Tables Turned
The Genja was a holy river, revered and feared by the humans who’d lived on its banks since the time of the ancient world. It was one of the greatest sources of magic in all of Jaira, and also connected the physical world to the world of Kush. To Prem, beneath the water’s surface, it felt like looking into another world. The sun was still falling in the evening sky above the surface, but underwater she saw a spectacle of colors: blues, greens, purples, reds, some shades Prem couldn’t even name. There were yaksha lights, spinning globes of dual-colored luminescence that darted about. Down below, in the darkest water on the very edge of sight she saw a huge scaly body, probably a rachsei or a water dragon, slithering in the mud, moving with the deeper current.
The world Prem lived in wasn’t just one of black-hearted killers, but also one of spirits and demons, creatures that saw a pair of mortals in deeper water as a curiosity, a meal, or both. If Prem could see them then they could certainly see her, but that meant they could sense Vati as well: the spirit’s power radiated from her like sunlight shining through a shard of blue sapphire. The Kushin that were coming towards her—some curious, but others with less friendly intent—veered away just as fast. The demon living inside of Prem was a menace, but his presence also protected her.
The barge pulled them along at a faster speed than Prem could swim by herself. Mariander had fallen into a strange trance—her breathing was keeping him alive, but it felt more like she breathed for him, forcing him to draw in every breath, rather than just providing the air he needed to survive. The continued sensation of his lips against hers was disquieting, even disturbing: his mouth was firm yet pliant, and his tongue kept brushing hers as she blew into his mouth, saving his life, one breath at a time. The feeling of it made her stomach flutter, but it also made her think more of Vati, and the distraction of that just annoyed her even more.
The question of the mysterious figure with the fiery eyes troubled Prem, of who they were or what they wanted. Perhaps it wasn’t Prem that he wanted at all—Mariander had been the target, not her. He would be a high-profile target, and his mother’s identity appeared to be a poorly-kept secret, which made the Deputy very tempting prey.
Dwelling on it made Prem angry: Mariander was a goddamn fool, getting himself attacked and very nearly killed. And now here she was saving his life, of all things, hardly the behavior of some “pure-blooded” murderess. She should just let him sink to the bottom, to bleed to death or to drown. It would serve him right. On the other hand, nuisance or not, the thought of saving Mariander from the Red-Eye cultists just to let him fill some river demon’s belly felt like a waste of effort.
Prem pushed off from the barge, drifting with Mariander a short distance while also dodging the ship’s propellers before they emerged top-side at last. The sky looked like it was bleeding orange and red, interspersed with dark blue and violet stripes. The sun was nearly gone beyond the horizon; soon, the moon would rise. The Deputy took a deep, shuddering breath of fresh air when they breached the surface, but aside from that he hung limp in her arms, ready to slip under the water again if she let go.
Up ahead, the Genja opened out into a bay called the Konya. The barge followed a stream of steady traffic heading out for deeper waters, while Prem pulled Mariander toward an old, rickety-looking dock a short distance away. The man’s coat was soaked through, and he groaned as she pushed him onto the creaking boards. She climbed out next and then rolled him onto his side, but otherwise he didn’t move.
“You’re causing me a great deal of trouble, Deputy.” He didn’t respond, but Prem didn’t expect him to. “Gods.” She wiped her face dry with both hands. “When did my life get so complicated?” she added, biting the inside of her cheek again.
There was no one around to see them on the docks, which felt like better luck than Prem deserved. With great effort, she managed to stand up again with him slung across her shoulders once more. She was glad for the chill of their clothes, if only to soothe her heated muscles and the strain of holding him aloft—Vati gave her the strength, but it was still her body that bent under the heavy weight. As water dripped and pooled under her feet, Prem set her teeth and began to walk.
They’d arrived in the part of the city called the Black Bay, a sprawling collection of old wooden shanties, speakeasies, workshops, brothels, shipyards and gambling halls, all squatting in the shadows of immense palaces, some as opulent as anything built in the Gilded Quarter. Those mansions held the beating hearts of the criminal underworld, controlled by gangs with names like the Chatoor Reds, Asakona Bhai, the Hertham Tigers, and Bada Katki, each fighting for dominance over the other. Parliament and the Royals struggled for political control of the capital’s ruling government, but the gangs fought a more physical and bloody turf war for control of the city’s pale underbelly. It reminded Prem of the press clippings in Gomati’s tiny cell in the Waterback, reporting on the Idrayani and Hogenkal gang war of almost a decade ago, a conflict Prem took a very personal part in back then.
The Bay was one of the oldest parts of Bhai Mandwa, and it was completely under the thrall of the gangsters that controlled it, so the radical change that had transformed the rest of the capital was slower to take root there. The streets had a winding, laborious route to them, caused by the buildings pressing in close together. A miasma hung over the Bay, a constant black and gray smog born from tall chimneys of dilapidated warehouses, steaming latrines, barred sewers and smoldering peat fires that burned year-round without ceasing. Being in the company of an injured policeman could raise all sorts of unpleasant questions that Prem didn’t want to answer. The Parliamentary Police could often be found in large numbers on the Bay’s periphery, but they rarely ventured inside due to a long-standing—if unspoken—truce between the authorities and the gangs. They sometimes dared to enter in large numbers when making a high-profile arrest, but that rarely led to anything resembling serious reform.
Prem took the shortest path through the back streets and alleys, not speaking to anyone. Those streets would be dangerous to a stranger, but Prem knew the Bay better than most. At that time of night, the only people out were whores desperate enough to ply their wares alone, drunks too poor to afford even the cheapest saloon, cutthroats and gangsters too inept to mug anyone worth more than half a rupee, and the cutpurses hungry enough to risk stealing from all of them. Prem didn’t see any spirits or ghosts wandering about, which often rose with the moon to haunt the muddy streets or trick passers-by with their ethereal illusions. On that night anyone who saw Prem bearing her heavy burden, saw her face and focused, angry eyes knew better than to cross her path. The Bay’s denizens—living or otherwise—left her alone.
A swell of dark, angry clouds blew in from sea, and thunder boomed overhead with the promise of rain. Mariander’s wet clothes did some work to keep the blood inside his body, but now the river’s chill was gone and Prem panted for breath, sweating profusely, spitting out every profanity Vati had ever taught her. The man probably weighed fifteen or sixteen stone at least, so that slowed her down considerably. She’d lost count of the times she regretted saving his life, not to mention contemplating finishing him off to save herself the trouble.
It was all Preet’s fault, pushing Prem out of the quiet safety of the palace and back into the dark, stinking world of her youth with all of its blood, pain and heartache. But that made it Priya’s fault, too—the sweet-faced Rani, with her easy smile and girlish curls, her pierced nose and bright eyes that belied her need to meddle in everything. Or maybe the blame belonged to Prem most of all: once a stone-cold killer, now she’d been reduced to lugging around a bleeding policeman like a soft-hearted fool. What other explanation could there be? Prem was angry, but she tapped into that tumult of emotions and used it to keep herself moving towards her objective.
Prem emerged from the latest alley onto a wide street of mud lined with corrugated steel shanties, called the Beautiful Way by the locals with no small amount of irony. Her destination was a two-room shack with a sloped sheet-metal roof. Three geckos were painted in a circle under a sign that said FORTUNE TELLHER in matching white paint, with the H struck out. On the door was a familiar seven-pointed star, painted bright red.
There was a blinding flash as a long tail of light stretched from the clouds all the way to the water’s surface in the middle of the bay—for a split second, the air was bright and clear as a winter’s morning. A loud snarl of thunder followed it. With sparks dancing in her eyes, Prem kicked open the front door.
The room’s interior was draped in black and purple silk. A young, pretty woman with a round russet face and a gold ring in her right nostril sat behind a square table, dressed in dark violet. She wore a silk scarf with a white pearl headdress, as well as a matching set of dangling earrings and a long chain that stretched from the piercing in her nose to her right ear. She waved her hands over a wide-mouthed cup filled with clear water that glowed with an eerie light. On the other side of the table, their backs to Prem, sat a young man and woman, holding hands. All three of them looked up as she entered, their mouths open, caught in the middle of what appeared to be some kind of arcane ritual.
“I’m borrowing your room, Yash,” Prem said to the woman in the headdress. With a hard grunt, she carried her burden inside through the narrow doorway, stomped her muddy boots across the wooden floor into the shanty’s side room, kicking the door open to enter, then shutting it again in the same fashion.
The second room was quite boring in comparison to the first. It had a single bed against the far wall; a window fitted with unbroken glass, which was a small luxury in the Bay; a wooden chest for storing clothes; several shelves that held a few books and other paraphernalia, and an empty terrarium of fogged glass on a table next to the bed. An oil lantern hung from the ceiling on slender chains of tarnished brass. Prem rolled her burden onto the bed then went down to her knees on the floor and sucked in long, sweet breaths of air, relieved at last. She stayed down for a few moments, grumbling to herself, her forehead resting on the cool, wooden floor.
Prem heard the door open, followed by the voice of the woman in the purple headdress. “Prem, if you had to pick tonight to start showing an interest in men, couldn’t you have found somewhere else to do it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Yash,” Prem said with a groan. “And he’s not my man.”
Yash was a daayani, a witch and a very skilled one at that, but she was also a flirt and a loudmouth, even on her best days. Yash was also one of few people Prem could call a friend, and probably more than that. They met years ago: Prem, a hungry street rat, skulking through the muddy streets looking for a dry place to sleep; Yash, thrown out by her master for not relinquishing what he considered to be his fair share of her earnings. The girls were an unlikely pairing—the sharp-tongued witch and the dead-eyed killer—but the relationship endured almost in spite of their differences. Yash eventually proved trustworthy enough for Prem to tell her the truth, that the child killer with the cold stare and the long-lost mari were the same person. The two girls learned to trust each other, clung to each other, found comfort with one another—life was cruel, and friends were hard to come by.
The witch removed her headdress and started unfastening her dangling earrings. Her hair was thick, dark and lovely, curled in ringlets around her face. “I had a silversmith’s son from West End come into my shop asking if his dead grandmother would let him marry a Bay girl. Do you have any idea how often that kind of opportunity falls into my lap? Gods… I had those two eating out of my hand!”
Prem stretched out her arms across the floor and arched her back like a tigress, wincing as something popped just above her pelvis. “You say that about everyone,” she said before pushing up, ignoring the ache that stretched from her shoulders to her knees. “And you still haven’t fixed your sign.”
Yash shrugged. “I told you, it’s a conversation starter.” She eyed the man on her bed for a moment. “He’s an attractive one, isn’t he? Good choice. Where’d you find him?”
“At the Red Eye Temple.” Prem ignored Yash’s not-so-subtle implication and gave the man a quick checking over. Mariander was still breathing, but they were shallow breaths and his face was now a sickly, muddy brown hue.
“Ah-ha. That sounds like you.” The witch chortled and smacked her lips like an old woman with mouthful of gossip and stubbed teeth. “You know what that crazy head-mate of yours will do to you if he figures out what you’re up to.”
“Well, that would require me being ‘up to’ anything in the first place, now wouldn’t it?” Prem pointed at the empty terrarium. “Also, your tank is empty.” She cast a look downwards in alarm, fighting the sudden urge to panic or to jump up next to Mariander. “That damn snake of yours better not be coiled up under the bed again.”
“Relax,” Yash said with a laugh. “Babu’s coiled up on my chair in the other room.”
“Well, you’re going to need him soon.” Mariander’s chest wound still pulsed with blood at a regular rhythm that matched his slow breathing, and he had a long, ragged cut on the outside of his left leg. Prem pulled out one of her kukris, reached over to cut his wet clothes out of the way, but stopped when she heard a soft, chirping sound. For a second she thought it was Mariander, but his face was still slack, eyes closed, opened mouth gasping for each small, pained breath. She then slid her gaze down to the hood of his coat, bunched up beneath his neck—there was a long hump shifting under the soaked cloth, followed by a twinkling pair of red eyes looking back at her.
“Hello,” Yash said, sounding intrigued. “He has a familiar.”
Prem stayed very still as the creature slithered out of Mariander’s hood like a serpent, but it moved on four legs, and had a long body covered in slick, brown fur; it bristled and shook itself dry, throwing out a tiny cloud of droplets. The mongoose was over two feet long from nose to tail with fur stuck out on all sides like a jamba weed, but it wasn’t all flesh: the creature’s hind legs were metallic, with perfectly-carved paws and tiny claws made of copper or brass. The workmanship was very fine, given how precisely the tiny creature moved and how the gears of its hindquarters operated.
Yash’s statement surprised Prem, but she didn’t question it. She sensed a consciousness in the creature, something aware and watching her. Familiars were animals possessed by Kushin, used by magic users to help contact more powerful spirits and demons. It never occurred to her that Mariander could be a magician—the man only got more and more mysterious.
The little mongoose pushed to an upright position, poised on its tiny metal legs, fur puffed up, hackles raised, but it didn’t attack. It blinked both ruby eyes at Prem several times. They stared at one another for a long moment, both waiting for the other to do something. The animal’s spirit was less powerful than a being like Vati, like a field mouse staring down a lion, but the creature was intrigued by Prem, she could tell that much.
Prem pointed at Mariander with the point of her knife. “I’m going to check his wounds before he bleeds out. Understood?” The little one seemed surprised that she spoke to it at all, but the mongoose relented, turning around and crawling up to the pillow next to its master’s head where it began grooming itself, licking both front paws and brushing them across its tapered head to smooth down the moist fur.
Mariander was dressed in dark civilian clothing, which just made him stand out even more in Prem’s opinion. She sliced his shirt right up the middle before peeling it away from the stab wound. He was well-built, or Prem thought so, even as she wondered why she should care about his physique at all. Standing out on the curve of his right shoulder was a tattoo, the words Truth Alone blending into the dusky tone of his flesh.
“Is that what I think it is?” Yash said, leaning over Prem’s shoulder.
“It’s the motto of the Parliamentary Police.” Prem did her best impression of one of Preet’s snorts. “What an idiot.” She looked at the mongoose. “Your master is an idiot,” she told it. “Better if he just walked into that temple with his uniform on.”
“You saved one of the bluebottles, Prem?” Yash sounded aghast. “Since when do you hang out with the Police? Did you start taking laudanum on a lark?”
“Some of the Red Eyes were trying to kill him!” Prem was flustered, feeling awkward all over again, like talking to one of her sisters. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“You should kill him yourself,” Yash said with a nod.
Prem would have said the same thing herself years ago, probably even followed through with it. Now, with reluctance, she shook her head. “I… I can’t this time. I already saved his life.”
“Yes, and look at how well that’s turned out so far.” Yash stepped out of the room with a shake of her head, calling back as she went: “And would it kill you not to completely ruin another one of my bedspreads this time? Not to mention the mud you tracked all over my floor!” Prem didn’t answer, and was glad Yash couldn’t see her blushing.
Pushing the woman’s complaints—and a significant amount of embarrassment—aside, Prem cut the cloth away from the wound on Mariander’s left leg next, but the injury was shallow and she pressed the soaked cloth back against it to keep the wound sealed. The damage to his midsection concerned her more, and there was nothing but his shirt and coat to stem the crimson mess that bubbled and oozed out onto his belly. His veins spread out from the wound, visible like the strands of a spider’s web or black fractures shot across a pane of glass. She knew what that meant all too well: certain poisons always left a particular calling card. It would be just like a Red-Eye killer to poison his blade first.
Possession by a water demon meant Prem possessed certain skills, far more than just the power to dry out her clothes. Stretching out her hand above Mariander’s stab wound, Prem curled her fingers like she intended to sink her fingernails into his ruined flesh. Her eyes closed to slits before they opened again, shining as bright as the Genja on the night of a full moon. Prem slowed her breathing down, following the quiet, measured beating of her heart.
Mariander was injured, but more than that, his body was impure, and that impurity spread with every shallow beat of his heart. The water and his chilled flesh had slowed its spread, but now she had control of it and began to coax the poison out, drop by drop—the bleeding slowed and nearly stopped as a thick, copious substance, black like tar and with a foul stench, began to trickle up from the wound, rising into the waiting basket of her curled fingers.
“Yash, get back in here!” Outside, the threat of a new storm finally became reality as fat, heavy drops hit the roof of the wooden shack. In seconds, the sound of falling rain went from a whisper to a roar.
“What, what is it?”
“Just get in here.” Prem forced calm into her voice. “And bring that sorry excuse for a belt in with you.” Nearly all of the poison was removed moments later, hanging like a perfect black sphere inside of Prem’s fingers. The discoloration under Mariander’s poisoned flesh was completely gone then, and his breathing seemed deeper, slower, less laborious.
Yash reappeared, carrying a malabara—a long, brown-scaled snake—around her shoulders like a dancer in a striptease house. Prem remembered spending quite a bit of time in such places, often in Yash’s company. Her face got hot again, distracting her from the task at hand.
“You shouldn’t talk about Babu that way, Prem,” the witch said, scratching one fingernail under the snake’s chin. “No, Auntie Prem’s not nice at all, is she, Babu?” Babu, the witch’s familiar, flicked his tongue in response. Babu’s appearance caused the mongoose to fluff up its fur and it gave a loud, angry chirp in warning while climbing onto the unconscious Mariander’s shoulder.
“That’s enough out of you,” Prem told the mongoose. “I’ve drawn out the poison,” she said to Yash, “but I can’t do anything about his injuries. I need you for that.” Prem turned her hand over with the trapped ball of congealed poison before opening her fingers. The black sphere began to bubble with a slow fizzing sound. Prem held her breath as the toxin rose in a trail of black vapor that dissipated and vanished as it reached the ceiling.
“Oh, is that right?” Yash sounded amused. “You need me, do you?”
“Yash—’’
“You still owe me for the séance you interrupted earlier.”
Now Prem growled. “You want to talk to spirits? That can be arranged.”
Yash stuck out her tongue. “Spoil-sport. What’s got you so worked up over someone like him, Prem? You get tired of us freaks and decided to swap sheets with somebody normal for a change?”
It wasn’t an argument Prem wanted at any length, and that forced her to contain her temper. “It’s my fault he ended up like this. I owe him.”
Yash rolled her eyes. “You’re a demon-possessed murderess, Prem, not a goddamn wet nurse. It’s not your job to save people. Given how badly you fouled up this time, I hope you’ve learned your lesson. Stick with what you know best.” There was a hint of something sympathetic in Yash’s voice, but she sounded impatient more than anything.
“Just fix him, Yash.” Prem moved to the foot of the bed without another word. The only injury she carried was to her pride, since the witch’s chiding wasn’t without some merit.
Yash muttered under her breath while turning to her shelves, fetching a small clay jar. “You’re the water wench. Get me some of it—a handful should be sufficient.” Her instructions given, the daayani opened the jar and grabbed a thick pinch of what looked like dirt, sprinkling it onto the hollow of Mariander’s chest.
Mantriks—magicians like Pranay—honed their craft over years of tutelage and memorization, learning to call on the spirits for aid. A daayani’s magic, in contrast, was innate and unpredictable, allowing a witch to compel a spirit’s obedience through the power of her own will. Pranay’s magic was like a scalpel as it cut, precise and tightly-controlled; Yash’s power was as subtle as swinging a parashu axe—brutally effective, but it could chop off her own leg if she didn’t wield it properly.
Prem only had to open her hands and form a thought before some of the abundant moisture in the air congealed in her cupped palms, which she held out for the other woman. Yash dipped the fingers of one hand into Prem’s several times, their fingertips brushing together. The witch seemed to not notice as she flicked the gathered moisture in thick drops atop the dust pile, like a cook seasoning a dish of dal makhni. “Hear me, spirits of Uthav,” Yash said. “Hear me, spirits of Apjal.” The witch then pricked the tip of her little finger and squeezed several drops of blood onto the dirt pile. “Hear me, Kushin, and answer my call!”
For a moment, all Prem heard was the loud, steady hum of the rain falling outside. She was no stranger to magic, so she knew what to expect: human beings were creatures of all five elements, but a spell of healing affected flesh and blood, which involved earth and water. Earth spirits tended to be even-tempered while water spirits were often wild and irritable, and there was no way to know what spirit would answer Yash’s summons. The witch kept her face in a tight mask of concentration, and Babu’s eyes shone like green flames in the dark. The mongoose’s red eyes glittered as well, but it didn’t stir or make a sound.
A sudden heaviness filled the air, and it felt to Prem like she was breathing through a wet cloth. Water began to drip down on her head. The ceiling went dark, as if the rain coming down was making the metal roof rust and melt away; the hanging lantern popped and crackled as drops fell onto the hot metal casing. Then the falling moisture coalesced and took shape above Mariander’s chest. The thing lost its form every few seconds, transforming and changing, fighting Yash’s control over it. For a moment it looked like Yash might lose that fight, but soon the liquid shape solidified and became more distinct, forming into a humanoid face with lidless eyes and shimmering flesh.
The Kushin turned to Prem first. “Greetings, vessel-Sachin.” It had a voice similar to Vati’s, sounding both musical and discordant at the same time, but the tone also sounded almost respectful. Then it looked to Yash. “Why have you summoned me, witch?”
“The male human is injured, O Spirit,” Yash said. She spoke respectfully as well, even though she was the one in control—better to convince a willing spirit than to force an unwilling one, Prem supposed. “I would ask that you heal his injuries, lest he die.”
“It is the way of mortals to die,” the spirit said in a dismissive voice. Prem could sense Vati’s unspoken agreement with such sentiments.
If Yash was surprised by the response, she didn’t show it. “Be that as it may, O Spirit, his death would be troublesome to us. Will you not assist us in this?”
The water spirit gave a derisive sniff. “Your mortal has lost a great deal of blood and is already near death. I see no reason to grant this request. Release me.”
Yash licked her lips, gave Prem a sidelong look. “The man is…precious to Sachin, O Spirit—it would vex her and the one within her if he were to die.”
Prem almost shot Yash a look of disbelief, but forced herself not to react.
“Truly?” The spirit sounded surprised and looked at Prem again, who kept her face composed and refused to show any emotion at all. “Is this true, vessel-Sachin?”
Prem nodded, fighting past any sense of reluctance at Yash’s words. “It is,” she said, uncertain of whether that was the real truth or not.
“…Very well, then.” The water spirit began to shine with a bright, blue-green light. Mariander’s body and bloody clothes did the same, turning his skin a deep black hue, all color leeched out of him. His ravaged skin began to knit itself back together, which caused him to groan and shift on the bed, his face twisting up with sudden pain, but he didn’t wake up. The mongoose fluffed up its fur again, but it otherwise remained still and silent.
“It is done,” said the spirit. “Farewell, witch. Farewell, chosen of Vati.” The Kushin lost its physical form, twisting and flexing, as if to prove that it could have escaped Yash’s control at any time. Prem heard a loud gurgling sound like liquid rushing down a drain, and the spirit collapsed in on itself before vanishing. The offerings of earth, water and blood all vanished as well, leaving the man’s exposed chest and leg smooth and whole again.
Prem let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. She tested Mariander’s healed skin, sliding a fingertip across the top of his thigh and could almost feel the pulsing of his heartbeat, the rush of blood under his flesh—the vein was so close she could have burst it again with the hard press of her fingernail. The rush of emotions she experienced came as a surprise as she looked down at his face: uncertainty, hesitation, perplexity. Mostly, to her surprise, she felt relief.
Then Prem looked at Yash, raising one eyebrow. “He is ‘precious’ to me?”
Yash took a heavy breath after her bond with the demon was broken. Babu’s eyes had lost their light, and the snake tasted the air again before coiling a little tighter around his owner’s neck. “Well, it worked, didn’t it?” she said, sucking on the tip of her finger. “Besides, that spirit was probably a friend of Vati’s anyway.”
“Kushin don’t have friends, Yash.”
The witch snickered. “Always thinking like a celebrity.” Petting Babu’s head, Yash put the jar of earth back on the shelf and placed the snake in his glass tank, letting him slide down and off her arm with a last caress of her fingertips. “Such a good boy.”
Prem fought to repress a shudder. “How can you sleep with that thing coiled up next to you every night?”
“Well, it gets lonely sometimes.” Yash cast a look over her shoulder and winked at Prem with a small, knowing smile. “Of course, if I had someone else to fill in for him…”
Now Prem knew Yash would definitely see her blushing. She ignored it, threw up her hands. “This is not the time—’’
“Fine, fine, you can pay me back the next time you visit. I’ll put it on your tab.” Petting Babu’s head, Yash sighed and stepped back into the other room. A long moment of silence passed, poignant and odd, before the witch called: “Just don’t start holding grudges while you’re gone. You’ll thank me later.”
It was a puzzling thing to say. Prem looked up just in time to hear the sound of the front door bursting open. The house filled with the sound of whistles blowing as men in blue police uniforms came rushing in, several with pistols drawn. “Don’t move!” shouted one.
Prem had no time for questions, for anger, or even surprise. Instinct kicked in and she took two steps towards the window before she leapt through it in a shower of glass, shielding her head and face with one arm. The street outside was a mire of mud and rainwater; thick muck coated her on one side from knee to neck and it seeped through her fingers as she rolled and pushed up with both hands. Before Prem could start running, more policemen were on top of her, pinning her to the ground. The sound of their copper whistles was almost physically painful as she tried to slither out of their grip or to reach back for her knives, but more and more men piled on top of her, all of them shouting and fighting to hold her down. Prem only had a second to decide between resisting or surrendering, then opted for the latter: Mariander was alive and would survive his injuries. They were even, and she could wash her hands of him for good.
Both of Prem’s hands were forced behind her back and steel cuffs were tightened around her wrists—someone yanked off her boots and fastened a second set around her ankles. “Get her up and into the bus,” said a gruff voice, followed by footsteps squishing in the muddy street. Strong hands lifted Prem up, while more curled under her arms and tightened at the scruff of her shirt and in her hair.
She came face to face with a man whose trimmed gray beard and mustache dripped from the rain, framing a harsh scowl. The only light came from a solitary lamp near the end of the street, leaving half of his face framed in shadow.
“Am I being arrested?” she said, ignoring how ridiculous she felt at asking the question.
“Correct.”
“On what charge?”
“Resisting arrest, for a start.”
“Was that before or after your blue-bibbed goons attacked me?” In the periphery of her vision, Prem saw Yash peeking out through the broken window.
The policeman in charge snorted. “Check her for anymore weapons and get her out of here,” he said before turning away.
A long, windowless boilerbus waited by an old glass lantern with a half-melted candle on top of a rickety post; that part of Black Bay was too poor and derelict for gaslight. The vehicle’s dark blue sides looked nearly black, while the golden dragon twinkled in the warm, soft light. The steam engine made loud chog-chog-chogging sounds as it idled.
They took Prem’s belt and kukris. As she walked up the ramp in her muddy feet, Prem looked back at Yash, who gave a small, apologetic smile before disappearing from sight. It was hard to know whether to be angry, afraid, betrayed, or all three.
It seemed like a remarkable feat of luck, the Parliamentary Police finding and catching Prem in a place no one would’ve thought to look for her. But if it was a rescue operation to save Mariander, arresting her made some sort of logical sense. And who else would’ve alerted the authorities besides Yash? The sting of that deception burned like a bite of poisoned jujubei fruit, its sweet taste turning to bitter regret in her belly. Prem felt cold all over again. The inside of her cheek throbbed between her teeth.
She was seated with a policeman on either side, and two more across from her, all so close that their knees touched. Prem knew escaping would be difficult, though not entirely impossible, but decided against it, seeing no point in making a bad situation even worse. As Sachin, she’d managed to avoid capture for her entire career, and hoped she’d be free of getting caught once she returned to life at the palace. So much for that.
The ramp was raised and the door shut tight, sealing them in the dark for a brief moment. A light overhead sputtered to life, filling the chamber with a dull, unpleasant humming sound like a huge, glowing mosquito. The bus’ engine roared: it shifted gears and rolled forward, quickly picking up speed as it drove back into the city.