my new, weightless freedom. I told him the stories I had made up when I lived in Swana, as a child forced to watch the world through a window.
“This savannah might as well have been Biraslov,” I said, catching a jewel-toned dragonfly as it hummed past. I cupped the annoyed creature in my hands, drinking in its memories of sparkling ponds and seas of grass. “I’d never gone farther than the Bhekina compound. I forced my tutors to describe things I couldn’t see—villages, markets, weddings. I’d make a picture in my mind, and put myself inside. My favorite story was called school. I made up six brothers and sisters, and an evil school mistress who paddled us. I’d never been spanked before. I thought it sounded exciting.” Sanjeet laughed, and I let the dragonfly escape. “My tutors wouldn’t dare touch me. They were too afraid I’d steal their memories. I would have been spoiled rotten, if The Lady hadn’t sent me away.” I glanced dubiously at Sanjeet. “Were you ever naughty as a boy? I can’t imagine it.” Sanjeet had more self-control than anyone I knew. Even now, as we walked, he was shortening his stride to match mine, every movement a conscious decision.
Sanjeet looked thoughtful. “I was taller than my mother at eight years old,” he said after a pause. “By eleven, I’d passed Father. They forgot that I was still a child, and so I stopped being one. Mistakes were expensive. I broke things all the time, awkward with my own strength. And once I figured out my Hallow, well.” He grimaced, then shrugged. “Emotions were expensive too. I could see any person’s weakness, and so revenge was … easy for me. Effortless. I realized it was safer not to feel. If I was never too happy, then no one could make me sad. And if I was never sad or angry, then I would never hurt someone. Except in the fighting pits, of course. When Father made me.”
He spoke casually, as though recounting someone else’s life instead of his own. Sadness welled in my stomach as I examined him anew, remembering every time I had watched that face smooth into passive stone. I had always assumed he was shutting the world out … not shutting himself in.
I slipped my hand in his. “We were both of us raised in cages.”
His fingers curled slowly around mine. “I guess that’s how we survived the Children’s Palace.”
The sun was low in the sky, dyeing the savannah in red and gold. The tutsu were slowing down, congregating over a scatter of trees in the distance.
“That’s it,” I muttered. Then I laughed, breaking into a run. “We did it! That’s it—that’s Melu’s pool.”
When we arrived, the clearing was just as I remembered. The sighing brush, the purple and white river lilies, bobbing on their tall, slender stems. The amber pool was mirror glass, reflecting the tutsu, who hung like stars against the reddening sky. Far off, the rooftops of Bhekina House smoldered in the setting sun. I shivered. Did The Lady know I was here?
I remembered the man with cobalt-fire wings, bending over me with those warm, slanted eyes, placing a finger on my brow: I bargained with The Lady for the privilege of naming you.
I had missed Melu, I realized with a pang. I had never craved a father, at least, not as I had craved The Lady. But that night in the savannah, the ehru had made me feel … seen. Had he missed me too?
I scanned the clearing eagerly—but instead of a blazing man, a dark, narrow form rested on its side by the pool. It did not move as we approached. Blue wings lay dormant in the dust, smoldering like a waning fire.
“Melu,” I breathed. I rushed to his side, not daring to touch the long, shimmering limbs. “No. Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.”
Silence. Then a dry chuckle. “Alas,” Melu said, “death is a wish I may not grant. No matter how deeply I long for it.”
I blinked, taken aback. Laboriously, the ehru roused his pole-like body and stood, wings twitching as they shook off dirt. The Lady’s emerald cuff still glinted on his forearm, and the whole savannah seemed to shudder as Melu gazed down and sighed.
“Oh, daughter. Why did you have to come back?”
It was not the greeting I had imagined.
I stammered after a pause, “You know why, Melu. To break The Lady’s bond. To free us from the curse.”