My throat feels like it’s closing up. “Since I was a little girl.”
Japa sucks in a sharp breath. “But that can’t be,” he says. The expression on his face is shocked, but the hard angles have softened and he looks more like himself. It gives me courage to keep speaking.
“It’s not a life I ever wanted,” I tell him. “I never really had a choice.”
Japa’s eyes are wet. He rests a hand on my forearm. “Marinda, we always have a choice.”
I shake my head because he doesn’t understand. “When I was five, the Raja gave me the option: become his assassin or leave Sundari forever. Where would I have gone at five? It wasn’t much of a choice.”
“The Raja?” Deep lines have carved themselves into Japa’s forehead. “At five?”
“Yes,” I say. “I had to be loyal to the kingdom or leave.”
Japa presses his lips together and stares off into the distance. “You had orders to kill Deven?”
“Yes,” I say.
“And so you meant to accomplish that by poisoning him?”
“No,” I say. “Of course not.”
Japa’s face is twisted in confusion. “Deven said you’d been slipping him doses of poison.”
Tears prickle at the corners of my eyes. “I was trying to make him immune,” I say softly.
“Immune from what?”
“From me. From others like me.”
Japa raises his eyebrows in a question. I press the heels of my hands to my eyes. I don’t want to say it out loud, but there’s no other way to make him understand.
“My kiss is deadly,” I say. “I was supposed to kiss Deven, but I couldn’t do it. He was too good and too kind. But if I didn’t, I knew that my handler would send another girl, so I had to make him immune to protect him.”
“A visha kanya?” Japa breathes.
My pulse quickens. “You’ve heard of us?”
“Only in legends,” he says. “It’s not possible. And the Raja would never…” He shakes his head. “It’s just not possible.”
“I wish that were true.” We sit quietly for a moment, each absorbed in our own thoughts. And then I say, “Deven says Mani has vish bimari. Have you ever heard of that?”
Japa nods. “It’s clear that he does—the trouble breathing, the lack of energy, the way his eyes are always dilated. That’s why I told you to come to me if you needed help. I thought someone was hurting the two of you. I never suspected…” He trails off, but I can guess the rest of the thought. He never suspected it was me hurting Mani.
“It wasn’t me making him sick,” I say.
“You didn’t give him poison?”
“Of course not. I would never hurt Mani.” I lower my eyes to my hands. “I thought it was a problem with his lungs. But now—I think my handler has been slowly poisoning him over the last several years. Until Deven accused me of hurting him…I didn’t think it was possible.”
Japa shifts in his chair and scrubs a hand over his face. “You understand that I’m finding it difficult to trust you?”
“I do. I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m just asking you to help me help Mani. None of this is his fault.” My voice breaks. “I can’t lose him.”
Japa stands up and begins pacing around the storeroom. “So what’s your plan?”
I trace circles on the tabletop with my fingers. “There’s a village tucked away in a small valley high in the mountains—”
“The Widows’ Village?” Japa interrupts.
“Yes,” I say. “You know about it?”
“The question is, how do you know about it?”
“I…” Thinking about that day gives me a dull ache in my chest. I can almost feel the pressure of Deven’s palm against mine, the cool mountain breeze on my cheeks. “Deven showed me,” I say softly. “We went on a hike and he took me there as a surprise.”
Japa’s eyes go wide. “He did?” His voice is full of astonishment. “He must have cared about you a great deal more than I realized.”
I bite my lip. It doesn’t escape my notice that Japa used the past tense, and I try to push away the sting with a question.
“Do you think the widows would take care of Mani? If I can get him there safely?”
Japa nods. “It’s a good idea,” he says. “I think it’s likely they would.”
Relief fills my chest at the thought of Mani tucked away safe in the mountains. But there are so many steps between here and there. “I need to get him well first,” I tell Japa. “Is there a cure? Do you know?”
Japa drums his fingers on the back of the chair. “I’m not an expert on vish bimari, but from what I understand, it can only be cured with an antidote,” he says.
“So, where do I get one?”
He sighs. “Well, that’s the tricky part. You have to know the exact source of the poison. I don’t suppose you know where it came from?”
Kadru. I stand up so fast that my chair falls over. “I have to go,” I tell Japa. “Keep Mani safe.” I start toward the door, but Japa catches my wrist and spins me around.
“You can’t go now,” he says. “It’s pitch-black outside. It’s not safe.”