“Idris—” My voice caught in my throat. Whether or not ‘Adil knew they were rebels, that he had met them, spoken to one, sold him a horse. He was lost. There was no hope of getting him back.

He closed the space between us, despite Maram’s presence, and made an aborted move to take my hand. My hands pressed against my ribs, as if I might relieve the dual pressures of grief and fear. Maram stood off to the side, but for a moment, with Idris standing over me, I forgot her.

“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I know that’s not enough—”

“It’s plenty,” he said softly.

“No one said anything.” We both turned to see Maram, her fingers wound in the fabric of her skirts so tightly that her knuckles gleamed white. Her eyes were wide and panicked. “This is my estate, Amani. I—you—would have been notified unless they specifically didn’t want me to know. No one will believe it wasn’t on my command—”

Her whole body shuddered. “What are we going to do?”

“Do?” I said blankly as Idris dropped down onto the divan. I had paid less attention to Maram in the last ten minutes than I ought; her mask had disintegrated. The half smirk that was her customary shield, the easy stance of her hands, were all gone. Her brown face was leeched of color, and her grip on her skirts had tightened.

She was afraid.

“They will turn against me,” she whispered. “They will start to plot.”

“They will rightly direct their anger at the Vath,” Idris said, and both of us turned to look at him in surprise. “Are you the Vath?”

“I am Vathek,” she snapped.

“Was it you who gave ‘Adil to the Imperial Garda, then?” he replied. There was a stillness in his voice that worried me—grief and a need to channel it. Maram flinched back as if struck and raised her hand to her throat.

“How dare you suggest such a thing.”

I laid a hand on Idris’s shoulder before he could reply. I had never seen him so close to losing control, and I worried whatever he said he would regret and have to live with for however long Maram wanted to hold a grudge.

“If you do not want them to suspect you and you are innocent—” Maram opened her mouth to interrupt me and I raised a hand to forestall her. “If you are innocent, then protect them. Are you not their future sovereign? Does not their protection fall to your hands?”