“I’m not certain that’s much of a loss,” Faraj said, holding his warm leaf-bowl of kheer and considering the statement Shai Vishal might have made with such a quiet reminder of the afternoon before. He wondered if he dared be so bold as to consider it a gesture of support, but thought it more likely the leaf-bowls were merely the nearest practical objects to hand in a rush. He smoothed a fingertip along the veins of the leaf, and thought about structures, and support, and a cat’s sharp claw slashing through the leaf-veins to make a new, different, differently helpful shape, but knowing the leaf would never again grow as it had before it was put to such use.
“Our guards would be most distressed to hear you think so little of their worth.”
“Not the guards,” Faraj said. “The cat-wards. When a bookish junior Archivist with a knack for charmcraft can pierce holes in the supposedly inviolable wards with only a few minutes’ enchantment of ribbons and bells, because the God-Emperor’s brother is the one who asked it of him? When he can make that exception forme,because I am theshahzada,but he cannot dare to make such an exception for any other dear familiar, here in the city of the cats? None of that is fair. None of that is equitable. And I have slept less well since realizing how many of our unquestionable prohibitions I had simply neverthoughtto question.”
“You have also slept less well since deciding to contort yourself around Sahar’s cat-basket in thejharokhaat night, or to crawl under your furniture at the sound of mews,” Kamil pointed out dryly.
“Well, yes, there is that,” Faraj admitted. “But the unasked questions are more relevant here. If such exceptions can bemade for me, simply because I am the one who asks, then those same exceptions could be made for anyone with sufficient leverage to hold over a ward-guardian. And it is sheer good fortune that the guardians here have made such a habit of relying on my foresights to forewarn us all of threats. It gives our guardians counterpressure if they can say to a would-be blackmailer that obviously their schemes would be caught. But how on earth was thathavelikept securebeforea knownnadhirprophet came to be in residence?”
“The usual, I expect,” Najra said, twiddling with her silverpoint again. “Strategic applications of some combination of blazing righteousness, cursed spellbooks, and well-lubricated bribery. We still have several of the relevant spellbooks under containment in lead boxes in the Archives, in fact.”
“I fail to see how addingmore catswill in any wayimprovethe orderly functioning of our Imperial security, your Highness.”
“Oh, that is a question of fairness, not a question of order,” Faraj assured him. “But if our illusion of security depends upon an unjust fiction that everyone pretends is inviolable, then who better to sniff out the unexploited flaws in the system than a dozen gleefully irreverent mischief-makers?”
Najra whistled again.
“If you have need of a cat’s instincts, you have Kamil’s service, and his loyal heart,” Irfan said.
“Kamil has never been the sort of cat to knock the glassware off the highest shelf just to see it shatter. But I imagine several of the Priestesses of Bastet and Pakhet would be delighted to indulge.”
“I suspect they could be persuaded to do you such a great favor, yes,” Shai Vishal agreed, with an admirably straight face.
“I’m sure they could,” Irfan said, grim. “Which is why we havenotgiven such license to the priestesses of rival goddessesin a fortress that upholds the power and majesty of the God-Emperor’s throne.”
“How convenient, then, that we are soon to have Sahar’s curious little kittens bonded to their mother, who is in turn bonded to me,” Faraj said, as pleasantly as he could manage.
“That has not been decided,” Irfan reminded them.
Najra said sourly, “Then I suppose it also hasn’t been decided how many copies to distribute of the spellbook I’m certain Rashid had in his hands when he?—”
“His Highness has had aspellembedded into hissoul!” Irfan cried. “A demanding, imperious thing in the seeming of a velveted charmer, placed there by a power foretold in the dreams of a prophet who isnadhir.Whose dreams foretell disaster in the making. If you had asked me to design a more perfect method of infiltration into the heart of the Empire, I would be hard pressed to improve on this. And we now know that regardless of whether the sorcerer who bound him was malign or benevolent, his Highness will suffer when the spell-creature suffers. He has already suffered much for its sake. How much more will you ask him to endure while youtake notes, Archivist? If you have ever dared claim to love him, if you have ever thought his heart and soul of greater import than your analysis— help me set him free. Please.”
“Love hurts sometimes,” Kamil murmured. “Any love has claws and fangs to prick with. Have you loved anyone deeply enough to share their pain,hajib?”
“Yes,” Irfan said, eyes closed tight. “I have. I do. And I would remove the thorn from his heart before the wound begins to fester in us both.”
“That’s his choice to make, not yours,” Najra said.
“Not if he has been charmed by an enchanter who has left claws embedded in his heart and soul, and persuaded him that he feels only delight.” Irfan clasped both hands in front of hisface, head bowed, part a prayer and part a plea. “There is areasonsoul-binding is heretical. There is areasoncharms that fuddle the mind and heart and override the will are prohibited. But I suppose you dabble in those as well.”
“If I did, we wouldn’t be having this argument,” Najra said dryly, “because you would have had the fight sucked out of you already.”
“You would truly do that?”
“Ya bir Enayat, sometimes you make me understand why cursed spellbooks are so bloody tempting. I wouldn’tdoit. But I’d certainly fantasize.”
“Not every mage has your morality, Archivist.” The lamplight glittered in his eyes like molten gold. “And if it were any other mage, the harm a soul-bonding could wreak would be bounded by the limits of a common man’s reach. But for his Highness?—”
Faraj couldn’t strike his fist onto the table. The chai would splash, and there were too many precious old books nearby. But his voice trembled on the border between shouting and tears.
“I amso damned tiredof the rules being differentonlyfor me,” he rasped. “No one else can bring a cat into the wards, for fear that it might be a spy or an assassin or a sorcerer’s familiar, but I had merely to ask for my familiar to be admitted. Except that I can’tkeepher, because anyone that approaches memustbe too dangerous and too deeply scheming to trust! I am dull and fat and predictable and boring. And when I bring home one soft, purring bundle of chaos, my own people are horrified that I must have been ensorcelled. Because I have never been impish or rebellious or — or charming. Obviously I must have been ensorcelled. Everyone knows I am a quill-pushing accountant, not a witty, sparkling courtier. I am much toodullto have reached for such an impulsive delight on my own.”
“Your Highness,” Irfan said, trembling, “you have delighted in books and in scholarship. You have devoted yourself to prophecies that have averted suffering and death, and been glad of the lives and livelihoods you have spared. You have delighted in the bringing of order to chaos. But after you walked into the grasp of a gutter-witch who has bound a chaos-spirit to your soul, after you and Kamil both walked into the grasp of an enchanter who can bend minds and hearts to his will? Andthenfor the first time in your life you wake every day in chaos and frighten your servants, and you propose cat-minded alterations to the foundations of our security and our society? It would be remiss of your loyal servantsnotto question the suddenness of that change in a man whose steady, thoughtful heart we have known for years.”
“You’re right, of course,” Faraj said, blinking hard at the blurring of his vision, trying not to allow himself tears. “Of course you’re right. Of course you would have to question it. But how can I everprovethat my new thoughts might simply be my own? When else but now can I speak for those who have had no voice in the halls of thehaveli, who are so accustomed to having no voice that thebestthey dare hope for is to be ignored? How could I even fetch my own cup of chai from a market-vendor without provoking a crisis? Because everything around the God-Emperor’s brother must be a thorn-snare of tangled powers and calculations. No one could look at me and simply think of — of whimsy, or playfulness, or love?—”
He stopped short, head bowed, clutching at the edge of the table. He was his brother’snadhir,the prophet of disasters. So of course the next kitten would make its appearance precisely when he most needed his wits and his eloquence in their defense — and his own.
