Then, the sound of the stranger’s emotionless voice— “Pray tell me, who do I think you are?”
“I don’t—” Miss Huda hesitated. “You know, I don’t actually know her name.”
Another tense silence.
“I see,” he said, sounding suddenly annoyed. “So you must be the other one.”
“The other one? Oh for heaven’s sake,” she muttered. “Come out here right this second, Your Majesty, or I will come back there and murder you.”
Alizeh drew back her invisibility, took a deep breath, and stepped out from behind the screen with stunning equanimity, even as her heart beat wildly in her chest. She could not forget herself, especially not now, when fear blew through her with the force of a summer gale.
The stranger, she noted, was a surprise.
His age seemed nonspecific; she suspected he was still a young man, but he presented right away as an old soul wrapped in the cloak of youth. His skin was a burnished golden brown, his hair a sharp wave of red copper. He wore simple, unadorned black clothes—coat, jacket—and clutched in one hand both a tall black hat and a golden mace. He had bright, startlingly blue eyes, but there was something tragic about them, too, a heaviness there that made him hard to look at—and all the more so when he stared at her, his eyes widening a barely there micrometer as she moved into view.
“Oh,” he said.
Alizeh did not spare time for niceties. “How do you know me?”
“I never said I did.”
“You don’t even know each other?” Miss Huda said, glancing wildly from one to the other. To Alizeh, she said, “You don’t know this person?”
Alizeh shook her head.
“Then get out of my room, you madman.” Miss Huda all but pushed the stranger toward the door. “Out with you— Out at once, you horrible cad, sneaking into young ladies’ bedrooms without permi—”
The young man stepped easily out of reach.
“I think you misunderstand,” he said flatly. “Her Highness and I are not entirely unacquainted. We have a friend in common.”
“Do we?”
“Her Highness?” Miss Huda spun around, staring now at Alizeh. “You really— Are you really—？”
The stranger said, “Yes,” and Alizeh said, “Not exactly,” and everyone, collectively, frowned.
“There is no time for this now,” the young man said, turning to face Alizeh. “Your plans for the evening may have been compromised. We must away at once.”
The nosta flashed warm against her skin, and Alizeh stiffened, her heart plummeting in her chest.
Then it was true: things had gone awry.
Alizeh’s disappointment was breathtaking, but she bade herself be calm. After all, it appeared Hazan had built contingencies into the plan. The nosta alone was a tremendous gift; the certainty it provided was a great balm even now, steadying her in these turbulent seas. What was it he’d said when he’d given it to her?
So that you never need wonder who your enemies might be.
“It was you,” Alizeh said, meeting the eyes of the stranger. “It was you who sent me this dress? And the shoes?”
He hesitated a beat before saying, “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was returning a favor.”
“A favor?” She frowned. “A favor to me?”
“No.”
Alizeh drew back. “To whom, then?”
“To our mutual friend.”
This was twice now he’d mentioned their mutual friend. Was he concealing Hazan’s identity in front of Miss Huda?
“So you do this for him,” Alizeh said softly. “Which means you’ve no vested interest in assisting me.”
“My interest is only in discharging myself of an old debt,” said the young man. “Our mutual friend has asked that I repay him thus, with these specific instructions, and so I have done. I was never meant to come here, not unless the circumstances demanded my intercession, as they do now.”
“I see,” she said. The nosta was burning hot against her sternum. This stranger was neither friend nor foe, she was realizing, which made the situation rather tricky.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“My name is irrelevant.”
“Irrelevant?” she said, surprised. “What am I to call you then?”
“Nothing.”
Alizeh could not hide the flash of irritation she felt at that. “Very well,” she said stiffly. “Where do we go from here?”