“No, Marinda. Don’t defend her. It was reckless and unprofessional.” He throws her a hard look. “And completely unacceptable.” Iyla lowers her head, chastened.
Bile rises in my throat. I don’t know how to fix this, and I’m still not convinced that Gopal isn’t playing some kind of game. If he knows that Deven spends time in the bookshop, it must have occurred to him that I might have seen Deven before, that I might know him.
“So,” Gopal says. “We will try again, and this time Iyla is going to get it right.” He turns to me. “And so will you.” His gaze slides to Mani and then back. He lowers his voice to a whisper. “We wouldn’t want your brother’s health to worsen, now would we?” Something cold creeps down my spine. The medicine that Gopal provides for Mani is the only thing that is keeping him alive. If he took it away…“Are we clear?”
I nod. It’s the only option right now—to promise compliance. Gopal draws his lips back from his teeth in what I think is supposed to be a smile. “Good girl,” he says. “I’ll let you two sort out the details, but I want that boy dead by the end of the week.” He looks back and forth between me and Iyla, and he must be satisfied with the expressions on our faces, because he leaves without another word.
Mani lets out a shaky breath and I hug him to my side. Iyla is looking at me with daggers in her eyes.
“What is going on?” she asks.
“I was about to ask you the same thing.” I’m stalling now. How much do I tell Iyla? How much can I trust her? I can’t stop picturing her with Deven—laughing with him, kissing him. Iyla touches her jaw and I have a vision of coming back in the next life as a dung beetle. I’m being so insensitive—it’s obvious what’s going on with her. “Iyla, I’m so sorry,” I say. “What happened?” She steps toward the edge of the bed to sit, but there’s something wrong with the way she’s moving; it’s too deliberate, too careful. “What did he do?” I ask again. She meets my gaze and this time her eyes are shiny—it’s the closest Iyla ever gets to tears. She turns her back and gingerly lifts her shirt. My hand flies to my mouth. Gopal hitting us to make a point is nothing new—my face has been discolored by his rage more than once—but this is something far worse. At least ten large welts climb up Iyla’s back like a ladder. Some of them are crusted with dried blood.
He has whipped her.
“Oh, Iyla.” My eyes fill with tears, but I blink them away. Mani is watching, his mouth hanging open in horror, and if I lose my composure, I’ll only make it worse for him. I wish that he didn’t have to see this, wish that I could protect him, but now it’s too late. It was too late the moment Gopal placed him in my arms. I squeeze Iyla’s hand. “I’ll get something to clean you up.” I go to the sink and return with a washcloth soaked in warm water and soap.
Sometimes I wish I could turn off my memories. Or better yet, erase them completely. Because this feels too familiar, sitting with Iyla, cleaning her wounds. Feeling guilty for her injuries. Trying and failing to bandage her body and my soul. It’s happened more times than I can count. Once when we were twelve, Gopal broke Iyla’s arm. He had given her a target—the father of a girl about our own age. Iyla was supposed to befriend the girl and spy on the father. It was meant to be practice for all that would come later. Three weeks into the mission, Iyla had gotten attached.
“I want you to promise me that you won’t have him killed,” she told Gopal one night at dinner.
He snorted. “I will do no such thing.”
“Pari has already lost her mother. If you kill her father, she’ll be an orphan.” I flinched because Iyla had used the girl’s name. There was no faster way to enrage Gopal than by referring to the targets like they were people.
He fixed her with a cold stare. “You aren’t in a position to ask for promises and you won’t get any from me.”
“Then I won’t spy on him for you,” Iyla said. Her face was cold and defiant. My whole body froze, taut with alarm.
Gopal dabbed the corners of his mouth with his napkin, as calm as if Iyla had asked him to pass the pepper. He stood and placed the napkin precisely at the side of his plate. And then in one swift motion, he grabbed Iyla’s forearm and snapped it over his knee like it was a twig.
Iyla’s eyes went big and all the color drained from her face, but she didn’t cry out. She didn’t make a sound. I did, though. I cried enough for both of us as I held her and rocked her back and forth.
And I was still sobbing later as I made her a sling from an old sari and tied it behind her neck.
“Why aren’t you crying?” I asked her. “Why do you never cry?”
She didn’t answer right away. But finally she said, “If I cry, then he thinks he controls me.”
“He broke your arm, Iyla. He does control you.”
“No, he doesn’t,” she said. But we both knew it was a lie.