Hasan winced. “We have two plans,” he recovered. “Just to cover all our bases.”
“Dual strategies.” Zeyar nodded emphatically. “A two-pronged approach.”
“Okay,” Rohini said. She stared at them dubiously, her sharp-eyed scrutiny piercing through their subterfuge. “I don’t know what the hell you boys are doing. But you’re adults now, and you have to learn how to take care of each other without my interference.”
“We are,” Zeyar promised. “We have it under control.”
“Good.” Their ma smiled dangerously. “Then prove it. Get your brother back, or die trying. Am I understood?”
Hasan swallowed. “Yes, Ma. Understood.”
Chapter Five
Return of the Prodigal Daughter
Seven years after Poppy Sutherland’s exile, she stood on the deck of theLady Audraas the Marnapur skyline came into view, shimmering in the heat like a mirage. Over the last few days, the ocean skies had warmed rapidly as the ship approached her destination. Poppy closed her eyes and fanned herself in a futile attempt to cool down. How had she ever been used to this climate?
As theLady Audradrew closer to shore, Poppy opened her eyes and peered over the railing. On the dock below, a group of people waited, waving at the ship.
Her breath caught in her lungs when she saw who was standing in front.
Her father had changed more than Poppy could have imagined. What was left of his salt-and-pepper hair had turned pale and wispy, like the clouds on a late-summer afternoon. His wise, stern face had wrinkles and stress lines that hadn’t been there before. But the most noticeable change in his demeanor was his posture. The tall, proud man of her childhood had been shrunk by age and circumstance, shoulders sloped sideways as he leaned heavily on the tiger’s-head cane in his right hand.
Unbidden, memories of the last time she had seen her father at these same docks assaulted her. The humid air had pressed down on her skin, her face damp and sticky with tears. Her mother had hissed at her to wipe her swollen eyes before the papers got a photograph of her, she remembered. Officially, no one knew that she was being sent away as punishment, because her father hadn’t wanted word of her transgression to get out. She’d given an emerald necklace to a Virian orphan, forgetting, in that moment, what it had been worth to her family.
When her father had found out, he didn’t raise his voice at her?—he never did?—but his naked anger left her shaking. “That necklace belonged to mymother, who was part of the Imperial Family,” he’d said. “It was a priceless family heirloom, and you all but threw it in the gutters.”
And for all her begging and pleading, her father could not be moved from his resolve: The only way to take the Virian sympathies out of Poppy would be to send Poppy out of Viryana.
A crew member touched Poppy’s shoulder, bringing her back to the present. The ship was still now, fully docked. He informed Poppy that the anchor had been dropped, and she could now disembark. Her legs trembled all the way down the gangplank.You’ve been at sea for six weeks,she told herself. Naturally she’d be a bit shaky. She needed to get accustomed to land again; that was all.
But she couldn’t lie to herself: She trembled because she was scared. She had not been invited home. Boarding theLady Audrawas an act just shy of defiance, a willful display of independence when independence was a trait not valued in well-bred women. Would her father be disappointed in her change?—or lack thereof?
Poppy’s feet touched the sun-bleached wood of the dock. She took a deep breath, then turned to face the viceroy.
For a moment, the two could only stare at each other: father and daughter, separated by a few feet, and yet distant by seven years.
Then her father opened his arms, shaking visibly as he took his weight off his cane. “Poppy,” he said, “you’re home.”
She choked back a sharp sob as she rushed forward, diving into his arms. It was a hug unlike any other that the pair had shared before. Both of them trembled. He was so much smaller than she remembered?—or maybe she’d grown bigger. He felt frailer, his shoulders and chest narrower. Though the urge to clutch onto him overwhelmed her, she restrained herself, trying to be as gentle as possible with this new version of her father.
When the two disengaged, they looked at each other again in silence. Her father ran his eyes over her, his sharp gaze cataloging her differences the same way she’d sized him up just minutes ago. Was he pleased, she wondered, by what he saw? Had the last seven years apart been worth it? She opened and closed her mouth again and again, but nothing came out. It was frustratingly counterintuitive?—she’d spent nearly a decade yearning to speak to her father in person again, and now that she was here in this long-anticipated, oft-imagined moment, she could not summon a single word.
Her mother saved her from having to speak. She pushed her way out of her husband’s shadow and wrapped Poppy in a warm embrace. Poppy stiffened reflexively at the unexpected gesture. Mother had never been prone to physical affection?—especially in public.Coddling is for children,she’d said. Poppy’s throat tightened at the rare display of tenderness. Before her mother could withdraw, she wrapped her arms around her too. The hard knot of tension dissolved, slackening the lines of Poppy’s limbs. This was where she belonged, on her island, among her family once again. She’d prepared for this moment for the last seven years, and it did not disappoint.
She only hoped that her parents felt the same about her.
“Come on,” her father said roughly. “The car is waiting. Let’s go home.”
• • •
Although Poppy had just returned after six weeks at sea, Poppy’s parents invited the other four First Families to dinner that same evening. The house bustled with activity: servants scrubbing already-spotless floors, grocers arriving with food that would have fed fifteen families, let alone five, and a pair of lady’s maids, newly recruited by her mother to wait on Poppy now that she was home.
While one of the women drew a bath, the other began to help Poppy undress, whisking away her traveling clothes to be laundered while she sat in a plush robe, waiting for the tub to fill. Poppy crossed her arms over her chest. She hadn’t had maids at Thornhaven, and she was suddenly, painfully aware of how different their bodies were from her own. They were svelte and graceful whereas Poppy was curvier in the bust and hips. Their skin was impossibly smooth, the hair on their arms fine and invisible whereas hers was thick and noticeable, even against her darker complexion.
One of the women freed Poppy’s hair from its long braid, brushing out the knots as she sighed enviously. “You have such lovely hair,” she gushed. “I would love to have hair even half as thick as this. I could do so much more with it.”
Poppy’s body relaxed a fraction, warming at her compliment. “I think the way you wear your hair suits you quite well,” she told the maid. The other woman ducked her head quickly, but not before Poppy caught a glimpse of a smile.
