Still, the general effect of proximity over time meant that Kamran was at least well versed in the language of his minister’s silence.
That Hazan said nothing as he stepped under the battered awning was Kamran’s first indication that something was wrong. When Hazan shifted his weight, a moment later, Kamran had his second.
“Out with it,” he said, straining a bit to be heard over the rain. “What have you discovered?”
“Only that you were right,” said Hazan, his expression dour.
Kamran turned his gaze up at the gaslight, watched the flame batter the glass cage with its tongues. He felt suddenly uneasy. “I am often right, Minister. Why should this fact distress you tonight?”
Hazan did not respond, reaching instead into his coat pocket for the handkerchief, which he held out to the prince. This, Kamran accepted wordlessly.
Kamran studied the handkerchief with his fingers, running the pad of his thumb over its delicate lace edges. The textile was of a higher quality than he’d originally considered, with an embroidered detail in one corner that the prince only now noticed. He struggled to distinguish the details in the dim light, but it appeared to be a small, winged insect—just above which hovered an ornamental crown.
The prince frowned.
The heavy fabric was neither damp nor dirty. Kamran turned it over in his hands, finding it hard to believe that such a thing was in fact stained with the girl’s blood. More curious, perhaps, was that as the day wore on, Kamran grew only more interested in its mysterious owner.
“Your Highness.”
Kamran was again studying the embroidered fly, trying to name the uncommon insect, when he said: “Go on, then. I take it you’ve discovered something dreadful?”
“Indeed.”
Kamran finally looked up at Hazan, his heart constricting in his chest. The prince had only just reconciled himself to the idea of the girl’s innocence; all this uncertainty was reeking havoc on his mind.
“What, then?” Kamran forced a laugh. “She is a Tulanian spy? A mercenary?”
Hazan grimaced. “The news is bleak indeed, sire.”
Kamran took a deep, bracing breath, felt the chill fill his lungs. He experienced, for an extraordinary moment, a pang of what could only be described as disappointment—a feeling that left him both stunned and confused.
“You worry yourself overmuch,” the prince said, affecting indifference. “Certainly the situation is far from ideal, but we have the better of her now. We know who she is, how to track her. We may yet get ahead of any sinister plotting.”
“She is not a spy, sire. Nor is she a mercenary.” Hazan did not appear to rejoice in the statement.
“An assassin, then? A turncoat?”
“Your Highness—”
“Enough of your filibustering. If she is neither spy nor assassin why are you so aggrieved? What could possibly—”
A sudden oof from his minister and Kamran took an elbow to the gut, knocking, for a moment, the air from his lungs. He straightened in time to hear the sharp splash of a puddle, the retreating sound of footsteps on slick stone.
“What the devil—？”
“Forgive me, Your Highness,” Hazan said breathlessly. “Some ruffian barreled into me, I didn’t mean t—”
Kamran was already stepping away from the protection of the awning. It was possible they’d been knocked into by a drunkard, but Kamran’s senses felt unusually heightened, and intuition implored him now to explore.
Just an hour ago the prince had been convinced of his own ineptitude, and though he took some comfort in his recent vindication as pertained to the servant girl, he worried now that he’d been so willing to doubt his better judgment.
He had been right to mistrust her all along, had he not?
Why, then, was he disappointed to discover that she was somehow duplicitous, after all?
Kamran’s mind had been thoroughly exhausted from the upheaval of the day’s emotional journey, and he thought he’d rather drive his head into a wall than lose another moment to the dissection of his feelings. He decided right then that he’d never again deny his instincts—instincts that were now insisting that something was amiss.
Carefully, he moved deeper into the night, fresh rain pelting his face as he scanned for the culprit.
A blur. There.
A silhouette struck gold in a flicker of gaslight, the figure illuminated in a flash.
A girl.
She was there and gone again, but it was all he needed to be certain. He saw her snoda, the length of linen wrapped around her neck—