Oh, all right. You’ll sell it to them at fifty percent of the market rate.” Neel had calculated that the cost of that, per year, was about how much the Ursari would save when the Maraki were paying the plantation workers. The Ursari would break even.
“Happy?” Neel asked Tarn.
“Tickled,” he snarled.
“The Maraki will like this deal. Especially if you explain it to them in a way that makes you look good. You’re going to rig your ships with the best rope in the world, aren’t you? You snagged this plantation out of Ursari hands, didn’t you? You’ll give the Ursari a cheap rate for coconut meat to ease their hurt, ’cause you’re that kind of fine, upstanding man.”
Tarn’s eyes measured Neel slowly, warily, as if he had never seen this person before and had no idea what to make of him.
“That’s the deal,” Neel said. “Take it or leave it. I’m sure the Ursari won’t mind renewing their lease, if you don’t like the terms of this one.”
Tarn scowled at the moon. He nodded, then went back inside the ballroom.
“Hungry?” Neel asked Shaida.
“Yes.” She no longer hid her smile. They went inside.
The musicians had set their instruments aside and almost everyone was already seated—though, Neel noted, Tarn and Treb were still standing in a corner, conferring darkly. On a raised platform stood the king’s table, with places for each tribe leader and (at Neel’s insistence) his mother. She was seated next to Jasmine of the Lovari, and as Neel and Shaida took their places alongside them, Neel’s stomach rumbled to see the food piled on his plate. There were fried lotus roots in a red-brown paste of tamarind, chili pepper, and ginger. He spied roasted eggplant mashed with garlic and rosemary, served on flatbread, and chickpeas dressed with lemon and cilantro. A large bowl rested on the table in front of him, filled with mango juice and mint.
Neel had reached for a handful of chickpeas when the scoot jumped from the ceiling onto his shoulder. It clambered down his arm and began munching on the chickpeas as if Neel’s hand was a trough.
A slightly horrified silence echoed through the room, but Neel laughed. He kept laughing until the scoot stiffened with a high-pitched whine. It began to convulse, and flopped off Neel’s arm into the bowl of juice, where it thrashed and suddenly went still. It floated on its back, its small mouth stretched open.
The chickpeas fell from Neel’s hand as he realized what everyone in the room was realizing.
His food had been poisoned.
23
The Spy
THERE WAS A LOT of screaming after that.
Neel felt his mother grip his arm. He heard Jasmine and Shaida shouting in his ear as his advisers bore down on him from across the room. He stared as people shoved back their plates, but he knew they needn’t worry. That poison had been for him alone.
He stepped back from the table. He ducked away from Arun, Gita, and Karim. He went to his rooms and stayed there, and didn’t understand why, even though he was supposed to be king, he didn’t have the power to make his guards keep everyone out. People pressed their way through the door.
“Are you all right? You didn’t eat anything, did you?” Karim pressed a hand to Neel’s forehead, as if the poison would have produced only a mild fever in him, instead of immediately striking him down as it had the scoot.
Neel jerked away.
“He’s going to die right before our eyes!” someone cried.
“And he’s so young!”
“The poor boy. Why, he’s barely older than a child.”
“Who could have done this?”
Arun and Gita pushed through the crowd. “Who had access to the king’s food?” Arun demanded.
There was a brief silence as everyone turned toward Shaida, Jasmine, and Damara.
“Absurd,” said Shaida. “Do you really think one of us would have poisoned the king’s food in full view of everyone? Do you think his own mother would be capable of such a thing?”
“We must get to the bottom of this,” someone said.
“Something must be done!”
“Too right,” said Treb. “And one thing’s sure as a dropped anchor: you’ve got to be tough on this, Neel. You’ve got to suss this person out, and punish like a king should punish, or you’ll be looking over your shoulder in fear for the rest of your life. I’d like to catch the person myself. Someone daring to come after my family? Why, no one has more reason than the Maraki to snuff out my brat of a cousin, and even we—”
“Those aren’t smart words, brother,” Tarn said quietly.
People stared at Treb and Tarn. Neel heard snatches of whispers.
“What if his own family…?”
“Or his mother…?”
“Could it have been her?”
“Get out,” Neel said. “All of you.”
Everyone looked at each other.
“Get out!” he screamed.
There was a flurry of concern among the crowd, and some mild outrage, but Neel kept shouting until Treb glared at the guards and helped them muscle everyone out of the room.
Everyone except Damara.
When the door had shut behind the last courtier and Neel heard the rising and falling of the guards’ voices in the corridor as they ordered people to clear this wing of the palace, Neel turned to his mother and buried himself in her arms.
Softly, she said, “This isn’t the first time, is it?”
“Should I give it up?” Neel asked. “Should I give the throne to the Maraki?”
“Is that really what you want to do?”
Neel pulled away. I don’t know, moaned a voice inside
him, but then Neel realized that it was a weak liar. He knew.
Damara read the answer in his eyes. “Treb’s right. A king has to react strongly to something like this. If you don’t, you’ll be seen as vulnerable. The Roma can’t have a vulnerable ruler. And I can’t bear the thought of someone trying to hurt my son again.”
Neel sighed, and nodded. “I’m glad you’re here, Ma.”
“So am I.”
“I wish Sadie was here, too. I asked her to come. I sent a royal summons. She should be here by now. Why isn’t she?”
* * *
“WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?” Joel, the older of the two Riven brothers, pushed aside his mug of ale and frowned at Sadie. “Prague isn’t safe for you. It hasn’t been for a long time. Your own king ordered you—”
“The king, apparently, is my little brother,” Sadie said dryly. “He can’t tell me what to do.”
Joel made an impatient noise, but Sadie merely gave him a steady look, and he became mesmerized, as he often was, by her beauty. In the light of the tallow candles that lit this noisy tavern, Sadie’s pale skin glowed like a pearl. He glanced around them and dropped his voice to a whisper. “If these people knew what you are…”
“What I am? I am not a thing.”
“I didn’t say you were. But to be half Roma at a time like this…”
“No one would know, to look at me.” In a bitter voice, she said, “I wish they could.”
“You would be imprisoned. Worse. There are no Roma left in Bohemia, save you. The rest are gone, or dead, or jailed, or warped into monsters. Just go home, Sadie. Stop meeting with me.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. I’m risking everything to meet with you. The least you can do is hear what I have to say and send a message to the Vatra.”
Joel pressed a hand to his eyes. “Tell me, then.”
Sadie whispered, “A pack of Gristleki went missing in the Novohrad Mountains. I heard the captain of the guard say so. It’s the first time anything like this has happened. The prince doesn’t know what to make of it.”
“Is it possible that the Gray Men regained some of their humanity? Maybe they remembered what they really are, and ran away.”