“When this is done,” Alfie pressed, “we’re leaving. He’ll take the apprenticeship. I’ll study Ayurveda. We’ll come back stronger.”
Her voice cracked. “So it’s decided for me?”
Faivish finally looked at her. Not the careful composure he showed patients—something stripped bare. “Your father’s condition worsens. You’ve seen it. The tremors. What comes after?”
The unspoken words chilled her: Deena.
Her pulse thundered. “So I stay. You go.” The words didn’t even feel like her own.
“I’m saying,” Faivish said quietly, “that if I vow myself to you, I vow myself to her, too. That means being strong enough to keep you both safe. Not just a wedding, Maisie. A marriage. A lifetime.”
Maisie’s throat ached with the truth she’d stumbled into—that her father had always known their love would demand sacrifice. And that cost would fall, as it always had, on her.
Alfie groaned, pressing the towel harder to his cheek.
Faivish caught Maisie’s eye. She knew that look—it meant there were things he couldn’t say in front of Alfie. He set down the instrument, wiped his hands, and drew her gently into the shadowed hallway.
“When I go,” he said, “it won’t be to run. It’ll be good to come back, the man who can give you a life beyond fear.”
Her breath failed her. “Calcutta?” she whispered. The word tasted like unfathomable distance.
He nodded once. “I’ll learn everything there, everything they’ll never allow me here. And when I return, no one—no arrogant rider, no aristocrat—will be able to deny us.”
Her hand trembled in his. “But it’s so long!”
His grip firmed, anchoring her. “No matter how long or how far, I’ll still find you. Even if you’re on the other side of the world, I’ll walk until I hold you in my arms and make it last forever.”
The air seemed to thicken between the narrow walls. She could hear her own heartbeat above the lamp’s hiss. Instead of words, she moaned. It was protest as much as acceptance.
“I don’t only want a wedding,” he went on, softer now, but edged with something fierce. “I want years with you. Waking beside you, hearing you laugh, growing old with your hand in mine. I want Deena safe, and your father proud to see his daughter loved as she deserves.”
Her vision blurred. She swallowed hard. “Then stay,” she whispered. “Stay, and we can start now.”
His thumb brushed her knuckles—a tender refusal. “If I stay, Ican’t protect you. If I go, I come back strong enough to guard you both. That’s why your father sent for the apprenticeship—he knows this city will eat me alive if I don’t leave it.”
The words cut through her, hollow and sharp.
“You’re asking me to wait.”
His voice roughened. “I’m asking you to believe in us. Enough for me to fight for it. Enough to walk away now, so I can return to you for the rest of my life.”
She couldn’t trust her voice. She only nodded, sharp and sure, because anything else might break her.
He touched her cheek, lifted her face, and kissed her. Not long—just enough to brand her as his, enough to burn the air out of her lungs. When he drew back, she felt changed, claimed. “I love you,” she whispered before fear could stop her. “I think I loved you from the moment you first stepped through this door.”
His mouth curved, a smile worn thin with wonder. “And I loved you when you opened your father’s notes for me in the amphitheatre. You knew the right page. You knew without asking.”
Her laugh escaped as a sob. “You remember that?”
“How could I forget?” His thumb traced the corner of her damp lashes. “You handed out notes to all the students, but I was the only one who gave you his heart in return. Keep it for me.”
Maisie pressed his hand to her cheek. “I’ll keep it safe.”
He lingered one more breath, then stepped back into the lamplight, toward Alfie’s battered form.
“Hold the light steady,” he said, and his voice seemed already composed. “This has to be perfect.”
*
