only get one mother, Jeet. It’s like your father. He hurt you, but can you imagine—truly imagine—having any other kind?”
Sanjeet was silent for a long time, then swallowed once. “No. No, I can’t.”
Ever since the attendants had left us alone, I had been avoiding his gaze. Now I met it and saw my own ghosts mirrored there. In that moment, the curse of our parents’ legacy—the monsters we loved and feared, and the scars covering us both—tethered us together.
“I shouldn’t have brought him up,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” He shook his head, smiling wanly. “I guess the only gift Father gave me was a way to understand you.” His thumb brushed my tear-streaked face. “A way to share the burden.”
“I don’t want to share, Jeet. If I fall again, I’m not bringing anyone else with me.”
“That’s the problem, sunshine girl.” His voice was a rumble in his throat. “When it comes to you, I will never stop falling.”
He kissed me. It was the first time since Nu’ina Eve, when he held me against the spray of the Obasi Ocean. I longed to lose myself in those solid arms, to believe the promise in each caress. You are not dangerous. You are not cursed. You will never hurt anyone; you will only be loved.
When we parted, Sanjeet untied the pouch containing my seal from his neck. He pressed the ring into my palm, and didn’t let me give it back. Then something else fell from the pouch, glinting in the dying firelight: the cowrie shell anklet. Sanjeet unhooked the anklet’s clasp and Ray-spoke.
I love you.
But I knew, deep down, that love had never fixed anyone. It had only given them the strength to try over, and over, and over again. So when Sanjeet reached for my foot on the pallet’s edge … I moved my leg away and said, “I can’t offer you something I don’t have.”
“I don’t want something. I want you.”
I closed his fingers around the anklet. “And I don’t belong to myself. Not while The Lady’s still controlling me. I love you too, Jeet, but you can’t be my savior.”
“Well, I won’t be your jailer,” he retorted. “So what can I be?”
I held his heavy fist to my lips and caressed the scars. “My hope,” I said. “For a future when kissing you isn’t dangerous.”
A future, I added in my head, where no child was bound by curses, and every daughter had a name.
I LAID MY HEAD ON SANJEET’S CHEST, LULLED to sleep by his heartbeat. I dreamed first as myself, chasing the scent of jasmine through large, abandoned halls. Then I was a twelve-year-old boy with limbs too long for my body.
A cramped balcony is my refuge on a street that smells of cardamom. I love my sleepless city of Vhraipur, though Father has done everything in his power to make me hate it. Pure voices drift from the temple across the road, where child acolytes sing on the rooftop. An Ember priestess dances before an altar, her stained arms and legs glistening in the moonlight. With every leap of her body, light shoots into the sky, dissolving in soft clouds of red and purple: a visible prayer. The children worship the Storyteller and Warlord Fire in tandem: Give us mercy. Give us justice. Let it burn, burn, burn.
I mimic the strong movements of the priestess, sending up a prayer of my own. Protect Amah. Punish Father. Make me brave, brave, brave.
The rustle of curtains startles me. I drop my arms and pretend to punch the air. “Practicing,” I mumble. “For the fight tomorrow.”
But it isn’t Father. Amah laughs from the balcony door. “You were dancing,” she says, reaching to stroke my cheek. I am taller than my mother, but still I hang my head, ashamed of my lie. She smells of fennel. Sheer pink muslin drapes her sturdy frame, and dark, curling hair falls to her waist in a gray-streaked braid.
I reach up to touch her fingers. Then just in time, I remember that my hands are dangerous. I pull back.
“Don’t tell Father,” I say.
“I won’t. But you pray so beautifully. Would you like to be a temple dancer?”
I want to snort. As if Father would let me near a temple, or any building that did not exist for profit. But I shrug instead, not wanting to hurt Amah’s feelings. Sometimes, when she thinks I’m sleeping after a day of pit fights, she sits on the edge of my pallet and watches me. Her hands