Akash was out running an errand, but the other three ambled toward the range. Danny longed to go back to his notes—he was working out a complex theory about the rain’s effect on the clock towers—but Daphne’s interest and Meena’s wariness made him stay put. He hated to admit it, but he was a bit curious, too.
The rains held off in the mid-afternoon hours as Harris cleaned and prepared his rifle. It looked new, and dangerously close to the models Danny had seen being made in the Enfield factory.
A sepoy stood at Harris’s side, holding the captain’s rifle equipment. His dark eyes were keen as he studied the three of them. Danny noticed the man’s own rifle was an older, clunkier model than Harris’s. Danny had read that ever since the rebellion, the Indian soldiers weren’t allowed to have the newest guns.
“Partha,” Harris said, addressing the sepoy, “would you mind moving the target farther away?”
Partha adjusted the wooden stand. A crude canvas target was stretched across it, painted with five scattered red dots.
“Good, thank you.” Harris waited for the sepoy to return and gave him a handsome smile. Cocking the rifle, he brought it up to his shoulder. He took a deep, steadying breath, then fired five shots one right after the other.
The three mechanics jumped at the report. Partha brought the target back and Danny’s breath caught. Every point had a bullet neatly blown through it.
It was one thing, Danny thought, to see the rifles being assembled in the factory back at Enfield. It was quite another to see them in action.
To see their full, deadly potential.
“Well done, Captain,” Daphne said. Even Meena looked impressed.
Harris ruffled his hair, then smoothed it back down again. “Thank you.”
The group heard a scoff behind them. Lieutenant Crosby had been watching the exercise as well, arms crossed over his chest.
“If you want a real demonstration, use a moving target,” Crosby said.
“Would you care to give us your own demonstration, sir?” Harris asked. Partha, who had been cleaning and loading the rifle, shifted so that he stood a little closer to Harris, eyeing the lieutenant with thinly veiled dislike.
Crosby snapped his fingers at the animal vendor close by. The Indian man hopped forward and presented his struggling wares for Crosby’s perusal. The lieutenant chose a particularly frazzled hare, which dangled by its foot.
“Gun,” he ordered Harris. The captain handed over his rifle without complaint, but Danny caught the gleam of indignation in his eyes.
Crosby primed the gun, then nodded to the Indian vendor. He released the hare, who streaked across the field in a blur of gray.
A clear shot rang out, and this time everybody jumped. Everyone except Harris, who looked on coolly. Crosby handed back his rifle, the barrel faintly smoking.
“There you are,” the lieutenant said. They all looked at the small form of the hare’s body, now lying motionless. Daphne frowned and Meena turned completely away. Danny continued to watch the silent battle between Harris and Crosby until the latter turned and strolled away, hands in his pockets.
The monsoon let up a few days later, though the sky was still churning with gray clouds when Meena offered to finally make good on her promise to show them the city.
“We need a break from all this thinking,” she said. “Also, there will be fewer people after the rains.”
Danny was fairly certain she took this precaution because of the stares they had drawn in Khurja. Thinking back to how exposed he’d felt, he silently thanked her.
They asked for an auto to take into the city, as it was much too far to walk and—mercifully, in Danny’s opinion—too short a journey to take Akash’s plane. Danny stared out the window as the plain dissolved into buildings, from women walking with baskets and children on their hips to men carrying wood and goats in their arms.
Outside the safety of the cantonment, however, Danny felt his shoulders grow tense. He couldn’t help but wonder about the man on the Notus, whom they still hadn’t identified. Was he was still out there, plotting another attack?
More questions that couldn’t be answered.
The Taj Mahal presided over a garden divided into four quadrants with a cross-shaped pond intersecting them, which Meena called a charbagh. Danny looked at the vast building, awed and struggling to comprehend how human beings could create something so vast and beautiful.
“Shah Jahan was a Mughal emperor who was married to a Persian princess,” Meena said. “They were deeply in love and had many children. But the princess died in childbirth. Before she passed, she ordered the emperor to build a monument symbolizing their love. Shah Jahan carried so much grief that he ordered this tomb be built in honor of his beloved wife.” She released a wistful little sigh. “The graves of the emperor and his wife are underground, but inside the Taj is the decorative tomb.”
“Wait, this is a tomb?” Danny interrupted. “I thought it was a palace.”
Akash laughed. “Too small for a palace, but too large for a tomb, in my opinion.”
“No tomb would be big enough to contain the emperor’s grief,” Meena said, a slight edge in her voice. “Show some respect for the dead.”
Properly chastised, they followed her to the central building.
A latticework fence around the tombs was covered with gold and gems that formed twisting vines and flowers. The tombs themselves, however, were plain. Meena explained that it was Muslim tradition not to decorate graves more than necessary.
Danny wished he could show this to Colton. That there was a way to shrink it down, put it in his pocket, and share it as he had shared so many curios with him. The only way to bring the world to Enfield.
Although the Taj was Muslim in design, there were marble Om inlays carved onto the walls. Danny touched one and thought of the emperor’s despair. The maddening, aching loss that had driven him to fill a tomb with jewels and light and air. And grief. He could feel it here, almost as he could feel time passing in Khurja. Something sharp and powerful. Constant. But unlike the fulfilling sensation at Khurja, this was an ache—the sensation of something ripped away, missing.
He thought of the tower debris and how he hadn’t seen or sensed a spirit. Cruelly, his mind supplied him an image of Colton’s tower as nothing but a pile of rubble, with no sign of Colton anywhere.
Danny wandered outside and stood at the railing, facing the Yamuna River, which curved behind the Taj. Women dyed and washed clothes in the water, letting the current carry away streaks of red and yellow.
Footsteps came up behind him. “Are you all right?” Daphne asked.
“Just thinking.”
She hesitated before asking her next question, but Danny knew it was coming all the same. “Do you miss him?”
“Enough to build a second Taj.”
“We’ll be back in England soon, I hope. If we ever find a solution to all this.” He heard the rustle of her clothes, then felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned and saw that she had taken out the two little pills the attendant from the Notus had given her.
“Do you need them?” she asked.
“No. Why do you still have those?”
“It seemed a waste to throw them away if someone else could benefit.”