Another hall, concealed from the patrons and courtesans, forked from the entrance. I stepped inside first, listening for any impatient footfalls or rasping breaths. Nothing. I scanned the walls. A mirror hovered above me.
For the second time that day, the mirror didn’t reflect me. But it didn’t show the glamour I wore either. The mirror showed my heart. Bharata. I saw a pewter sky blanketing the watchtowers, salt stacked in perfect wheels in the merchants’ quarter, bonfires spraying ruby splinters into the air. I saw my people dancing, cheeks ruddy from laughing. I saw legends hanging off the trees like fruit, ripe for the taking and devouring, ready to be shared among friends and family. I saw every reason to return home.
My eyelids drooped. Maybe if I closed my eyes, the images in the mirror would shatter and become a reality—
“Gauri!” hissed Vikram.
My eyes flew open. I tried to move forward, but I couldn’t. Fine silken ropes had fallen from the mirror and worked their way around my arms and legs, pinning me in place. Vikram, too, was trapped. Anyone with a foul sense of humor and a sharp knife could walk through the hall and kill us where we stood. It was only by sheer luck that the hallway was abandoned.
“I’ve heard of being trapped by your desires, but this is ridiculous,” he grumbled.
“How long did you look at the mirror?” I asked.
“I only glanced at it.”
I reached for the dagger on my thigh, but it slid out of the sheath, clattering to the ground. Biting back a hiss, I tried throwing all my weight backward and then forward, trying to untangle my limbs from the ropes. The iridescent ropes shone a little brighter, coy as a smile.
“How do you rid yourself of desire?” I mused. “It’s not like I can magically become a different species.”
Vikram paused. “That’s it! Look back into the mirror—”
“Absolutely not. That’s what got us trapped the first time.”
“And maybe it can free us too.”
I watched as he looked into the mirror. At one point, he turned a furious shade of red. Then, the silken ropes crumpled around him. He crept toward me, picking up the fallen knife and sawing at the silken bonds. The threads didn’t even fray.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“I just let go,” he said, shrugging. “I looked at the desires and I told myself I didn’t want them. Then they freed me. Try it.”
I tried. I tried to pretend that I didn’t want the images anymore. But I couldn’t. I saw myself kneeling in a square of sunlight in Bharata’s gardens, wrist-deep in earth as I dug a home for a rosebush. I craved for that belonging, the kind that knits happiness to your heart so it never wanders too far out of sight.
Blinking, I tore myself from the image. The silken ropes had grown in number and strength. But I also saw something else … paint had dropped onto the rope. I looked up at Vikram. The glamour of a woman’s body was already fading. He had grown taller. The tight curls had begun to relax and lose their copper sheen.
“What is tying you down?” he demanded.
They would catch us—maybe even kill us—if I couldn’t free myself. What was holding me back? Home, Nalini, vengeance, the throne. So many things tugged at me. It was different for Vikram. He wasn’t driven by desire for the throne of Ujijain. He was driven by the belief that it should be his. Somehow he could separate that. I couldn’t. But maybe … maybe I could look beyond it?
I stared back into the mirror. This time, I tried to focus on the space between the images as they changed. There, in that undefined nexus … that was my real desire. The mirror couldn’t show me the thing that pushed me toward that half-key to immortality because it was more. It was unquantifiable. A sylph with no face. It went beyond my need for vengeance or saving Nalini because it was the hunt for a legacy. It looked like nothing and everything. I blinked and the mirror shattered. The silken ropes crumpled.
I gathered them quickly before they could loudly thunk onto the floor. The moment I pushed the ropes to one side of the hall, Vikram shot me a warning glance and we both raced down the hall to where a gossamer screen separated one room from the next. Vikram reached for it, but I knocked his hand back. I squinted, gesturing for the dagger. Was someone standing on the other side? I stared for a moment longer, but no shadow moved behind the screen. I nodded, sheathing the dagger, as Vikram pulled back the curtain. There, lodged into the silk as if someone had punched it into place, was a glittering ruby.
“That’s it!” he said. “It has to be.”
I swept another glance around the room, careful to avoid the ceiling when I caught the gilded shine of a hundred mirrors overhead. No sign of disturbance to the pristine cushions. Nothing knocked aside in haste. A hall hugged one side of the room, curved out of sight. I stared a moment longer, but no shadow flickered on the wall’s other side. Satisfied, I nodded to Vikram, who started walking to the ruby. Something shone in the facets of the jewel—a table surrounded by diners. Ice spangled the air around the stone. The cold of it formed a fist around my heart.
“Give me a lift,” said Vikram. “Maybe I can tear this thing out with the knife—”
I had layered my palms together to give him a lift when I noticed something:
Silence.
When we had first stepped inside, the vishakanyas’ tent had been full of low murmurs, whispered encouragements and even the occasional moans. I crouched, skimming my thigh for the dagger slung around my leg. A low sigh and a crumpling sound broke the silence. Vikram had slumped to the ground. The copper of his disguised hair had darkened. His limbs lengthened and the barest trace of stubble began to shadow his shifting face.
Panic raced through me. Before I could touch him, a low laugh echoed from the opposite side of the room. Eleven vishakanyas stepped from the shadows. They had been waiting. Invisible.
“What did you do to him?”
I heard a small gasp beside me and turned to see a beautiful vishakanya materialize in the air. She cowered away from Vikram. Her hand was still outstretched. Had she touched him?
The effects of the Feast of Transformation had vanished. Vikram lay in his original jacket and trousers. His face was pale, and sweat beaded on his skin. Things that were once eye-level fell little by little. The borrowed height from the Feast of Transformation had disappeared and I had returned to my original size and shape.
“A man!” gasped the vishakanya. She did not run to the others pressed in the dark corners of the room. Instead, she stared at me.
“Don’t you dare touch him,” I hissed, brandishing the knife.
I ran through what I knew about vishakanyas. Every inch of their skin was deadly. But they bled and died just like any mortal. At least, that’s what Maya’s stories always said. I just had to get past the skin.