The Meerut tower had been blown to bits, and time continued on. Thoughts assaulted her one by one, thoughts of Danny and Meena, Captain Harris, the Meerut tower, the crying girl, and leaving Narayan without saying goodbye.
Crosby ushered them into the Silver Hawk. If Daphne didn’t know better, she would have said he was frightened. But that didn’t make sense coming from the man who’d said the towers might as well fall if time wasn’t Stopping.
In truth, none of this made sense.
Akash was already in the pilot’s seat; he looked at Daphne with a silent plea. She asked Crosby if she could sit in front, to which he gave an annoyed “Yes, whatever pleases you” before he shut the door behind them.
Once they were safely in the air, Akash turned to her. “I’m sorry for what I did today.”
She was confused until she remembered him leveling his gun at the angry man. The news from Meerut had temporarily driven it from her mind. “You did what you had to.”
“No, I feel as if I must give you an explanation.”
“You don’t.” She shifted in her seat, then glanced at him. “I didn’t expect something like that from you, though.”
“I’m sorry.” He paused, collecting his thoughts. “When we were younger, Meena and I would go into the city without our parents. We thought it was daring. Sometimes, people mistook us for urchins. Maan would get so angry when we came home dirty and covered in scratches and bruises, but it was how we liked to play.
“One day, we were out too late and it was raining. It was so dark we got lost. Meena started crying and ran into an alley. I tried to ask directions, but passersby ignored me, thinking I was a beggar. Then, I heard Meena scream.
“I ran into the alley and—” His voice was now almost impossible to hear over the drone of the plane. “A soldier was there. British. He was looking at her like—like a fox who’d caught a rabbit. He came closer, and Meena couldn’t speak, she was so terrified.
“I yelled. I didn’t know what else to do. The sound brought over two sepoys, who convinced the man to leave. But he was smiling, as if he’d won something.”
Akash clenched his jaw. “We used to spend all our time together, but now with her work and my deliveries, that’s impossible. I can’t always be there for her, and she can’t always be there for me. So I make her carry a gun, and I carry mine, because I don’t want that to happen again. Meena lives a dangerous enough life as it is.” His hands tightened on the controls.
Daphne remained silent, but she knew he didn’t want words. She let her hand touch the back of Akash’s, and he briefly held it, out of view of the others.
They landed near the Agra cantonment sometime later. Daphne left her pack behind and hurried inside.
She found Major Dryden outside the counsel building, talking sternly to a few sepoys. They all said, “Yes, sahib,” before hurrying off. Dryden turned and started when he saw her.
“Miss Richards! Thank goodness you’re safe. Dreadful news. Simply awful. I’m dispatching troops to Meerut at once, and we have men going to Lucknow as we speak. It’s better you stay here.”
“Lucknow?” She had only just left. It didn’t make sense that the major would send more soldiers so soon.
Dryden sighed wearily. “You must have been in the air when it happened. The tower at Lucknow was also targeted. We just received a wire that it, too, has fallen.”
At first her mind refused to accept what he’d said, so she merely stared at him, uncomprehending. It didn’t make sense. She had just been there.
And she hadn’t been able to stop it.
She had failed Narayan.
Her eyes burned, and her throat ached. She should have known that that riot was a distraction. Because she hadn’t done enough, Narayan and his dreams of dancing were gone forever.
The major cleared his throat, uncomfortable at her sudden display of grief. She gathered herself and whispered, “Where are the others?”
A flicker of unease crossed his face. “On their way back. They won’t arrive till evening.”
So Daphne was left to fret with Akash. She shed a few tears in her room for Narayan, then sat silently in the mess hall. Eventually they wandered outside the cantonment. Daphne drank two cups of tea. Akash only stared north.
Finally, just after sundown, they spotted the autos. They rolled down the dusty streets before stopping within the ring of buildings.
Captain Harris emerged from one, haggard and pale.
“Where’s Meena?” Akash demanded.
“Right here. Just a moment.”
Harris opened the back door and helped Meena out. Daphne stifled a gasp; the poor girl was bruised and scratched, and there was a burn across her face that had been covered with gauze. Even some of her dark, sleek hair had been burned along one side.
Akash cried out and made to grab her, then thought better of it. Instead, he gently put his hands on his sister’s shoulders and kissed her forehead, right over her bindi.
“Are you all right?” he asked. Meena’s mouth trembled and she shook her head. “What happened?”
A few soldiers and sepoys stepped out of the autos. Daphne saw Partha run up and grab Harris’s arm, leaning in to say something quietly in his ear. Harris replied, then gripped his forearm tightly. Something raw passed between them, stark relief and trepidation.
Daphne scanned the rest of the convoy. Heart pounding, she returned to the siblings and touched Meena’s arm. She looked up, eyelashes spiked with tears.
“Meena,” Daphne whispered as her throat tightened, “where’s Danny?”
The girl let out a faint sob, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. When Akash reached out to hold her, she pushed him away.
“When I woke,” she said, “I was on the ground, and the tower … Aditi’s tower … it was broken. So broken. Everything was—fire and stones and—such a terrible sound.”
“But Danny,” Daphne said louder, dread rising like water in her lungs, drowning her. “Where is Danny?”
“No one could find him. When the captain came … he was gone.” Meena held back another sob. “He’s gone.”
Adull ache traveled from Danny’s forehead to the back of his skull. He groaned, but didn’t open his eyes yet. He was still drifting, weightless, hardly existing save for the ache in his head.
Eventually something penetrated the thick shell of his unconsciousness: a sound like bees droning.
Danny slowly opened his eyes. He had to blink several times, the light sharpening the dull ache into a stabbing pain. He groaned again and rubbed his face. At least he was lying in a bed.
That made him sit up with a jerk. Bed?
Holding his head as it rang with a fresh peal of pain, he took in his surroundings. Yes, he was definitely lying in a bed in the middle of a stark room, facing a closed metallic door. To his left was a round window, the source of that nearly blinding light.
Dizzy, he tried to think back. He had been walking with Meena. They were going to Aditi’s tower. Then—
“The tower fell,” he whispered to his clammy palms.
His body was battered, his limbs stiff and sore, but he had to find out what had happened.