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MY EYES SQUINTED AT the darkness, before they found the familiar shape of Amir before me. He was standing upright, with his hands clasped together behind him, so unnaturally I wondered if it was a military stance. As I took a tentative step closer, he stepped back into a sliver of light peeking out from the library. He seemed to have been waiting patiently, although I had no idea how long he had been there.
“Amir. I mean, Mr. Qureshi. What are you doing here?” My fingers curled into fists, tightening around my parents’ trinkets.
“I was just waiting on you to return from your outing.”
“Why?” I frowned. Was he going to tell Lady POW? I could not say if she would be happy or not, but if I had to bet on it, I would have said she would have been less than pleased. Especially since Amir had caught me.
“I was on my way to return this to you.” He pulled out the small book from behind his back. “I am somewhat surprised—but not entirely—to find you coming back from an unauthorized outing.”
“It wasn’t like I left the house.” I shoved my father’s watch into my greatcoat pocket before reaching for the book.
It was the same book, of course. The etching of the book’s cover was clear, with its elegant and intricate design carved into the leather. I held it between my hands as my mother’s locket dangled from my fingers, and for a moment, I wondered if I would feel closer to her by merely holding it, in just seeing it as something she had once owned.
Nothing staggering or supernatural happened as I stood there—as far as I could see, anyway. But as the moment passed, slowly and quietly, I remembered I had asked God for a friend before, and I wondered if this was God’s way of convicting me as well as answering my prayers.
He would do this to me.
I looked back at Amir.
“You have my sincerest apologies over the matter of its theft,” Amir said softly. “As you no doubt know, from our earlier encounter, I loved your mother very much. Seeing you—and her book—brought out the worst part of me that day. I pray you will forgive my lapse in manners and judgment.”
I looked back at the book, opening it up, only to see scrawls of finely shaped letters, written in nearly perfect lines. It was my mother’s handwriting, though I did not recognize the language or the words she had written. My eyes lingered over the preciseness of her hand, before looking up once more at Amir.
I do not want to like you.
“If it makes you feel better, your mother did not like me at first, either.”
“Huh?” I blinked, and I blushed, realizing I had spoken my thoughts aloud. I sighed. “Oh.”
“I cannot imagine Lady POW tells you a lot of stories of Naděžda,” he said. “Would you like to hear one?”
“Lady POW?” I arched my brow appreciatively. “You are calling her that, too?”
“You were right. It is more efficient.”
“You don’t have to call her that so I will like you.” I slipped my mother’s locket into the other pocket of my coat.
“I was not doing so with that intention. I had to work to win your mother over, too, you know. If you talk with me, I’ll tell you the story of how we first met.”
I said nothing, and even in the dim lighting, I could see Amir was smiling, letting that mustache of his curl upward along his upper lip.
“I know you are very curious about her, mademoiselle. You need not allow your pride to get in the way of your happiness.”
“Do you want me to talk with you or not?” I scoffed. “You shouldn’t tell me how you are going to make me do what you want if you want me to do what you want.”
“I only want you to do what you want.”
I wanted that, too.
“Fine,” I said, before pushing open the library door. The room was lit to full brightness, with candelabras flickering at me as I walked toward my father’s desk. The fireplace was full of dying light, the dulling embers offering more comfort despite less warmth.
“Your mother loved books,” Amir said. “It was one of the reasons she wrote as much as she did. Some of the books she read have notes along the margins. I found a few the other day when I was in here.”
“The second time we met?”
He nodded. “The book you have now was the last journal she wrote before ... before she passed.”
I opened the book, looking down at the written lines. Just like before, I was not able to decipher the writing. “I can’t read it.”
“I was up all night with it,” Amir admitted. “I wanted to give it back after earlier. But I could not tear myself away from it without finishing it. I hope you will forgive me this intrusion, too.”
“It is written in a language and script I don’t recognize. I didn’t even realize it was written instead of printed before.” I thumbed through the pages, carefully at first and then more comfortably, as I looked for numbers or any sign that I would be able to translate some part of the message. “I do not know why my stepmother thought I would be able to sell it if it was her journal.”
Amir came up beside me, looking over my shoulder. “It is written in Arabic, but it reads from front to back. It was an odd system of compromise Naděžda and I worked out when we became friends. She would work on her Arabic while I learned to read books from left to right.”
“So you’ve read all of it?” I asked, looking back up at him accusingly.
“Not all of it.” He shook his head. “I know I stole the book from you, and I know stealing is wrong. I’m here to make amends. But before you get angry, you should remember that you are not the only one who feels robbed since her death.”
Amir’s sadness suddenly reminded me of my father. When my mother came up in conversations, the rare times that she did after her death, he wore the same downcast expression as Amir, right down to the same glittering eyes and softened gaze.
I leaned back against the desk. “I wasn’t about to get angry,” I lied.
“You were, too.” Amir crossed his arms. “I’ve known you now for close to a fortnight. Your nostrils flare open and you clench your fists when you are angry.”
“I can do that for other reasons.” I held up my hand in protest, and it was then I noticed it was indeed curled into a fist.
Amir was kind enough not to laugh at me, although it might have made me feel better. I was grateful that I did not have a mirror to show me what my nose looked like.
“Naděžda had similar foibles. She would also stamp her foot and tap her toe if she was impatient. When we worked together on her business for the Order, we had more than one captive who would complain. One even broke down at what he called the torture of her incessant nature.”
“You worked with her and the Order of the Crystal Daggers?”
Amir nodded. “That was originally how we met. She was fifteen and visiting India with Lady POW and Harshad—”
“How long have they known each other, anyway?” I asked. “How old is he? Seventy?”
“Seventy-two, next spring,” Amir said. “Lady Penelope is only a few years younger. They have known each other since at least 1825, when your mother was born.”
“Forty-five years is a long time to hate someone.”
“This likely has more to do with love than hate.”
The familiar turn of phrase took me back into the world of The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. I thought of all my trips into the library. “You have read Shakespeare?”
Amir smiled. “I have lived in London for many years, under the service of Lady Penelope and the League of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Yes, mademoiselle, I know my Shakespeare.”
“The League of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” I frowned at the foreign name. “So you are not actually part of the Order of the Crystal Daggers?”
“No, I am not. But I remain Lady Penelope’s fiercest ally.” He put his hand on the curved dagger at his side. “This is a Wahabite Jambiya, a special dagger that comes from my homeland. It is our choice of weapon, when it is needed.”
“Such as when we first met?” I asked, cracking my knuckles. I decided to circle the conversation around to the League again later.
“Yes, mademoiselle.” Amir took the dagger out of the wooden sheath and held it out to me, hilt first. Curiosity compelled me to take it.
“When Lady Penelope succeeds in making Harshad teach you, weapons such as this will be among the first ones you master. A sword is commonplace, and while a rapier might serve you best, they are often cumbersome for the spy and subtle attacker.”
“It’s beautiful.” Studying it, I saw the inscription down the side, in foreign letters and unusual markings. Some of them were similar to the writing in my mother’s journal.
“Arabic,” he explained. “This is the language I was speaking with your beloved, when we first met.”
“My beloved?”
“The boy who interrupted our battle, back in the alley.”
At the mention of Ferdy, I forced myself not to blush. “He’s not my beloved.”
“He seemed to think he was,” Amir said, making me frown.
What did Ferdy say to Amir?
As much as I wondered, I decided to worry about that another day. I turned back to the dagger. “What does it say?”
“A blessing for the wielder’s protection from Allah.”
“Allah?”
“The Arabic word for God, although there are significant differences between the religious views on God himself. Many in the Ottoman Empire follow Mohammadism.”
“Oh,” I said. “Bohemia is mostly Catholic, although there is more Protestantism here in recent decades. And there is the Jewish population, too, across the Vltava.”
Amir nodded. “I’ve become very familiar with the Anglican Church, serving Lady Penelope. And you are right. In the Western world, there are not many Muslims.”
“Are you a Muslim?” I asked, before realizing I was being more than a little too upfront.
“Not anymore.” He shook his head. “I once was lost, but now I am found.”
Another familiar phrase. “John Newton.”
Amir nodded. “I grew up with an affinity for music, despite my father’s disdain for it. Never has my soul been so gratified than by Handel’s Messiah. But that story is for another day, as I have this one to tell first.”
“Sorry,” I murmured. “I did not mean to interrupt.”
“It is no trouble. But this story is more enjoyable than that one, I can assure you, and it is less complicated. The differences between Eastern and Western minds are extraordinary.”
“So tell me then.” I wanted to hear about my mother.
“When I was much younger, even younger than you, I was working near Constantinople as a medical student, under my father,” Amir said. “My Abba, my father, met Harshad as he cared for some of Harshad’s ... sources, most of whom were not so willing to tell their secrets.”
“You mean after Harshad beat them, he sent for your father.” I smiled at the thought as he nodded. “And you followed your father in medicine.”
“I followed my father in every aspect of my life, until I met Naděžda.”
I said nothing. His tone said it all. My mother had driven a deep wedge between Amir and his father, and Amir had chosen Máma in the end.
“The day I met her, my life changed.” He looked over at me, and I did not have to guess that he was thinking the same thing of meeting me. “I had never seen such blue eyes before. And she was so spirited, unlike any other woman I had met before. She could argue with me in a way that was smart and charming, and even after I admitted my infatuation with her, her arguments still stood better than mine in a way that was uncomfortable.”
“I don’t remember her like that at all,” I said, looking around the library as if I was suddenly in search of her ghost. “She was very gentle and soft. She taught me how to read, and she would spend long days with me while Ben was off with my father. He probably followed him around like you did yours.”
“That is why I think your brother and I get along so well,” Amir said. “Both of us understand the pain of a father’s rejection over something we could not help.”
I saw his gaze fall to the looped scar on his hand, and I wondered if that injury had been what had turned Amir’s father away from him. Glancing down at the book in my hand, I saw that Amir’s scar was the same shape as the design on the cover.
Amir cleared his throat a moment later. “But we were talking about your mother,” he said. “I met her in Agra, a city in the northern part of India. Harshad had asked my father to join him as his medic when he returned to India for a business trip of sorts. I doubt my father would have accepted his offer, if it was not for the political unrest facing the Sultan at the time.”
“But he did accept, and you went along with him.”
“My father learned his trade from the Ottoman Army. After he retired, he was a devout man of faith. When he heard Harshad was going to Agra, he was eager to go and see the Taj Mahal so he could worship in its legendary mosque.”
“I’ve seen some drawings and maps of the Taj Mahal,” I said. “It is beautiful. I did not know it was also a place of worship. I thought it was just a tomb.”
“It is that and more. And it is beautiful, but I barely noticed it at the time, of course.” Amir’s eyes looked off into the distance, and I wondered if he was somehow meeting my mother all over again.
“Harshad was introducing me and my father to his business partner there. By then, my father was devoted to Harshad. He was a good man, if not a Muslim, and a rich one, too. Abba was hoping to convince them to pay for my remaining medical education. He had known Harshad long enough to know our family could earn much more if I was trained in Western and Eastern medication.”
“It did not go as planned, I take it.”
“No.” Amir smiled. “Abba was annoyed to find Harshad’s business partner was a woman, and a British one at that. I only found that out later, of course. When you are young, the complicated nature of politics, and what it does to people, is elusive. I did not understand my father’s concern over the British Empire at the time; I was taught they were the enemy, but one that we could get along with, if they would only play by the rules.”
“I take it Lady POW made her usual impression.”
“She did. She has her own rules.”
I laughed. “That’s for sure.”
“When they met, Naděžda and I also met. She was angry with me quickly enough, just as you were.”
“Did you steal a book from her, too?” I asked, this time with a small, teasing smile.
“No.” He laughed. “I’m afraid the reason is much worse. My manners were somewhat lacking, especially in British terms. This was her first trip into the East, and from what she told me, it was to get away from her father. Lady POW corrected her behavior, but Naděžda was unsettled by my ‘mongrel ways,’ and the moment our parents were distracted, she did not hesitate to tell me so.”
“I don’t know why you even liked her.” I thought of all the diverse communities in Prague. If I were offended at every little slip in manners, I would have had to stay home.
“I am not sure I did like her, at first,” Amir admitted. “But there was something about her that ... something I recognized. Eventually, we grew on each other and became inseparable, especially when I was done with my education and she was initiated into the Order.”
“Did you go on adventures together?”
“That is one way to say it.” Amir smiled, and from his expression, I knew he would refrain from telling me the whole story. I was not sure I wanted to hear it, either, from the sad joy I saw in his eyes.
“We worked through London and Germany, protecting emissaries and investigating murders and other crimes. We did this for many years, before we ... before she left for her last mission to Prague.”
I hugged the book in hands to my chest. I wanted to ask him why she left, but there was something too cruel about that question. “You don’t have to tell me anymore.”
“Yes, I do.” He nodded toward the book again. “I owe you the truth.”
I could not argue with him, even though I wanted to.
“She left at the end of 1847, and I never heard from her after that. It was only after the Revolution concluded the following year that I heard from Lady POW. Your grandmother told me that Naděžda had married and resigned her position from the Order. That was all.”
“She did not even tell you why she stayed in Prague?”
“Another reason I was more eager to steal the book,” he admitted. “We did not end our friendship on a cordial note.”
I was not able to stop myself from putting my hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry. I hope whatever is in here has given you peace.”
“Thank you.”
I waited for him to tell me what he had found, but he said nothing more.
As I looked at Amir, I no longer saw a Turkish book thief. I saw a man who was desperately in love and unable to stop himself from any act of depravity if it would bring him closer to the answers he sought. In some ways, we were both searching for her; I was looking to find the woman that she had been, and he was determined to find out the woman she had become.
“Thank you for telling me,” I said quietly, trying to give him a brave smile.
There was a rustling sound outside the door, and Amir reached out for my hand. “It seems that the morning has come. We should get you back to your room, mademoiselle.”
“That’s true.” As I took his arm, I saw the scar on his hand and stared at it. “I suppose you can call me Eleanora now. There’s no need for formalities, right?”
“Are you saying you prefer the casualties?”
I gave him a small smile, grateful for his levity. “Maybe. We’ll have to see how it goes when Harshad and Lady POW allow me to begin fighting.”
“As much as it is something you might want, I hope you will not rush into it too eagerly. Death is not something to be eager for.”
“I think it is more that I want their approval,” I admitted, somewhat surprised I said it aloud. But after a moment, I decided it was not so strange.
In some ways, it is much easier to be honest with another person than it is to admit things to even yourself.
“Do not allow your desire to acquire that get in your way of being free. If you want to be free, truly free, you should know that you answer to the truth, not to Lady Penelope or Harshad. Not even yourself at times.”
I thought about that for a long moment, before deciding Amir was right.
“If you do want to progress in this field, I believe you are doing the right thing by practicing. I have studied many years as a medical student, but I would not have learned even half of what I know if I had not been paying attention to the condition around me, and if I had not been proactive in seeking out new knowledge.”
Amir’s logic impressed itself on me in that moment. He was right. Whether I failed or succeeded was not up to my teachers; it was up to me, and I had to take that responsibility seriously.
And, I thought, that was what I was doing earlier this morning. And that reminded me of my own discoveries.
“Wait.” I gripped Amir’s hand under my own. “That reminds me. I did actually learn something helpful today, and it is very important. It’s about our mission.”
I quickly told Amir what I had heard from Cecilia and Alex, about how Lord Maximillian knew there was a secret heir to the throne of Bohemia, about how he was threatening Cecilia, and how Alex and Cecilia were likely plotting something in revenge.
When I was done, Amir looked back at the fireplace.
“Well then, I will send for tea. Lady POW and Harshad will want to hear this news for sure.”
“You don’t seem surprised by this,” I said.
Amir nodded to the book in my hands. “Your mother detailed her last mission in her journal, among other things. It seems Empress Maria Anna was pregnant when she arrived, which is why she worked so hard to persuade your father to protect the king.”
“She would have done that.” I thought of my mother, how gentle and wonderful she had been with me when I was a child. “She always wanted children.”
“I know.” There was something new and broken in Amir’s voice. He cleared his throat a moment later. “I was going to inform Harshad and Madame when they awoke this morning.”
Before I could ask him another question or say anything else, he slipped his hand free from mine. “Go and change, Eleanora. I will summon the others.”
“Wait.” I slowly held out my mother’s journal to Amir. “I can’t read this anyway. You might as well have it.”
“Are you certain?” he asked.
“I have other things of hers,” I said, gripping my mother’s locket inside my coat as he took the book from me. The design on the book and his scar seemed to align as he held it. “And if there is proof in her journal that what Cecilia said is true about the king’s son, maybe we can use that to find him.”
“Thank you.” Amir clutched the book to his chest, and, as much as it hurt, I knew I was doing the right thing. “If it is agreeable, I would rather keep the matter of her book between us. Your grandmother will be willing to investigate Lady Cecilia’s claim, just by virtue of her saying it.”
“Maybe you should say by vice instead of virtue.” I wrinkled my nose.
Amir smiled. “This does mean that you will have to tell Lady POW of your nighttime adventure.”
I bit my lip. If Lady POW learned of my adventure, it was possible that it would be harder for Ben to sneak me away from the Royal Summerhouse. I did not want to miss meeting Ferdy and his friends. “Maybe we should wait to tell her then.”
“Are you worried about Lady POW’s response?” Amir asked. “There is nothing to worry about. She will be pleased once she learns of your information. Tulia has still refused to meet with us, and Harshad is still looking for a doctor or apothecary who sells the silver thallis herb in Prague.”
“I will tell you why I’d like to wait, but I want your word that you will not say anything to Lady POW about it.”
Amir’s mustache twitched in amusement. “You really are your mother’s daughter, Eleanora. Tell me what your plan is, and I will find a way to help you.”