“I can’t tell you that I’m sorry,” he rumbled. “I don’t have your foresight. I thought you’d been entrapped and enchanted, just as thehajibfears. If you’d told us what you’d told Najra, we could have known otherwise.” Under the drug-addled haze, the pain in his voice was much more clear than Kamil would ever have wished if he were sober: “Why couldn’t you tell us? Why couldn’t you tell me?”
Faraj buried his face in his hands, but it did nothing to block out the memories.
There had been a thousand other paths he could have chosen, for years. A thousand ways for him to tell the Chamberlain, to tell Kamil, even to tell a fellow priest. And not a single one of those other ways had led him to last night.
The Chamberlain would have doubled the guards and set extra guardians to watch his every step, rather than believing theshahzadaand his Archivist were merely distracted by some paperwork chase that led them into the back alleys of the Catsprowl. Kamil would have brought a squadron with him in some of the paths, and brought his towering sharp-clawed and sharp-tongued self in others. And even in the vanishingly few paths where he would have been willing to take his smaller shape until they arrived, Kamil’s very first words to Master Asharan had always sought to separate them, to drive a common-born Basteti bath-house courtesan away from the God-Emperor’s wealthy and powerful brother.
Even last night, Faraj had been blessed by the utter freedom of that blissful time before Kamil had hunted him down.
And even then, Kamil had tried to drive them apart, before Master Asharan’s most human charms had persuaded him that his protective defenses were not entirely needed.
But Faraj was, ever and always, thenadhir.He had always dreamed of trouble.
He had always known that reaching through time toward the hand of the man who tended that jasmine plant in the window would lead to more and more trouble.
A year ago, on the night the springtime stars had last aligned with the stone lacework of thejaliscreen in his visions, Najra had almost persuaded him that it was worth the trouble he would cause to reach for his own joy. And he had resisted then, telling himself he couldn’t cause so much distress with his own selfishness. She’d been persistent?—
—and not a single part of this wasNajra’sfault. And neither was it Kamil’s.
His choice to leave without a word, for the chance at that one night with his name left unspoken. His choice not to warn the Chamberlain or the Deputy Minister, who would have tried to stop him.
His choice not to warn Kamil.
His own choice, his ownselfishness, and Nehal haddiedand Master Asharan hadfeltit?—
Sahar yowledStop that noise!directly into his mind.
Faraj realized he’d been weeping, and shoved a hand over his mouth to try to stifle the sound.
Sahar climbed into his lap and planted her forepaws on his chest and started licking the back of his hand with a raspy tongue. He ventured to stroke her head and she promptly started grooming his cheek, as though he were one of her kittens.
Along with it came a wordless but quite clear mama-scolding: If the cat-enchanter had not needed to summon Nehal into a new incarnation, then Sahar and her kittens could not have come to her chosen person either.
Sahar was well pleased with her incarnation, and she expected to keep her lovely, soft, round, warm body. She did notwant a world where she had not heard the cat-enchanter’s call because her chosen person had made less trouble.
Makinglesstrouble was positivelyuncatlike.
“What’s she telling him?” Najra asked Kamil quietly.
“She likes having a body,” Kamil murmured, one foot scratching at the garden path. “She wouldn’t have been called into a body if I hadn’t killed hisrafiq’sfamiliar.”
“That’smyfault,” Faraj protested. “Not yours.”
“The reason you couldn’t trust me enough to tell meismy fault,” Kamil said. “Why couldn’t you tell me? If I don’t know, I can’t mend it.”
“I can’t ask you to change your soul,” Faraj said, sniffling a little despite himself. “Your devotion. Your protection. You’re a guardian befitting the God-Emperor’s third brother. It’s just that… I needed not to be the God-Emperor’s third brother.” He gulped hard. “The God-Emperor’s third brother has no place in myrafiq’sarms.”
Kamil made a noise somewhere between a yowl and a grumble, gnawing on the wooden bench for a frantic minute, tail thumping solidly against thejali.When he could master himself again, he panted, “Najra, I need a favor. From his Designated Cuddle-Assistant.”
“May I?” Najra asked Faraj, a bit wistful.
“Esha and Ahmed?—”
“If either of them were stupid enough to crossme,” Kamil growled, claws tearing at the pebbles on the garden path, “then they would also be too stupid to hold their positions.”
Faraj bit his lip against Kamil’s earlier estimates of the third undersecretary’s intelligence, and offered Najra the hand that wasn’t busily petting Sahar. She settled into the curve of his arm and hugged them both carefully.
“Tell me that your gentle-handed gardener appreciates you properly.”
