of her gown. Of course Laleh was marrying Sorush—she already had the appearance and manner of a queen.
“I saw someone on the roof, and I thought it might be you,” Laleh said. She spoke with the polish of someone who was used to making conversation, but there was a note of uncertainty in her voice as well.
“My mother told me the news,” Soraya said. “I’m glad I have the chance to congratulate you in person.”
Soraya didn’t think she sounded particularly convincing, but Laleh smiled, her shoulders relaxing. She came to stand beside Soraya at the ledge, and Soraya felt a pang in her chest, because Laleh had made no effort to count the steps between them or to look down at where Soraya’s hands were. Laleh had always been the only person to make Soraya forget she was cursed at all. Soraya turned her face so that Laleh wouldn’t see her eyes.
“I was thinking the other day of how we met,” Laleh said. “Do you remember?”
Soraya tried to smile. “Do I remember tumbling into your room by accident? How could I forget?” When she was a child, Soraya wasn’t as adept at navigating Golvahar’s secret passageways as she was now. She had miscounted a door once and ended up emerging from a secret door in the wall to Laleh’s bedchamber, tripping over her feet in the process. Soraya still remembered the baffled faces of both Laleh and Ramin, the two of them bent over some game when a strange, gloved girl fell into their room out of nowhere.
“I didn’t see you come in through the wall,” Laleh said, “so I thought I was dreaming until Ramin went over to you.” She shook her head in irritation. “And of course his immediate reaction was to try to confront you—as if an assassin would have sent a seven-year-old girl to attack us.”
Soraya smiled thinly, but as much as she loathed to admit Ramin was right about anything, he wasn’t entirely wrong to sense danger from her. While she had fumbled to open the wall panel again, Ramin had started coming closer and closer to her, asking her who she was. He had reached out a hand to her, and in her panic, she had told him not to touch her—that he would die if he did because she was poisonous. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but the words had rushed out of her before she could stop them.
“I was so scared he wouldn’t believe me,” Soraya said softly, looking down at her hands on the ledge. “I thought he might want me to prove it, and that I would have to kill something before he would leave me alone. But then you pulled him away, and you asked me if I wanted to join your game.” Soraya looked up, determined to meet Laleh’s eyes. “You were the only person who ever made me feel like I was the one worth protecting.”
Laleh was silent, and Soraya traced in the slope of her mouth and the droop of her eyelids the way her thoughts went from pride to pity to guilt as she realized what Soraya had said—you were, not you are. Soraya hadn’t realized it at first either, and she frantically thought of some way to lift the shadow that she had created. “You’ll be a wonderful queen,” she said. “Sorush is lucky.”
That helped a little. Laleh’s eyes were bright again as she thanked Soraya, and a mischievous smile crept over her face as she said, “You know, I used to wish that you and Ramin would marry.”
Soraya blinked in astonishment. “Why would you ever wish such a thing on me?” she asked in mock seriousness.
Laleh burst into laughter at Soraya’s offended look, one hand covering her mouth. “It was when we were all children and I still hoped you two might get along one day. I wanted us to be sisters.”
Yes, Soraya remembered now. One morning, they had been lying under the trees in the orchard after stealing figs. They were side by side, their shoulders not close enough to touch, but not so distant that it seemed like they were not touching on purpose. Laleh had said that she wished they were sisters, and Soraya had considered the idea and said that she wished they could be married when they were older. Laleh had laughed, as if it were a joke, and Soraya had laughed too, even though it wasn’t.
She wondered now if Laleh remembered that part—if she ever thought