“But I love money,” Hira said, whiskers twitching. “In any case, Padma expects that when you retire from the business you’ll leave the House of Jasmines to Kalyani, who’s a human woman nearly everyone believed you were not just sleeping with but also courting — until today. And then her son can have it from Kalyani, whom they both think no one else would want.”
Ashar slid down the wall and buried his face in his knees. It seemed marginally better than banging his head against the tiles on the wall.
“Padma’s not the only one who’ll think that,” Hira added, with a cat’s merciless amusement in toying with her injured prey. “Because all the rest of the aunties also talk about how tragic Kalyani’s ruination is… while they lean on their sons in private. Catfolk overhear things like that. We don’tactuallysleep sixteen hours a day. You just haven’t noticed, because the aunties who’ve come huntingyouare the ones with unmarrieddaughters, not sons. Now that the neighborhood has realized you’ve shared public affections with a lover who won’t bear you any children, the aunties with unmarried sons will be hunting Kalyani even more stubbornly.”
“…No wonder she hit me with her shoe.”
“Was it worth it?”
“Yes,” Ashar said immediately. “Did you see Rahat’s face when Priye wanted a sweet of her own? Yes, it was worth it. Ionly wish Kalyani didn’t have to pay the price in fermenting gossip-brew.”
“Honey,” Hira said, “if she minded gossip-brew, she wouldn’t have spent three years working here and encouraging the neighborhood to think she’s sleeping with you.”
“Both of those can be true at the same time, that she uses the gossip and that I wish she didn’t have to.” Ashar sighed again. “And there’s another reason for me to find a teacher of life-illusions, for Kalyani’s sake.”
“Ask her whether she wants an illusion or the truth.”
“Yes, of course,” Ashar said, surprised. “But until I have the knowledge, I couldn’t even offer her the choice.”
“Why do you always have to do things thehardestway?” Hira yowled, with her claws flexing against the wood of the table she was perched on. “Learning a new magic you’re not suited to before you even ask if it’s needed. Born to fire, and you spend all that time withwater.”
“I am not properly born to fire,” Ashar said. “Mistress Salimat says that’s at least half my problem. But also, where is safer for a not-quite-fireborn mage to make his learning mistakes than in a building full of tilework and bath-water?”
Hira laid her ears back and grumbled, because she had no better answer to that one. She headed to the linen closet and triggered the hidden wall panel behind the laundry-pile of damp towels.
“I’m taking money out of the emergency repair stash,” she told him, digging around until she came up with a jingling pouch and removing a fistful of coins, then setting it back in place and closing the hatch.
“Because you expect I’m so upset I’ll scorch something the next time I practice with incense…?”
“Because if you expect the city gossips not to subtract two from four and come up with a particularly gossip-worthy nameon their short list before the sun sets, we need to either find or bribe alotmore smiling fat men into walking around in overgrown towels giving treats to children this week. Emergency gossip repair is still emergency repair.”
“May Upaja have mercy on my soul,” Ashar groaned, rubbing both hands over his face. “Because I don’t think Shai Vishal will.”
3
The Walk of Chance
RAHAT
The first prayer-bell rang after the sun had risen far enough to glitter golden on the wet spots in the cobblestones of the marketplace, amid the bustle of opening shopkeepers and early bargain hunters. A poet would have said something about morning mists, of course, but Rahat’s nose told him some of it was beer, and some of that in various states of pre-digestion. He thought again about Master Asharan’s comment about the baker’s revelry of the night before, and decided ruefully that they were likely on the right path after all.
Rahat took a step forward into the marketplace, smiling; and he very carefully didnotstep into the poetically sunlight-gilded puddle of questionable origins.
As Kamil scanned for skulkers and set out on a narrow path behind a row of market-tents that he clearly hoped would provide cover, Rahat hesitated at the tangled mess of ropes and stakes and crates that Kamil’s cat-pawed grace had navigated without pause. Rahat was just beginning to puzzle out which of the tangled roads and pathways Kamil had chosen to follow toward the correct gate of the Imperial fortress and thehaveliwhen a little girl shouted, “Rahat-sahib!”
A dozen more children and kittens took up the cry from around the market, and an absolute flood of them started to pour out of the nooks and crannies of stalls and crates and half-rolled sunshades.
“I’m so sorry,” Rahat said to Kamil, in the three seconds before the wavefront broke around them.
Don’t be sorry,Kamil said, although Rahat couldfeelthe heroic effort it was taking him not to snarl and bush his tail like a battle-standard in the face of a howling mob — even a waist-high one.Enjoy them. They’re kittens and they’re delighted to see you.
And then Rahat couldn’t spare another breath for anything but the younglings’ eagerness.
“Rahat-sahib! Can I have another sweet?”
“Let’s make sure everyone has had their first, and then?—”
“Rahat-sahib, I brought you a flower! Can I put it in your hair?”
