“Excuse me,” she said, “is this the Montrose residence? I’m here to clean.” She held her bucket up so he could see it.
The gatekeeper scowled. “You’re late. The other cleaners were all here before lunch.”
Harithi cursed internally, but she improvised, forcing her bottom lip to wobble. “Do you think they’ve noticed I’m late? I didn’t mean to be tardy. It’s my first day, but it took so long to get through the checkpoint, and then after that, I couldn’t find the house, and then I ran out of money to pay the rickshaw driver, so he made me get out and walk on foot, and I can’t lose this job because my mother has?—”
“Just go,” the gatekeeper said, lifting his novel and smoothing out the dog-eared corner. “And don’t be late again, girl!”
“I won’t,” Harithi said breathlessly, clutching her bucket as she hurried past him. “Thank you so much, sir.”
She made her way around the back of the house, looking for the discreet door that marked the servants’ entrance. It took her a moment, but she located it eventually, half-hidden behind a wall of ivy. Making sure her dupatta was still up around her face, she tried the handle?—and found it locked. Cursing, she tried again, pushing, then pulling, but the door didn’t budge.
She should have seen it coming. Montrose might have been an ass, but he wasn’t an idiot. Still, neither was she. She reached under her dupatta and withdrew one of the bobby pins that held her bun in place. Harithi had just finished bending it into the shape of a lock pick when the door flew open on its own. She dropped the hairpin immediately, covering it with her foot.
“Who are you?” A matronly woman glared at her. Wisps of gray hair had escaped her servant’s cap only to get trapped against her forehead by a thin layer of sweat.
“I’m here to clean,” Harithi stammered, gesturing to her bucket.
“I know every maid who’s ever been hired here,” the matron scoffed. “You’re no cleaner.” As if to prove her point, she added, “I would ask you how you made it across the checkpoint, but I suspect it has to do with the reason Nandini didn’t come to work today, hm?”
Harithi sized up the woman again and came to the conclusion that there was no bullshitting her. “I’m here looking for information,” she said, keeping her voice brisk and urgent. “Let me in.”
The matron didn’t move. “What information?”
Harithi narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t used to being questioned by anyone other than the Devars, and definitely not by a woman who was almost certainly vasudhakt.
“Captain Montrose has been arresting daivyakt people around the city,” she said. “The Jackal wants to know why.”
The matron’s eyes widened at Hasan’s name, much to Harithi’s satisfaction. Then, to her surprise, the matron’s expression stretched into a smug grin of her own.
“The Jackal won’t be running free for much longer. If I were you, I’d drop the attitude, girl.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Captain Montrose has been pushing the House to introduce a bill to control your kind for a long time, but he’s never been able to prove what a threat you are until your Jackal took the viceroy’s daughter and burned down the museum. The marquess himself has introduced the bill to register and track every single daivyakt. The House is voting on it in a week’s time.”
Harithi’s mind raced. Her little brothers were daivyakt. The thought of them tagged like cattle sent a spike of rage and nausea rolling through her, sharpening her tone. “If this is true, then we have to stop it. I need more information. Let me in.”
She tried to take another step forward, but the matron shifted, blocking her path. “Why should I?”
“It’s for the greater good.” Harithi stared down at her. “Will you really side with your white employer over your own people?”
The matron laughed derisively. “Oh, so now we’re the same people, hm? Were we the same people when we were dying of thirst, but you refused to give us a drop of water without a tithe? Were we the same people when you barred us from mixing with daivyakt in public spaces such as schools and temples under the pretense of purity? The Welkish treat us badly, but so did the daivyakt.”
“These are grievances from centuries ago,” Harithi said. “Will you really deny me aid because of the actions of ancient kings?”
“Very well, let’s look at your actions today.” The matron put one hand on her hip and the other against her jaw as she pretended to think deeply. “Daivyakt today interact with vasudhakt only because they are forced to. But several of them still uphold the old ways as much as possible, refusing to serve vasudhakt at their businesses or permit intercaste marriages in their own families. Daivyakhi is forbidden now, so instead of divine or royal power, the daivyakt hoard wealth and gatekeep the best jobs, leaving vasudhakt to fight over coins in backbreaking, dangerous careers. We’ve had activists protesting for better working conditions for decades. Not a single daivyakt has joined that cause, because none of you care about vasudhakt oppression. You’d rather be rulers of the slums than equals in battle with us. You can’t claim we’re all one race when you’ve spent the last five centuries keeping us at arm’s length.”
Harithi tried to come up with a rebuttal, but nothing the other woman had said was false. Though the Welks loved to pretend that they had “fixed” the caste divisions, the truth was that they had taken a new skin. The prejudices of ancient daivyakt had been passed down generation to generation, just as much an inheritance as the power that ran in their veins. If anything, the Welks had complicated it even further, bringing racism to the island. By allowing the Welks to divide them, Virians had made it easy for them to pick them off, one by one.
Harithi only wished it hadn’t taken her this long to realize it. “You make a good point. But things are different now.”
The matron laughed. “They sure are.” With that, she closed the door in Harithi’s face.
• • •
Hasan listened as Harithi caught him up to speed on what she had learned at Montrose Manor. When she finished, he rose to his feet, pacing back and forth as he processed the information.
“So you’re telling me that in a week, the House of Representatives is going to vote on some sort of law that forces daivyakt people to be registered and tracked?”
