“And I want dinner.”
“I’m serious.” He fell to the floor. I kicked at his foot. “Shocked?”
“Floored,” said Gupta, and then he cackled at his own joke.
“This is no time for humor. I need a queen. Now.”
“What brought this on?” asked Gupta, still not bothering to collect himself from the floor. “I believe I send you a list of prospective brides at least once a year. If memory serves, you burned each of those lists…”
“Not true. With the last couple of lists, I tossed them into the air…”
“You mean that tornado of paper that chased me down the hall?”
“See? I don’t set fire to everything,” I said. “Now to answer your question, it’s become a necessity because I’ve seen it in the Tapestry.”
Gupta paled. In a blink, he was upright, floating with his legs crossed and scribbling on parchment.
“But what about the…” He trailed off, and I knew what word had made him stumble.
“I found a way around the Shadow Wife’s curse.”
“How?”
“Simple,” I said. “I won’t fall in love.”
Gupta raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
“Now I need to find out what—”
“Not what,” said Gupta. His gaze was unfocused, fixed somewhere on the cut of night sky through one of Naraka’s windows. “Where. Andwhen.”
***
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been dragged to the Night Bazaar. It was the riotous, pulsing center of the Otherworld.Here, merchants peddled all manner of strange wares—bones that told the truth, rare blooms that toyed with memories, harps that sang their players’ emotions, and even edible colors shorn off from a single rainbow. It was a place I avoided as often as I could. Far too noisy. Full of simpering beings eager to pay false homage.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, ducking my chin to avoid making eye contact.
He cut a path through the merchant kiosks. From the corner of my eye, I spied akinnarawoman with bright gold feathers laying out a series of small weapons—bows and arrows that shifted diaphanous and half-invisible in the light; anapsaraadjusted her anklets and threw her henna-stained hair over one shoulder; abhutwith its feet pointed backward peddled a cursed cup of alms. After years of walking leisurely—what was the point of running to something or someone when they could never escape you anyway—I found myself walking briskly. Impatiently.
And then, rising out from the crests of the merchant kiosks loomed a strange dais. Small birds carved of amber soared against a silk screen. Lotuses a violent shade of pink and purple released a drowsy perfume. I caught a whiff of it even where we stood and I drew my hood back.Desire.Heat coursed through me. Need gathered low and furious at the base of my skull. But I pushed back. When I chose a consort, those emotions would not drive me. If I had my way, we wouldn’t feel them at all.
“Thisis where you will find your bride in two months’ time.”
“What’s in two months?”
“Do you never keep track of holidays?”
“No.”
“It’s going to beTeejin two months.”
My eyes must have widened because Gupta’s grin stretched widely.
“Not so brooding and hidden in the dark that you could forget what that means.”
“Apparently not.”
Teejwas the time when the members of the Otherworld selected a consort. Lovers would often arrange to meet and declare their choice of a consort by placing a single red bloom in their beloved’s palm. But there was a strange rule toTeej.A heavy samite curtain separated them from each other’s sight. Lovers would have to identify one another by the sight of their palm. Some didn’t bother with choosing a lover beforehand. They would peruse the line of assorted hands and choose the one that called to their soul.
