Chetal woke up on the floor. The shaper was nowhere to be seen. Which didn't mean much, unfortunately. She had a splitting headache, and she could feel Ara's emotions churning in her mind. She'd clambered to the side table for water when Ara spoke.

You sold your loyalty to live.

If not for me, both of us would be dead.

I AM dead.

Well, deader.

Is this what you wanted? To become a mole of your Emperor's assassin?

The Emperor did jack shit for me when he was alive. Do you know what happens in the orphanages of Hampi? Have you ever even been in the city?

Of course I have. Don't be ridiculous. And whatever personal suffering you have been through doesn't give you the right to ruin an empire.

Your idea consisted of trying for a peaceful death.

An honorable death would have been better than-

Will you shut the fuck up? You got to live your life and make your choices. And it only brought you a knife in your chest.

Ara quieted.

Chetal felt awful. Her body ached like she'd been beaten everywhere, and her forehead was ready to shatter into pieces. But even so, she recognized she'd made a mistake. She couldn't afford to make an enemy out of Ara. She needed the princess.

Listen, I did what I had to do. I don't really want to be her mole. I'll tell Jin what happened when I see him. I'm sure he'll be able to help me get rid of whatever Taro did to us with her card.

Ara gave no reply.

You wanted to find the murderers of your parents. We found her. Staying alive gives us time to bring her to justice.

I no longer know whose side you are on.

Trust me, Ara. Just this once. Please.

Just this once.

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Thank you. Together we can find out who this Taro is. I have to ask you though - how did she break into the palace so easily? I thought shapers were controlled by the Emperor.

They are. Shapers are nothing without sooth cards. And only two carvers exist in all of Vijaynagara who can carve them. Both are employed by the Crown, under strict oversight, right here in the palace. Only the shapers of the royal court have access to sooth cards. Taro and Jin are not part of the royal coterie.

So they came from outside Vijaynagara?

No, our borders are sealed against intrusion by foreign shapers. Their sooth cards would turn to ash the moment they cross.

But then, how is this happening?

I don't know, came Ara's frustrated reply.

Maybe they stole cards from your royal shapers?

Sooth cards are bound to the shaper they were carved for. They appear blank if not in their hands. Besides, my father wasn't stupid. Shaping is a dangerous power. The only way to secure it was to bind the shapers and carvers in soul oaths to the royal family and the empire. If the royal coterie of shapers had tried to betray us, it would have killed them. We would have known.

I found a sooth card on the roof. I think Taro might have dropped it.

Chetal brought out the 'Vanish' card. She didn't need to point out that the card did not appear blank in her hand.

This shouldn't be possible.

Plenty of impossible had happened to Chetal in the past two days, so her understanding of the word was much looser. She needed to talk to Jin, but she had no way of finding him.

Summon Inharat, and ask him to bring the royal shapers to you.

What then?

Then you do as I say.

What Chetal truly wanted was to curl into a ball and wait for her body to stop hurting. At the safehouse, unless you were dying, you didn't get any off days. Just day upon day of what Ahar called 'working for your stay'. And he had a system in place to make sure the kids didn't rebel against him. The ones who were obedient and routinely brought in a good haul were promoted. They got second helpings of food, beds closer to the large window that faced the canal, and every now and then, a small part of the haul they'd brought in. The promoted kids ensured that everything stayed in order at the safehouse. Once they were too old for the orphanage, they would get to go out into the world with a pocketful of jittals to start a life with.

Chetal had never been promoted. Ahar had told her that something in her eyes made her look ungrateful. Angry. He'd tried to weed that look out with lashings. But with each lashing, the anger had only settled deeper into Chetal's soul.

It flared now, washing away her exhaustion.

No shaper, neither Jin, nor Taro, would rule over her. If all that waited for her at the end of this was a grave, she'd walk the way to it herself. Not at the mercy of someone holding a knife to her throat.

An impossible idea was making its way up her thoughts. A stupid, dangerous idea. If she couldn't beat them...

Chetal went to the washroom window, ignoring the screaming pain in her head. She'd rest when she was buried.

What are you doing?

Finding new paths.

She hauled herself up the window.