Her arm healed fine. It was a clean break—the kind that comes only with practice.
And now I feel like we’re right back where we’ve always been. It takes me twenty minutes to clean her wounds. I work slowly with as much gentleness as I can. Iyla stares straight ahead and only flinches twice.
“Thank you,” she says when I’ve finished. She turns and studies my face for a moment and then says, “Did he really not show?” My heart falls into my stomach. How can I tell her that this is my fault? I press my lips together and close my eyes.
“I couldn’t do it,” I say finally.
Iyla goes very still. “Why not?”
I open my eyes. “Because I know him, Iyla. And he’s not a bad person.”
She fixes me with an icy stare. “That’s never been your call, Marinda. Never.”
“You know him too. Do you think he deserves to die?”
She’s quiet for a moment. “It’s not for me to say,” she says softly.
“Iyla!”
She shoots to her feet. “No. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to moralize to me. I have known all of them. Every single one. And you’ve never asked me what kind of people they were or if I thought they deserved to die. Then you get cozy with one boy and you suddenly decide you’re in charge of this whole operation? You put all of our lives at risk?”
I’m too stunned to speak. I’ve always thought I had the bigger burden, the greater guilt. I’ve never thought about what it must be like for Iyla. To know them all. To care about them.
“Were they all like Deven?”
She sits heavily on the bed and winces. “Not all of them. But a lot of them, yes.”
I feel like I’m going to be sick. I sit down and put my head in my hands. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“We don’t have a choice, Marinda.”
I hesitate. What will she do if I tell her the truth? Can I afford to confide in her? Can I afford not to? Mani catches my eye and shakes his head. He can see I’m close to telling her and he doesn’t want me to. He doesn’t trust her. But Mani doesn’t easily trust anyone and he doesn’t know Iyla like I do. Before Mani was born, she was the closest thing to family that I had. Choosing to love her, choosing to believe that there was at least one person in the world I could rely on, was the only thing that kept me sane for the first ten years of my life. She can be cunning and cruel, but my life has been in her hands before and she’s always kept it safe. I lift one shoulder and hope Mani understands—I don’t know what else to do.
“We do have a choice,” I say. “I want to make Deven immune.”
Iyla looks up sharply. “What are you talking about?”
“I visited Kadru.”
Iyla blanches and her eyes go wide. “Why would you do that?” There’s a tremble in her voice, and I remember how much Iyla hates Kadru—even more than I do.
“To get venom. For Deven. If I can give him a little at a time, he’ll be immune. He’ll be safe.”
“You love him,” she says. It’s not a question.
My cheeks heat. “No. No, that’s not it. I just don’t want him to die, Iyla. Not by me and not by any of the other vish kanya either.”
Something dark passes over her face, but it’s gone so quickly that I think I must have imagined it. She shrugs. “But Gopal will still expect him to be dead. Poison kisses aren’t the only way to kill a man.”
The threat in her words hits me like a slap. If I won’t kill Deven, she will. All the compassion I had for her bleeds away and I’m left only with rage.
“The vish kanya make good assassins because we don’t leave evidence behind—nasty things like stab wounds. So if you think you can win Gopal over with your newfound loyalty and a sharp knife, I’m afraid you’re going to be very disappointed.”
Iyla’s eyes flash. I’ve hit a nerve. But then her expression goes forcefully blank and her voice turns dismissive. “I have no desire to win him over,” she says. “But I’m also not going to be punished because you’ve suddenly grown a conscience.”
I’m losing her. She’ll go to Gopal, and Deven will be dead before sundown. And probably Mani too, once Gopal knows I betrayed him. If I can’t convince her to keep quiet because it’s the right thing to do, I need to find another way. But Iyla is almost impossible to manipulate. How do you control someone who doesn’t care about anything except not being controlled?
I force out a hard laugh. “I guess he finally owns you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were always so sure you’d never belong to Gopal,” I say. “It always disgusted you that I let him control me. And yet look at us now—I’m defying him and you’re following his orders like a well-trained puppy.”
She flinches and I hate that I’m hurting her. But I’ve found a weak spot and I need to put pressure on it—it’s the only way to wrest the power back. “When you run to him to tattle on me, make sure to do it with a newspaper between your teeth. Like a good dog.”