Page 112 of Scars and Crowns

A smile tugs at my mouth. "I did."

I cross the last few steps toward her and offer my hand. She's climbed these stairs hundreds of times. She doesn't need help. I simply want an excuse to hold her hand. "We used to disappear up here every weekend," I say.

"If memory serves." She slips her hand into mine. Warm. Familiar.

"Soaked in rain half the time." I help her over the final step anyway.

"You remember correctly." She looks around slowly, taking everything in. The lights reflected in her eyes make them look even softer somehow. "I always thought this place belonged to us." Her fingers trail lightly over the old stone wall. "The rest of the palace belonged to everyone else." She smiles to herself. "There were rules everywhere. But not here."

I laugh. "Mostly because nobody bothered climbing all these stairs to look for us."

"Oh, they looked." She gives me a knowing glance. "They just gave up after the third time."

I shake my head. "You knew exactly what you were doing when you dragged me up here that first afternoon."

"I absolutely did." She doesn't even pretend otherwise. "You already walked around looking like someone's disappointed grandfather." I stare at her. She grins shamelessly. "You were so serious. So proper. So painfully responsible." She laughs. "I decided somebody had to teach you how to waste an afternoon."

"You succeeded." I lower myself onto the blanket. "My tutors complained for an entire week."

She settles beside me, folding her legs underneath herself. "Your tutors complained about me for nearly ten years."

"They really did."

"They blamed me for everything."

"They weren't entirely wrong."

She pops a peanut into her mouth with unmistakable satisfaction. Something about the sound of her laughter settling into the evening air makes something inside me finally unclench.

I spent seven years remembering that laugh. It's different hearing it beside me instead of inside my head. We eat slowly.

No rush.

No schedule waiting for either of us. Below us, Devgarh slowly begins to glow as lights appear one window at a time across the town.

Above us, the sky slips lazily from orange into violet, then deeper blue. The first stars begin appearing. I should probably be looking at the view. Instead, I find myself watching her. The breeze lifts loose strands of hair away from her face.

She tilts her head back to watch the sky, completely unaware she's smiling. It's such a small smile.

Not bright.

Not dramatic.

Just . . . peaceful.

Like happiness is finally becoming something her body remembers instead of something she's cautiously borrowing. I don't think I've ever seen anything more beautiful.

After a while I clear my throat. "Tell me something." She looks at me. "Something I don't know."

Her eyebrows lift. "You know almost everything."

"I doubt that." I pour chai into the shared steel cup and hand it to her. "Tell me about Mumbai."

She grows quiet. I watch the familiar hesitation arrive. Not fear exactly. Just a habit. Choosing carefully. Deciding what she's ready to hand me. After a long moment she smiles faintly. "There was a woman who lived downstairs." Her fingers curl around the warm cup. "Kamla Aunty."

"She'd lost her husband years before."

"She barely had enough for herself."