It was the surprise that did it. It was the sound of his voice so near her face, his warm breath against her skin.
Alizeh gasped.
Her eyes flew open, and Kamran froze.
It was only seconds that they studied each other, but it seemed to Kamran a century. Her eyes were the silver-blue of a winter moon, framed by wet lashes the color of pitch. He’d never seen anyone like her before, and he had the presence of mind to realize he might never again. Sudden movement caught his attention: a raindrop, landing on her cheek, traveling fast toward her mouth. Only then, with a shock, did he notice the bruise blooming along her jaw.
Kamran stared perhaps too long at the discolored mark, the faint impression of a hand it formed. He wondered then that he hadn’t recognized it right away, that he’d so easily dismissed it as an indiscriminate shadow. The longer he stared at it now the harder his heart moved in his chest, the faster heat flooded his veins. He experienced a sudden, alarming desire to commit murder.
To the girl he said only: “You are hurt.”
She made no response.
She was trembling. Drenched through. Kamran was suffering, too, but he had the benefit of a heavy wool cloak, a protective hood. The girl wore only a thin jacket, no hat, no scarf. Kamran knew he needed to convey her home, to make certain she did not catch her death in this weather, but just then he could not seem to move. He didn’t even know this girl’s name and somehow he’d been stricken by her, reduced to this, to stupidity. For the second time that night, she licked the rainwater from her lips, drawing his gaze to her mouth. Had any other young woman done such a thing in his presence, Kamran might’ve thought it a coquettish affectation. But this—
He’d read once that Jinn had a particular love of water. Perhaps she could not help licking the rain from her lips any more than he could help staring at her mouth.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
Her chin lifted at that, her lips parting in surprise. She studied him with wide, shining eyes, and appeared to be as confused by him as he was by her. Kamran took comfort in this, in the realization that they’d confounded each other equally.
“Will you not tell me your name?” he asked.
She shook her head, the movement slow, uncertain. Kamran felt paralyzed. He could not explain it; his body seemed anchored to hers. He drew closer by micrometers, propelled to do so by a force he could not hope to understand. What mere minutes ago might’ve struck him as lunacy now seemed to him essential: to know what it might be like to hold her, to breathe in the scent of her skin, to press his lips to her neck. He was scarcely aware of himself when he touched her—light as air, faint as fading memory—a stroke of his fingers against her lips.
She vanished.
Kamran fell backward, landing hard in a puddle. His heart was racing. He tried and could not collect his thoughts—he scarcely knew where to begin—and he’d been rooted to the spot for at least a minute when Hazan came running forward, out of breath.
“I couldn’t see where you’d gone,” he cried. “Were you set upon by thieves? Good God, are you hurt?”
Kamran sank fully into the street then, letting himself be absorbed by the wet, the cold, the night. His skin had cooled too quickly, and he felt suddenly feverish.
“Sire, I do not think it advisable to sit here, in th—”
“Hazan.”
“Yes, sire?”
“What were you going to tell me about the girl?” Kamran turned his gaze up to the sky, studying the stars through a web of branches. “You say she is not a spy. Not a mercenary. Not assassin nor turncoat. What, then?”
“Your Highness.” Hazan was squinting against the rain, clearly convinced the prince had lost his mind. “Perhaps we should head back to the palace, have this conversation over a warm cup of—”
“Speak,” Kamran said, his patience snapping. “Or I shall have you horsewhipped.”
“She— Well, the Diviners—they say—”
“Never mind, I shall horsewhip you myself.”
“Sire, they say her blood has ice in it.”
Kamran went deathly still. His chest constricted painfully and he stood up too fast, stared into the darkness. “Ice,” he said.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“You are certain.”
“Quite.”
“Who else knows about this?”
“Only the king, sire.”
Kamran took a sharp breath. “The king.”
“He, too—as you know—had been convinced there was something unusual about the girl and bade me report to him my findings straightaway. I would have come to you sooner with the news, sire, but there were a great many arrangements to be made, as you can well imagine.” A pause. “I confess I’ve never seen the king quite so overwrought.”