Her face falls for only a second before she fixes it into an impressive one of indignance. “So what? Are you saying that you don’t want me to work with you anymore?”
“No. I’m saying, I don’t know what kind of job I can give you.” Then, more to myself than her, I add quietly, “I’m not even sure whatI’mdoing here.”
“Well,” she says, pausing as she tilts her head up towards the ceiling. A few moments pass as she thinks. “What’s a problem you still need to solve?”
I can’t help but chuckle, turning to grab my thrown cloth. “I have more problems than you can possibly imagine. I’m just…stuck.”
Starla nods, as if she completely understands. Fuck, maybe she does. I remember how cruel the other kids were to her when I found them fighting outside of my workshop. No matter howtough she pretends to be, their words will linger like thorns beneath the skin. I would know.
“Well I’m not much of a scientist like you, but sometimes, when I’m stuck on a problem in school, I like to remind myself that just because I don’t know the answerright now, doesn’t mean I’m not smart enough to find it. The answer is there; I just have to try harder.”
I cock my head to the side, a grin tugging on the corner of my mouth. “That’s true. Unknowns are just the things we haven’t yet explored.”
“Exactly. You’re the smartest person in this kingdom and the only one who does experiments. So if anyone can figure out what you need to figure out, I know it will be you.”
I clear my throat and turn to walk to the back of the room, pulling a drawer open and grabbing a second cloth from it. Starla’s belief in me is sweet, even though I might wonder if it’s misplaced. But she showed up here ready to work, and I’ll be damned if I turn away a girl who’s interested in learning.
“Here,” I say, tossing the towel her way. She catches it, eyes growing wide. “While we finish cleaning this place up, you can tell me how you happened upon my workshop at theexactmoment I got here. And then we are going to test a few things.”
Chapter Twenty: Bahira
CouncilmanKallin’sbeadyeyesstare me down a few days later, an unrelenting challenge in them that makes my jaw clench.
Nox is still asleep with, according to everyone who could sense such things, a magical signature so weak it borders on nonexistent. What theycansense from him is… different. Changed in a way that they can’t explain.
And yet I had been summoned no less than three times to give a briefing on the Shifter Kingdom. To supposedlyhelpthecouncil that so callously treated their crown prince’s absence as if it was nothing of significance. Surrounded by them now, I swallow down the fury that stirs in my chest as I return Kallin’s glare.
“Your reluctance to answer such basic questions is alarming, Princess Bahira,” Councilman Borris states, Osiris adding an eager nod of his head. It takes everything in me not to roll my eyes.
“I’ve told you everything that is important to know. The magical blight affecting them was not something I could fix. That was the focus of my time there, and when it became obvious there was nothing more I could do, I came home.” It is a partial truth, certainly not fully a lie, but it is all I feel comfortable telling them. Revealing that the kingdom was undergoing a rebuild of sorts, that Kai’s own people had plotted against him and were intent onkillinghim doesn’t just seem unnecessary for the council to know. It feelswrong.
“And what if whatyoudeem important is different from our own thoughts?” Kallin asks, interlacing his fingers on the table in front of him. When I simply shrug my shoulders, folding my arms over my chest, he sighs, tipping his head towards the ceiling. “Why do the Daxel siblings insist on making things so difficult?”
I narrow my eyes, confident no such words would have left his mouth were my father or mother here. The latter I insisted stay at Nox’s side—I didn’t want my brother to wake up alone or to find only healers in the room with him. My father had been asked to lead this month’s public forum day. But dealing with men who consistently underestimate me is not anything new, and so I plaster a docile smile on my face and tilt my head.
“It is only difficult because you feel as if you are atmymercy, right? You want to know everything that I do so that you can come to the same conclusions I have but call the decisionyours.”His expression grows tight. “But I promise you, Councilman, that there is nothing I haven’t told you that is at all a threat to this kingdom or the people in it.”
Someone—Councilman Arav, I think—lets out a poorly stifled snort before a glare from Kallin has him falling silent once more. I look around the table, meeting the eyes of those who surround it, and wonder at what point their perception of our family changed. It would be easy to point to Rhea as a catalyst, but I remember the tense meetings before I left for the Shifter Kingdom. The low-spoken, barely disguised threats while Nox was still in the Mortal Kingdom. Perhaps there wasn’t a single major event but a series of smaller ones, and in our contentment with the way things were, we had gone blind to the direction we were heading. Or maybe, it is simply the aging of men and the way they themselves perceive the things that matter, like safety and keeping the status quo.
Clearing my throat, I push up from my chair, clasping my hands behind my back. “If that is all, I do have a brother to check in on.” I make it four steps to the door before he calls out my name.
“Bahira, just one more question.”
I bite back a groan and look over my shoulder, I answer, “Yes?”
“Who is Jahlee?”
My breath halts in my chest, a tendril of unease slithering down my spine as I fight to keep my face neutral. Kallin reaches into the pocket of his tunic and tosses a folded piece of parchment onto the table, its wax seal recognizable to me immediately.A wolf with horns.Fuck.
A few different answers fire off in my head, but I’m unsure of what direction to take. Especially without knowing what is in the letter. If it’s from Jahlee, there is no telling if it spills Shifter Kingdom secrets or is just her rambling on about who is fuckingwho in the palace. A fist squeezes my heart at the thought of her, her missing presence one I never expected to feel so acutely. The silence builds while the council waits for me to answer, and when I finally do, I opt for being as vague as possible while I turn to face them. “She is a shifter female I met while working for the king.”
Kallin reaches for the letter, my blood growing cold when I realize the seal is broken. “Shall I read it aloud? Jahlee is quite…colorfulin her language.”
There had been many times growing up that I had seriously contemplated punching Daje’s father. The way he constantly looked at me like he could see the magicless parts of my soul—gaps of darkness where there should have been colorful light—and he hated it. How he always had this little sneer pulling on his lips, as if the sight of a magicless mage was one thing, but to know she was his princess?Unfathomable.Yet it is hearing him say Jahlee’s name with that hint of superiority, like reading a single letter truly gives him enough information to judge her, that actually brings me the closest I’ve ever been to sending my fist into his face. I bite down on my tongue, hard enough to taste iron, and only when I feel more in control of my body, do I step towards the table and pick the letter up.
Dear Badass Bahira,
It has been over a week since you left, and we haven’t heard from you through the Mirror. While things are going fine here, there’s still an uneasy tension in the air. It’s like waiting for the other shoe to drop only to realize that no one is wearing shoes and so it must be something even worse coming. Or whatever the metaphor is, but what I’m trying to say is that I know Kai hurt you, but he could really use your particular brand of encouragement and advice. You know what he’s been through, and even with all of that, I’ve never seen him so… lost. Maybe that is manipulative of me to say. He can be an asshole with a rock for a brain sometimes, but I do know that he cares deeply for you. That he wishes he could take back the things he said (and yes, I did smack him upside the head when he told mehow he reacted to you not having magic). Selfishly, there is a part of me that is hoping that the friendship you and I share isn’t just something I made up in my head. That we actually did bond—just two extremely beautiful females who happen to have no magic.
