Chapter Sixteen

HIS AUNT’S OFFICE is a panopticon of weapons, tapestries, and various curios. All four walls are covered in such an assortment of oddities that it’s difficult to keep any attention fixed on the massive desk taking center stage in the room. It’s a favored technique of hers to note where wandering eyes are drawn to. Something of a psychological profile, to see what visitors find most deserving of their attention.

Even knowing this, Ravi is not immune. While he waits, he stands before a mounted display of crossed blades. Two long talwars, curved and sleek, the swords well-worn but still regularly polished.

“Nirav’s,” Padme clips shortly, entering the room as silently as the smoke her voice resembles. Her hands are clasped behind her back as she strides up to him, adorned in a Persian-styled suit in dark sapphire blue, a long silver dupatta draped across one shoulder.

“Kind of you to find the time to meet. Sit. There is much to discuss.” She sweeps past and takes her place behind the desk. “I suppose your betrothed had more pressing matters to attend to than the ceremonial unveiling of her existence to the organization dedicated to her service?”

Ravi lets the criticism roll off his back; it’s barely even a stab, merely a testing slash of the blade through the air. “These were Uncle Nirav’s?”

His aunt folds her hands together atop her desk. “Yes, yes. He used them in the field rather extensively for a time.”

In Ravi’s memories, his uncle had favored dual kukris or katars, weapons that let him get up close and personal, all the better to shield his sister’s back. He must have wielded these before Ravi’s time. He leans in for a closer look. “This here…” He sets a finger lightly aside a notch near the tip of the blade. “Hit bone, looks like.”

She waves her hand peremptorily. “Hence why he retired them. Sit. Tea?”

He walks to the desk but doesn’t take the low-slung, narrow seat across from her. To her clear indignation, he picks up one of her many polo trophies and turns it over in his hands. A golden statue of a woman astride a polo pony. The engraving reads Ladies Cup Championship Winner with a year dating back decades before Ravi’s birth. Like the swords, it is well-polished.

He keeps his head down when he speaks, as if addressing the trophy. “I’ll take coffee. I don’t drink tea. Why didn’t you tell me about the inter-branch rankings?”

Padme leans back in her plush chair, slanting a perfect brow. “You are referring to those little spreadsheets Intelligence mocks up to score the field agents? Of course you drink tea. It’s the family Nilgiri.”

He replaces her trophy, shifting it minutely until it’s settled into its exact place. “Yes. I learned about it in Manhattan. Evidently, I’m the best agent by any measure. And I don’t drink tea.”

Padme snorts with derision, which Ravi expects, but the words that follow are decidedly a surprise. “Of course, you are the best. You’re an Abhiramnew.”

Though it sets him almost six inches below her, he finally takes a seat in the little chair, posture flawless. “You could have told me.”

She sniffs in reproach. “Did another agent want you to sign their yearbook? I didn’t realize you needed accolades to merely perform your job to expected standards. There is no reason to rest on your laurels simply because you are a decent enough shot. We should always strive to be better.”

Ravi knows his aunt very, very well; likely better than anyone save her late husband. He’s made a lifelong study of her every sniff, every micro-expression, the slightest change of her tone. She’s gearing up for a lecture, likely one about responsibilities, one Ravi’s been subjected to over a dozen times.

So, he parries. “How’s Rivaan?”

His aunt’s brows twitch at this breach in protocol. They haven’t engaged in small talk in…maybe ever? “The same,” she says.

“And your grandchildren? They’re also well?”

Padme looks at him as if he’s grown a second head. Her son Rivaan, over a decade older than Ravi, lives in New Delhi with his wife and their two children. They’re not entrenched with the inner workings of The Trust, only peripherally involved in a financial and political capacity, which suits them just fine. Ravi hasn’t seen his cousin in years. Visiting always makes him feel like he’s living in a strange, foreign country with no concept of the language or customs. Ravi, the odd quiet cousin, always falling short of the family’s expectations.

“They are,” Padme finally responds. “Shall we also remark upon the weather? How did you find the traffic on the way here?” She drops her saccharine affectation and scowls. “If it suits you, agent, there’s a great deal of work to be done and very little time to do it in. Let us speak plainly.”

“It would be a rare novelty to have a frank discussion with you, Aunt.”

She sniffs in scant amusement. “While you’ve been playing with your angel and your…fiancée, I’ve been keeping the old families from eating one another. Though admittedly, it wouldn’t hurt the Katarajus to have a few bites taken off.” She exhales, wearing her weariness and determination like fine jewelry. A few inky strands of her hair hang uncharacteristically free from her tight chignon, concealer barely visible underneath her eyes. “Of course, the seers have been less than useless. They used to pay for themselves with peace of mind, but I’m considering tossing them all out of their palatial suites and replacing them with a coin to flip, for all the help they have been.” She taps her nails on the desk once, decisively. “First order of business. Is Harry pregnant yet?”

Ravi keeps himself carefully still. “No, ma’am. That’s going to wait until after the wedding.”

“Oh, is it? How fortunate that the forces of evil are polite enough to adhere to your family planning schedule. Please do not tell me you have been emotionally compromised by the angel. If you must continue your dalliance, Miss McAllister seems to be a pragmatic sort, as long as you are discreet.”

Ravi’s ears burn. On the list of conversations he’s never wanted to have with his aunt, this nears the top. But he couldn’t ask for a better segue into the first and most daunting of the issues he wants to broach with her today. He steels himself.

“I am not involved with Val.”

At least Padme also looks as if she’d rather gnaw off her own arm than talk about her nephew’s romantic exploits. “Very well, if that affair is ended, then there is no issue.”

A trickle of sweat rolls down Ravi’s back. “I’ve never been involved with Val. Or any woman.”

Padme’s eyes narrow as she ripostes, “Ravi, if you are implying that your reticence to secure your legacy is because you are a virgin, that would stretch my credulity rather thin, I believe you’ll find.”

“No, ma’am.” His skin goes cool and clammy, palms damp on his knees even through the wool suit. “I’m gay,” he says out loud for the first time in his life.

The sky doesn’t fall. The earth doesn’t swallow him up. The only thing that happens is his aunt disengages the bout with a sniff of disdain and a roll of her eyes.

“I don’t see the point to this ploy, nephew, but I’m not amused.”

He doesn’t answer, letting his walls drop low enough for her to plainly see his nervousness, his trepidation, his sincerity.

Her expression goes abruptly blank. “Nonsense. I would know.”

“With all due respect, Mausi”—he’s rarely called her that since he was a child, mother’s sister—“you don’t know a single real thing about me.”

“Ridiculous,” she claims, her shoulders set like a hawk poised to dive. “I raised you.”

“You hired people to raise me. But let’s say you’re right, that you know me. What’s my favorite color?”

As if struck, Padme reels back. “This is absurd, Ravi. You are not—”

“Yellow. Like marigolds. What am I allergic to?”

“Gluten,” she snaps with triumph.

“Cats. Gluten is a mild intolerance.”

“I knew that,” she counters with a glare. “None of that is of any consequence. Are you seriously griping that you weren’t paid enough attention as a child? You had the best training available from the most skilled warriors and tacticians that could be bought, and you’re upset I don’t know your favorite color?”

“I was a child. It would have been nice to be asked.”

“And what would be the point?” She slams a fist down onto the desk, eyes flashing. Ravi jerks back, pulse kicking fast. Padme shuts her eyes and composes herself. When she opens them, she doesn’t look at Ravi. Instead, her gaze is drawn to her little brother’s battle-worn talwars on the wall. “Would it have been advantageous to get to know you? A child I was raising to die?”

Breath snags in Ravi’s lungs.

Padme lifts her chin with the cool poise usually reserved for statues of ranis and freedom fighters. “But then Tanvi died, and the mantle passed you by. Not slated for an early grave, after all. Turns out you take after me; unworthy of Durga’s favor, but good enough to do the grunt work. The inglorious work. After that day, my sole priority has been keeping you alive while not letting your training go to waste. A delicate balance, I’m sure you’ll agree.

“So,” she says, smoothing her sleeves. “Yellow. Cats. Homosexual.” Padme regards Ravi in inscrutable silence long enough for him to start mentally mapping the exits. “I am impressed you’ve managed to mislead me for this long, nephew. Congratulations. You must be very proud of yourself.”

It’s a far better reception than Ravi imagined he’d get. He’d half expected disgust or being outright disowned. But Abhiramnews are nothing if not adaptable, and like it or not, his aunt can’t scrape up another heir.

“Years of intensive training and centuries of selective breeding. I was bound to get something right eventually.”

Padme smiles sharply. “This does illuminate matters with that French chronomancer.”

He can’t help it: he flinches.

“Ah,” she says with cold satisfaction, the tap of her fingers like securing the final piece of a puzzle in place. “And the unsatisfactory level of detail in your reports, as well. Are you still seeing him?”

“No.” Ravi’s shoulders hunch, nausea draining a pallor to his cheeks. “They were… We’re not…” He should have been prepared for this, for the tumult of emotion her interrogation would stir up. Maybe he’s raw from spilling his most deeply held secret, from peeling back his armor to let her have a glimpse of who he is underneath. He runs a hand over his face, shakily trying to brick up his defenses.

She always could read him if he wasn’t careful, as easily as she could cut a page out of a book. Padme’s spine goes stiff, her eyes as cold and focused as a steel blade. “He—they—hurt you. I remember quite well how willing they were to kill me, Ravi. One doesn’t easily forget hands at your throat.”

“I… That was before…and also after—”

She holds up a hand, curbing the disordered tumble of his words, her expression a storm cloud. “Before they knew you, but after you knew them?”

He swallows. “Yes.”

“How interesting.” Padme clips each syllable dangerously short.

“You can’t,” he rasps desperately. “You can’t do anything to them. If you do, they will—”

“Yes, yes, the whole future-torture scenario. Which until this very moment I found patently absurd.” Padme’s mouth twists unpleasantly. “Why would I resort to such draconian methods when there are far more effective ways to secure the loyalty of a powerful mage? But I see I have a reason to be vindictive after all.” She gestures a hand toward Ravi, her seething anger flashing at the surface for just a moment.

Her quiet fury is more comforting than Ravi would have expected it to be. For the first time, it occurs to him to wonder who he got his protective tendencies from. It certainly wasn’t Tanvi. “Aunt…”

Exhaling harshly, she waves the hand as if shooing away an insect. “Your concern is unnecessary. After our last discussion, I have already taken steps to ensure that the chronomage will not be taken captive.”

“You…have?”

“Yes,” she says icily, annoyed at having to repeat herself. “I’ve devised a strategy I think you’ll agree will work.”

“What did you—wait, more importantly, why? You said I was behaving like a child. Not willing to get my hands dirty.”

“Yes, your idealism is no doubt charming,” Padme drawls, “but while we may strive for ideals, we have to live in reality. Of course, there are the rare times of dire need when the harsher methods are necessary. We’re on a holy mission to save the world from monsters, Ravi. We’ve routed countless apocalypses. True good is willing to sacrifice a bit of its own morality if those actions benefit the greater good. If a little light waterboarding is all that prevents the end of the world, I say get a bucket.”

Ravi stares at his aunt, belly roiling.

Padme rolls her eyes. “That being said, The Trust as it exists now does not employ torture by any definition, Ravi. I’m sure you’re imagining bamboo shoots and iron maidens, or whatever nonsense you have seen on television. The truth is physical and psychological abuse simply isn’t effective. While we do have methods for dealing with dangerous individuals, I can say definitively that whatever future the chronomage hails from, if those methods can be labeled as outright torture, then that is not The Trust that I run.”

She laces her hands together. “Seers can only do so much. I do not know the future. It’s possible that the current course of things can become so thoroughly derailed to the point where The Trust of the future is unrecognizable from what it is now. Perhaps a different Director, a different family running the show? A different me, even, one who would allow herself to be relegated to wet works.” She utters the words with scathing disdain, the way some field agents talk of being assigned to archives. “Or, and I believe this option to be even more likely, the chronomancer was exaggerating the severity of their capture.” She shrugs. “Perhaps we shall never know.”

Ravi eyes her for a long moment, detecting no signs of falsehood. “What’s this strategy you’ve devised?”

“I’ve foregone the usual approval process and directly appointed you as the next Director of The Trust. The others will scream nepotism, but they were always going to complain of that regardless, when I retired. Consider the lack of consortium hearings you would have otherwise had to attend a gift to ease the transition.”

Ravi stares at her.

She continues mildly, “Clearly you have strong feelings about several issues you think I have neglected to address. If you can find a better way forward without using the same measures I have had to, then I congratulate you on your resourcefulness. And if not, well.” She gives him a thin, scalpel smile. “Then it will be on you to live with the consequences.”

Forcing him to make any ugly decisions for himself instead of just following the path already laid out. A double-edged test. Reassuringly familiar.

The realization hits Ravi hard. Cayenne wouldn’t be tortured by The Trust, not if Ravi was in charge of it. A huge weight lifts from his shoulders, the relief dizzying. But…what about paradox? If he’s changed his future, then his past should have been changed too. Or perhaps this is what Cayenne had always meant when they told him that their past couldn’t be changed. Being tethered to the timeline. Maybe the past could be changed, but what did it matter if the memories remained?

Still. “I’m your successor?”

With a disbelieving cluck of her tongue, Padme throws up her hands in an unusually demonstrative show of frustration. “I would have thought that by now this should be blindingly obvious. It was always my plan to put The Trust in your hands, from the moment it was clear you weren’t to be the next Chosen.”

“I…I didn’t know.”

“Of course not, I’ve been intentionally veiling it from you.”

“Why?” he snaps. Why would she choose the nephew who had never measured up to take her place? The cause of her greatest disappointments?

Padme’s dark gaze doesn’t waver. “You were always an obedient child. Eager to please. Which is ideal in a Chosen”—Harry being described as “obedient” makes Ravi stifle a snort—“but a Director has to make difficult choices. Has to be willing to stand firm against the consortium, if need be. To disagree with the other families despite the grief it may cause you. To mete out unpopular decisions down to the branches. You have always dutifully followed any orders I set. Until recently, I didn’t think you had any real spine to you off the battlefield whatsoever.”

Honestly, it’s one of the better compliments she’s ever paid him. Tendons tense in Ravi’s jaw. “Is that why you sent me off to Israel? So I’d grow a backbone?”

Her stern expression wavers like a mirage over sand. “That… No.”

In short, economical motions Padme rises from her chair, goes to the cabinet, and pours herself a neat whisky. She dips her finger into the liquor and flicks a drop over her shoulder in an archaic ritual offering to their ancestors. “Would you like one? Doubtless you’ve partaken before, since you don’t appear to be overly concerned with rules and customs.”

“I’ll take a brandy, if you have one.”

“Of course, I do.” Padme hands him a cut glass snifter and returns to her seat. “It was supposed to be a surprise. The sniper training. You’d asked for more focus on your marksmanship. Your instructors agreed, so arrangements were made with our contacts in Mossad well before my siblings went on that mission to Guangzhou.” She pauses to sip her whisky. “Matters changed when the urumi was lost.”

Feelings he’d thought long buried rise, climbing up fierce and hot into his throat. Grief and anger and shame, welling up like old blood from a picked scab. “Ten months, Aunt. I was seventeen, my mother was dead, the entire course of my life had been derailed, and I was there alone for ten months. Barely a week after the funeral and you shipped me off to live with strangers. I didn’t hear a word from you for nearly a year.” Ravi takes a measured breath, smoothing a hand over his close-cropped beard in an attempt to keep a scrap of his dignity intact, when all he wants to do is slam his hand down and demand that she give him a satisfactory answer.

“When you finally did call, it was to assign me to a field post in London with two days to pack my bags. That was it. That’s all you had for me? After abandoning me?”

Padme stares into her glass as if it were a crystal ball. When she eventually speaks, her voice is hollow. “Sometimes looking at you is like a dagger in my heart. To be faced with that failure all over again.”

This time he doesn’t even try to hide his pained flinch. He would have preferred it if she’d stabbed him with one of the blades adorning the wall. “You exiled me so you wouldn’t have to be reminded of my failure.”

She looks up with an irritated sniff. “Not yours, Ravi. Mine.” Padme wraps her fingers around the tumbler, tracing the grooved edges of the design. “Durga found me wanting, I’ve long come to grips with that. But for Her to pass you by as well? Unthinkable. What better path could there possibly be for you? Who better to carry the urumi?” She puts the glass to her lips and takes a long pull, nearly draining the liquor in one go. “I raised you to be hard. Resilient. To be self-sufficient. To be better than the Chosen before you. I kept you at arm’s length, honed you sharp, didn’t learn your favorite color, and for what? For no reason at all, as it turned out.”

Avoiding his gaze, Padme crosses her arms loosely at the elbows, her head tipped back against her chair. Her gunpowder voice deepens even further as if the words are forcibly dragged from her throat by barbed hooks. “Perhaps it was…ill done of me.”

It’s the most apology he’s ever witnessed her give anyone before.

Strangely, unbelievably, Ravi feels better.

His aunt sets the glass aside and slides open a drawer. “But mortals plan and the gods laugh. So. Let us talk Director to Director.” With some difficulty, she pulls up a thick stack of bulging folders onto the desk and tosses him a file.

He catches it. “What’s this?”

“You have already been to the South Asian Ossuary. There are five more like it around the globe. All the information is there.” She slaps down another stack of files. “These are all the black sites in operation. They function to detain dangerous entities until trials can be held.” More files. “Here’s a précis on the trials; and here’s a summary of what holdings and responsibilities each of the families in the consortium maintains, and here’s a list of mundane law enforcement, hospitals, and other such institutions we regularly work with worldwide. Anything else you’d like to see?” Her voice is crisp, brows raised.

Ravi realizes he’s looking at the abundance of information the way a kid might look at a stack of presents. “I… This is…”

“A good start, I’m sure you’ll agree. The tip of the iceberg. Once you are wed, you’ll have access to even more. Give it a thorough look. If you think you can improve upon all your predecessors’ collective centuries of experience, do let me know, nephew. Apni khichdi khud pakaana.” A turn of phrase he’s never heard from her before; cook your own porridge. Go your own way.

Despite her sarcastic tone, this is truly meant as a gift. “Thank you, Aunt.”

“Yes, well. Thank you for sharing some secrets of your own.” Hesitantly at first, then with increasing confidence, she reaches over and pats his hand. “I am not insensible to how…difficult it must have been. But you are obviously discreet, which is as it should be. To be perfectly frank, I would not take the news as well as I am if you were not marrying Miss McAllister and securing the Abhiramnew legacy despite your predilections.” Her gaze sharpens, hands again folded before her. “Which you are, to be clear?”

He braces himself. The other vital issue he’d been planning on unveiling. The most important. “Only on one condition.”

“Condition? There are no conditions. This is not a negotiation.”

Ravi keeps his head held high. “I have served The Trust to the best of my abilities—and they are considerable abilities—without faltering. I have never once strayed in my devotion to the cause we serve, and I have never asked you for anything, not once. But there is a condition, and it is not negotiable.” He plants his hands flat on her desk. “No more child soldiers.”

“Child sol— Is that how you see it?”

“Frame it however you like. But my children, and their children, and their children’s children will not be subject to the methods that you and I were both raised with. I’m going to be the last.”

She stares at him for a protracted moment, expressionless. “Ravi. Our line is unique. Our mandate, divine. The demands placed upon us are unyielding. Coddling the future Chosen puts the entire world in jeopardy.”

He runs a finger along the edge of the brandy snifter. “You say ‘our line,’ but it’s mine really, isn’t it?”

Her eyes freeze over as he strikes a palpable hit, but Ravi strides ahead regardless. This is about the future of his family. In this, he’s fearless.

“The line of succession is direct. An unbroken chain. From the very first Chosen all the way to Tanvi, through me, and to the next. Even when there’s been the rare gap generation, it’s only ever gone through the Chosen’s children. Not siblings. Not cousins. Your grandchildren will never be Chosen. Mine will.” Ravi holds her gaze, unwavering. “I used to think that made me chattel. But it makes me valuable, doesn’t it?”

His aunt’s lip curls. “It is true you have a bargaining chip I cannot match. But you are being willfully naive. We are Abhiramnews. We’ve been fighting the forces of darkness long before any of the other families began to meddle. It was a task given to us, nephew, and yes, it calls for sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice is a concept I am intimately familiar with, Aunt, I don’t need you to explain it. I will not bring children into the world only to take all their choices away from them.”

“You are barely twenty-five, practically a child yourself. You’ve hardly begun to understand the kind of sacrifices that will be required of you. The kind I’ve had to make over the years.”

“I see. I’m a child when I disagree with you, but old enough to fight in the field? Getting shot, mauled, bitten, scarred.” He places a hand over his solar plexus, over the old marks left by his uncle’s bagh nakh. “Old enough to be married off and bred?”

Padme looks away, conceding another hit. “Touché,” she mutters. “What are your conditions, exactly?”

“No serious combat training until they are Chosen or they turn eighteen. Whichever comes first. They will have no knowledge of their destiny until it becomes necessary for them to know it. And they go to school.”

He can give them that. A normal life. There’s no way to avoid teaching them about the supernatural entirely, in the interests of safety, but Ravi can ensure that any child of his won’t be alone in it. That the legacy he’ll leave them will be something they can be proud of.

Padme barks out a short laugh. “I don’t even know where to start with this lunacy. Why would you be so eager to reject the traditions that have worked for—let me remind you, nephew—over a thousand years?”

“Because it’s a mistake!” He’s never raised his voice to his aunt before. Her eyes widen. “Isolated people are weak. Vulnerable. You can prepare someone their whole life for battle, to face down any sort of evil. But if they feel alone, they’re easy prey for the first person who comes along with a smile and a promise.”

Blood drains from Padme’s face, and she looks at Ravi like she’s seeing him for the first time, a small spark of that fierce protectiveness in her eyes. He barrels on ahead, not wanting to hear any questions, needing to stay on task. He’s good at that; doing the job in front of him. And this is important, far more important than himself.

“Any child I have is going to be surrounded by people who support them. Love them. And they’ll be stronger for it. They’ll fight that much harder. Saving the world is one thing, that’s a duty. Saving what you love though? That’s a need.” Ravi stands up to lean his hands on his aunt’s desk. “And they won’t be told the cruel truth that you and I lived with, that we were fated for glory and righteousness and an early death. How is a child supposed to live with that burden? And if they’re never Chosen? Then they won’t suffer the knowledge that they weren’t good enough for it.”

He takes a handful of long, even breaths. “We have an international agency of the best monster-hunters on the planet at our beck and call. If they can’t protect, support, and defend the Chosen, why do we even have them?”

As he speaks, Padme’s face shifts from withering scorn into true thoughtfulness. “That may be the most words I have ever heard you speak at once.”

He snorts and takes a fortifying gulp of brandy.

“That’s a forty-year-old eau-de-vie you are mangling.” His aunt crosses her arms under her chest. “The Chosen is in agreement with you?”

He nods curtly.

“Hm.” She tips her head back again, calculating. “You raise a compelling argument. One I’d be willing to discuss more fully when it becomes relevant. But this whole issue is a moot point if The Trust collapses in on itself. The infighting has gotten to a critical point. Rumors abound that the only possible way the Eatons and the Bhagavatis could have been targeted was from another family. And the old alliances only work if we, as an organization, live up to our name.”

“Do you have an idea who’s behind it?”

Padme’s mouth twists up as if her answer tastes foul. “None. Someone very comfortable moving from the shadows. Which, unfortunately, does not implicate either the Prestons or the Katarajus, much as I’d be delighted to winnow them out. Though both families take every opportunity to question my authority, they are unfailingly brash and outspoken about it.”

Ravi perches on her desk and mirrors her pose, arms across his chest. “I think we can expect an attack on the Gala.”

“Based on what evidence?”

“No evidence,” he admits. “Based on…suspicions. A hunch.”

To his surprise, she doesn’t reject his statement out of hand. She knits her brow, tapping her fingernails. “A hunch. How likely do you consider this eventuality?”

“Pretty likely. It will be a large gathering of high-level Trust personages all in one place.” He presses his lips together and forges ahead. “I think someone or possibly a group of someones are colluding with the chronomancer to take us down from within. And if I were them, that’s when I’d wait to strike.”

Padme’s expression goes flat. “Perhaps you should keep that possibility in mind next time you carry on an affair with one of the most dangerous entities alive?” Then she sighs, shoulders sinking. “In your defense, it is not as if I ever adequately prepared you for…silk work. Attacks of the…the heart.” She clears her throat and ascends to her feet in an elegant rise. “Very well. We will move up the timetable and set up extra defenses. The Gala will take place next week. I trust you will procure something suitable for your betrothed to wear, since we will have to forgo some of the usual spectacle.”

Ravi automatically stands with her. “Next week? I… Yes, I can do that. The whole team will be attending.”

“Yes, I had assumed, considering how adamantly Miss McAllister laid claim to all of you at the airport. Every precaution will be taken to forestall any moves against us, now we know to expect them. Jiski lathi uski bhains,” she says with satisfaction. Who has the stick has the buffalo. Her expression flickers, then firms. “Harry knows?”

“About my suspicions?”

“About your orientation, obviously.”

“Oh. Right. Yes. She knows.”

“A common gumshoe figures it out before a seasoned spymaster. Embarrassing.”

“To be fair,” Ravi offers with a slight smile, “I’ve been intentionally veiling it from you.”

Padme barks a laugh. “There’s an English idiom about acorns and trees that might be applicable here.” She brushes his shoulder with her fingertips. “I would like to…talk, sometime. Not for business. To…correct the gaps in my knowledge. If you wouldn’t find such a thing too disagreeable.” She fixes her attention on adjusting the lay of her dupatta, though it looks perfect to his eyes. “Perhaps over coffee. Not tea.”

“I think I’d like that very much, Mausi.” Ravi pauses, then bends at the waist to brush her feet with his hands. She stiffens in surprise. Another custom they haven’t engaged in for many years. She relaxes and touches the top of his head, her hand briefly resting in his hair.

After he rises, she smiles so swiftly that if Ravi had blinked, he would have missed it entirely. “So would I, bhanja.”