Women surrounded us, wearing every color I could imagine, gleaming with strings of sequins and waving white scarves around their heads. When the men finally set Dev and me down, I clung to his arm, dizzy, and the women draped garlands of white, yellow, and orange marigolds around our necks until the pile threatened to suffocate me.
Dev took my hand, spinning me into the center of the dance floor again before I had a chance to catch my breath. The music and laughter pulled me in, and, even though I knew I could never really be what they wanted, right now there was no way I could do anything but go along with it. Soon, I was laughing too, and I dragged Lydia into a dance with me. Even Cole wasn’t scowling.
After a time, though, my feet ached from dancing and my cheeks from smiling, both real smiles and the ones I knew I should give. I was nearly too tired to stand, anyway, and Jack and I had somewhere to be, so I caught Lydia’s eye and ran my pinky across my eyebrow.
She nodded, and minutes later, my father was next to me, thanking Dev and his parents for the evening, begging off the rest of the party because of jet lag.
They looked disappointed—it was still early—but Dev kissed my hand, I smiled and waved from the top of the steps, and we finally emerged into the quiet of the hallway.
My father walked me back to my room. The silk of my sari swishing was the only sound in the residential wing of the mansion, but my head still echoed with the drums and flutes and cheers of the ballroom. I pulled off the top few flower garlands until my shoulders felt lighter.
My father cleared his throat. I hadn’t spoken with him much since dinner last night, and even though Lydia seemed to accept and even understand my grudging compliance with their terms, I wasn’t sure he did. I was expecting a lecture on following the customs of these families, and how I couldn’t just leave when I was tired, so I was surprised when he said, “You’re doing a good job.”
I looked up. My father was wearing a tunic similar to Mr. Rajesh’s, and it was charmingly askew after a night of dancing.
“I know this isn’t easy for you,” he said. “Your mother—Claire always hated Circle politics.”
Claire. I kept forgetting that Carol wasn’t my mother’s real name. Neither was West. She must have made both up after she found out she was pregnant with me and ran away from the Circle.
My father—I still couldn’t think of him as Dad, a word that conjured up images of plaid shirts and summer barbecues—must have taken my silence as agreement, because he said, “It means a lot to us, and to the Circle, that you’re willing to work with us on this. They adored you tonight.”
Guilt flashed through me again. I wasn’t cooperating quite as much as he thought.
A heavy velvet curtain led to the hall of bedrooms, and my father held it aside for me to walk through. “I’m not sure if it would help you to know this, but what you’re doing here—being courted by these young men and their families—is very traditional. All our marriages are arranged.”
I studied my hands, covered in bracelets and rings, delicate chains connecting them. “Lydia told me.”
I felt my father watching me. “You can learn to love someone.”
I couldn’t stop myself. “So you and my mother—”
“Could never have had a future.” It was gentle, but final. “Now it’s obvious. But we were young then. Idealistic.”
We passed beneath a gilded archway, where two lanterns flickered against the gold-threaded tapestries on the walls. Yes, tonight had been fine—more than fine—and all the dinners and parties and traveling to come might be fun in their own way. And I was glad I could help my family—it made me feel like I was actually one of them, for however long it lasted. But how was any of this different from that almost-wedding to Luc Dauphin? Different families, different countries, different cages.
At least the door to this cage was still propped open.
“Have your people made any headway with the clues or my mom?” I asked, my voice squeaking. My throat was parched and raw from talking over the music all night.
My father shook his head. “We’re working on it.”
We stopped at an ornately carved door off the long tile hallway. Overhead, a ceiling fan spun lazily, stirring my curls.
“I’ll see you in the morning, then,” my father said. “We have a farewell tea with the Rajesh family at ten, and we leave for Germany at noon.”
“I’ll be ready,” I said. There was an awkward pause where I thought he might hug me, but he just patted me on the shoulder and headed back down the hall.
I pushed into the bedroom and slumped against the door. Alone in the dark, I wanted nothing more than to curl up and close my eyes and decompress.