Speak. She could say that she had come to treasure their conversations in the dungeon, even if they had made her angry, because they were the only time she had ever fully allowed herself to drop all pretense and be herself. Or that now she realized it wasn’t the dungeon that had given her a strange sense of refuge all this time, but Parvaneh herself, with whom she had been even more honest than she had with Azad.
Speak—but it was Parvaneh who spoke first.
“We shouldn’t dwell much longer,” she said, looking up with concern at the lightening sky.
The moths had all flown away by now, and Soraya rolled down her sleeves. The sap was still sticky on her arms, but she could use the jug of water in her cavern to wash them later.
Parvaneh led her back in silence, stopping at the mouth of the hidden tunnel to drape the cloak over both her and Soraya. When they found her room, Parvaneh removed the cloak and told Soraya to hide it in case she needed it again.
“I’ll return tomorrow at dawn,” Parvaneh said. She looked around the room, forehead wrinkled in concentration. “Here.” She went to the table and lifted the candelabra. “If he leaves again and it’s safe for us to talk, keep the light on this end of the table. If he hasn’t gone, or if it isn’t safe for any reason, move it to the other end of the table.”
Soraya nodded, twisting the fabric of the cloak in her hands. She didn’t want Parvaneh to leave her alone here again, but she had made a promise—to her mother, to the other pariks, to Parvaneh—and she didn’t intend to break it.
There was nothing left to be said, but Parvaneh lingered, looking at Soraya with concern. She came toward her, rested one hand on Soraya’s shoulder, and kissed Soraya’s cheek. “Until tomorrow,” Parvaneh said, her lips brushing the corner of Soraya’s mouth as she spoke. Before Soraya could react, Parvaneh was gone, a moth similar to the ones in the forest fluttering in the air where she used to be.
Soraya watched her go through the gap between the door and the wall, and gently touched her cheek. Even after everything she had seen—demons and sorcerers and curses—there was nothing more astonishing or magical to Soraya than being able to touch Parvaneh.
20
Exhaustion set in, allowing Soraya to sleep before Azad’s return. She woke to the scent of cooked meat, and found that the fruit on the table had been replaced by a plate of skewers and warm bread. It unnerved her to know that someone had come and gone without her knowledge, but she still ate ravenously, assured now that Azad didn’t plan to starve her into submission.
She didn’t know how much longer it would be until his return, but in the time she had, she formed a plan. She couldn’t ask Azad directly about the feather without making him suspicious, and so she would have to approach the topic from a different path.
Pacing around the room, she rehearsed the words in her mind, until finally she heard a rap at the door. How courteous of him, she thought dryly.
As soon as he entered—as himself, not human—he frowned at her. “Your dress,” he said.
Soraya looked down at the pale turquoise gown she had first put on the morning of the wedding. By now, it was filthy—the hemline ragged and completely black, the arms and torso stained and torn in places. Her hair was probably a nightmare too. She would have changed before he’d arrived if she’d had the option, but as it was, she didn’t think he would suspect the grime came from the forest instead of the mountain. She faced him boldly and said, “I don’t know what you expected. You’ve given me no opportunity to change or bathe since stealing me away.”
He was draped in a robe of purple brocade himself, stolen from the royal wardrobe she had no doubt, and the contrast between his splendor and her disheveled appearance apparently disturbed him. “I’ll remedy this,” he promised. “For now, though, I’ve assured your mother that you’re alive and in my care.”
Soraya didn’t know if he meant this as a kindness or a taunt, but her heart sank a little imagining her mother’s reaction to that news. Every choice Tahmineh had made, misguided or not, had been for the purpose of keeping Soraya away from the Shahmar, and now she would think it had all come to nothing. She wanted to tell him what a monster he was, to wound him in some way in return for her own pain, but she reminded herself of her plan to gain his trust, and she held her tongue—she had plenty of practice doing so.
But still, she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “And my brother?”
He crossed his arms and said, begrudgingly, “Still alive. For now.”
“Thank you,” she said, her relief audible. “Truly, I’m thankful, and … I’m relieved to see you again.”
He smiled, but there was a spark of suspicion in his eye. “Are you?”
“You knew I would be,” she said. “You left me here with no company, no occupation, except to think of you and wish for your return.”
He took a step closer to her. “And have you thought of me?” he asked, his voice a low rumble.
Soraya ducked her head and nodded. Was I this easily fooled as well? she wondered. She was thankful now for the lesson he had taught her in those early days together—that if you told people what they most wanted to hear, they would almost certainly believe you.
“I keep remembering what you said to me before—that there isn’t much difference between who you are now and the young man you once were. The young man I knew.” She glanced up at him shyly, thinking of the way he had been so hesitant in those early days, feeding her lies while making her think she was drawing them out of him. “I want to know more about him,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.
He was watching her warily, eyes slightly narrowed, as if trying to determine whether she was leading him into a trap. But then he simply said, “Come with me,” and turned for the door.
She followed at once, remaining close to his side as he led her back out into the tunnels. It was too much to assume that he would take her to the feather at once, but if she could keep him on the topic of his lost humanity, she hoped he would mention the feather himself in time.
As he led her down the winding path through the mountain, he said, “I forgot to ask you something. Do you remember the div that was locked up in the dungeon at the palace?”
Soraya’s step faltered only slightly. “Of course I remember. You planted her there, didn’t you?”
“I did, but when I went back to retrieve her, she was missing. When did you see her last?”
She tried to push away the memory of Parvaneh’s hair shining in the moonlight, of her lips brushing the corner of Soraya’s mouth, as if Azad might somehow be able to read her thoughts. “The night we went to the dakhmeh,” she answered. “She must have escaped after I … after the fire went out.”
“Yes, I would have assumed the same, except for the esfand burning in the dungeon.”
Soraya kept pace with his stride and said nothing.
“And you’re sure you haven’t seen her since before the fire went out?”
Soraya nodded.
“How interesting,” Azad continued in a voice like silk. “Then either the pariks have found a way to resist the effects of esfand, or they have a human helping them.”