The Diviners, the vetalas, talking trees. Sikander was right—they were just stories, and stories couldn’t save people. Maybe those stories did more harm than good by giving us false hope. All they did was reinforce our faith that the world was once made up almost entirely of magic or miracles. But where was that magic now, when we needed it?
“That’s why you told me that story again and again and again,” I said to my father, seeing for the first time that he must have thought of her each time.
“It was . . . her favorite parable.”
There was an awkward tension between my father and me, and I realized how difficult it was for him, discussing my mother.
“You should have told me, at the very least, that she’s still alive!”
“There’s no way for us to confirm that. You saw the way Sikander is. It could all be manipulation in order to—”
“It doesn’t matter!” I yelled. “You knew that she might be alive, and you never even bothered to mention it?”
“It was far more complicated than you know. And if I didn’t tell you, it was to protect you—”
“That’s rubbish!” I yelled again, stunned at the ferocity of my tone.
He nodded, as though he understood that my reaction was warranted. “I’ve tried, over the years . . . to tell you about her, and to find her. I know how difficult this is for you to understand, but Sikander is attempting to drive a wedge between us, and she—”
“You allowed that to happen, Papa.”
“I should have told you,” he quietly said. “Tell me what you want to know. Ask me whatever you’d like to ask,” he said. He waited me out patiently.
It was all I had ever wanted to hear. I held my breath, but my head was spinning. Now that the opportunity had presented itself, there was only one thing I wanted, no, needed to know.
“How do I find her?”
“That, I can’t tell you,” he said.
“But she’s in Macedon?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why isn’t she . . . here? With us?” I asked, tears filling my eyes.
“We needed to keep you safe. We had a plan, but the day we were supposed to leave Macedon and come here, she disappeared.”
“I don’t understand. She was supposed to come here?”
My father nodded, slowly. “We had gone into hiding. There was a time when I even considered staying in Macedon, or going someplace else. Hiding our identities. I thought about giving Bandaka the throne. He was . . . is my best friend, just the way Arjun is yours. But in the end, we decided to come back to Shalingar. Only, she didn’t come with us.”
“Why not?”
My father sighed. “It was a complicated time. Sikander had just taken over the throne. Macedon was in a volatile state. And she came from a family that actively questioned the leadership. It was an unstable period for all of us.”
Nothing he was saying made any sense to me. “But you were friends,” I whispered.
My father shook his head. “A long time ago, we were friends. And then we . . . weren’t. My understanding . . . my hope was that Sikander had changed. I haven’t seen him or spoken to him in years. But it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that he hasn’t changed. And that you . . . cannot marry him.”
“What does that mean? I thought you had an agreement. We can’t simply break it, can we?”
My father opened his mouth to speak again, but it was no good, what he was telling me. It was too late, and there was so much I didn’t know, and even though his words about breaking the promise of marriage to Sikander sent a shot of relief through my nerves, I was too terrified to get my hopes up only to have them shattered.
“It doesn’t matter,” I realized aloud, getting up and pushing my chair in. “In a few weeks, I’ll be in Macedon.” My stomach turned at the thought of leaving home, of marrying Sikander, even of the regret I knew my father would feel, perhaps for the rest of his life.
And yet I was still furious with him; I couldn’t help it. Only one thing kept me going. “I’ll find her myself,” I said before I turned on my heel and walked out of the Map Chamber, leaving my father behind.
¤
I saw it as I approached my chambers. At first, I wasn’t sure what it was. Wedged into the doorframe of my bedroom, a slip of parchment. A note. I unfolded it, recognizing the handwriting immediately.
The Mango Grove. Come find me.
Despite everything that had happened, I couldn’t help but smile. I looked up and down the corridor with its high ceilings and open skylights. Not a soul in sight. Mala’s door, right next to mine, was closed.
Quickly, I shuffled to the back stairwell at the edge of the east wing. I threaded the maze of the servants’ quarters, slipping out the kitchen door, as Arjun and I had done a million times before.
Only this time, it felt illicit. Recently, I had noticed that my heart pounded like a drumbeat as I approached these meetings with him, so loud that I was afraid it would wake up everyone sleeping in the palace.
I considered for a moment that no one in the palace was sleeping tonight. Papa’s advisors were strategizing, their heads negotiating a million political calculations a minute, even as they rested on silk pillows. It was unlikely that Papa was sleeping either, considering the conversation we just had.
But I left this fleeting thought behind as I exited the stone walls of the palace residence and emerged on the grounds, met by a balmy breeze that smelled like a mixture of jasmine, mango, and cut grass.
The grounds were quiet, empty. And the sky was a navy quilt embroidered with diamonds. I tiptoed quietly on the trail to the mango grove, noticing the arrows made of jasmine petals that Arjun had most certainly left behind for me. The moonlight illumined silver spiderwebs between the leaves of trees. Mangoes hung like ornaments from delicate branches that looked like fingers in the dark.
I continued to follow the arrows. By morning, the groundskeepers and the breeze would have swept them away, but right now, they were the kind of gift that was precious precisely because it was ephemeral. Arjun had always specialized in such bequests—the kinds that required thought and effort but ultimately existed only for a moment before they were gone, leaving behind a memory slipped into one’s heart like a parchment note left in a doorframe.
I followed the arrows into the cut grass that tickled my bare feet. It was about fifty more paces till the edge of the grove, and once there, I could see a light glowing in the center of the thicket.
All of a sudden, I felt nervous. My stomach fluttered as I caught a glimpse of him seated on a mirrored cushion amid a nest of patchwork blankets and throw pillows, waiting for me. He was surrounded by lights—at least fifty diyas and a handful of lanterns. I wondered when and how he had found the time to set all this up.