Zeyar shot him a look:Not fair.
He gave him a wry smile in return.I thought we weren’t in the business offairness?
“Both of you are a disappointment,” she said, dropping chopped onions into the pan with a loud sizzle. Hasan’s smile fell off his face. “Your brother is imprisoned, and yet you sit in this kitchen, playing at being kingmakers.”
Queenmaker,he thought, but said nothing, instead bowing his head. Zeyar lowered his gaze as well.
Their ma pointed her rolling pin at both of them. “Have you forgotten what the goal is?” she asked, her voice scathing. “We need to rescue your brother. Back either one of them?—back both, if you must?—but make the decision that will return Paranjay to us the fastest.”
“Poppy would do it,” he insisted vehemently. “We tried dealing with Montrose, and he proved that he’s unreliable. Now, let’s try Poppy.”
“It would take a long time for her to even assume office,” Zeyar said. “Remember, her father is still viceroy until he retires or dies, and he wouldn’t agree to returning Paranjay. Are we just going to wait for the old man to bite it to get Paranjay back?”
“Ma.” Hasan cast his eyes toward his mother, begging her to intercede for him. “What do you think we should do?”
“I told you.” His ma scowled. “Get Paranjay back. Do what must be done. You are grown men, now. Don’t tell me you cannot come up with a plan on your own?”
“The way forward is clear,” Zeyar said loftily, “but Hasan can’t see it because he’s too busy envisioning a utopian future where all injustice is miraculously solved by a Virian leader.”
“You have to admit that things would be better if we had a leader who was sympathetic to us,” Hasan said. “One of our own.”
“If we’re going to be ruled by one of our own, it should be someone who has a fighting chance ofstayingin power!”
“Like who?” Hasan leaned over his mother’s head, his lips curled into a leer. “You? Since you seem to think you know it all. Well, you don’t know sh?—”
“Enough!” their ma exploded, slamming her wooden ladle against the counter. “This kind of childish fighting is counterproductive and will not get your brother back. Get out. Cool off. When you can behave like grown men, then we’ll discuss it.”
Zeyar gave Hasan a cool, indifferent look over their mother’s head. Then he spun on his heel and left the room.
“Okay, Ma,” Hasan sighed. He bent to kiss his mother’s cheek, but she swiped at him with the ladle, forcing him to jump back.
“No,” she said. “I want my son back. If you loved me, you would do that for me.”
He bowed his head, teeth clenched. With that, he left his mother to prepare lunch.
• • •
It was a blistering day for a walk. Hasan wiped his hand uselessly along his sweat-slick forehead as he slogged up the road. Though the exercise aggravated his gunshot wound, he had to blow off steam. After an hour, however, he couldn’t ignore the throbbing in his shoulder any longer. He forced himself to turn around, cringing with every step.
By the time he returned to the house, his shoulder was on fire. He let himself in, the screen door slamming shut behind him. The large wooden ceiling fans wafted cool air over him in gentle greeting. He tilted his head up in relief, heading to the kitchen for a glass of water to soothe the harsh burn of his parched throat. There, he discovered a grim tableau: his mother, standing beside a tray of her medical implements, her features drawn, while Zeyar and Harithi flanked her, helping to hold down a slight woman with short hair.
His mother’s patient lifted her head at the sound of Hasan’s footsteps. It took Hasan a moment to recognize her, because in all his years of working with Samina, he had never seen her so badly injured.
Blue-and-purple bruises flowered around her eyes and the crooked bridge of her broken nose. Her lips were split and swollen; some of the scabs had cracked, silently weeping blood. A dark bruise peeked from the hairline close to her right temple. Her right arm had been set in a fresh cast.
“Lie back down,” his mother told Samina. “You have at least one broken rib, if not more.”
Samina didn’t listen, wincing as she sat upright.
“Who did this to you?” Hasan demanded, but he already knew. He’d known since the moment Montrose had emerged alone from that room at the museum. “I’ll kill him,” Hasan seethed. “We won’t let him get away with this.”
“Sit down,” Zeyar said gently.
Immediately, Hasan’s guard went up. Zeyar did a lot of things in a lot of different ways, but none was evergentle.
“What’s going on?” He approached the table. “Someone tell me.”
Zeyar opened his mouth, but Samina spoke first. “It’s my news. He should hear it from me.” Her dark, haunted eyes met Hasan’s. “Vinay is dead.”
