We’d left Slate standing on the edge of the crowd. He was still there, his arms crossed, scanning for familiar faces. I sighed. “Do you see Mr. D?”
“Not yet. But Slate can handle that on his own. I’m more interested in the map.”
I smiled tightly at him. “I didn’t see it in the hall—”
“You wouldn’t hang a map like a painting, amira. Especially not a map of unsavory locations, which you’d recently learned was very valuable. It would be tucked away somewhere.”
“In a safe?”
“No. People who have safes rarely open them.” He pursed his lips in thought as he moved us easily, absently, through the crowd. “Mr. D invited the captain to meet the members of the league, and to see the map. They will meet in a drawing room, or maybe a study. The map is likely kept there.”
“And if we go in now, before Mr. D arrives . . . what?”
Kashmir was shaking his head. “If you’d been a thief, you would have been hanged a long time ago. If you hadn’t starved first. If we go in now, and then Mr. D arrives—” He shrugged. “Best to wait till after.”
“Then, after their meeting, we sneak in?”
“We do not sneak. I sneak, and you distract. The young Mr. Hart may be watching you closely,” Kashmir said archly. “For more than one reason.”
“This is important, Kashmir!”
He pulled me close, crushing the flowers of my lei between us. “Exactly why you should trust me.” I felt the curve of his lips as he breathed into my ear. “Please, amira.”
“I do,” I breathed back. “But I’m nervous. I’ve never—”
“Nonsense,” he said, pulling back, his voice a touch louder. “The dress is lovely on you.”
“What?” Then I noticed that Kashmir wasn’t looking at me anymore, but over my shoulder.
“May I?”
Kashmir stepped back and bowed. “Aye, Captain.”
I slipped my fingers into my father’s palm. Slate danced almost as awkwardly as I did, but he closed his hand around mine tightly. “I’m glad to see you having fun. Kashmir’s right, the dress is lovely.”
“He practically designed it.”
“The kid has good taste.”
“You clean up nice too.”
He guided me gently around another couple who waltzed by in a whirl of blue silk and blond curls; Mrs. Hart was on the floor. Slate’s eyes were troubled. He took a deep breath, then let it out. “I’m sorry. About what I said about Kashmir.”
I stiffened in his arms. “Of course you are. Now that you need him.”
“It’s not that.” His expression was wistful. “I saw you dancing. You two are close.”
“We’re friends.”
“Oh? Good friends, then. It reminds me of . . .” He trailed off.
“Of who?” I asked, though I knew the answer. He met my eyes, then dropped his own to his feet.
“Of better times,” he said finally. “But things will get better again. Nixie—I’m sorry we fought. I hate fighting with you.”
“Try agreeing with me instead.”
That made him smile. “You have to know I’d never do anything to hurt you.”
“Then don’t do this,” I said, surprising myself. I took a breath, and the scent of the blossoms around my neck was sweet on my tongue. “Leave the map. Tell them no.”
He stopped moving at my words, and we stood still on the grass, the eye of a storm where wind and rain were laughter and music. “I thought you’d understand, now, why I can’t do that.”
“Why?” Then I realized. “Because of Kashmir? Dad, that’s . . . insulting.”
“Love is insulting?”
“It’s not love!” I said, too loud; people beside us tittered, and my cheeks burned. I lowered my voice to a fierce whisper. “I’m not like you. I wouldn’t sacrifice everything for some romance.”
“I’m not sacrificing anything—”
“Oh, really? Well, even if you don’t give a damn about me, this is a kingdom. An entire country. You called it paradise, and yet you’d—”
“Nixie!” He put his finger on my lips, and I did stop then, though it was a struggle. After a long moment, he took my hand, gathering it in both of his. The tattoos, black in the moonlight, peeked out from the edge of his cuffs: my name on one wrist, my mother’s on the other.
“You have to understand,” he said faintly. “Every day the options narrow. Chance becomes certainty and fate makes choices for us, but I cannot imagine a reality where . . .” He trailed off and was quiet as he stared fixedly at a point past my head.
“Where what?”
“Where the kingdom of Hawaii does not fall,” he finished, although I didn’t believe that was the sentence he started. I followed his gaze; Mr. D was raising a glass at him from across the lawn, where he stood near the champagne table with two other men, one young and barrel-chested, with the feverish eyes of a zealot, the other smaller and as quivery as a squirrel.
“Come, Nix,” Slate said softly. “Let’s meet our new friends.”
"Ah, Captain!” Mr. D said as we approached. “What a pleasure to see you here. And young Miss Song.”