“Why don’t you have a drink?”
“Don’t tell me to have a drink!” She reached out to play-act at cuffing his ear and let him leap out of the way.
He grinned at her. “What about Billu’s hashish?”
“Shhh. I can’t do any of that and you know it.”
“Why not?”
“I might be needed, Rukh.” She sighed and drew her knees up so she could prop her forehead on them and groan in a proper dramatic fashion. “I’m always needed.”
She heard the scuff of his footsteps. He sat on the ground beside her, mirroring her. When she raised her head his own knees were drawn up, his chin on his hands.
“What are you holding?” Rukh asked.
Priya unclasped her fist. It felt stiff. She’d been grinding her fingers down tight all the way back from the haveli, across Hiranaprastha.
In her palm lay a little ribbon—a knot of red and orange cloth, bound with a bead shaped like an eye. Just large enough to be hooked around a wrist and tied tight. “It’s a good-luck charm,” she said. “Made by a boy’s mother to keep him safe.”
It was from the father too. Maybe he’d made it and lied to her. She didn’t know. But she’d seen the grief and fear in his eyes.
“It’s pretty,” Rukh observed.
“It is.” She ran her thumb over it: the soft cloth, the knots in it. “Maybe it would be better not to give it to him at all. Maybe it would be better to… to let him focus on getting strong. This might just visit hurt on him. Remind him of the family he can’t go back to.”
Rukh pressed a hand over her own. The roots under his skin were a sharp pinprick that made her breathe deeper, feeling the heat of the air in her lungs. She raised her head properly and looked at him.
“You need to do it,” he said. “Whatever hurt that boy feels… he’s going to have to be strong enough to stand it, isn’t he? If he’s a temple child.”
“And if he’s not strong enough?” Priya whispered.
“Then you’ll be here,” Rukh said. “You’ll protect him. As you’ve protected me.”
Priya huffed a laugh. “When did you get so grown up?”
“When you were away,” he said, his smile a little lopsided. “And maybe a little when you got back, too.” He drew away his hand, sprawling out against the wall. “I’m really glad you’re back, Priya.”
She brushed a hand over his hair. He let her.
“Me too,” she said.
She gave Ashish the braided thread. Then she kissed Padma goodbye and ordered the other children to listen to Khalida. “Or I’ll do something awful to punish you,” she’d said. “Like shave your eyebrows off.”
“You’d never,” Pallavi said stoutly. Her fear had worn off fast. Behind her, still seated on his bedding, Ashish was watching quietly, clutching the braid of ribbon around his own wrist.
Priya rolled her eyes.
“Justbehave.”
Priya had dressed in a serviceable salwar kameez. She bound her hair back in a tight knot, so tight it made her head ache a little. She appreciated the pain, though. It was grounding.
There was a yaksa being reborn in Srugna. It was time for Priya to find her, as Mani Ara had bid her to.
She and Ganam walked together to the bower of bones, a cadre of soldiers following behind them. One carried a box of vials for her, each glowing blue with water broken from the source. Many were guards and warriors who’d been trained by Jeevan, and ex-maidservants with arrows and scythes. And there, at the very edge of the group, were a few of the rot-riven outsiders who now lived in the mahal.
“We’ve lost nearly all of our mask-keepers,” Priya said. “Only Ganam remains. I am the only temple elder left. We need more strength. More power. And this is the weapon we have.” She held up a vial of deathless waters.
She explained the deathless waters to them, and what drinking them broken from the source would mean.
