For that, Zeyar had no answer.
Hasan couldn’t look at him anymore. “You should go.”
“You can’t tell me to leave.” Zeyar stood his ground. “This is my home too.” He turned to their mother. “Tell him, Ma.”
She tilted her chin up, the cords of her throat prominent as she clenched her jaw. “You can come back when you get Paranjay.”
Zeyar stared at her. “Are you serious?”
Their ma did not flinch.
His face went slack. He dusted himself off, adjusting the bloodied collar of his button-down shirt. “Very well. You’re upset; I can tell. When I return with Paranjay, I hope you’ll be ready to apologize to me.” Zeyar reached for his blazer, slung across the banister. His movements were slow, as though he were hoping Hasan or their ma would change their minds.
They didn’t.
Zeyar buttoned the jacket, his eyes blazing. “I did this for you. For us I’ve won a seat in a House that has never opened its doors to Virians before. Now we have a seat at the table where they wouldn’t even toss us scraps. But you want to cast me out? Fine!” Zeyar wrenched the door open. “Promise me this, Hasan: Don’t go after Montrose. Don’t try to rescue Poppy, or storm the precinct, or any other shit like that. Stay out of trouble.”
“Fuck off,” Hasan said. “I owe you nothing. I only make oaths to my brother, and the only brother I have is rotting in a Marnapur jail.”
Zeyar flinched. It was a tiny, fleeting gesture that betrayed his proud indifference, but he covered it quickly with that ice-cold confident facade that Hasan hated most.
“When you get over yourselves, call me,” Zeyar said. The door slammed shut behind him.
And with that, the second Devar brother was lost.
Chapter Thirty-One
Zephyr Devar
The drive back to Marnapur felt twice as long as usual. Zeyar simmered in silence. He’d known the moment he set out to strike a deal with Montrose that neither Hasan nor their ma would approve of his plan, but he hadn’t expected them to hatch their own plot behind his back, either. He should have known better. Hasan had always had vigilante tendencies, delusions of heroism that likely stemmed from some sort of warped guilt over what they did for a living. Their mother, on the other hand, had always been superstitious. The moment Poppy had revealed she was daivyakt, it had changed everything. But Zeyar knew best, and he would prove it?—right after he cleared up this latest misunderstanding.
The Montrose family butler showed Zeyar into Captain Montrose’s study. “Captain Montrose will be with you shortly.”
Zeyar sat on one of the chairs, tracing an idle finger over the ornately carved handrest. Though he’d been to Montrose Manor several times now, the sheer mass of their generational wealth never failed to gut him. The Montrose line had always been wealthy, but their fortune had ballooned over the last two centuries through investments in tea and cotton exports.
He jumped up as Richard entered the room. He walked over to the side table, pouring a finger of Welkish whiskey for each of them. He handed one glass to Zeyar. “I appreciate your assistance in retrieving my fiancée, Zephyr.”
“I am glad we could come to an understanding.” Zeyar bowed his head to hide the annoyance on his face. “And it’s Zeyar, Captain. Not Zephyr.”
“Why are you here?” Richard asked.
He held up the key. “For my brother, Captain, as we agreed. I arrived at the destination you gave me, but he wasn’t inside.”
Richard sipped his whiskey, clicking his tongue once. “Actually, if you recall, our deal hinged on thepeacefulreturn of my fiancée,” he said. “When your brother attacked us, you forfeited that.”
“He wasn’t meant to be in the village.” Zeyar gritted his teeth, his temper flaring as Montrose reminded him of Hasan’s hypocrisy. Hasan had acted without the consent of the family, too, but somehow, it was he who had been cast out of the group. He forced himself to take a swallow of the whiskey, the sharp burn bringing him back to the conversation. “Besides, he barely did any damage before I subdued him.”
Montrose tilted his glass. “A deal’s a deal.”
His nonchalance reminded Zeyar of a dealer in a gambling den, sweeping the chips away from the poor fool who had put them all in the center of the table, betting recklessly. He had seen similar scenes on countless occasions, but for the first time, he was the one crushed by the loss.
He clenched his teeth even tighter, swallowing hard as bile rose in his throat. “My brother was never inside that second location, was he?”
Montrose leaned forward, dropping his voice. “May I speak honestly with you?”
Zeyar knew from experience that this phrase was often the harbinger of bullshit, but he nodded anyway.
“I cannot let the smuggler go yet. In a couple of months, Poppy will go on trial, and he will be a key witness.”
