He started at her touch but didn’t move away. “Seems like an understatement.”

  “Is it ever.”

  They dismounted at the base of the promontory. After pulling Advaith down, Tav took the horse’s head between his hands and pressed his forehead to the animal’s, blue light flickering between them. The horse’s tail swished once before it turned and made its way sedately up the hill.

  Tav and Kajal went in the opposite direction, toward the royal quarters. They’d agreed it was the best place to store the body for now. Bringing it to the laboratory would be too risky.

  “I don’t even know where to begin with finding the rest of him,” Tav said after he helped Kajal get the bag over the wall. She’d told Kutaa to go around and slip through the front gates. It was a new moon, and the overgrown gardens were thrown into deep shadow.

  “Do you think Bakshi did this?” Kajal asked. “Would he have, I don’t know, kept Advaith’s head as a trophy or something?”

  Tav hefted the bag into his arms. “That seems too crass for Bakshi. He always presented himself as someone of sophistication. But I guess it can’t be ruled out.”

  They followed the same path they’d taken before to get to Advaith’s room. The walls bore down on them from either side, their footsteps far too loud. Kajal felt as if the place were coming alive, recognizing the return of both its princes.

  “When the rebels get back, I’m resurrecting Lasya first,” Kajal said as they reached Advaith’s door. “She’s my priority. Then we can tell them about Advaith.”

  He met her eyes. “I know. If you need my help in any way, I’ll do what I can.”

  Kajal was still unused to receiving things. It sent an uncomfortable itch between her shoulder blades. “And you’re…all right with that?”

  “Yes. We’re in this together, remember?”

  Together. It was a word she never thought she’d apply to anyone but Lasya. Strangely, it didn’t leave her mouth coated in ash; every bone in her body wanted to embrace it, to revel in the simple statement of I am not alone.

  Kajal didn’t know how to respond, didn’t want Tav to see her flush, so she opened the door and entered Advaith’s room.

  Too late, she realized there was a lantern lit on top of the desk, throwing three waiting figures into silhouette.

  Kajal whipped out her scalpel, and Tav grabbed the rusty talwar he’d brought with him from the Harama Plain. One of the figures turned, and the planes of Jassi’s face were highlighted in the lantern’s glow. The other two followed, revealing Vivaan and Sezal.

  “Kajal,” Jassi whispered. “I’m sorry. I tried to explain—”

  Vivaan raised a hand to cut her off and stalked forward, emanating the staticky tension of a thunderhead. Tav set the bag against the wall and stepped in front of Kajal.

  “It was my idea,” Tav said firmly. “We felt that there was no time to waste. We couldn’t wait for your return.”

  Vivaan stared hard at the prince. Then his lips parted in an unfeeling grin.

  “You really think that’s what this is about?” Vivaan’s gaze flitted over Tav’s face, something vast and dark stirring behind his eyes. “Stop pretending.”

  Kajal played dumb. “Pretending what?”

  “That this is Advaith Thakar.”

  The room fell so deathly silent that Kajal could hear the rustle of the lantern’s flame. The pulse at her neck jumped, reminding her how much blood the rebels could spill on this dusty floor.

  “What are you talking about?” Tav demanded, but the slight waver in his voice gave him away.

  Vivaan’s not-smile twisted. “I know Advaith. I knew Advaith. And you are not him, Tavinder.”

  Tav rocked backward. Kajal’s gorge rose, her face flaring hot as she recalled the look Vivaan had given her that day in the rebels’ hideout.

  Suspicion. Realization.

  They’d known this whole time.

  “Why did you lie to us?” Sezal asked Kajal. Her voice was plaintive, sorrowful. “Was it just to be reunited with your sister sooner? If you’d told us the truth from the start—”

  “They didn’t want us knowing this is the deva,” Vivaan said. “What was your plan?” he drawled at Kajal. “To use the asura and deva for your own purposes? Were you going to sell them to Bakshi for a place at one of his universities?” He sneered at Tav. “Or maybe you finally found an opportunity to step out of the shadows and take the throne for yourself.”

  Tav was too stunned to deny it, so Kajal spoke for him. “Have you lost your mind? How did you…How do you know what they are?”

  Before Vivaan could answer, his gaze swept past Tav, to the canvas bag slumped at the base of the wall. Eyes widening, he hurried toward it.

  “Don’t,” Kajal warned.

  Vivaan tore open the bag and pushed away the dirt, stopping at the sight of Advaith’s neck.

  Sezal gasped and clutched at her throat. Jassi looked between Tav and the new body, brow furrowed in confusion.

  “How,” came a low growl from Vivaan’s throat. “What did you do to him?”

  “W-We found him like that,” Kajal stammered. “We think Bakshi—”

  Vivaan roared and punched the wall. His fist blew a hole through the wood, splintering the plaster all the way up to the ceiling. Jassi stumbled into the desk and the lantern wobbled, light tilting dizzyingly through the room.

  “Vaan,” Sezal called. “This obviously wasn’t them.”

  Vivaan clutched his hair, bent over Advaith. When Sezal made a move toward them, Tav and Kajal retreated farther. Sezal paused.

  “If you knew I was lying, then why did you leave?” Kajal asked her. “Did you even find Lasya’s body?”

  Sezal sighed; Kajal missed the girl’s usual cheerfulness. Vivaan slowly rolled up to his full height.

  “We left because bringing your notebook to the Vadhia was clearly not enough of a threat,” he said lowly. “So we decided on another way to keep you in line.”

  When he turned, his face was like granite. He reached into his pocket and threw something onto the floor between them.

  Kajal stared, uncomprehending. Even when Tav swore, her mind was simply unable to process what she was looking at. It started with the pounding of her heart, the rush of blood in her ears, and the furious heat building in her chest.

  A severed pinkie finger. Small, brown, and stained green from where it had once worn a copper ring.

  The world shrank to a pinpoint. Inside Kajal a wave was building, longing for nothing so much as to crash into everything in its path. She knew anger like she knew the shape of her hands—the creases and valleys, the low points and the high. Knew when to keep them at her sides for fear of a bigger wave knocking her down, crushing her into pieces.

  But this was more than anger. It was fury and fire and the need to pick up her bones and march to battle. It was an unleashed scream that had been building behind her teeth since the day she took her first step into the world and realized she cared more for it than it did for her.

  So she’d learned not to care. To trust in only one person, love one person, who’d stubbornly refused to accept that goodness did not exist.

  And this boy—this unworthy being—had laid his hands upon her.

  The noise that tore from Kajal’s throat was barely human. The room shook as she called for the bhuta like she had on the Harama Plain, seeking not protection but destruction. To allow it all the pain and death it craved.

  All around them rose a high whine. Lasya formed before her, white funeral dress whipping in a sharp wind that pushed Advaith’s belongings off his shelves and made Jassi and Sezal shield their eyes. Though the bhuta was invisible to him, Vivaan stood unflinching, jaw clenched.

  Kill him, Kajal seethed. Make him pay for what he did.

  Lasya didn’t move at first. Her eyes penetrated the shadows, hair flowing around her ashen face as if she were underwater. For a moment, Kajal thought she might turn and strike Kajal instead, the creator of her suffering, the reason they had found her body in the first place.

  Then Lasya dove straight at Vivaan. Kajal longed for her sister’s achingly cold fingers to wrap around his throat and drain the life out of him, making him feel the same helpless fear Kajal had felt in Jassi’s flat. Satisfaction was already unfurling like a flower at her core, feeding off the violent offering of her imagination.

  Vivaan pulled down his collar, revealing the mandala-like tattoo spiraled across his skin. He pressed his fingers against it and the black ink lit up red, the glow enveloping his body in a flash just as the bhuta reached him.

  Kajal squeezed her eyes shut at the burst of light. Tav steadied her with an arm around her shoulders. The whine had fallen into a minor note, as if the bhuta were distressed.

  Blinking against watering eyes, Kajal squinted into the crimson glow and found Lasya going in for another attack, only to be pushed away by some invisible force. As the light finally diminished, she got a better look at Vivaan.

  Or, rather, the rakshasa now standing in his place.

  He was of a similar size—humanoid and tall, with broad shoulders. But his skin was dark gray, like a rhino’s hide, and the ears that parted his fall of black hair had elongated into points. On the middle of his forehead below his horns sat a mark like a bindi, a half-moon on its side with three dilating dots rising from its center. His eyes were red, the pupils vertically slitted, and burned furiously as they landed on Kajal. When he bared his teeth, the canines were fanged.

  “You…” Kajal would have sunk to the floor if Tav hadn’t been holding her up. “All this time…?”

  All this time, he had hidden his true form under a glamour. All this time, he had been a danava, a demon skilled in illusions.

  Vivaan glanced meaningfully at Sezal just before the bhuta turned to her, longing to enact its vengeance on someone. Sezal ripped her sleeve and activated her own glamour tattoo in another flash of red. Like Vivaan, her skin grayed, and black horns sprouted from her skull, though the mark on her forehead bore diamonds instead of dots.

  Jassi scurried away from Sezal and pressed her back against the wall. “No,” she whimpered. “No, no, no!”

  The bhuta, growing more enraged, kept striking at Sezal. But the rebel—the demon—blocked her attacks with a shield of crimson light that activated whenever Lasya got too close.

  “Stop!” Kajal cried. Any control she’d had over her sister snapped as Lasya, determined to find a victim, turned with a silent snarl on Jassi.

  The professor’s glasses hit the floor before she did. Jassi choked and fought against an enemy she couldn’t see, tears escaping the corners of her bulging eyes.

  “Lasya, stop!” Kajal screamed. She tore out of Tav’s hold. “Don’t hurt her!”

  White butterflies swarmed ahead of her. They descended on Lasya like they had in Jassi’s flat, making the bhuta writhe until it dissipated into wisps of smoke.

  Jassi cried weakly as Kajal moved her onto her side. Tav crashed to his knees and pressed shaking fingers to Jassi’s throat, their blue light like sapphires around her neck.

  “Why didn’t you do anything?” Kajal shouted at the danavas. Vivaan was holding Sezal back by her arm, his expression stony and hers regretful.

  “Because you needed to see that your actions have consequences,” Vivaan said. “Attacking us is futile. Rakshasas are immune to a bhuta’s powers.”

  “But you…on the Harama Plain…” Though they’d been scratched up in their human guises, it had been nothing but a clever act. They hadn’t been in danger at all.

  She was the one in danger, and always had been.

  Kajal’s gaze drifted to Sezal. The rebel seemed like she wanted to say something, to apologize, to explain, but she only turned her face away.

  Blue ringed Tav’s irises as he glared at Vivaan. “I didn’t lie when I said my memories are affected. I didn’t recognize you in your human forms, but I know you now. Vaan. Sezal. My brother’s aides.”

  Sezal looked like she wanted to cry. Even Vivaan’s icy demeanor melted somewhat when he glanced at Advaith’s body. He let go of Sezal and returned to the crown prince’s torso, gently scooping the dirt back inside the bag before retying it.

  “The world needs him,” Vivaan whispered. “We need him.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Tav snapped. “Of course we need him. We have the same goal, but you’re treating me like the enemy. I’m not out to take my brother’s throne.”

  Vivaan’s laugh was soft and mocking. “I’m not so sure. I remember how you two fought, toward the end. And more than that…” He peered over his shoulder. “I’m worried about what she is hiding from us.”

  Kajal stiffened. She didn’t like the way he and Sezal were assessing her. “I’m not hiding anything. You know about the bhuta, my experiments. There’s nothing else.”

  “Do you know what they told us, when we went to Siphar?” Vivaan asked. “They said the day of the accident, the ground shook like an earthquake, and veins of black energy streaked the sky. Like a sudden surge of blight. Of tamas.” His eyes flashed.

  She pressed her lips together to stop their trembling. Vivaan stood and picked up Lasya’s finger. He shoved it at Kajal, and she cradled it against her chest.

  “The Sodhis are now in possession of your sister’s body,” Vivaan said. “You will help us find the rest of Advaith and resurrect him. If we find out you’ve tampered with either prince’s body, your sister will burn. Lie to us again, she will burn. Attack us again, she will burn. Do you understand?”

  Kajal hunched over Lasya’s severed finger, under the weight of Tav’s troubled gaze. She was a child again—powerless, furious, trying desperately to survive. Choosing any option that would ensure she could make it at least one more day.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I understand.”

  How ridiculous she’d been to let her guard down for even a second. She should have known better—known there was only one person who had ever been worthy of her trust.

  She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When Kajal was younger, she had a recurring nightmare of a volcano.

  She had never seen one in real life, but she had read about how magma built under heat and pressure until it finally exploded in a geyser of destruction. In her nightmares, she stood at the volcano’s rim and watched, mesmerized, as lava bubbled and surged. Sometimes it came right up to the rim, burning away her feet. Sometimes it lurked far below.

  Kajal felt as if the lava had spilled from the volcano’s lip and down its sides, a hissing, scorching warning.

  Last night, Jassi had explained the situation to Dalbir in her flat. As the Sodhis’ representative, the rebels had conceded that Dalbir needed to be involved.

  “Hold…Hold on,” Dalbir had said, more than a little perturbed as they stared at Tav. “So this one is a prince, but not the crown prince, who’s been carved up like a prize lamb.” Jassi and Kajal had nodded while Tav glowered. “Advaith Thakar is actually his twin and also happens to be the asura?” Another nod. “And this one here, he’s…he’s the—?”

  “The deva,” Kajal had said. “Yes. Glad you understand.”

  “I don’t understand!” Dalbir had given a near-hysterical laugh, grabbing their hair with both hands. “This must be a prank. No—it’s a myth. We’re living through an actual myth right now.”

  “That is your strong suit,” Jassi had said with a weak smile. “Maybe your knowledge of asura and deva lore will come in handy.”

  Dalbir’s eyes had gone round. “Oh. This is real.” They’d approached Tav, but one sharp look and Dalbir had immediately retreated. “I— I can’t pass up this chance to see him in action. I have to come along.” Their face dropped a little. “But my classes…No, no, this is far more important. I’m going to get such good material.”

  “Why are you still going through with this?” Kajal had demanded once Dalbir had left to pack their things. “The rebels are demons.”

  Jassi’s fingers had reached for her throat. Tav’s healing had reversed the effects of the strangling, but not the dread that had settled in her eyes. “They told me I could learn how to resurrect the dead.”

  “Who did you lose?”

  Jassi had looked away, whether out of shame or a desire to not bare the raw nerve of her grief. “I haven’t lost him yet, but my father has been sick for a long time. And if he goes, what’ll happen to my sister? Professors are only allowed to bring spouses and children to live with them at the university. I can’t afford a place in the city. So what am I supposed to do?” She’d furiously wiped at a fallen tear. “Now that I’ve come this far in their plot, how can I walk away without them killing me? I know too much.”

  Kajal didn’t have an answer. Like Jassi, she’d been backed into a corner.

  It had been a mistake to agree to the rebels’ terms when she was in that cell awaiting an ordeal of poison. It had been a mistake to ever leave Lasya’s body. It had been a mistake to—

  “What you’re doing isn’t natural.”

  Cracks in the earth, the frantic pounding of her heart.

  “Kajal!”

  “Kajal?”

  A touch jolted her back to the present. Tav’s hand was on her arm, warm yet tense. She shrugged it off.

  Outside the university, in the blush of dawn, they’d each found a horse waiting for them. Vivaan and Sezal had reverted to their human guises, the latter speaking to Dalbir.

  “You’re studying to be a lorist,” Sezal was saying. “And we know Bakshi is well versed in mythology. Are there any places in particular you think he would have hidden parts of an asura’s body?”

  “Unless you can think of any, Tavinder?” Vivaan asked coolly. “Ah, but that’s right—you often skipped such lessons to go play by the river.”

  Tav bristled.

 

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