Noam returned to Hadhi’s family, bringing the plate of refreshments he’d promised. Her mother looked to the plate and back to Noam, her eyes full of suspicion.
“I thought certain you would never come back, as long as that took you,” Jauhar remarked.
“I was somewhat afraid of that myself.” Noam agreed brightly pretending not to notice the cold suspicion.
He wondered if Jauhar had seen him take Hadhi’s hand outside. She had been nothing but polite yesterday, nearly cloying, but today she clearly wanted him gone. Noam had asked Hadhi to return with him, but she’d said she needed to be alone for a moment, and he understood. He’d needed an extra moment himself.
That story—Noam could happily find her father and murder him if he weren’t already dead. He’d never appreciated his own father more. Bad enough the things Hadhi knew her father had done to other people, but who did that to their own child? No matter how good a hunter, no matter how much you wanted them to learn.
This family’s dynamic was very complicated; Noam couldn’t quite wrap his head around it, not for the least reason being that Hadhi’s mother seemed far kinder to her husband’s other wife than she was to her own children. He wondered if it had been the same while he lived. Nothing Noam had heard of the man implied that anyone should miss him, but Noam knew love wasn’t that simple. You could love someone and hate them at the same time. This entire family seemed delicately poised to strike out at one another. Having brought the food, he felt like maybe he should take his leave and mingle more, perhaps just keep to Azize’s friends.
Sabra smiled at Noam in a way that made him think she knew every uncomfortable thought going through his mind and was amused by them. At least that’s what he thought her smile meant.
“I saw Hadhi down the hall, if you would like another dance,” Sabra said.
“I would be very pleased to dance with you if you will have me. Or any of the lovely ladies surrounding me now,” Noam said easily.
Asha raised a skeptical brow. “Really, we thought you had a preference,” she teased.
She seemed different from when he’d met her earlier. For one thing, he had not expected to find her with her family. Azize’s foreign friends were mingling amongst the guests, but she had not approached one of them, though Azize’s description of the girl made her out to be extremely curious. There was something off about her, but Noam couldn’t quite put his finger on what.
“Come to know me so quickly, have you?” Noam probed.
“You are not so hard to puzzle out,” she commented.
Sabra rolled her eyes, resigned, and Jauhar looked away with a tight expression. Perhaps this was how Asha always spoke, but Noam was certain this was not the same girl he met this morning.
“Enlighten me,” he said it lightly, watching her. What felt familiar and so...sinister about her?
“You are a lie.”
“A liar,” Noam corrected.
She shook her head slowly, her eyes full of mischief and her smile eerily familiar. Her family was watching her strangely now too. Sabra’s eyes widened, darting from Asha to the hall she’d said Hadhi had ducked down. And Jauhar’s gaze was narrow and suspicious. Noam had a sinking feeling that the conversation was putting Hadhi’s family in danger. It shouldn’t matter; he’d found very little to recommend this family. But Hadhi loved them and perhaps he was just too angry right now. He knew Nuru loved her sister, and Sabra seemed to care a bit. But her mother and her sister Asha— Noam didn’t know that he cared for them at all, but this was definitely not the Asha he met this morning. If she hurt Hadhi’s family, Hadhi would be hurt as well.
She had her face and her self-confidence. But this was the nymph. Why he wondered was she honing in on him now? But even as he was realizing it, he saw Jauhar looking her over with sharp eyes. Did she suspect who the woman was?
Noam smiled playfully, glancing at the other women to release some of the tension in the air. “There is a rather popular phrase in my home that applies here, I think, like recognizes like."
Sabra forced laughter, but her eyes darted uncomfortably between Asha and Noam. Jauhar was breathing heavily and staring with an intensity better suited to her eldest daughter; she was very suspicious of this girl. Not just suspicious, enraged.
“Will you dance with a lie, Asha?” Noam challenged.
She smiled knowingly, nodding her agreement. Noam hesitantly reached out for her arm; the second their skin touched, he felt the charge of magic rushing beneath her skin. He was right. They walked calmly out to join the dancers, neither saying a word.
Once they were on the floor, Asha dropped her pretense. “It is sweet the way you protect these women. Strangers, that you do not even like,” she laughed. “Would they do the same for you?”
“Would it be as sweet if I were certain they would?” Noam’s muscles tightened.
“Ah, nobility. Your father would be so proud.” She chuckled.
“Which one?” Noam muttered and regretted it at once. Her eyes glowed with amusement and her smile spread. He didn’t trust that smile. “You are not the same woman you were this morning.”
“So perceptive. But then I find all children of magic are fascinating beings,” she said, sounding truly intrigued by him. She sounded far older than the girl whose body she was inhabiting.
“I am not a child of magic.” Noam glanced around, lowing his voice.
“Don’t worry,” the nymph leaned close to whisper. “No one cares what you say or do. You are no one.”
Noam stiffened and she patted his hand soothingly. “Don’t offend so easily. There are benefits to being invisible. Invisible people always know their true friends, and they tend to know their power.”
“I am not magical.” Noam bit out, wanting more than believing it to be true. He had no idea who his real father was, no idea what strangeness coursed through his veins. He only knew that whatever it was kept him from his father’s love, from his home, from being...visible.
“Magical? No, you are not. But you are the result of magic. All spells leave remnants behind.” Her voice became vaguely more sympathetic and she gazed down the hall to Hadhi crouched comforting a child. “One cannot only curse; there is a balance to magic that exists nowhere else. Wielder’s of magic are forced to make up for the pain caused by association with our victims.”
“What does that mean?” Noam demanded.
Her eyes returned to his sparkling. “It means your father was cursed for his treachery; as your mother was the curses tool, the magic had to give her some joy. Which she had of your true father, trust me. Mayflies are wildly talented lovers.” She tittered.
Noam ground his teeth across one another, hearing in the back of his mind that infernal song the village children used to taunt his mother with whenever she walked through town. To taunt Noam with.
Stayed the mayfly for a spell,
In springtime, when the evening fell.
He sought a woman's company
And built for her a fantasy...
The woman before him smirked like she knew every thought in his head. She probably did. Many fey creatures could read minds.
“And of course there was the joy she took in you.” She winked. “And you, as the byproduct of the curse, suffered from your father’s lack of love and had to be blessed with a bit of,” she tilted her head back and forth, deciding on the right word. “Luck.”
“You mean like the luck of having my father hate me? Or perhaps you mean the luck of befriending a man who would lead me to the sort of woman I could love, and then having that woman need my help to win my friend?”
She chuckled like this was the most diverting thing she’d ever heard. “You can sense magic, so it hasn’t the hold on you it did on your parents. You sense the greatness within other beings. The things people did not sense in you. And look at you, even as you want her for yours, helping your love get what she wants. A child of magic, such oddly powerful and loving beings you are. So unlike both humans and the fey.”
Noam bit his tongue, not sure what he wanted to say. Magic might not have as great a hold on him as it did on others, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be made to hurt him. And though she seemed to have nothing against him, Noam was certain this woman was here for some mischief.
“How long have you had Asha’s body? How long do you intend to keep it?” Noam asked.
The woman shrugged. “I have had it, and will keep it for as long as it was lent to me.”
Noam began to seriously doubt she was a nymph. They were said to be playful, adventurous spirits, well known for tricking men, but rarely for harming them. She was some sort of fey, but nothing so innocuous as a nymph. From this being, he felt a much more malevolent spirit.
“What is your plan here?” Noam asked.
“None of your concern.” She ran her hand up his arm in a way that made Noam cringe.
“I will not let you hurt them.”
“Hurt who?” She asked. “Or don’t you know? My kind never hurt without cause.”
“No?” He snarled the question. “Not without making it up, with a few nights of passion or a bit of luck.”
She threw her head back and giggled like a tickled vixen, but it was all a show. For what purpose he couldn’t say, but when she lifted her head and stared at him, there was only calm certainty and a warning.
“I have no cause to harm you, Noam, son of a magic spell. But I will if you interfere. I have a debt to settle.”
“I know Azize; he has done nothing to cross you.”
“Indeed, he has not,” she agreed easily. “Yet.”
“You cannot punish a man for what he might do,” Noam bit out.
“My quarrel is not with him. He has not been harmed.”
“No? Are you not driving him mad with that slipper?” Noam demanded.
“In fact, no.” She preened superiorly. “That is no spell of mine. And you have warned him to stop touching it.”
“What do you want?” Noam demanded, just as the music came to an end. The woman only smiled and removed her hand from his arm.
“Heed my warning, the way your friend, even now, fails to heed you.” She walked away to rejoin Hadhi’s family before Noam could stop her, but what would he do if he did? He had no magic and no certainty of what she wanted. Perhaps she didn’t mean to harm Hadhi’s family at all; perhaps Asha’s was only a convenient body. But he did not think so.
He needed to figure out what she wanted. He had to protect Hadhi, as no one else ever had.