“And then what, Kazi?”
My shoulders twitched, everything inside me shrinking, resisting. “I watched. From beneath the bed, I watched a man come into our home. We had no weapons, only a stick propped in the corner. My mother tried to get to it. She didn’t make it in time. I wanted to run to her, but we had signals, and she signaled me to be quiet and not move. So I didn’t. I just lay there cowering beneath the bed while the man drugged my mother and carried her away. He said he’d get a good price for her. She was merchandise. He wanted me too, but couldn’t find me. Come out, girl, he yelled, but I didn’t move. My mother lied and told him I wasn’t there.”
My vision blurred and Jase grew fuzzy. “I lay in my own waste for two days under that bed, shaking, crying, too afraid to move. I was terrified he’d come back. He didn’t. Neither did she. It took me years to learn how to sleep on top of a bed again. You asked me why an open world frightens me, Jase? Because it gives me nowhere to hide. That’s been my prison for eleven years, but trust me, I didn’t create it.”
I blinked, clearing my eyes, and I saw the dawning in his face. “Eleven years. That’s why you wanted to know how long—”
“That’s right, Jase. He was a Previzi driver. While I was starving and freezing and thieving on the streets of Venda, and my mother ended up the gods know where, you were providing him with a warm, safe home. How wonderful for him.”
“That was eleven years ago. How can you be sure he was even Previzi? Your memory—”
“Don’t! Don’t you dare question my memory!” I growled. “I’m good at details, and I’ve had to live with those every day since I was six! Some days, I’ve prayed to the gods that I could forget! He drove in on a wagon that morning—four black stripes on his tarp!”
Jase was well aware that was a distinguishing mark of the Previzi.
“You were six years old! It was the middle of the night! It might not have even been the same man! He might—”
“He was tall, Jase—like you! But thin, bony. He had dead white skin and long strands of greasy black hair. His eyes were shiny beads of onyx. You know the new cook’s husband? Except for the eyes, he looked remarkably like him. I’m guessing he’s about thirty-five by now. And his hands—as he forced drugs down my mother’s throat, I saw the dark hair on his knuckles and a large mole on his right wrist! How’s that for details?”
He didn’t answer, as if he was already digging through eleven years of memories.
“You may have been a child eleven years ago too, but you know them all by now,” I said. “Is there a driver who fits that description?”
“No!” he shouted, throwing his hands in the air. He turned away and paced the room. “There are no drivers like that!”
“How can—”
There was a tap at the door.
I turned, swallowing my next words. We both stared at the door. Another light tap. I crossed the room and opened it.
Lydia and Nash stood side-by-side, their eyes wide and worried.
“Nash. Lydia.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“Were you two fighting?” Nash asked. His voice was small, delicate, and it stabbed me with its innocence. I stared into his frightened eyes. He looked like he had been punched in the stomach. I hated how easily innocence could be robbed—how quickly a child could go from plucking wish stalks at a pond’s edge to clutching stolen bread beneath a coat.
I knelt so we were eye to eye. “No, of course not.” I forced a smile. “Just a loud discussion.”
“But … you were crying.” Lydia reached out and wiped under my eye.
“Oh, that.” I quickly swiped my hands over my cheeks. “Only dust in my eyes from a long, galloping ride,” I said. “But what’s this?” I reached behind both of their ears and frowned. “Did you two forget to wash today?”
They grinned with wonder as I pulled a coin from behind each of their ears and clucked with feigned dismay. I tucked the coins into their palms.
“What did you two want?” Jase asked.
“Mama wants Kazi to come down for supper early so she can talk about food.”
“The kind the queen likes!” Lydia added.
Jase told them we’d be down shortly. I watched them race along the hallway, laughing, forgetting about the shouting they’d heard, the tears they saw, and I wished all memories could be erased so easily.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
JASE
Nash swirled his creamed squash into three green circles. I looked at his small fingers gripping his spoon, playing with his food the same way I had when I was six. Lydia arranged the pieces of meat that Mother had cut for her into a sunburst around her plate.
I was on the streets from the time I was six.
I couldn’t imagine either Nash or Lydia fending for themselves. I couldn’t imagine them being all alone and the terror they would feel. I couldn’t imagine that they would survive at all.
Look at my fingers, Jase! Take a good long look.
An image of Kazi’s long beautiful fingers with missing tips kept seeping through my mind. Why didn’t she tell me before? All the times in the wilderness when I had asked—
I didn’t grow up like you.
I had never seen a single tear in Kazi’s eye. Not when she ran across burning sands that blistered her feet. Not when a labor hunter hit her across her face. Not when a raider nearly choked the life from her. But this, a memory eleven years old, made her unravel. I watched her struggle to hold it back, like she was trying to dissect her feelings from the facts.
But when Lydia and Nash came to the door, she steeled herself and became someone else. How do you do that? I had asked as we walked to dinner, How do you go from anguish to pulling coins out from behind ears?
It’s an acquired skill, Jase. Something all thieves learn.
I heard the sarcasm in her reply. I knew what she thought I had meant, that even her tears had been a shallow act. It was just the opposite. I watched her sacrifice part of herself for their sakes, like hiding a bleeding limb behind her back and pretending she wasn’t in pain.
“Jase, you’re picking at your food,” Priya said, waving her fork at me. “You’re not hungry?”
I looked at my plate, untouched.
I had no servant to bring me food.
No parties in the garden.
I wore rags upon rags to stay warm in winter.
I remembered in the wilderness when she was ready to eat minnows before we had cooked them. I had to scavenge for every rotten mouthful I ever ate. And now I knew—there were worse things than raw minnows, and she had eaten them.
My mother eyed my full plate. “I can ask Natiya to fix you something else if you like?”
“No,” I replied. “This is fine.” I stabbed a piece of meat and chewed.
I made more of an effort to concentrate on the multiple conversations running around the table. They seemed fuller and louder tonight. Maybe it was an effort to avoid any uncomfortable silences. An effort to cover Jalaine’s absence. To avoid the obvious—Kazi’s outburst at the arena—though the evidence on my jaw was a little harder to ignore. Lydia had asked me what happened. “A fall,” I answered, and that wasn’t far from the truth. I had told Garvin to keep his revelation just between us, so at least no one knew she had once been a thief.
And maybe, on occasion, she still was.
She nicked the king.
What did she take from him? And why?
There were still so many questions I hadn’t asked. Things I wanted to know. How does an orphaned street thief become a premier guard of the queen? Where had she been in those hours I couldn’t find her? But after Lydia and Nash left, she went into the bath chamber and closed the door. I heard her running water and splashing her face. When she came out, the redness in her eyes was gone, but it felt like she still teetered on an edge and I was afraid to push her over it. My questions retreated. At least for a little while.
“More ale, Patrei?” Natiya stood next to me, a pitcher poised in her hand over my drained tankard.
I nodded. “Thank you.”