I picked a sliver of wood from my palm and watched the guard’s shadow cross the exit from the courtyard, which led to a delivery entrance off the kitchen. As soon as he was out of sight, I skirted the edge of the courtyard and stuck to the shadows as I snuck by the brightly lit kitchen door.
I was so keyed up, I almost screamed when I felt a hand on my elbow.
“Shh.”
I wondered briefly when I’d come to recognize Jack from just this tiny noise. He looked as handsome and serious as he had all day, but when I met his eyes, his face broke into a smile and he squeezed my arm. I could tell he was as glad to see me as I was to see him—we’d gotten so used to being together all the time that today had felt wrong. I almost threw my arms around him but stopped myself, and we stole off the property onto a bustling Kolkata street.
Jack pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt to hide his face. “Did you have any trouble getting out?”
I shook my head and glanced behind me. I didn’t think I’d been followed by anyone from the palace, but I couldn’t be sure. Plus, I had to assume the Order knew I was in India. I still didn’t think they’d come after me, but my father’s paranoia—and Jack’s—were rubbing off.
I touched the little knife in the side pocket of my purse. I’d kept it in there since Elodie, the Dauphins’ maid-slash-assistant-slash-secret-assassin, had given it to me at the failed wedding. I still wondered why she’d done it. Whatever her reason, the knife now felt like a good-luck charm in addition to being a weapon, and I kept it on me all the time, even though I’d never had to actually use it.
No one seemed to be following us, though, and I wasn’t sure they’d have been able to keep us in their sights if they had. There were just so many people. People lounging in doorways of closed shops, watching us walk by. A group of men bathing at a faucet off the side of the road, soaping up and using a bucket to pour water over their heads, the cloths wrapped around their waists getting wet along with the rest of them.
Jack flagged down a bright yellow three-wheeled rickshaw with a fringe of tinsel around its canopy, and we squeezed inside.
I collapsed back into the seat, finally letting myself relax, and rubbed at my face before realizing that the black eyeliner was coming off on my hands. I’d had time to change back into my brown contacts, but not to wash off the heavy kohl.
Jack pushed his hood back. We were pressed close in the tiny rickshaw. “Did Lydia do your makeup?”
I told him about getting ready.
Jack smiled. “I think Lydia rather likes having a sister.”
So did I. I wondered if there’d ever be a time when it would be me and Lydia sneaking out, hiding it from our dad like normal people.
“You don’t think they’re suspicious, do you?” I said.
Jack shook his head. “You’re playing your part perfectly. As long as we don’t get caught out here, we should be fine.”
The rickshaw was stuck in a chaotic snarl of traffic alongside a motorbike with an entire family piled on top, and a cart being pulled by what I could swear were water buffalo, horns painted orange and blue and jingling bells on their collars.
Streetlights showed that there were almost as many colors on these streets as there were people. A salmon doorway in a turquoise wall. Blue buses with a yellow stripe, matching the yellow taxis. One bus had a display of birds painted across its side, and the words Please honk were scrawled across the backs of any large automobiles. The drivers behind them took the request to heart.
“I feel like I’m hallucinating,” I whispered.
“This country can do that.” Jack was staring out his side, too, where a wizened old man cooked up chunks of potato by flashlight in a metal wok as wide as the sidewalk, then handed them out to customers in makeshift newspaper bowls.
We were already late and the traffic was bad, so Jack asked the driver to stop. Just like at the palace, the air here had a scent, but this one wasn’t so nice. We rounded a corner and found three goats eating from a pile of garbage, one wearing a My Little Pony T-shirt around its scrawny rib cage. It butted its head against my bag gently as we walked by, and I shrank against the opposite wall, but they let us pass, and we hurried on. Stellan would be wondering where we were.
The square where we were meeting him was wide and open, and we had to dodge a nighttime flower market to get there. Sari-clad ladies with gold hoops sparkling in their ears squatted on their haunches and strung heaps of bright orange and yellow marigolds into garlands like the ones I’d worn earlier, calling to us as we passed and holding up their wares. Behind them, toddlers climbed on a pile of abandoned cardboard boxes. One little boy looked up at us, and I did a double take. “Is that baby wearing makeup?” I said. He couldn’t have been more than two, and he had kohl liner thicker than mine rimming his eyes.
“It’s common here,” Jack said. “Superstition.”
I took a deep breath. “Where are we meeting Stellan?”
Jack pointed across the square, and I saw him immediately. Unlike us, Stellan was making no effort to disguise himself.
He was leaning against a light post and studying his phone, his worn leather jacket open to expose a black T-shirt, his blond hair glowing in the streetlight above. If pale skin drew looks here, blond hair caused downright gawking. Sure enough, a crowd had gathered a few yards from Stellan, but he appeared unconcerned. When he saw us, he stashed the phone in a pocket. “You didn’t leave me to fend for myself after all.”
“Couldn’t you have put on a hat?” Jack said. The men were now staring at all three of us, whispering to one another. Great.
Stellan smirked and waved to the crowd. “You mean I’m not allowed to enjoy the hundred-percent humidity in my own clothes?”
“No.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the circle of admirers and toward the street.
“If you’ll remember, some of us don’t have the luxury of traipsing about without a care,” Jack said shortly.