Ruban turned the key, and his front door swung open. He stepped aside to let Simani and Kaheen into the flat.

The Aeriel looked around the tiny living room, taking off the sunglasses Simani had lent her for the trip. Her silver hair, tied hastily into a topknot in the car, was covered by an old scarf Ruban had found abandoned in the glove compartment. He had no idea who it might’ve belonged to. He wondered idly if Aeriels could get head lice.

Quickly, he checked the remaining rooms. As expected, the flat was empty. On the way over, Simani had phoned Vikram and instructed him to pick Hiya up and take her back to the bungalow.

Ruban wasn’t comfortable bringing Kaheen into his home, but they needed a place to talk, to plan. And this was no riskier than checking into a hotel with an Aeriel. But regardless of what Ashwin believed, there was no way Ruban would allow Kaheen to set eyes on Hiya. He’d gouge her eyes out with his bare hands before that happened.

“Vik will be joining us after he’s got the kids settled for the night,” Simani whispered, pulling Ruban to the side. “I told him to stay home, but he won’t listen.” Her face tightened. “He thinks we’re out of our minds.”

Ruban was liable to agree with that assessment, so he said nothing. He’d just (knowingly) invited an Aeriel into his home. A year ago, that thought would have been…well, inconceivable. Ridiculous.

Now, it was almost routine.

Funny how Ashwin’s presence in the flat had never felt so…alien, so fraught. Even when Ruban had first realized who – what – Ashwin truly was, it had never really crossed his mind that bringing him back into the house was a risk. Despite his misgivings, his sense of betrayal, he’d never seriously considered Ashwin a threat, either to Hiya or himself. Well, not after those initial few seconds of blind, instinctive panic on seeing Hiya in the arms of an Aeriel amidst the burning forest.

“Well, here we are.” Simani directed her words at Kaheen, her tone clipped. “What do you want from us?”

The Aeriel glanced away from the window she’d been staring out of, as if startled out of a reverie. She was perched precariously on a window ledge, contemplating the rain-drenched world outside. They’d reached the flat just before the downpour began.

“Just take me–” Ruban’s gaze flicked to Simani. “Us, to Vaan. If Safaa knew Ashwin was in danger, she’d leave no stone unturned to save him. I’ve been trying to find a way to contact her since he was taken, but I can’t reach Vaan without an Aeriel. In fact, if you really want to help Ashwin, I still don’t understand why you’d come to us instead of going to Safaa directly. He’s her brother. She’d do anything–”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“It doesn’t matter what Safaa would or wouldn’t do,” Kaheen interrupted him impatiently, turning back to stare out of the window once more. “If I tried to enter Vaan, I’d be dead long before she ever came to know I was there. And if I took you with me, you wouldn’t last much longer. You can take my word for it.”

Ruban frowned. “You keep saying that. I just don’t understand what you mean by it. Is this about you being an Exile? Surely, Safaa wouldn’t care about that when her brother’s life is on the line.”

After a moment, Kaheen opened her mouth to answer. The doorbell rang.

Simani rose to let the newcomer in. Before long, Vikram had poured out four piping cups of coffee from his thermos flask and folded himself on the sofa beside his wife. His dripping raincoat had been hung out to dry by the window, not that much drying would occur while the rain still pelted the window panes with a vengeance.

Ruban wanted to ask him how Hiya was doing, but they couldn’t discuss the children in front of Kaheen. He contented himself with taking a long, bracing sip of the rich, dark brew.

“I can’t enter Vaan,” Kaheen muttered, her nose twitching delicately as she sniffed her coffee.

Did she think they’d poisoned her drink? Could Aeriels even be poisoned? Ruban decided to ask Dawad about it the next time he saw the professor.

“Shehzaa would kill me before I got anywhere near Safaa.”

“Shehzaa? Ashwin said something about that, didn’t he?” Simani turned her curious gaze on Ruban. “When that Aeriel showed up at Select City to tell us – tell him – about the raid in Ghorib. Ashwin asked him where Shehzaa was, right after he…umm…”

“Kissed him?” Ruban offered.

“Right,” she shrugged, coloring slightly. “I guess that’s why I remember it so clearly. Snogging Aeriels.” She shook her head, as if to dislodge the memory. “Not the kind of thing you see every day.”

“Thank God for small mercies,” Ruban agreed. “Though that still doesn’t explain why Shehzaa would kill us if we were to ask Safaa for help. Ashwin didn’t seem to think she was particularly murderous.” He eyed Kaheen. “No more so than Aeriels usually are.”

“General Shehzaa is Safaa’s Chief of Guard,” Kaheen said through gritted teeth. “She’d kill any Exile that tried to enter Vaan. She killed Sakeen a few years ago, and he wasn’t the first one. Or the last.”

“Sakeen?” Vikram murmured, lifting an eyebrow. “Part of Tauheen’s inner circle. One of her chief commanders during the Rebellion. He’s dead?”

Kaheen nodded. “And we would be too, if we tried to force an entry into Vaan. If being an Exile wasn’t bad enough, I’m Reivaa’s daughter. Shehzaa’s patrol units probably have orders to kill me on sight.”

Ruban met Vikram’s eyes, and it was clear his friend was trying not to smile. Ashwin had told them last year that Sakeen was being held prisoner in Zaini. What else had he lied about? And why could Ruban not muster the anger he should be feeling, at this stark reminder of how thoroughly he’d been played? How they’d all been played?

“I hated him,” Kaheen said softly, apparently unaware of the shift in the atmosphere. “Shwaan, I mean. For leaving me behind. For escaping to Vaan and locking the door behind him.”

“What changed your mind?” Simani asked, in a tone of reluctant curiosity.

Ruban could understand her feelings. He’d had as much trouble, initially, in absorbing the idea that the Aeriels had their own internal squabbles and hostilities. That they were anything but the dangerous, single-minded monolith he’d learned of at Bracken; the inexorable enemies of mankind they’d all encountered countless times in movies, books, and the nightly news.