He leaned forward, the small lights illuminating his face. In the light, he looked honey drenched. But I wasn’t going to give him a victory so easily. I quickly pecked his cheek and stepped back. Amar was still tipped toward me, his eyes a little wide before he started laughing.
“Foolish optimism.”
I ignored him. “And those wishes?”
“See for yourself,” he said, opening his palm.
There was nothing in his hands. Around us, a third of the lights had disappeared. I stared into the dark, waiting for them to flare into being. But they were gone.
“Once a wish comes true, it disappears for good.”
“That’swhat you wished for?” I asked, incredulous. “A peck on the cheek?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“This,” said Amar, gesturing to the space between us, “the chance to be this close to you.”
We looked at one another in silence. There was something new between us. Fragile and thrumming. I didn’t know what to do. Nothing I had learned in Bharata’s sanctum had taught me this. Nothing I had seen in the harem came close to what I felt. There was an undercurrent of depth, of something hard-won and dangerous. I couldn’t treat it with lightness… and I didn’t want to.
“Maya, I—” he started, when another voice cut him off.
Gupta stood in the arch of the doorway, his face twisted in apology. “I tried to contain it as much as I could.”
Amar stepped away from me, his face stony. “I’ll be there in a moment. Take her back to the room.”
Something cold thudded in my stomach. A reminder to rein in how I felt and keep him at a distance.
“I’m sorry,” said Amar.
But he wouldn’t look me in the eye. And before I had a chance to speak, he had left.
***
That night, I tried to enter a peaceful dream of nothingness, but I kept waking. Each lapse of restful sleep slipped into a gray and distorted vision of the glass garden. In my dream, a monster wearing five blurred faces turned to me:
“Did you notice nothing strange about your garden?”
Separate voices sprang from the mouths. Panic turned my skin cold. I could think of a number of strange things, not the least of which was the animated split personality accosting my dreams, but I kept my mouth shut. The creature leered its split face at me.
“There’s not a living thing in this court, is there?”
13
A ROOM FULL OF STARS
I woke with a start. The nightmare’s words burned in my mind like a flame. Not a single flower or tree filled Akaran’s marble halls. Even its garden was glass. I thought of what I had seen of the Night Bazaar. It was magical, undeniably beautiful. But it was also dangerous. Coaxing. The star-bright loam where jewel fruit swung beneath silver trees hadn’t been the only thing I saw. Something else had moved in that sticky darkness.
Flurried sounds of movements quickened outside and I closed my eyes, feigning sleep. The bed sank as Amar sat beside me. Warm fingertips trailed across my cheek, brushing the hair from my forehead and sending sparks of light up my spine. His lips grazed my temples.
“Soon,jaani.”
I waited until his footsteps echoed outside before squinting around the room. Without him, it seemed colder. I retraced his touch lightly, careful to avoid smudging the imprint of his lips against my skin. He had called mejaani—“my life.” I stared at the closed door. Where his skin touched mine felt burnished, hallowed by the words he left hanging in the air.Jaani jaani jaani.I wanted him to say it again. I wanted him to say it closer to my ear, my neck… my lips.
But the surge of warmth faded as the memory of my dream prickled behind my eyes.
Magic was not the only coaxing, dangerous thing around me.
