Page 71 of Scars and Crowns

"No," Maa says.

"She agrees with the monkeys."

"And . . . " Sara continues before anyone can interrupt. "I want to sleep inside a real tent." She points at me. "Not the pretend one Mister made in the garden." I smile into my glass. That camping experiment had lasted approximately forty-three minutes before she'd demanded hot chocolate and returned indoors. " . . . This one has to be real."

"Noted."

She nods with satisfaction. Only then do I notice it. It's tiny. Barely there. A glance. Maa looks toward Sara. One eyebrow lifts. Sara's mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. More like . . . a shared secret.

A heartbeat later they're both looking back at their plates with expressions so innocent they're almost suspicious.

I narrow my eyes slightly. I know that look. I've seen it before.

Years ago, Maa wore that exact expression immediately before arranging the seating plan at one of our cousin's weddings so that I spent an entire evening trapped beside the daughter of one of her oldest friends.

She'd claimed it was a coincidence. It absolutely wasn't. That expression means planning. It means strategy. It means my mother has already thought three steps ahead while the rest of us are still discussing step one.

I look back toward Sara. She's concentrating very hard on eating her dal. Far too hard. The performance is almost convincing. Almost. My five-year-old co-conspirator has clearly been recruited.

I glance toward Anamika. She's completely oblivious. At the moment she's busy trying to negotiate Sara down from four bonfires to one, explaining that forests generally prefer not to be set on fire repeatedly.

Sara argues that one bonfire every evening is perfectly reasonable.

I decide not to interfere.

Instead I watch Maa refill her water glass with an expression of remarkable satisfaction for someone supposedly thinking about nothing more complicated than holiday plans.

A slow smile threatens at the corner of my mouth. I don't know exactly what they're planning. But I know they're planning something. And experience has taught me one very important lesson.

When my mother and a determined five-year-old join forces . . . Everyone else becomes collateral damage.

Quietly, I make a mental note to keep a very close eye on both of them throughout this holiday. I have the distinct feeling this trip is going to be anything but peaceful.

MEMORIES

ANAMIKA

Sara has been talking about this since breakfast. No—that isn't quite right. She's been campaigning for it.

The moment she finished eating, she latched onto Yuvaan's hand and began tugging him toward the study with the determined persistence only a five-year-old possesses.

"I want to see baby pictures." She'd announced it as though it were the most obvious request in the world. "I want to know if Mister was also this tiny."

Yuvaan had looked at me over her head with the helpless expression of a man who already knew he wasn't going to win this argument. He never even tried.

Now he's crouched in front of one of the lower cabinets beneath the study bookshelves, pushing aside a few old files before pulling out a thick leather-bound album. The cover is worn smooth around the edges, softened by years of being opened and closed, held by hands that clearly came back to it often.

"I think this is the one," he murmurs.

Sara immediately climbs onto the sofa beside him, bouncing impatiently while he settles the heavy album across his lap. I expect formal photographs. Royal portraits. The sort that hangs framed in palace corridors—little Yuvaan standing stiffly beside his parents in embroidered sherwanis, smiling politely because someone behind the camera told him to.

Instead . . . The first page steals the breath straight out of me. It's us. Not one photograph. Not two. Page after page.

Us.

Not posed. Not formal. Just . . . Living.

A picture of me sitting cross-legged on the old ramparts with both hands full of freshly picked daisies, grinning proudly at the camera.