“You’ll have a place here no matter what happens to me,” she said. Maybe he needed to hear that—needed to be sure. “But I have no plans to get hurt. If I have a choice, I’ll be around to help you, you understand? Some things we can’t control, Rukh. We both know what the world is like. As long as I can help, I will. But I can’t help if I don’t work.”
“You still shouldn’t go,” Rukh said mulishly. And as he glanced down, Priya recognized what he was trying to hide.
Guilt.
“Is there some other reason you don’t want me climbing?” she asked carefully.
Rukh said nothing. Then, awkwardly, he muttered, “Because you matter to me.”
“That’s very sweet,” she said. “Why else?”
“I’ve told you the truth.” He sounded wounded, but Priya wasn’t convinced.
“Don’t mistake my being softhearted for being a fool,” Priya said levelly. “You’re not good at hiding your feelings.”
“It’s not safe,” he repeated.
“Come now,” Priya coaxed. “What have you heard? Have the maids been making up tales of dangerous and evil spirits? Surely you know better than to listen to them.”
Rukh shook his head. “Never mind. I’m going to eat now.”
“Rukh.” She was fairly certain that it wasn’t ghost stories that had him biting his lip and tugging that thread around his wrist. But she wasn’t sure how to get the truth out of him.
“You should listen to me,” he said, frustrated. He took a step back. Another. “You should trust me. I trusted you.”
“That’s not how trust works,” she told him, baffled.
When she tried to follow him, he began to run, pelting his way into the trees. One of the men yelled after him, warning him to come back or he’d get a beating later. But he didn’t reappear.
Eventually she gave up waiting for him to return and went to the dormitory instead, flinging herself down on her mat, exasperated and exhausted, staring at the ceiling until she finally, begrudgingly, fell asleep.
When she woke it was evening, the air velvety with dying warmth, and Sima was sitting cross-legged on the bedroll beside her own, undressed, her shoulders still damp from bathing. Sima was sewing up her sari blouse, the sleeve torn clean in two.
“What a mess,” Priya murmured.
“I ripped it when I fell,” Sima said. “Why didn’t you rest earlier?”
“I was looking for Rukh.”
Sima gave a faint snort. “Of course you were.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. He was looking for you, too,” she said lightly. “Did you do something to make him angry?”
“Why do you say that?”
“He doesn’t want you to earn a living, apparently. He asked me to give you this.” Sima fished into her bedroll; pulled something out in her fist. “He said he’ll take it back if you return it to him after sunset.”
“He was here? When I was waiting for him in the orchard?” She let out a groan. “Hand it over.”
Sima dropped the bead of sacred wood, still threaded on string, into Priya’s palm.
“Fool boy,” Priya cursed. “He knows he needs to wear it constantly.” She clutched the bead tighter, the heat of it radiating against her skin.
“My fall must have scared him,” said Sima.
“It did.” Priya exhaled, frustrated. “But I told him I can look after myself. I saved you, after all.”
Sima shook her head. Drew on her sari blouse over her damp shoulders, brushing her hair back from her neck. “That won’t stop him from worrying,” said Sima. “He’s trying to protect you.”
“He’s a child,” said Priya. “Doesn’t he know it’s his elders’ job to protect him, not the other way around?”
“Why would he know that?” Sima asked bluntly.
Sima was right, of course. He’d had no one, before Priya had brought him to the mahal. If his family had been farmers, they’d probably died of starvation when their crops had grown rot-riven, leaving him alone. He likely came to Hiranaprastha without anyone to care for him.
“Besides,” Sima went on, “most of us, we see children with rot that bad, and we look away. There’s no point crying over something you can’t fix.”
“Even a sick child?”
“Especially, maybe,” Sima muttered, smoothing down the sleeves of her blouse. “There’s so many of them, you’d never stop. Priya, you’re kind to care about him. Kind for all the little things you do out in the city, but you’re going to break your heart over that boy when he dies. And he will die.”