We go to the ocean. It is where she wants to go. I wait while she walks into the water to wash off the blood. Afterwards, sitting on a rock, she tells me what happened.

She had been following the man for a few days, drawn by nothing but impulse. A strange curiosity, she says. Her brow furrows. “I could not understand it, which made me want to understand it even more.”

On the third day, she entered the same store as him and he turned to look at her and it roused her instincts. It had started as a lark but something about his eyes cautioned her. Something about his manner.

Outside two boys sat on the wall, kissing. A girl widened her mouth in a skull-grin. An oak leaf fluttered in dusty wind. So dry, Pali thought, licking dust off her lips. Always so dry.

“Hot in there, wasn’t it?” He was behind her and she realized he had followed her out, was now expecting something from her—what? Her mind whittled it down to the obvious possibility. She had decided against pursuing him. At least she thought she had, was almost certain, but certainty does not come easy to Pali. So he fell in step with her and she did not protest. It was just a walk. Besides his hands looked as if they worked with iron. She imagined them on her breasts. His body on hers, its substance. Some darkness was rearing up in her that she could not name, some urge to court danger.

They walked past the colas and kadas, bags, brass ornaments, lime juice and lassi, the junk of centuries up for sale. The man walked slowly with the hint of a swagger. His eyes were on her face, sharp as the tip of her spear. He nodded at one or two people they passed. He had a serious face, a purposeful face, older than his years.

“You have a lot of friends here.”

He shrugged, lifting one shoulder, gave a self-deprecatory smile. She considered running but was mesmerized by the smile. Since age nine, she had been trained to be strong and quick, to run and climb, to fight. Guards, they called themselves but they were elite assassins. Fast and untrappable. It was almost time for her to join them. She was determined to find a way out before the next initiation ceremony. Six months.

Her mother was on her side. Laxmi Navya closed her heavy eyelids when the other women brought it up, and raised one sizable hand. She’s young yet, give her time. Pali’s frustrations had brewed within her for a long time. Her fears had become a hive of wasps, and this man was a welcome distraction.

When they went into the Museum of Martyrs, she let the man take her hand. Her bag felt heavy against her side and sweat prickles her back, but her face remains impassive. It is easy for her to be sophisticated. When they came west, the first thing they learned alongside combat skills was an overt sophistication that would allow them to serve Concilium members, business tycoons, the highest military, and the force. The man was talking to her, his eyes flitting over her forehead, then her mouth. They were standing at the sacrificial well, a bottomless pit guarded by a fence.

“This was where the Trièsti died when they fought against the first immigrants,” he said. “The immigrants were too powerful back then. Our people had to fling themselves into the well as a sacrifice to the gods.”

“Those were invaders. Today’s immigrants are poor and powerless, nothing like the marauding hordes that landed so many aeons ago.”

“History repeats itself. We should learn from history.”

“I don’t think that’s what that lesson means.”

“You’re one of those…the smart kind.” She noticed the aggression; she was drawn to it. “What’s the fence for?”

“So nobody else jumps. So nobody is tempted by history, its vertiginous pull.”

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She looked into its depths, thought of the dead stacking up like slippers in there. Something desperate moved inside her and she wanted to forget this thought, this place, all this gloom. She wanted to do something wildly joyful.

“They suffocated to death. Imagine that.” He drew a breath, gazed into the pit. His eyes looked dead suddenly. As if someone had switched off a light. She wanted to bring it back.

“Shall we have some chai, or something else? Faha!” Sunlight rippled in her eyes. She smiled. It was a wide and trusting smile, an infectious smile, a smile that most would find hard to resist.

“I have some faha at home,” he said.

He lived in a one-room hut, red brick with a low door. They stooped to enter. He poured two glasses of faha in the makeshift kitchen, gulped his down, then took off his shirt. He lay down on the bed, a ravenous expression on his face. Pali laughed, nervous now.

“Nice place,” she said, with false cheer, going up to the desk in the corner. The notebook on it looked expensive, engraved with a tiny golden rose in one corner.

“Don’t touch that.” His tone was bland. “It’s a gift.”

“I wasn’t going to,” she said, flashing him a smile, beguiling.

He softened. “Come here.”

He was attractive, she thought, and it had been a while. Despite their growing friendship, Osiris had been a gentleman so far, oddly so, according to Pali. Maybe he wasn’t that interested. And the sheets were clean and a high window looked out on a patch of sky. And during sex, an image always floated into her mind like a large blot of ink, an image she found intoxicating. Light or dense, always complicated. Mesmeric, even. The image heightened her pleasure.

As their bodies entwined, he smelled of the air freshener sprayed at the temple. It reminded her of songs and pigeons, the sensuous swirl of orange cloth, the linger of perfume in breeze. In the black waters of her mind, something stirred and stirred.

Later, when he got up to go to the bathroom, Pali leaped up. Hearing the shower come on, she carefully opened the notebook. Le Fleure. The words on the first page.

“You think you’re so smart.” His voice at her shoulder. Pali turned. The man smiled. It was a sneering smile and it reminded her of everything wrong with the world.

When he came toward her, his hands were like two bats, rough. She sprang away but he was too quick for her and tripped her up. She fell, the floor hitting her chest. As she tried to crawl away, he kicked her in the stomach. Her forehead smashed into cold concrete. She smelled its dust, vomited. He bent and caught a handful of her hair, then kicked her again for good measure. She vomited some more. Blood, this time. He caught her by the hair and pulled her upwards into a sitting position. “I hate too-smart bitches like you. Who are you? Who do you work for?”

“Nobody,” she whispered, spat. The man let her sit up but his hand tightened, wounding her scalp. Strands of her long, black hair came off in his hands. Tears leaked out of her eyes. A flash of memory: her mother combing her hair, saying it would make her fortune.

“Who do you work for? I’ll kill you if you don’t tell me. And I will enjoy it.”

She thought of her childhood, the creature in the water, [3/5/24, 11:16 AM In the end-reveal, tell the story of the creature.]its muscles. “Please.”

He loosened his grip slightly and in that instant, she pulled back a leg and struck him with it, putting all her strength in it, her considerable strength. He was taken aback. He had not expected it of a woman, especially one whom he had just bedded. Incensed, he slapped her hard and dragged her across the room. Throwing her in the bathroom, he locked it.

Time passed. She did not know how many hours it had been but it was dark and she was hungry. Her stomach rumbled. The squeak of a rat. A scratching against tiles. She closed her eyes and prayed.

The next morning, he opened the door and pushed a plate in with a piece of bread. She ate. She went to the window but realized it was barred and the thick glass let no sound out though she screamed. Every part of her body hurt.

In the evening, he came in and hit her until she bled. She said nothing. There was a burning sensation near her ribs. In a half-lucid state, Pali dreamt of her childhood. Of mangroves and monsters. Of betrayal and destination. The bland white tiles of the bathroom floor began to merge into each other. The toilet bowl gleamed and dulled. Gleamed and dulled.

On the third day, he came in, squatted down next to her, pulled her face up by the chin and looked in her eyes. What he saw there had a strange effect. He could not move.

He remained struck as Pali struggled to her feet, fell over when she kicked him. Again. And again. His puzzled brain took it in but he was able to do nothing. Pali did not know what had happened to him and she did not care. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tiny silver knife almost invisible to the human eye. She had not been able to reach for it before this. She cut his throat before she could think about it. Blood spouted out of his mouth and he made a gurgling sound. As he closed his eyes, the blood changed from red to black, spurting. A continual stream.